Let me confess: I'm utterly fascinated by the enigmatic Renaissance rebel poet Pietro Aretino. His writings, which often led to him evading furious cardinals and creditors, and his correspondences with influential men who could have potentially blackmailed them earned him the moniker 'Scourge of Princes.' Aretino's life was a captivating juxtaposition of wealth and poverty, high-brow literature, and a vibrant low-brow vernacular that thrived in the Venetian literary salons of the 16th century.
Renaissance scholar Douglas Biow writes, "Aretino represents himself as having an immense, almost insatiable, appetite for food, an appetite that found expression not only in his letters, which rendered him a public figure of notorious reputation and created a vogue for such collections in the vocabulary but also in works of imaginative literature....he was, according to his vigorous self-mythologizing, open to all types of foods associated with all strata of society, much as, to connect at the outset of this chapter two aspects of pleasure central to his Aretino's life, food and words, he was open to all types of linguistic registers, from the popular to the elite. Aretino self-consciously portrayed himself as a great and conspicuous consumer with an enormous appetite. By doing so, he inevitably offered himself up artfully as a figure worthy of consumption in print for the widest possible public." (Biow, In Your Face: Professional Improprieties of Being Conspicuous in Sixteenth-Century Italy, p. 66)
One of my personal favorites from Aretino's repertoire is the Sonetti Lussuriosi (Sonnets of Lust) from the book I Modi, translated into English as 'The Sixteen Pleasures' by Lynne Lawner. This collection of poetry was inspired by a series of erotic paintings by Giulio Romano, originally intended as wall frescoes for Federico Gonzaga's Palazzo De Mantua. However, the art was too exceptional to remain hidden, and a fellow artist, Marcantonio Raimondi, took it upon himself to engrave versions of the art, which he published in 1524 to considerable success. The Pope soon learned of these works and imprisoned Raimondi for indecency. Aretino, however, managed to see the art privately and was so inspired by the voluptuous figures that he penned 16 of the most controversial sonnets ever written to accompany the art. The combined publication of the art and text, I Modi, became a bestseller in 1527 across Europe, defying the Vatican's attempts to destroy all copies. While only forgeries and copies remain today, the original works continue to inspire and captivate.
I had a spectacular day a number of years back reading Lynne Lawner's history of I Modi and her translations (along with the oldest versions of the art available) in a Special Collections library—no doubt to keep it protected from naughty college students deciding to add their own art or graffiti to the work. I blushed, laughed, and celebrated the man who, all those centuries ago, enjoyed food, sex, and satire with equal poetic joy.
You can see copies argued to have been created by a copyist who actually saw the original. The sonnets (in Italian) are included with the woodblock prints. The British Museum has nine fragments from the original engravings in their archives, including the three in this post. I would also like to recommend a wonderful novel, The Sixteen Pleasures, by Robert Hellenga -- set in the frenzy of art restoration after the flooding of Florence in 1966, a young volunteer discovers a soggy copy of the infamous book hidden in a convent.
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....
