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Pietro Aretino IN TRO DUC TION RETINE . The name is infamous . Why Was the man really the monster he is universally represented to have been from his time to our own His legend, as the French s a a f . y, would seem to firm it There we read a of one who was born in a hospit l , the son of a n d a courtesan, boasted of it ; who was without name , without family, without friends e and protectors , without ducation ; who at thirteen y ears of age robbed his mother and fled to Perugia ; who at eighteen fled from Perugia to Rome, where he robbed his a a m ster, Agostino Chigi, and presently ppeared ’ as the creature of Cardinal de Medici , whom h e a n supported with infinite wealth of libel, calumny an d the most vile and shameless a buse of his rivals for the Papacy, after the death of Leo X who was kicked out of Rome ’ for writing the notorious Sonetti Lussumosi ’ for Raimondi s infamous engravings ; who a e a s Va a a a w nd red a g bond over Italy, bl ck mailer and a beggar ; who became a friar in A 2 x x PIETRO ARETINO Ra e a v nn , but whom even the Capuchins were obliged to vomit ; who fled to Venice a n d in the freedom of that great Republic lived like a prince on begging a nd threatening letters ; who kept a harem and worse in his a a a pal ce on the Grand Can l, for no vice was stranger to him and no calumny too out rageous ; who hung a picture of the Virgin in his house and s aid it was a portrait of his mother a n d thus declared hims elf to b e ’ Antichrist ; who was the spy of Italy s worst V an d a enemies , Charles Fr ncis I, and who died as a dog dies without a thought of repenta nce in the midst of a howl of blasphemy and laughter ; over whose grave was written ’ ui a e Ar etin oe a o s o Q gi c l p t t c , ’ Che s se mal o fuo r che Dio di d gnun, di , S s a os col non lo o os o . cu nd i dir, c n c Was Aretino really the monster this legend a he portr ys , or is now to be whitewashed t he n ew with discovery of documents , on b etter evidence than our forefathers possessed to be at any rate excused with Alexander VI an d Lucrezia Borgia or acquitted altogether with Ma chiavelli No . Modern scholarship should propose itself no such task in regard to Aretino . The INTRODUCTION xi ma n a a was a monster : monster cert inly, e only not a magician . To listen to som of his biogra phers one might think he owe d his success to sorcery or magic . But the truth is that nothing was further from him than a a m ench ntment . He was onster, it is true to deny that is to b elittle him ; but above all was a ma n da a he of his y, perh ps the most free a n d complete expression of the a ge in — e . a which he liv d the sixteenth century Th t , a n d a th e his enormous bility, together with fact that he founded the modern Press an d used the hitherto unsuspected weapon of publicity with an incomparable a ppreciation ar e c of its power, his hief claims upon our M notice . Something evil an d corrupt ha d entere d the all at e into civilisation of Europe this tim , and a A e not le st of Italy . The Middle g which ha d a a a held out to hum nity so gre t promise, ha d in some inexplicable wa y an d for some i e a e a a e a a c e n xplic bl re son f il d, f iled in endur n an d in life . The fifteenth c entury ha d been full of disaster almost everywhere s ave only an d a in Venice , even Venice could not esc pe the spiritual disa ster which that century ma de a a pp rent . For with the sixteenth c entury w e are face to face with the spiritual break -u p of ii PIETRO ARETINO Europe and European society . Something a an d a . evil, depraved, ven l mean appe rs The en an d a p is bought and sold, futile praise bl me ar e a an d a purch sed by popes , kings prel tes , a and we see a monster appear, monster of genius blackmailing and blackmailing success fully every authority, every power . That at monster was Aretino, and he was home in Venice and in Venice passed no inconsiderable c portion of his days . For the Veni e of the sixteenth century was a promised land for a a n such as he . A city of wealthy merch nts , aristocratic oligarchy fast degenerating into a s as plutocracy, in which snobs abounded well a a schol rs , Venice was then the gre test inde in an d pendent metropolis Europe, insolent, a rtistic , the great asylum for exiles , for the a er proscribed, the ch nce poor scholar, the p f verted and the corrupt . For she could of er to all of them alike this great gift : liberty . And it is in the letters of the very typ e an d paragon of all these together that w e find perha ps the b est picture of the city at this - in e e time the letters of Ar tino who, vil as he w as et a man e , was y of g nius ; scoundrel h e wa s as et a though , w y full of hum nity ; a was wa s an d brut l though he , yet full of pity a e a love for the miser bl , the unfortun te , the INTRODUCTION t wa s a poor ; ignoble hough he , was yet ble to dominate the Italy of his time ; whom Fra ncis I a honoured, Charles V spoke with famili rity, l d e e a n d Ariosto surna med é i vi n o . Her in V nice was he the friend of Titian , the correspondent e of Michelangelo . Here in V nice he lived e e lik a princ , though he had nothing solid under his feet ; he was as insolent as a con d ottier e , though he had rendered no service ; a ma n he was the most f mous in the city, s though his record wa merely infamous . An had a epoch ppeared which was an anarchy , e in which everything was questioned, ev rything doubtful ; in which anything might happen a n d a nything might be thought to be true ; an epoch w without principles and without authority : in which a charlatan of genius might do anything, might destroy the unity of Europe or th e spiritual and philosophical a b sis upon which Europe stood, by one e a — multipl we pon calumny . This age— the age of Luther an d the revolt of the barbaria n— is in itself a dmirably summed a n d . He r e up expressed by Aretino , too , “ fused authority and tradition and a pp ealed a only to priv te judgment . As a writer this a a is his v lue , in this resides his origin lity . ” am a I free man, he boasts . I do not ne ed xiv PIETRO ARETINO to copy Petrarca or Bocca ccio . My own genius e a is enough . Let others worry themselv s bout an style d so cease to b e themselves . Without a a e a e a m ster, without mod l, without guid , without artifice I go to work a n d earn my - a a . a living, my well being n d my f me Wh t do I need more ? With a goose -quill an d a few sheets of paper I mock myself of the ” universe . It is because Aretino is a man of genius , and because he sums up and expresses that a a e a e e a dis strous g of narchy , its compl t mor l an d a disorder coll pse, its delight in insulting a n d a disreg rding the past, its repudiation of a an d a every ancient uthority tradition, th t he a d is worth studying . And if we d to this that he contrived a weapon for his own ends which has in our own day come to be more powerful tha n an y establishe d government or elected a e a — p rliament or her dit ry monarchy publicity, the Press— there is more than sufficient excuse for this book . ’ Ar etino s virtues as a writer ar e to be dis a cussed there ; but we ought to note that, gre t a s r ar e ar e a a these vi tues , they lways those of a a m an e . journ list, never those of of l tters His a — a t gre t strength is his spontaneity, the bili y to write what is in his head almost without a INTRODUCTION xv e second thought .
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