The Works of Aretino  

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The Works of Aretino (1926) is a book with texts by Pietro Aretino translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, featuring illustrations by Marquis de Bayros, published "for Subscribers Only" by Pascal Covici.

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PIETRO ARETINO

POISON-FLOWER of the RENAISSANCE

A Critical and Biographical Study

By SAMUEL PUTNAM

“Machiavel and Aretino knew fashions and were acquainted with ye cunning of ye world.”

Gabriel Harvey: Marginalia. [8]

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9

PIETRO ARETINO

Poison-Flower of the Renaissance I. “On the day set by Julius II., that is to say, on Monday, Michelangelo betook himself once more to the Palace. He had been given to understand that the Pope was leaving on a hunting expedition in the Albanian mountains. The court was filled with the joyous sound of horns, the barking of dogs, the cries of hunters and the beating of the wings of falcons. From a distance, Michelangelo saw the Pope, clad in hunting costume, strange enough for a man of the church. Shod in high boots, wearing a plumed hat and a leather round-jacket, he looked like an old conqueror, as he mounted a superb horse. Accorsio1 held his stirrup. The Pope appeared to be animated and whispered in the ear of his favorite, who smiled like a woman, a fine, ambiguous smile.

“Buonarotti understood that, at this moment, Julius II. was little concerned with his mausoleum. He came back on Tuesday. The Pope had not yet returned from the hunt. He put in an appearance on Wednesday and met, in the gallery, a secretary whom he knew, who informed him that His Holiness, having received vexatious news from Bologna, was in a bad humor and had just given the priest, d’Ancona, a caning. Courtezans, with a discomfited air, were coming out of the audience chamber, and Michelangelo overheard the ambassador from France remark, with a smile, to a fat and insouciant chaplain:

“ ‘But he is terribly irritable, your Pope!’”

With these few vivid lines, Dmitri Merejkowski, in his novelized biography of Michelangelo,2 puts us into the heart 10of the cinquecento, in all probability the most riotously colorful and the most colorfully depraved epoch in civilized history. Merejkowsky’s account is fiction, but if there ever was a time when truth was stranger than fiction, that time was the Sixteenth century.

The Russian writer’s snapshot is, of course, not the whole picture, but it is the focus of that larger photograph which might be composed — and which, yet, so eludes any one who attempts the task — from the documents of the age. For the Papacy was the heart of a Romanized world, and the world was a goodly apple rotten at the core.

To fill in the picture, we must add: the melodrama of dagger-thrusts in the dark; the finest of the fine and Machiavellian arts, the art of poisoning; and, finally, that most poisonous of all weapons, the pen. Oscar Wilde’s shocking title3 becomes a commonplace, in a world in which the Popes and princes of the earth — and the pirates of the high seas, as well — pay groveling tribute to the Prince of Blackmailers and even think seriously of giving the fellow a cardinal’s hat. The cold-blooded craft, cunning and self-centeredness of the era are reflected for us in the political morality to be encountered in Machiavelli’s Principe and Guicciardini’s Ricordi politici;4 while such highly chromatic names as the Medici, Lucrezia Borgia, Cellini, Malatesta, Gonzaga, etc., round out the picture. Tasso and Ariosto, today the most unread of authors outside their native country, provide the literary background, while Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael and Tintoretto do the honors in paint, to say nothing of such lesser figures as Bellini, Giorgione, Sansovino and others.

The world scene, too, which means the European scene, is a fascinating one. While the Popes of Rome, in scarlet hunting costume, are riding to the chase accompanied by their favorite Ganymedes and the Doges are lording it over the world from their rocca sicura, Venice, it is, at the same 11time, the day of the “Spanish flamingo,”5 the Emperor Charles V., of the wavering, reactionary and stingy Francis I. in France, of Henry VIII., his wives, divorces and religious schisms in England, of Luther in Germany, nailing up his theses on the church door at Wittenberg, and of Barbarossa, sailing the seas for Their Imperial Majesties, the Sultan Selim I. and the King of Algiers. What more could be asked in the way of color?

And out of all this welter of gorgeous semi-barbarism, there emerges — there must emerge — for the student who seeks a conscientious close-up, the figure of one man — the bastard son of a prostitute, legend has it, though more likely the son of a village shoemaker — who, by the sheer force of personality (since what other explanation is there?), rules the rulers of this turbulent world, flaying them into submission with the power of his pen, accepting, with one hand, their regal bribes, and, with the other, tossing the bulk of what he gets to the poor, living all the while in princely splendor, amid a veritable harem of wives and courtezans, and keeping open house to artists, soldiers, statesmen, priests, the intellectual, social and artistic èlite of his day. That man is Pietro Aretino, the last fine poison-flower of the century that grew the Borgias.

II. Yet, Aretino today is barely a name. He is chiefly known in Europe, and in America by a few collectors of erotica, as the author of certain obscene Dialogues and obscener Sonnets. True, some years ago, a couple of addle-pated college boys6 got hold of him, went completely out of their heads and — well, the criminal case that ensued, attended by world-wide notoriety, familiarized the public for a fleeting moment with at least the name; and Hearst newspapers even dug up one of Titian’s bearded portraits of the “Scourge of Princes.” All this, doubtless, has been long since forgotten by the 12man in the street, and Aretino remains a name for a few Romance professors to conjure with, while if he has any other readers outside the curiosa hounds, they are a few pale-handed youths with mildly decadent ambitions who go abrousing in campus libraries.

Sic transit.

If Aretino had been a non-literary personality, the oblivion thus thrust upon him might be understandable. The public may have heard of Machiavelli and the Borgia’s for the reason that these names, in a manner, have passed into schoolboy language as classy synonyms or flossy references; Cellini, too, may be fairly well known by those more or less directly concerned with the arts, or who have been told that his Autobiography is first-rate reading; but how many would be able to state, for example, who Guicciardini was?

But though most of those who collect and read him — the smut-hounds who trail him down, along with the Venus in Furs or Pierre Louys’ Aphrodite — have no suspicion of the fact, Aretino was something a good deal more than a mere picturesque figure in a picturesque age. He was, among other things, the first modern realist of importance, the first writer who dared to break away from the old, dead and deadening, hide-bound traditions of the classicists and the academicians and to write in the language of the people, the language of the street and the market place, even that of the brothel. He was, in a way, the Ring Lardner of his day (plus, of course, much more frankness than our twentieth-century Puritan America permits). Or, we might call him the H. L. Mencken (with all scruples removed) or, possibly, the Ben Hecht of his time. (His defense of his Sonetti lussuriosi reads strangely like Hecht’s flauntingly youthful preface to Fantazius Mallare.) It would not be wholly improper to term him the Rabelais of the cinquecento, though he lacks the gargantuan, cosmic vitality of Francois of blessed memory. As a matter of fact, he is the antecedent of Rabelais, his contemporary in 13years, and of Molière, both of whom would seem to owe him no little, as do, also, Shakespeare and Balzac.

Aretino is not only the first modern realist; he is the first modern journalist. The founder and “first great Adventurer of the Press” Edward Hutton,7 in his scholarly and lonesome English biography, calls him. In his Pasquinades, his giudizii and his letters, as Hutton points out, Aretino really conducted what corresponds to a great modern newspaper, in which scheme, his religious writings (the prose sacre) are the pompous, inflated editorials. He is, in a sense, in his “yellow” proclivities, the forerunner of Mr. Hearst, Lord Northcliffe and others, while he is also the father of the awful tribe of modern press agents, who, when they wish to put on airs, become “publicists.” It is his boast that “throughout the world, Fame is sold by me.”8 He had to have publicity; it was his living; and he certainly knew how to set about to get it.

He is more than this, however. He is also the first modern critic of the arts — of painting, as of literature. Indeed, he seems to have had, as will be shown later, even more feeling for painting than for literature. His genius was essentially a plastic one, and there was a reason for his almost life-long intimacy with Titian. Like Titian, he was a realist of the senses. De Sanctis, in the role of moralizing professor, finds fault with him for not drawing any “moral impression or elevation of soul” from his contemplation of and love for nature. The kick which Aretino got was a purely sensuous, purely aesthetic one; and in this, he is truly a modernist.

III. Here, then, we have a man who may be called, in point of chronology, the first literary realist, the first journalist, the first publicist, the first art critic. Surely, such a man has his importance. Is a first-hand knowledge of that importance to 14be confined to a few Romance instructors and their scattered seminars, for which only a handful of bespectacled graduate students ever enroll? Is the public to know Aretino only as a purveyor of smut, as a writer who is on the Index expurgatorius of the contemporary Puritan, and who must, therefore, be smuggled past the customs as a contraband?

Why is this? Why is it that Aretino for four centuries, has been the victim of a world-wide conspiracy of shush? Even the prurient virtue of our combined comstockeries is scarcely enough to account for this, since, with the mouldering influence of time, a bad boy of literature usually puts on the more or less sacrosanct garb of a “classic” and, thenceforth, is looked upon as naughty but, for the sake of art, as comparatively innocuous. Rabelais is a case in point. The Maitre is now seldom bothered on the metropolitan stalls. He hardly could be sold, it is true, in Dayton, Tenn., but in Chicago, the Committee of Fifteen does not stay up nights tracking him down. And yet, Aretino, as has been stated, is the godfather of Gargantua and Pantagruel. Why, then, all the animus against Pietro?

The answer is, Aretino is a bad example, not on the sexual side, but in his attitude toward life.

He is capable of being, upon occasion, the most tremendous hypocrite, as in his official and semi-official letters and in his “laudi,” those cringing, knuckling sonnets that he wrote to order. In this, he was conforming, outwardly and for his own shrewd purposes, to the custom of the age; it was a part of his game. In reality, he is a hardened, ingrown and parading cynic, and that is one thing your Babbitt will never forgive.

Hutton calls Aretino “the negation of the Renaissance.” He is more than that. He is the living negation of all the copybook maxims. He knows that early to bed and early to rise may make a man healthy, but that it will never make him wealthy or wise. Get all you can while the getting’s good is, rather, his motto, as it is that of the American big 15business man; only, the latter will never, never stand for a formulation of his practice. Aretino, like the captain of industry, started at the bottom and worked his way up. But how? And to what? He should have ended on the gallows, but as it was, he came near being made a prince of the church. In other words, he beat the game, and that is, of all things, unforgivable; it is worse than breaking the bank at Monte Carlo.

Aretino has no illusions about himself or, above all, about humanity. He knows human lusts and meanesses and depravations, and speculates in them; they are his stock in trade. He is a non-conformist. He lives his own life amid his harem of beautiful women and his art treasures, and remarks, with a sneer, “Who’s going to keep me from it?” He prefers a talk with Titian or an interview with a lady of fortune to going to mass. When, on his death bed, he is given the holy oils, he bursts forth, to the horror of the pious ones about him, with “Now that I’m all greased up, don’t let the rats get me.” And he is the man who, according to tradition,9 had for epitaph:

Here lies Aretino, the Tuscan poet,

Who slandered every one but God, and said:

Sorry, but if I ever met him, I did not know it.

No, Aretino is not, precisely, a Sunday school lad. He was no worse, probably, than Machiavelli, Guicciardini or a hundred others of his day; but Machiavelli and Guicciardini, putting on the cloak of political necessity, have acquired a certain respectability in their diablerie. What is wrong for an individual may be, it seems, right for a nation. Aretino merely applies the Principe and the Ricordi politici to private life; but that is always dangerous. It is doubly dangerous in a democracy. Every republic is replete with Aretinos, but 16they stay under cover and disguise their depradations under moralistic croakings. To speak out, to be frank with one’s self and others, is the unpardonable sin. It is to be doubted if, after all, Aretino ever could have existed elsewhere than in such an oligarchy as that which flourished in Venice under the Medici.

This is the real reason for the conspiracy of silence against him. This is the reason the world has chosen to overlook his undeniable contributions to literature, art and the spirit of modernity. It is time, in the name of scholarship, that the veil were lifted. Let us take the man as he was and, giving him his dues, good and bad, endeavor to place him as accurately as possible. In the course of the process, there are a few of us, it is to be hoped, confirmed amoralists, who love color and take it where we find it, who will be content to rejoice in the vivid reds of the picture and to leave the rest to priests and pedants.

IV. Aretino, like Baudelaire, has been the victim of a legend, a legend which he encouraged, rather than discouraged. When they accused him of being the son of a prostitute, he admitted it. When it was found that he was, really, the son of a shoemaker (acconciator di scarpe), which was far more damning, he trumpeted the fact to the world in a letter to the Duke of Medici. Like Baudelaire, he was quite willing to do anything pour èpater la bourgeoisie, and, like the author of Les Fleurs du mal, he paid the penalty. Baudelaire had his Maxime du Camp, of whom Huneker so effectually disposes (see his “The Baudelaire Legend” in Egoists); Aretino had his pseudo-Berni. And the resulting legend, in each case, has displayed a surprising persistence, and resistance to the discoveries of scholars.

Nevertheless, despite all legends and overthrowings of legends, the man himself remains a miracle of vividness. The names and titles that were conferred upon him during his 17life time are an indication of this. Ariosto won Aretino’s undying gratitude by referring to him, in the Orlando Furioso, as “the divine Pietro Aretino, the Scourge of Princes.” The “Scourge,” as Hutton remarks, might more aptly have been called “the Screw of Princes.” “Buffone, cativo” his own townsman, Meforo Nucci, calls him. He was looked upon, in turn, as a magician and a “prophet” (propheta divino).10 He was the Ward McAllister of his day and refers to himself as “censor del mondo altero.”11 Coming to bless and remaining to curse, he stands forth as a “charlatan of genius.” Francis I sends him a chain of gold, with vermilion-colored serpents’ tongues, bearing the exergue: “Lingue eius loquetur mendacium” (“His tongue speaks lies”).12 Aretino is delighted and is never seen without the chain thereafter; it appears in all his portraits.

A Black and White Picture of the Portrait of Pietro Aretino by Titian, he has a long beard and short hair, wearing a vest made of fur, his shirt has light full sleeves, and he has a thick gold chain worn as a necklace, presumably the one given to him by Francis I.

Portrait of Aretino by Titian (Frontispiece)

And yet, this man, whom the mighty college of cardinals could not silence, boasts always that “I speak the truth,” insisting that therein lies his strength. De Sanctis implies that he is a “poltroon,”13 but it is still Aretino’s vaunt that “With a goose-quill and a bottle of ink, I mock myself of the universe.”

V. The facts of Aretino’s life may be told briefly.14

The first that strikes us is the year of his birth, 1492, the same that, with the discovery of America, marks the beginning of a new world. Aretino stands on the threshold of the modern era; and it is, accordingly, not strange if in him we first hear definitely sounded the note of revolt against Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio and the other old masters of literature, as well as against Plato and Aristotle, Plautus and Terrence, Cicero and Pliny — the dead weight of all the centuries.

18 It is significant, also, that his birth occurred two years after that of Rabelais, who died (in 1553) three years before Pietro. The latter was born just as the Age of Form, carried to a last fine, hard coldness by Tasso and Ariosto, was drawing to a close. With those two great names, poetry was to die a temporary death. But across the border, barely beyond the span of Aretino’s lifetime, were to come Galileo, with his epoch-making discoveries in science, and a new birth of music.

Pietro was born — in a hospital,15 De Sanctis tells us — in the little but well known town of Arezzo, the birthplace also of Petrarch, Vasari and, in the eleventh century, of Guido of Arezzo, inventor of the modern system of musical notation. His birth occurred some time between the night of Holy Thursday and the morning of Good Friday, April 19-20, as he himself indicates in his sonnet, In questa chiara sacrosanta notte.16 The cynical may find a humorous significance in the date.

In accordance with the Aretine legend, perpetrated by the pseudo-Berni and repeated in the mid-Nineteenth century by such scholarly critics as De Sanctis and Camerini, he was the son of Tita, the “beautiful courtezan,” and one Luigi Bacci of Arezzo. Scholarship, however, has shown that his real father was Luca, the cobbler, whose wife Tita was. When, years later, a townsman arose to reveal his true birth, Aretino exclaimed, in his letter to Duke Cosimo: ‘I tell you, I glory in the title which he, to vilify, has given me; and may it teach the nobility to procreate sons like the one which a cobbler has borne in Arezzo . . . Yes, I am the son of a maker of shoes.”17

Later, Aretino was accused of passing himself off as the son of the Virgin, and so, as the Antichrist. The controversy 19arose over a portrait of the Virgin in a picture of the Annunciation which stood over the church door in Arezzo. Pietro insisted his mother had been the model for the Mary of this picture: “Witness is borne to the sacred goodness of so modest a woman by the fact that she is represented as Mary, Mother of Christ.”18 For Aretino had a typically Italian sentimentality where his mother was concerned, and he put himself to great exertions to get Vasari to have this portrait copied and sent to him, which was done. Doni, Aretino’s enemy, made capital of the matter and assailed Pietro as “an Antichrist, a limb of the Great Devil.”19

As to his early education, Aretino would seem, like Ben Johnson’s Shakespeare, to have had “little Latin and less Greek.” He went to school, he informs us in one of his letters,20 “only long enough to learn the santa croce,” that is, the elements of religion. He appears to have been a poor pupil, stealing his marks and having to be condoned by his teachers (“componendo ladramente, merito scusa”); and he brags of the fact that he was “not one of those who pore over the art of the Greeks and the Latins.”

All his life long, Aretino hated pedants, with a bitter, inborn, unquenchable hatred. He speaks of them as those who “croak21 the dead and crucify the living.” Pedantry to him is a crime worse than murder. He extends it even into the moral realm: ‘I tell you, it was pedantry that poisoned the Medici; it was pedantry that cut the throat of Duke Alexander; and, what is worse, it was pedantry that provoked the heresy against our faith by Luther, the greatest pedant of them all.”22 Aretino was wise enough to capitalize his deficiencies. He probably knew little if any Latin — his secretary, Berni, who later claimed he had “written” much of Aretino’s work, was, doubtless, his master’s superior in 20this — and so, spurning Cicero, Pliny and the rest, he turns instinctively to the vulgate, the dialect of his people and his time.

The legend then goes on to tell us that, at the age of thirteen, Pietro robbed his prostitute mother and fled to Perugia. A more likely story is that he was compelled to leave Arezzo on account of a certain sonnet against indulgences.23 We know that in 1512 he was already a verse-maker, for in that year, a volume of his poems was published in Venice24. He seems also to have been a student of painting in his early youth.25

VI. Aretino was next attracted to Rome. Rome then, under Julius II, was on the verge of entering upon the golden, the Augustan age, as it has been called, of Leo X., who was the son of Lorenzo de’ Medici. The papal court was thronged with artists, men of letters, buffoons and adventurers of every sort; and so, it was the logical, not to say the inevitable dream of every youth who was on the make. It was the Paris, the London and the New York of those days.

At Perugia, Aretino, according to legend, had been apprenticed to a bookbinder. The causes of his leaving are not exactly clear. There is a discredited story, told by Mazzuchelli, as to his having defaced a certain picture of a suppliant Magdalen by going to it at night and painting a lute in the Madalen’s hands. It is more likely that it was, simply, ambition that lured him.

Arrived in Rome, Aretino entered the service of a rich merchant, a Croesus of his day, who, with his magnificence and munificence, made the Holy Father “look like a piker,” as we in America would remark. Agostino Chigi, one of the signs of the coming order, in which money was to lord it 21over the lords of the earth, is a typical figure. On one occasion, he gave a banquet to the papal court on gold and silver plates, which were tossed into the Tiber as soon as used; but Chigi was shrewd enough to have had nets laid to retrieve them. On another occasion, each guest found his coat of arms engraved on the plates from which he ate. Chigi, finally, had himself married by the Pope to one of his own mistresses.

Discharged from the house of Chigi, the legend relates, for having stolen a silver cup, Pietro entered the house of the Cardinal San Giovanni and, upon the death of His Eminence, became valet to Pope Julius II. Ma ere sempre un valletto, opines De Sanctis. The judgment is a little harsh. Dismissed once more, he entered upon a period of vagabondage, in the course of which he wandered over the greater part of Lombardy, ending up by becoming a Capuchin in a monastery at Ravenna.

Pietro Aretino a monk! The picture is complete. Was it here that he put the finishing touches to his education, not merely in religion, but in vice and the refinements of vice? Was it here that he gathered much of the material for the “Life of Nuns” in the Ragionamenti? And was it here he acquired that smattering of sanctity which he later was to make use of in his religious best-sellers — for that is why his Life of Saint Catherine and other homilies were written: to sell?

However, Pietro was not cut out for a friar, and he soon tired of the life. Rome beckoned again.

All this, at least, is set forth in the Aretino legend, based upon the Vita dell’ Aretino, published with the object of vituperating the subject and formerly believed to have been written by Berni. Hutton thinks there is not a word of truth in this account of Aretino’s coming from Perugia to Rome and then becoming a Capuchin at Ravenna. There is, the English biographer points out, nothing in the letters to support it. He believes that Aretino first came to Rome in 221516, at the age of 24, “on foot and furnished only with what he had on his back.”

At any rate, it is certain that Pietro was in Chigi’s employ. As to just what place he held in the house of his rich patron, we are not sure. Those who would play Pietro down assert he was a domestic. Whatever his status, he met there many famous men of the day, including such artists and writers as Raphael, Iacopo Sansovino, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giulio Romano, Bembo, Castiglione, Paolo Giovio and others. Leo X. had succeeded to the pontifical throne in 1514, and the “golden age” was on. We know that Aretino made powerful friends at this time, among them Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, later to become Pope Clement VII.

It was in Rome, under Leo, that Aretino first became acquainted with the vices of the Holy City, those vices which he lambasts with so keen a power of satire in La Cortigiana and his other comedies. The Courtezan is a take-off on the prostitution of an age.

VII. Two misfortunes then befell Pietro. One was the death of his patron, Chigi, the other the sudden death of Leo X. In the confusion following the death of Leo and attendant upon the naming of his successor, Aretino found himself launched in his career of journalist. He became a writer of Pasquinades, as the vitriolic articles, affixed to the recently excavated statue of Pasquin in the Piazza Navona, were called. Pasquin, or Pasquino, had been, tradition had it, a fifteenth century schoolmaster with a bitter tongue, and the form of journalism named after him lived up to his reputation. Aretino, becoming so well known as a journalist of this type that he even had a tavern named after him,26 strenuously opposed the election of the pious weakling, Adrian VI., and it was for this reason, probably, that he was forced to flee from Rome, in the year 1522.

23 Supplied with excellent recommendations, through the friendships with the great which he had been wise enough to make, Aretino seems to have visited a number of cities, Milan, Pisa, Ferrara and Bologna, ending at Mantua, where he settled down for a while under the joint protection of the Marquis of Mantua and Cardinal de’ Medici. These two powerful personages even indulged in a friendly quarrel over the honor of Pietro’s company.

Finally, Pope Adrian inquiring a bit too anxiously after Aretino, the Medici shipped him off to join Giovanni delle bande nere, the leader of Italy’s only organized military force at that time. Pietro and Giovanni at once became bosom-cronies. They were, indeed, two of a kind. Barbarossa, the Corsair pirate, was later to remark that Aretino had “the head of a captain, rather than that of a poet,” and there was in him, the fact is, no little of the soldier and the buccaneer of letters. Giovanni later died in Aretino’s arms, his death being described in one of the finest and most touching letters the latter ever wrote;27 and Giovanni’s son, Cosimo, and the widow, Maria, remained devoted to the “Scourge,”28 who, it may be, first got his title from his warrior friend.

VIII. The death of Adrian, the last of the Pontefici barbari, or foreign Popes, brought Aretino’s friend, Cardinal de’ Medici, to the chair as Clement VII. Aretino at once returned to Rome. He was now distinctly in the swim. He traveled in style, and the great and powerful were his friends. He wrote sonnets in praise of Clement, the Pope made him a Knight of Rhodes, and all went well — till the little affair of the Sonnets.

What happened was this. Giulio Romano, the artist, had executed a number of obscene designs — sixteen of them, each supposed to represent a different modus sexualis — and had them engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, the first 24man of his day with the burin. Aretino, according to his own version of the affair, saw the engravings and was inspired to write his famous, and infamous, Sonetti lussuriosi as a commentary.

The storm broke. Even the Rome of Clement VII. was shocked. Marcantonio was thrown into prison. Giulio’s reputation, a splendid one theretofore, was shadowed, and Pietro had to do some tall talking to get out of the scrape, though he did succeed, by intervening with the Pope, in procuring the release of Raimondi.

In a letter written to Battista Zatti,29 Aretino says he dedicates his sonnets to “the hypocrites, out of patience with their villainous judgment and with the hoggish custom that forbids the eyes what most delights them.” And he exclaimed, in conclusion: “The beasts are more free than we!” Does not this sound like Hecht’s preface?

In any event, Rome had now become a trifle too warm for Pietro; so he fled for a time. The legend says he was driven out, and it seems to have amounted to that. Giulio also saved himself by flight. Aretino went back to Arezzo, perhaps to visit his family, then joined his friend, Giovanni, again. He appears to have vacillated for some little time between Giovanni, who wanted him badly, and Rome, eventually returning to Rome and the sunshine of Clement’s favor. His Holiness having forgiven, and, no doubt, forgotten all.

It was in Rome at this time that the famous attempt to assassinate Aretino was made by Achille della Volta, who stuck a dagger in Pietro’s back one night as the latter was riding home alone on horseback. Aretino, badly wounded — mortally, it was believed at first — escaped with a maimed hand, which he carried for the rest of his life. The attempted slaying, which was traced to Giberti, the Pope’s counsellor and Aretino’s deadly enemy, stirred Rome. Aretino once more left, this time, in October, 1525, for Mantua.

25 He did not stay long in Mantua but was soon back with Giovanni delle bande nere. After the death of the sturdy captain, Pietro returned to Mantua and looked about him. His future was uncertain. Rome was out of the question. What was he to do?

It was at this time that he entered upon another phase of his journalistic activity and began issuing his giudizii. The giudizio, an institution of which Aretino was not the originator, had started out as a respectable enough almanac. In his hands, it became a scandal sheet.

FOOTNOTES

1 One of the papal “Ganymedes”.

2 Michel Ange, Roman, Dmitry Merejkowski, Traduit du russe par Dumesnil de Gramont, Paris, Artheme Fayard & cie, 1926.

3 Reference is, of course, to Pen, Pencil and Poison.

4 See also his Storia d’Italia.

5 I lift the phrase from Eugenio Camerini, Prefazione al primo volume delle Lettere dell’ Aretino.

6 Loeb and Leopold.

7 Pietro Aretino, the Scourge of Princes, Edward Hutton, Constable and company, 1922.

8 “. . . in tutto il mondo per me negozia la Fama.” In a letter to Bernardo Tasso, quoted by De Sancti; see the latter’s essay, Vol. II.

9 Probably no more than a tradition. The original runs:

Qui giace l’ Aretin poeta tosco,

Che disse mal d’ ognun, fuor che di Dio,

Scusandosi col dir, no lo conosco.

10 Cf. Giovan Battista Diedo (quoted, Appendix II): Dico che Iddio l’ ha fatto di poeta diventar profeta, etc.

11 See in this volume, Miscellaneous Sonnets, IV.

12 See De Sanctis’ essay, Vol. II., and my note.

13 See the De Sanctis essay, Vol. II., and my note. See also Appendix I.

14 I am particularly indebted to Hutton in the biographical part of this paper.

15 In uno spedale.

16 See, in this volume, Miscellaneous Sonnets, I.

17 “Dico che mi glorio del titolo che per avilirmi egli dammi, conciosiache ai nobili insegna a procrear figliuoli simili a quello, che un calzolaio ha generato in Arezzo . . . Io natoci d’ un acconciator di scarpe.”

18 Letter from Venice, December, 1548, Lettere, V., 66.

19 See the Berni Vita, Milano, Daelli, 1864.

20 Lettere, I., 200. See the quotation from this letter in De Sanctis’ essay, Vol. II.

21 gracchiare.

22 See De Sanctis’ essay.

23 Hutton, op. cit., p. 13.

24 Published by Nicolo Zopino. See Bibliography, Appendix IV.

25 “Alquante cose de uno adolescente Aretino Pietro, studioso in questa faculta et in pictura.” (Prefatory note to first volume of poems).

26 The “Accademia di Pietro Aretino.”

27 See Volume II., Letters, III.

28 See correspondence, Appendix I.

29 Lettere, I., 258.

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a Critical and Biographical Essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes, Volume I., Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1926; pp. 25-54.

[25] IX. Venice proved to be the solution. Indeed, it might be said that Venice was the solution of Aretino’s life problem. Here alone, in the city of the Doges, under the oligarchical sway of the Medici, was freedom to be had; here alone was safety and security. Read the glowing tribute which Aretino, in one of his letters,1 pays to Venice. His letters, the truth is, are a part of the Venetian picture in the Sixteenth century. This was the Venice of Shakespeare’s plays. Tintoretto was there, and so were Titian and Sansovino, with whom Aretino was to set up a lasting “triumvirate.” As Hutton points out, Bellini, Sebastiano, Mansueti, Giorgione and others have preserved for us, in their canvases, the Venice that Pietro knew.

It was in Venice that Aretino began his life-long friendship with Titian, whom he met through Sansovino. The last named commemorated the triple alliance in his painting over the doors of the sacristy of San Marco, and Aretino celebrated it in a sonnet, one of his finest.2 As to Titian, Pietro became to him a sort of press agent de luxe. He secured many commissions for his painter friend, and it has been thought that he possibly took his percentage on these commissions. (If he did, Hutton remarks, it would be “only 26another mark of modernity in him.”) It was Aretino who introduced Titian to Charles V.

Aretino, as we have seen, like Baudelaire, probably had studied painting. At any rate, he soon became a first-rate painting critic. Not only that. He was used by Titian, over and over again, as a model. Three months after he had arrived in Venice, Titian did a portrait of him. In this portrait, Aretino is represented as disdaining the laurels of Homer and Caesar, as described in the sonnet which he sent with the picture to the Marquise of Mantua; the one beginning: “Togli il lauro per te Cesare e Omero.”3 He also served as the model for Pilate (role fitting enough, some would say!) in Titian’s Ecce Homo. It has been thought, even, that Titian might have made use of Aretino’s face — minus the beard, of course — for some of his Christs!

Here, then, in Venice, Pietro comes into his own. His house, the famous casa Aretina,4 is filled with art treasures from all over the world; for Aretino, as Merejkowski tells us, à propos of Michelangelo, was not backward in levying contributions on artists whom he knew and did not know. Sometimes, as in the case of Michelangelo,5 they may have been reluctant to comply, but they were usually compelled to make at least a show of homage; Aretino and the famed Aretino pen were too potent to be ignored.

While Aretino’s house was filled with paintings and rare objects of art, it had almost no books;6 for Pietro prided himself upon his originality and disdained “the vulpine modesty of the asinine pedants who write books.”7

In such surroundings as these, he maintained his harem and kept open house for his friends. His cuisine was famous, and he never dined in the town, for he insisted the Venetians 27did not know how to dine. At times, his own house became so unbearably crowded that he was forced to flee to Titian’s abode for a little peace and comfort. He was constantly besieged by the poor, to whom he always gave with a lavish prodigality. He would stand no reproaches on this score. Great souls always spend freely, would be his reply.8 He resented also any gratuitous advice on the part of his benefactors as to the better husbanding of his income.9

In Venice, Aretino’s fame grew, and from Venice it spread to all parts of the known world — to the courts of Charles and Francis, to the semi-barbarous wilds of Germany, to India, to Barbarossa on the seas, even to the Rio de la Plata. In France, he was almost a household author, 10 and he seems early to have been translated into German.

His fame showed in other ways. A race of ponies, named after one of his nags — “which Pope Clement gave to me, and which I gave to Duke Federigo” — bore the name, aretina. A certain variety of crystal vase was called the aretino. His women — former mistresses, near-wives, procuresses, housekeepers and chambermaids — were known, collectively, as the aretine. The street in which he lived, the lane that ran past his house, the portion of the Grand Canal that washed his casa — all bore his inescapable mark.11

And Aretino by no means neglected to advertise himself. He would not have been the first of press agents, if he had done so. He tells us, in his letters, that he had had his image reproduced in every conceivable form, even on his mirrors and comb-cases; and in addition, he boasted that it was to be seen on “the facades of palaces.” He sent a head of himself to Barbarossa, which drew the comment already quoted. His home was all Aretino — “Aretino to the right, Aretino to the left,” De Sanctis says. For Pietro had 28discovered the rather important fact that the world has been known to take a man at his own valuation. He was, De Sanctis adds, a great man on his own say-so.

In such settings as these, he lived his life, because he was “born to live this way.” The world might go hang, so long as it did not forget that it owed him a living. To this end, he proposed to see that it did not forget. He may have lived, as he says, by the sweat of his ink, but the motive power (“il motore del suo inchiostro”) was money. He, therefore, had to have publicity. He was of a new commercial age, which is never slow in learning that it pays to advertise.

Blackmail? The word12 is a harsh one — too harsh, it may be; yet we find it used repeatedly in connection with Pietro. He seldom made downright threats, though he often made specific demands, and generally drove a shrewd and definite bargain. And princes and the powerful paid him, for his favor or for his silence. He often sold his “praises” (laudi) as a writer of today sells his manuscripts. There was in him, De Sanctis observes, “a species of mercantile morality.” He was the camorrista of literature.

There were times when he had pretty hard sledding, financially. This was most of the time. His charities actually seem to have kept him chronically “broke.” At one time, he even thought of starting a lottery, and the Marquis of Mantua issued him a patent for the purpose, but the scheme seems to have fallen through. Falling out with the Marquis, he turns to Francis I. and, for a while, seriously thinks of going to France. He distrusted, however, the close watch which the French monarch kept upon his purse strings. Had he gone, he probably would have made it decidedly uncomfortable for the Italian princes, including his old friend, Mantua.

X. It was at this time that Aretino conceived the idea of an epic poem, La Marfisa, to be a continuation of the Orlando 29Furioso of Ariosto. Pietro proceeded to peddle his poem about, not, as a poet today would do, for a publisher, but for a patron. The prince that came across with sufficient money was to have the pleasure of seeing his house celebrated in the Aretine epic. For the printing of his poem, Aretino wanted a privilegio from the Pope. To get it, he pulled all sorts of strings. Finally, the Doge himself, Andrea Gritti, intervened in Pietro’s behalf. The privilegio at last was granted, along with a collar from the Pope’s hands.

Aretino’s poem, though it was afterward printed and dedicated to the Marchese del Vasto, is not the important thing. The important thing is the fact that the Doge had seen fit to interfere in his behalf. This definitely established Aretino’s position in Venice. He had been, as it were, officially recognized by the government.

Nevertheless, the circumstances surrounding the securing of a patron for the Marfisa are interesting, illustrative as they are of the Aretino tactics. After first proposing to dedicate his immortal opus to Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, Aretino quarreled with him. We then find him making overtures to Alessandro de’ Medici, proposing to sing the “genealogy of the Medici, not without disdain for the house of Mantua.” But Alessandro eludes him. So Aretino, at last, turned to the pompous del Vasto, and the epic, which is far from remarkable, was dedicated to him and published in Venice, in 1535.

Another point to be made, in connection with the Marfisa, is that, through it, Aretino was reconciled with the Pope, with whom he had been on none too friendly terms since his attempted assassination by the papal favorite, Giberti; Aretino had dealt, in his giudizii, none too gently with the sovereign pontiff. The Medici, disliking to have so prominent a citizen on bad terms with the see of Rome, had exerted their influence, and the author of the Marfisa agreed to leave out all references which might be offensive.

This probably marks the happiest period of Aretino’s 30life, the height of his worldly success. The rest of his career was to be embittered by repeated betrayals on the part of his numerous secretaries, by domestic troubles and by literary feuds. But at this time, he could write:

“They say I am the son of a courtezan. It may be so, but I have the heart of a king.”

XI. Aretino seems to have been unfortunate or unwise in his choice of secretaries. At any rate, he had nothing but trouble with them.

The question may be raised as to whether, or why, he needed a secretary. He must have had good use for one, he who was, as the Neapolitan Alessandro Andrea called him “il secretario del mondo“ — the “secretary to the world.”13 His hand, too, it must be remembered, had been hopelessly maimed the night that Giberti stabbed him in the back. Moreover, he doubtless felt that his position called for one; for Pietro always insisted on the place which he had stolen for himself in the world being given all the formalities and respect that were its due.

Every one of his young men, as Hutton remarks, appears to have been “a scoundred and a traitor.” Possibly the first was Lorenzo Veniero, who was, also, one of Aretino’s dearest friends.

Aretino, there is little doubt, was leading a very corrupt life at this time. Just how corrupt, or what form his corruption took, it might be difficult to say. A little later, there was to be a nasty scandal, as a result of which Pietro was all but driven out of his beloved haven, Venice. Unnatural vice figured in this affair, which has been largely smoothed over by historians. It was patched up some way, and Aretino contrived to live it down. It is, likely, a fact that he was something of a satyr in his habits. He would have been able to give John Addington Symonds light on a certain problem 31in Greek, as well as in modern ethics. The Sonetti lussuriosi and the Ragionamenti represent a very real, and for that reason a very sincere, side of the man.

In any case, we know that Veniero fell very much — too much — under his master’s influence. When it came to writing filth, Aretino, as his British biographer says, was inimitable. He was, in a manner, as inimitable as Rabelais, and any one who endeavored to imitate him inevitably floundered. That was what happened in the case of Veniero. He produced a work in verse entitled La Puttana errante (The Wandering Whore), which has been wrongly attributed to Aretino in the past. A close inspection of its style reveals, to any student of Aretino, the fact that it is not the latter’s. This work first appeared in 1530. It was dedicated to Aretino, who seems to have fathered it, and the latter sent a copy to the Marquis of Mantua, who smacked his chops over it. A quarrel over the authorship of the thing followed, and Veniero’s reputation was shattered.

Aretino was scarcely out of this before he became involved in another literary feud, in the course of which he was accused, as were the Edinburgh Review and Blackwood’s Magazine in the case of Keats, of having been the death of a young poet, Antonio Broccardo. The fracas grew out of an attack which young Broccardo had made on Monsignore, later to be Cardinal, Bembo, one of the worst pedants of his day and a man designed by nature to be Aretino’s butt, if not his enemy. However, Aretino, for politic reasons, sided with Bembo in counter-attacking Broddardo. After the latter’s death, Aretino characteristically penned four sonnets praising his adversary. Later, on Bembo’s death, he wrote sonnets praising the Cardinal.

Honors were coming to Pietro now. His home town, Arezzo, at last had awakened to the fact that it had, at least from a worldly point of view, a great son. It, accordingly, conferred upon Aretino, the title of Salvator della patria (saviour of his country). Then, in 1532, came Ariosto’s 32Orlando Furioso, with its historic reference to Aretino as “il divin” and “il Flagello de’ Principi.” As we have seen, the title of “Scourge of Princes” probably had been conferred on Aretino long before, not unlikely by his soldier friend, Giovanni delle bande nere. Ariosto merely immortalizes it. Three years later, Ariosto’s comedy, the Negromante, is dedicated to Aretino by Lodovico Dolce. All this was literary success with a vengeance. Pietro, the great faker and, as it were, the scavenger of literature — “il condottière della letteratura,” Titian called him — the “street-car conductor of literature,” if we Americanize the idiom — Pietro, the blackmailer and the paid panegyrist, had at last won recognition, become respectable through his very vices!

Nevertheless, he had many enemies. This, of course, with a man of Aretino’s temperament and his habits of the literary abbattoir, was unavoidable. He would have been, one imagines, lost and unhappy without them; he would have suspected himself. At the same time, he had the faculty of making capital out of the worst calumny. In 1532, for example, the Rialto was placarded with the announcement that no bank or shop would trust him:

Non è banca Non è botiga a farti credenza and also with the report that he “had no wood to warm himself at the fire:”

Chi non ha legna da scaldarsi al focho. He was always bankrupt, but that was part of his scheme of things. His popularity with the great ones remained undiminished. Luigi Gritti, natural son of the Doge of Venice and the latter’s ambassador in Constantinople, writes urging Aretino to join him to “make me happy with your charming conversation.” Florence, too, tried to steal him from Venice. Alessandro de’ Medici twice attempted to lure Pietro there, promising him the Strozzi Palace if he would come.

When Paul III. (Alessandro Farnese) became Pope, he 33was so friendly that Aretino, for once, came near giving up his Venice to return to the Holy City; but he was wise enough not to do so. He had had enough of courts and their ways. For his reasons in declining, see the letter on the subject which he wrote to Monsignor Guidiccione.14 See, also, his sonnet: Sett’ anni traditori ho via gettati,15 describing the “seven traitor years” which he had “thrown away” in the papal service.

Then came the chain of gold from Francis. This was the recognition in the world of affairs which Ariosto had conferred in the world of letters. Aretino had become an institution.

XII. Continuing his literary, or near-literary activity with tremendous force, publishing comedies, religious works, his obscene Ragionamenti, and keeping up all the time his journalistic letters, Aretino led an amazingly full life and displayed an astounding vitality. Honored by Ariosto and by Francis, he drew to the end amid domestic troubles and more broils.

Aretino never married within the law, he disdained the institution of matrimony; but he had children by his mistresses and adored his offspring. There was his daughter, Adria, whose mother was Caterina Sandella, one of Titian’s blonde types and a member of the harem at casa Aretina. Her father spends much time in getting Adria properly married off to the worthless young Diovatelli Rota and levies a tax on his princely friends to provide the dowry which her prospective husband demands. The marriage was not a success. Adria, after twice returning to the paternal roof, died in 1554. There was also Austria, likewise the daughter of La Sandella, probably, and of whom Pietro was almost — but not quite — as fond as he was of Adria. His children, he maintained, were “legitimate in my heart.”

34 With Pierina Riccia, the abandoned wife of one of his secretaries (Polo Bartolini), Aretino carried on a touching affair, if affair it might be called. She was a consumptive, and Aretino, like a mother, nursed her back to health, only to have her abandon him for a younger lover. Four years later, she returned, and he took her back. She again fell ill, and he nursed her again. She died this time, and her memory colored the remainder of Aretino’s life. Years later, he exclaimed: “I think I died with her.”

Caterina and Pierina were the two chief women in his life, it would seem, but he had numerous affairs and escapades.

Aretino frequently became mixed up with husbands. He had no hesitancy in using them when he wanted their wives; and when a husband grew annoyed at Pietro’s “Platonic” intentions, as did Giovanni Antonio Sirena, he was capable, at once, of waxing virtuously indignant and of strutting like a peacock.

“My pen has made Madame Angela Sirena immortal . . . Do you not know that there is not a woman in the world who would not be proud to be chastely sung and celebrated in my verses? A time will come when this very letter that I send you and which I deign to sign with my own hand will be a title of pride and nobility for your son.”

And, needless to say, Aretino saw to it that the letter was published.

When one of his harem, Marietta d’Oro, wished to leave him, Aretino married her off to his secretary, who at that time happened to be Ambrogio degli Eusebii, aged 20. Then, having solved, as he thought, that problem, Aretino sent young Eusebii off on an embassy to Francis I. He even went part way with him to be sure he left. While he was gone, Marietta looted his house and sailed for Cyprus. Aretino was the laugh of the town, but it is to be doubted if he greatly cared.

35 XIII. It was this same Eusebii who lost at play the six hundred scudi which Francis I. had consigned to him for his master. The money was lost in the house of Cardinal Gaddi, with whom Aretino was on none too good terms, anyway; and this led to a row between Pietro and the Cardinal. His Eminence, eventually, made good the money lost.

Later, Eusebii lost eight hundred crowns which he had received in England, got two hundred of them back, then lost these (as he wrote Aretino) in a shipwreck. The last we hear of him is from the Rio de la Plata, whence he writes to say that he is “preaching Aretino’s name” there.

Leonardo Parpaglioni, another secretary, robbed Aretino of two hundred scudi while Nicolò Franco, still another amanuensis, became his bitterest enemy and detractor. Franco, a pedant of the pedants and a “parasite of letters,”16 in the controversy that followed, asserted that he had “written” a good part of Aretino’s work, and that his former master was “an ignorant dunce.” The truth of the matter is, Franco was Pietro’s superior in academic learning — which Aretino disdained — and probably did furnish some of the material for the religious works. But Aretino’s best work, as Hutton says, was done before Franco appeared on the scene.

In 1538, Aretino published his first book of Letters, printed by Marcolini. These letters, he tells us, had been collected through “the Love of my young men for what I do.” Among these “young men” must have been Franco. But in November of the same year, we find Franco publishing his own book of letters (Pistole vulgari) in fine format. This was too much. Aretino could not stand a rival in his own house; so he turned Franco out. In later editions of Aretino’s own letters, the name, Franco, has entirely disappeared. But Franco’s enmity, as has been hinted, was a potent one. It led, indirectly at least, to the calumnies of the 36pseudo-Berni Vita and the fostering of the Aretine legend.

In the course of the Franco quarrel, Eusebii, who had succeeded Franco as Aretino’s secretary, stabbed his predecessor in the face, and Aretino supported him in court and even made him parade up and down in front of the house where Franco was lying wounded. The incident is typical.

When Franco fell ill. Aretino forgave him, but Franco, as soon as he was well again, renewed his attacks. Aretino prophesied he would die on the gallows, as he did. He was hanged by Pius V. for publishing an obscene work, the Priapeia.

XIV. All this time, Aretino was playing politics on a big scale — world politics. He must have a finger in every pie, no matter how impressive the size. When Charles V. imprisons Clement VII., we find him writing to the Emperor urging him to liberate the pontiff, and writing to the Holy Father, urging him to forgive the Emperor. The nerve of the man is almost beyond belief. He plays a hide-and-seek game with Francis, finally, chiefly on account of the French monarch’s lack of generosity, lining up against him with Charles. When Francis made an alliance with the Turks, against Charles and the Empire, Aretino wrote him an insulting letter which, as Hutton remarks, “reverberated throughout Europe.”

On the assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici, Duke of Florence, in fulfilment of an apparent prophecy of Aretino’s, Cosimo, the son of Giovanni delle bande nere, became Duke and Aretino’s new protector.

A second attempt to assassinate Aretino occurred in 1539, in the course of a quarrel between him and Ercole II., successor to Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. This trouble soon blew over, however.

XV. Then came the fitting climax to Aretino’s picaresque career, when, upon the visit of the Emperor Charles V. to 37Venetian territory, a personal, very warm and human meeting occurred between the foremost prince of his age and the Scourge of Princes. This meeting took place, in July, 1543, at Peschiera, near Verona, where Charles, upon catching sight of Aretino, spurred his horse toward him, saluted him with affection and then rode along with Aretino at his right hand, conversing amiably. Later, when the stage was set, Aretino read his Capitolo and then went in to dine with His Majesty, again at the royal right hand. Charles urged Pietro to accompany him, but the latter declined, preferring to return to Venice.

What a triumph was here, for the legendary son of a prostitute, the defrocked friar and vagabond of tradition, the author of the Sonetti lussuriosi and the Prince of Blackmailers! Ariosto’s flagellum principum and Francis’ chain of gold may have marked the definite achievement of literary success, such as it was, and of worldly triumph, but this meeting with Charles was, veritably, Pietro Aretino’s Field of the Cloth of Gold.

XVI. If Aretino, at this time, was probably the most powerful man in Italy, perhaps in the world, the reason is to be found in the new force which he had discovered, that force which we today would call “the power of the press.” Aretino himself regarded it as the power of his pen. He himself did not realize the right Promethean fire with which he was playing. All he knew was that he had a tremendous instrument in his hands, and he employed it quite as unscrupulously as it, consistently, has been employed since his time. he was capable — see his Letters — of being quite as hypocritical as the press of today.

We have seen, largely, who his worldly friends were — kings and emperors, dukes and doges, popes and prelates — and there would be little point in repeating their names here. A glance at the names of those to whom his letters are addressed is indicative. As to his literary friends, Hutton 38lists: Ariosto; Bembo; Machiavelli; Guicciardini; Vittoria Colonna, she for whom Michelangelo platonically pined away; Annibal Caro; Monsignore della Casa; Bernardo Tasso; Benedetto Varchi; Trissino; Speroni; Molza; Agnuolo Firenzuola; Paolo Manuzio; Alamanni; Bernardo Accolti; Guidiccione; Benedetto Marcello; Paolo Giovio; Lorenzo Veniero; Girolamo Parabasco; Bernardo Clesio, Cardinal of Trent: and Veronica Gambara. It is the authors’ blue book of an age.

Many of these ostensible friendships, when not inspired by fear, were due, it is probable, to policy; but a surprising number of them were deep-rooted and sincere. As to just how much illusion the writers of the time harbored with regard to the work of Pietro, one cannot say. It is hard to get a perspective on one’s own generation.

As to Aretino’s friendships among artists, they included: Titian; Sansovino; Giovanni da Udine; Sodoma; Leone Leoni; Moretto; Tintoretto; Vasari; Sebastiano del Piombo; Luigi Anichi and Marcantonio Raimondi, engravers; Giulio Romano; Raphael; and Michelangelo. A good account of Aretino’s relations with Michelangelo will be found in Merejkowski’s work. He met Raphael in Rome, at the house of his early patron, Chigi. “It is a part of the fame of Aretino,” says Hutton, “that such men as Michelangelo were his friends.” We see, however, in Michelangelo’s case, that the nature of the “friendship” was, upon occasion, somewhat dubious. His very real friendship with Titian — who was, in all likelihood, as fleshly in his appetites as the blonde women he painted, or as Aretino himself — was the noblest side of the great Scourge’s life.

XVII. Pietro’s last years were of a piece with the rest of his weird life. He was crowned by academies. His second book of Letters, published in 1542, was dedicated to Henry VIII. of England, who gave the author, in return, a promise — it proved to be no more than a promise — of a reward of three 39hundred crowns. Aretino was led to accuse the British ambassador of having stolen the money, and this brought on one of the scenes of his old age, when the ambassador, accompanied by six armed men, waylaid Aretino, then an old man, and beat him. Aretino then had to suffer the reproaches of his numerous enemies for not avenging himself. But the general feeling was with Aretino. The shading which De Sanctis, for example, gives this affair is misleading.

In 1550, Aretino’s native village rises up to honor him again, this time with the high-sounding title of gonfaloniere.17 In payment for a sonnet praising Pope Julius III. he receives one thousand scudi, and in June of 1550, the pontiff creates him a cavalier of St. Peter, with — what was more to Aretino’s taste, for he always preferred cash to empty honors — a pension of eighty scudi a year.

It was then that there came talk of the cardinal’s hat. Titian interested himself in the matter with Charles V., who looked favorably upon the idea. But there was a hitch somewhere; the hat was not offered. The question is, if it had been, would Aretino have left Venice, his “rock of safety,” to return to Rome?

Though he was not made a cardinal, the Pope did invite him to come to Rome as his guest, telling him it would be a second jubilee, and that all the world would flock to see him. Drawn, possibly, by a lingering hope of the red hat, Aretino journeyed, old as he was, to the city of the seven hills and was splendidly received. They endeavored to persuade him to remain there, but he declined.

He returned to die in his loved Venice, not in the famous casa Aretina, where he had spent so many colorful years18 — he had been forced to give that up in 1551 — but in his new home, the house of Leonardo Dandolo in the parish of San Luca on the Riva del Carbin.

In 1556, one of his oldest friends, Doni, the writer, turned 40on him and attacked him, prophesying his death. Aretino died that year.

XVIII. It is with the extremities of his career, his birth and death, that the detractors and vilifiers of Aretino seem to have done their worst. It is at these points that Legend steps in to add its touch of mendacious picturesqueness. We have seen Pietro, according to the Legend, born the son of a prostitute, robbing his mother at the age of thirteen, kicked out of Rome for his Sonnets, becoming a Capuchin, etc. And now, with his death —

He died, the prevailing account tells us, by falling over backward from his chair in a fit of laughter — ribald laugher, the followers of the Vita add. Look up Aretino in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and you will find this account repeated there, that he died in a fit of laughter at an obscene story told him by one of his own sisters. Camerini19 tells us that Aretino’s sisters20 (he makes it plural) were narrating to him the experiments in lust which they had made in a bordello of Arezzo — “experiments,” he says, “of which Giulio Romano had not dreamed in those designs of which Aretino illustrated with his pen and Marco Aurelio21 Raimondi with his burin.”

It is Camerini, also, who gives the story of the holy oils.

It is, from a literary point of view, all very satisfying, especially when rounded out by the cosmic insolence of that ascribed epitaph, which, in its Latin version, reads:

Intactus Deus est illi, causamque rogatus Hanc dedit. Ille, inquit, non mihi notus erat.

The “non mihi notus erat” is superb but, in all probability, apocryphal.

The facts seem to be that Aretino did die by falling backward from his chair. His death was due to apoplexy. Il divino 41had become, in the words of Cosimo de’ Medici, il mortal Pietro Aretino. No sooner was he dead than he became a name that was not mentioned in the presence of a lady.22

XIX. This, then, was the end of Pietro Aretino, the first modern journalist, perhaps the greatest blackmailer in all history, the first truly modern exponent of the “poison pen,” to lift one of the pet phrases of our own brethren of the yellow press. There is a constant temptation, in the case of Aretino, to pile up names and adjectives; he lends himself to it so readily. But when the adjectives and the picturesque and picaresque titles have been sifted, what remains?

Edward Hutton calls him “the founder of the European press” and adds that he “used the hitherto unsuspected weapon of publicity with an incomparable appreciation of its power.” For “European press,” one might read “modern press.”

“And if we add to this,” continues the Englishman, in the introduction to his biography, “that he contrived a weapon for his own ends which has in our day come to be more powerful than any established government or elected parliament or hereditary monarchy — publicity, the press — there is more than sufficient excuse for this book. . . . Aretino’s virtues . . . are always those of a journalist, never those of a man of letters. His strength is in his spontaneity, his ability to write what is in his head almost without a second thought.”

And, it may here be parenthesized, is not this the prime virtue of the modern newspaper man — his spontaneity? Your present-day reporter also writes “what is in his head, almost without a second thought;” and if he does not happen, usually, to have a head, it is that which accounts for the poor quality of our contemporary journalism. Aretino, who, in his more pompous letters, is the prototype of the 42twentieth-century editorial-writer, in his giudizii and his Pasquinades is, frequently, the antecedent of the rewrite-man; while in his Ragionamenti, he is the Ring Lardner, risen out of the local room.

Yes, Aretino was the first of the tribe of “yellow” journalists. He told the truth, not lies — “per finger no, ma per predire il vero,”23 he assures us in one of his sonnets — and he strutted all over the shop about it; but so, too, does Mr. Hearst. Something, it is to be presumed, may depend on the manner in which the truth is told, and the act of telling it may readily become the worst form of blackmail. In any event, the man who goes in for it makes the discovery of a certain power; he makes powerful friends and powerful enemies; and this is what Aretino did. If the latter were living today, there is not much doubt that he would be one of our “Napoleans of the Press.”

XX. It is interesting to note that modern journalism grew out of the Renaissance, in the person of Pietro Aretino, the greatest of the Renaissance decadents. Aretino revolutionized the character of two of the nearest approaches to the thing that the Revival of Learning had sported: the Pasquinade and the giudizio.

Pasquin was a fifteenth-century schoolmaster. Like many schoolmasters, he had a scurrilous tongue. The Pasquinade, therefore, retains the qualities of its nominal founder: scholasticism and scurrility.

“Pasquin, indeed,” says Hutton, “is of the modern world and is a sign of the return of free satire, anonymous and violent and often as vulgar and salacious as anything in antiquity. He is not really of the people: he is the creation of the learned, of scholars and men of letters. He is part of the Renaissance, and, in the age of Aretino, was bound to be abused. But he was already famous before Aretino transformed 43him for his own purposes during the election of Pope Adrian VI.”

The Pasquinades were originally attached to the statue of Pasquino, but they seem very early to have been distributed in the form of fly-sheets, in the manner of the istorie or “extras” which are cried in the first act of La Cortigiana. The first Pasquinades were extremely pedantic; they were of the scholars, not of the people. Aretino transformed these exercises and made them popular, for his own purpose, which at the time happened to be the advancement of Cardinal de’ Medici’s claim to the papal throne. Aretino turned out his Pasquinades, furiously and daily. The fact that he “lost the election” mattered little; he had made himself famous — and infamous. It was at this time that amazement was expressed at the college of cardinals’ not being able to silence him. It was the old order against the new; the latter had shown its teeth and won, even in the temporary victory of the old.

And when, later, the Doge of Venice interfered to make peace between Aretino and the Pope, it was but another sign that the press had been recognized and had to be tolerated, whether the powers that be liked it, altogether, or not. A new social entity had been discovered, public opinion, the new tyrant of the new democracies. The same might be said of Francis I.’s chain of gold; kings as well as doges bowed.

Aretino revolutionized the giudizio, as well as the Pasquinade. The former, before his time, had been an Old Moore’s Almanac. Pietro cut out the astrology and the weather and, as the modern journalist would say, “played up the news,” putting in, often, even a little more “punch” than would get by the average copy desk of today. The giudizzi had at first appeared once a year, but who ever heard of a once-a-year newspaper? Aretino issued one whenever he felt the need of self-expression or money, particularly the latter.

44 Indeed, Aretino’s writings as a whole constitute a sort of daily journal of his times. Their quality, with the exception of the Ragionamenti and his plays, is essentially ephemeral. It is because their author so sums up his age, the chromatic cinquecento, that they are worth preserving and worth reading.

XXI. Aretino is not only the first modern journalist, he is the first modern critic of painting.

Like Baudelaire, whom Courbet taught to mix a palette, Pietro, it is likely, studied painting in his youth, and like Baudelaire, he retained a keen interest in the art all his life, while his dearest and closest friendships lay among painters. We know, at any rate, that he was lampooned by his enemies as having been formerly a painter;24 but if it was the fact that he had been, there was in it nothing strange. Many a writer has walked through the studio, returned to it and remained to chat. Aretino’s chattings (“ciancie,” he would have called them) are our first modern art criticism.

Speaking of this, Eugenio Camerini says:

“The truth is, Aretino, in his writings, displays sometimes the desire to compete with the rich palette of his painter friends. His familiarity with Titian and his affection for the art helped him sufficiently. Certainly, the best colorists among French writers of today have served their apprenticeship to art, either as students or as admirers. Dante drew. Aretino was fond of decoration and color-harmony, both in his habits of thought and in his person; dissonance appeared only in his actions.”

The italics here are the present writer’s own; they are employed to stress what impresses him as being an important point in any “psyching” which may be attempted of Pietro.

The fact would seem to be, Aretino had a natural inclination 45toward the art of painting, which was piqued by association. When a man is found consorting with painters or writers, barbers or plumbers, as a class, it generally means that he has some predilection for one pursuit or the other. In Rome, we find Aretino, with Raimondi and Giulio Romano, getting into a scrape over the artists’ designs and Pietro’s Sonnets. When he goes to Venice, his friend, Sansovino, makes him acquainted with Titian, and the three set up their “triumvirate.” The triple friendship, so far as we are able to judge, was a very genuine one on all sides. It is easy to point out that Aretino was useful to both Titian and Sansovino in the capacity of press agent. In a way, he was their press agent. He introduced Titian to Charles V. and put himself out of the way to procure commissions for his painter friend. We have seen that he was accused of taking a “rake-off” on these orders. But there was, in this three-sided friendship, something far deeper than this. Any one who doubts it has but to read Aretino’s letters to Titian. They are, by far, the sincerest he ever penned. In these, he is human, not pompous, and at least one of them, the one describing the view from his window in Venice, has a true plastic quality.25

In these letters, too, we glimpse a total absence of “side” between the men. Titian, like the women he painted, had a good, lusty appetite for life that almost rivaled Aretino’s own. We see him as a chap who liked a good bottle of wine, and pretty girl and a well-cooked thrush.26 Highest compliment of all, Titian often painted in the casa Aretina, the walls of which he decorated with his brush. And Aretino sought the painter’s opinion on everything from the character of his daughter Adria’s face to the color qualities of a landscape. He took a keen interest in his friend’s work, and his description of the “Annunciation,” now lost to us, is a bit of verbal coloring in the master’s own style.

46 No, there would seem to be some deeper explanation of this triumvirate than mere utility.

“We may, perhaps ask,” writes Hutton, “what can have been the attraction of such a man as Aretino for the noble Titian? This certainly: that Aretino, who respected nothing else, respected the arts. But to ask such a question is to misunderstand not only Aretino, but still more Titian himself. A thousand things bound them together. . . . for Aretino was undoubtedly one of the most living and the most rich personalities of his day: he could give Titian as much as he took from him . . . he knew everything about everybody, he enjoyed enormously everything about everybody. His intellect, too, was of a high order, he understood everything and perhaps everybody. In a sense he must have completed Titian . . . He must not only have completed, but have amused Titian. Titian painted him, and he certainly never had a more splendid or a richer subject. He painted him over and over again: in the portrait now in the Pitti Palace, then in that one in the Chigi Palace at Rome. He appears, too, as Pilate in the Ecce Homo, now in Vienna. They enjoyed life together intellectually, socially, and sensually.”

Pietro sat as a model to other painters, including Sebastiano del Piombo. Of the latter’s portrait of the Scourge, Vasari, in his Vita di Sebastiano, gives us the following description:

“He made a portrait also, at this time, of M. Pietro Aretino, and he did it in such a manner that, beyond obtaining a likeness, he achieved a stupendous bit of painting, through the five or six different shades of black which he obtained in the subject’s clothes: velvet, satin, sarcenet, damask and cloth, while over it all trailed the blackest of black beards, as living and life-like as possible. In his hand, he (Aretino) has, in this portrait, a branch of laurel and a tablet, on which is inscribed the name of Clement VII., with, in front of this, two masks, the one beautiful for its expression of virtue, the other for its appearance of vice. This painting 47Pietro gave to his native province, and his fellow citizens have placed it in the public hall of their Consiglio, thus honoring the memory of the genius who is their townsman and receiving no less honor from him.”

Aretino had a real flair for painting criticism. In his criticism, he is a pure realist, of the school of Titian. He has no suspicion that painting may have any other end. He would not have appreciated the Byzantines or other primitives. But in this, he was true to his age. It is only within the last century that something beyond realism has come into painting.

We should be grateful for one thing, and that is, that he was not a moralist in his criticism. De Sanctis finds fault with him on this score, but De Sanctis is wrong. There is no reason why the sight of a beautiful landscape should awake “any moral impression or any elevation of soul.” Aretino was not a nature-worshiper or a theorist of any sort. He was a pure sensualist in his reactions, and this it was that would have made him an excellent critic of the art of painting at any time from his own century to, let us say, the advent of Manet.

XXII. What, finally, is the literary significance, the literary importance of Pietro Aretino? This question has been answered, to a degree, at the outset of this paper; the answer is the justification of the present translation of Aretino’s representative works. But a few details remain to be sketched in.

In the first place, Pietro had few if any illusions with regard to his own literary quality. Just as he made capital of his lack of academic knowledge by turning on the pedants, so he sometimes bragged about the manner in which he “got by,” as we would say, in a literary way. In his sonnet, Togli il lauro, he tells us, quite frankly, “Non son poeta” — “I am not a poet” — and boasts that, while “neither a poet nor 48an emperor,” he yet has filched the laurels from Homer’s and from Caesar’s brow. In this sonnet also he asserts that his style has been his star, and that his reputation is due, not to fictionizing (per finger no) but to speaking the truth. We know that, while with unwise worldlings, he sometimes passed as a “learned man,” he himself had no such illusions; and we know, too, that he had a vast and slightly overweening respect for writers and men of letters; these latter were the only ones towards whom he seems to have cherished a salutary fear; a mere prince of the earth might be cast down by the thunder of the famed Aretino pen, but a minor pedant, through the employment of a similar weapon, might work his ruin.

What was this “Aretino style?” Aretino himself tells us that the phrase was coined through “the hairsplittings of pedants,” but he nourished the legend. Speaking of Aretino’s style, Hutton is worth quoting once more:

“Aretino’s page is full of life, hard to read, spontaneous and yet packed tight, worked upon and forged, full of queer instances and odd comparisons, glittering with wit and every sort of comic exaggeration. Such work does not exist outside his pages. His successor was Rabelais; but also Molière. He has the robust joy of the one, but something of the intellectual charm of the other.”

On the whole, Hutton finds him “the most significant and certainly the nearest to life of any Italian writer of his day.”

Aretino’s greatest contribution lies in the breath of realism which, in his revolt against pedantry and academicism, he brought to literature. As his British biographer remarks, his work has “the smell of the city” and “the odour of life.” It has all the futile turmoil, all the grandiloquent and sterile gestures of the metropolis.

But Aretino was not always, by any means, the realist and the modernist. As a matter of fact, by far the greater bulk of his prose work, if we take his pompously inflated letters 49(many of them)27 and his turgidly pietistic religious writings over against his Ragionamenti and his plays, is of the old, rather than of the newer school.

Among the severer of Aretino’s critics were the Frenchmen, Bayle and Montaigne. The former wrote:

“This man who is so satiric a poet, is prodigal of his praises to the last degree. We find the most pompous hyperboles and the most rampant flatteries in those letters which he wrote to kings and princes, to the generals of armies, to cardinals and to the other great ones of the world. To such an extent is this true that one sees in him the airs of an amateur, who is endeavoring to make himself feared or to extort favors, and all the baseness of an author who is demanding, very humbly, a morsel of bread. He draws upon the most touching expressions to depict his poverty; and he resorts even to the language of Canaan — makes use of devout phrases, that is — the better to excite compassion and to move to charity those persons who look to God for the recompense of their good works.”

Bayle then goes on to speak of the letters.

“We have,” he says, “six volumes of the letters, which are not worth a great deal (qui ne valent pas grand’ chose) . . . It is a dry work, and one very like an unfurnished house in a waste and sandy place.”

Mènage also has something to say on the subject.

“I have read,” he says, “all the letters of Pietro Aretino, without finding in them anything which I was able to make use of in any of my books. There is nothing but the style to be had from their reading.”

While Mènage praises the style, Montaigne condemns it as: “A fashion of speaking that is puffed and gushy, made up of ingenious points, in truth, but far-fetched and fantastic.” 50The author of the Essays, nevertheless, concedes Aretino a “certain eloquence.”

Commenting on such passages as these, Camerini makes what impresses one as being a very good criticism of Aretino’s critics.

“Bayle and Montaigne,” he says, “were not able to savor Aretino’s style, for the reason that the one was not looking for and the other did not grasp that species of erudition which is to be found in Aretino’s writings: an erudition based, not upon ancient standards or solemn facts, but upon a feeling for life, the same erudition that Macaulay was to transform into a splendid picture of the life of nations.”

And this, finally, is Aretino’s contribution: that, breaking the chains of a tradition that had become slavery, he as the first to declare war on the tribe of pedants, whom, like the poor, we have always with us. The fact that his revolt was motivated by purely selfish reasons means, simply, that it was a vital matter with him.

XXIII. And yet, Aretino’s direct influence, even upon his own literature, has been surprisingly small. He may have had “the root of all good literature in him, in his freedom from pedantry and closeness to life,”28 but it was slow in telling. His influence was greater in France than in Italy. It is generally conceded that Rabelais owes him a distinct debt, as does Molière, particularly in his Tartuffe. We do not know just how direct Shakespeare’s indirect debt was, but Aretino’s Marescalco would appear to have been the antecedent of Malvolio, though it cannot compare with the Elizabethan character in full-flavored richness. But the Venice of Pietro was the Venice of Shakespeare’s early plays, from whatever source the English poet got them.

Otherwise, Aretino’s influence in English has been almost entirely negligible. Sir Thomas Wyatt, in his Penitential 51Psalms, owes Aretino something; the early part of Sir Thomas’ work was translated, and the latter part imitated, from the Italian writer’s Sette Psalmi. One agrees with Hutton, however, that Sir Thomas is “very dull stuff.”

“We also find Thomas Nash referred to by Lodge as “the true English Aretino.” This seems to have been due, chiefly, to the fact that Nash, like Aretino, employed the vernacular for comic effect and was given to the coining of “boisterous” words from other languages. Aside from this, there is not much in common between the two.

“Here, it may be remarked that Shakespeare also shares these same qualities with Aretino, and it was only a few years later that he was to perform his own experiments in the use of the vernacular (also for “comic relief”).

“References to Aretino in the sixteenth century are fairly numerous. Hutton cites a number from Gabriel Harvey’s Marginalia, published under the editorship of G. C. Moore Smith at the Shakespeare Head Press, Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1913.

XXIV. As to translations, Aretino, as stated, has been practically untouched in English. Hutton says that the only translation into English of any of his works was The Crafty Whore, published in London in 1658 and taken partly from the Ragionamenti. This is not precisely correct.29 There is a translation of the Dialogues, made by I do not know whom, that is sold by the “bookleggers” at an exorbitant price. There is also a very lewd rendering of the Sonetti lussuriosi, by “an English poet,” rumored to be from the pen of Oscar Wilde, but which, those who have read it assure me, Oscar undoubtedly never saw. At the time I write this, I have not been able to get hold of either of these translations. That of the Dialogues is, probably, the 6-volume one published by Isodore Liseux in 1889.30

52 There would seem, then, to be room for a translation of at least the representative works, not for the smut-hounds, whose exclusive property Aretino has been in the past, but for the general cultivated reader, as well as for scholars whose working language happens to be English.

XXV. Aretino’s ultimate importance lies, not so much in what he wrote as in what he was, what he stood for. With Ariosto, Titian and Machiavelli, he is the cinquecento. But the others, even Cellini, invoked the past; Aretino insulted it — insulted it, wholesomely.

His archetypal enemy is Luther, from whose half-baked pedantry has sprung the unlovely phenomenon of Protestantism, which achieves a horrible culmination in the barren and ugly little frame meeting house of the American prairies. Luther appealed to the individual conscience and, and by so doing, set up a new tyranny, the tyranny of the illiterate. Aretino appealed only to — Pietro Aretino and his will; but in the course of the process, he set in motion the tyranny of the modern press.

Hutton calls Aretino “the negation of the Renaissance.” He was, if we take “Renaissance” in its narrower sense, that of the Revival of Classical Learning; but this, as any undergraduate student of history knows, was not the whole Renaissance; it was merely one side of the Renascence. Let us say that Aretino was, rather, the Renaissance on its last legs, the Renaissance gone to seed. He represents the well known phenomenon of decadence. There is no need to get out our Paul Bourget and our Havelock Ellis to tell us this. What a glorious red rag he would have been to that Philistine bull, Max Nordau!

The trouble is, the word decadence is too frequently garbled to imply something naughty, like the Fleurs du mal. 53Suppose we take it, for once, in its true technical sense,31 as a process of breaking up and breaking down — as an expansion, a pushing out and back of the limits of language, life and thought. In this process, the old becomes a manure-heap to fertilize the growth of the new. But from this rich and decomposing earth there sometimes spring strange, poisonous flowers, like the mandragora. Of such was Pietro Aretino, the nightshade of the sixteenth century.32

FOOTNOTES

1 See the quotation from this letter in De Sanctis’ essay.

2 See Miscellaneous Sonnets, III.

3 Ibid., IV.

4 This was “the house of Domenico Bolani, halfway between the Ca d’ Oro and the Rialto bridge opposite the Rialto in the best part of the Grand Canal.” (Hutton, op cit.)

5 See Appendix III.

6 See Appendix I.

7 See the quotation from this letter in De Sanctis.

8 See De Sanctis’ note to his essay.

9 See Appendix I.

10 See ibid.

11 See De Sanctis; also Camerini, Appendix I.

12 Ricatto, in Italian. See Appendix II.

13 See Appendix I.

14 See, in Vol II., Letters, XV.

15 Miscellaneous Sonnets, II.

16 Hutton’s phrase.

17 Standard-bearer.

18 About twenty, in all.

19 See Appendix I.

20 Apparent family relationships in Aretino’s case are almost always to be distrusted.

21 Sic.

22 See De Sanctis’ shudders.

23 See Miscellaneous Sonnets, IV.

24 “ . . . Non havessi lassato il tuo pennello, Se pyntor fustu un tempo, come io odo.” (Quoted by A. Luzio, Pietro Aretino nei primi suoi anni a Venezia. See Bibliography, Appendix IV.

25 See De Sanctis’ essays.

26 See Letters, XI.

27 On the other hand, compare his letters to his real cronies, such as the one to Girolamo Agnelli, thanking him for his gift of wine (Letters, VII.) or the one to the Count Manfredo di Collalto, acknowledging a gift of thrushes (Letters, XI.)

28 Hutton, op cit., p. 264.

29 The author catches himself up in a footnote, with a reference to Liseux.

30 I have, since, confirmed this.

31 See Bourget’s paper on Baudelaire in Essais sur la psychologie contemporaine. The passage will be found translated by Havelock Ellis in the latter’s introduction to John Howard’s English version of Huysmans’ A Rebours (Lieber and Lewis, 1922).

32 Alfred Semerau (Pietro Aretino, Ein Bild aus der Renaissance, Verlag Karl Konig, Wien und Leipzig) objects to Pietro’s being termed “den Caesar Borgia der Literature.”

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a Critical and Biographical Essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes, Volume I., Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1926; pp. 55-76.

[55]

THE DIALOGUES OF NANNA AND ANTONIA, held in Rome under a fig tree, composed by the divine Aretino for his pet monkey, Capricio, and for the correcton of the three states os women. It has been given to the printer in this month of April, MDXXXIIII, in the illustrious city of Venice.

[56]

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Picture of a man with long curly hair serenading, with a guitar, a lady in a lacy dress, with cherubs holding garlands in the background, by Marquis de Bayros.

[57] THE DIALOGUES

[I Ragionamenti]

of

PIETRO ARETINO

“The perverse and slightly theological mind of my master, Pietro Aretino.” from The Very Pleasant Memoirs of the Marquis de Bradomin

[58]

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59

Translator’s Note

Aretino’s DIALOGUES and his play, LA CORTIGIANA, are what Hutton calls “his terrible Medusa works.” In the RAGIONAMENTI, Aretino gives a vitriolic picture of the life of his time, a picture focusing on the life of women. After portraying the life of nuns, the life of married women and the life of courtezans, he comes to the bitterly satiric conclusion that the courtezan’s life is the best and most honorable one; and we hear his Antonia advising Nanna to make her daughter a prostitute. Read what Antonia has to say about “the best profession.” You will find there a surprisingly modern view of the subject, one which a Bernard Shaw might have had in mind when he wrote his “unpleasant”plays.

Obscene? Yes. But only as the life of the Cinquecento was obscene. Speaking of this, Aristide Raimondi in the introduction to his edition of the RAGIONAMENTI, says: “His men and women have but one obsession: Coitus. Beyond this, nothing. Absorbed in this, monks and nuns, women of every sort and men of every kind protract their lives in a crude solar reverberation which uncovers every nudity and ugliness. Surrounding this crown, the desert; and this is the manner in which Aretino interprets life.”

Nanna says it all when she declares: “The world is in ruins. Everything is going headlong. There is no faith, divine or earthly, no faith among the brides of Christ or those who are supposed to give faith to men; and I prefer my liberty. I am free, but I am loyal; I live with an open face. I sell openly my merchandise, while others pretend and simulate. Not I.”

Indeed, remarks Raimondi, Aretino “is a prostitute.” He has the prostitute’s instinct of social rebellion. “He throws mud not merely in the face of his contemporaries, but of a whole past. It would seem that he lifts up the world and places it against the 60the light of the sun. . . . All is obscene and libidinous, everything is for sale, everything is false, nothing is sacred. He himself makes merchandise of sacred things to gain money and writes romantic lives of the saints. And then? Like Nanna, like Pippa, he finds it convenient to stand above men and holds them with the reins of their own vices. . . . The discipline which Nanna gives to Pippa is the discipline which guided the life of Aretino.”

The Italian critic concludes by remarking that: “Here is a lust, here is an obscenity, unbridled but profoundly human, warm and full, which ought to render these DIALOGUES preferable to the hypocrisy of so many most grammatic and stupid modern narrators. . . . We well may think that this is a book which should be read by many university professors of literature who have not read it. . . . It is not an insult to our times to reprint a work like the RAGIONAMENTI , for there is no work better worth reprinting today. . . . Such is this book; all impetus and vulgarity, poetry and sarcasm; and it ‘speaks as life speaks’ with its own cruel logic and contradictions. For this reason, the modern Italian literati do not read it.” Nor, it might be added, do the literati of any country.

It is interesting to note that the DIALOGUES were written at the same time as Aretino’s hypocritical and designing religious works. Perhaps, we may be permitted to imagine that they were in some manner an exhaust from that other uncongenial employment. Might not this account for the excess of devilish glee to be found in them? The DIALOGUES constituted, Hutton says, the Feuilletons of Aretino’s journalistic activity. They are vividly documentated, so vividly one is tempted to believe there is some truth in the story about Aretino’s having been himself a friar. In any event, these DIALOGUES, in addition to having been the models for the obscene works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are good reading and good pioneer realism.

[61]

THE LIFE OF NUNS

— and the benediction was in the vulgate.

Here begins the First Day of the Capricious Dialogues of Aretino, in which Nanna, in Rome, under a fig tree, recounts to her little Antonia the Life of Nuns.

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A picture of a male nude with huge wings, advancing on a nude female with a long garland in her hand, by Marquis de Bayros.

63

THE NOVICE’S FEAST

If you had lovers before, what made a nun of you?

NANNA: Antonia, my dear, nuns, wives and wenches are like a way of the cross. As soon as you have mounted them, you stand a good bit thinking where you are going to put your foot; and it often happens that the demon drags your soul into the worst woe, as he did the blessed soul of my father that day, which made me a nun, although against the will of my mother of sainted memory, whom you may happen to know, or at any rate, what kind of woman she was.

ANTONIA: I knew her as in a dream, and I know (for I have heard tell) that she did miracles behind Benches, and I understand that your father, who was the sheriff’s mate, married her as the result of a love affair.

NANNA: Not to be reminded any more of my grief, how Rome was no longer Rome when widowed of so ripe a couple, and to come back home: it was on the first day of May that Mistress Marietta (for that was what my mother was called, although for fun she was commonly known as the beautiful Tina) and Sir Marbieraccio (for that was my father’s name), having assembled all our relations, uncles and grandfathers and cousins, male and female, with a flock of friends of both sexes, led me to the church of the monastery, dressed all in silk, girdled with ambergris, with a head-dress of gold, on which was the crown of virginity woven out of flowers, roses and violets, with my perfumed gloves and my velvet slippers; and although I remember by the calendar that it was only a short time ago I entered among 64the converted ones, those were pearls that I wore on my neck and clothes that I had on my back.

ANTONIA: They couldn’t have been anything else.

NANNA: And so, all dressed up like a young lady, I entered the church, where there were already thousands and thousands of people, who all turned toward me as soon as I appeared, some saying what a fine bride Mr. God was going to have, while some said what a sin it was to make a nun out of so fine a girl, and others blessed me, and others ate me up with their eyes, and others said, “She’ll give some of the brothers a good year.” But I thought no malice in such words, and I heard certain very bestial sighs, the sound of which I knew well enough, which came from the breast of one of my lovers, who wept all the time the offices were being said.

ANTONIA: If you had lovers before, what made a nun of you?

NANNA: Some silly ones wouldn’t have had them, but they have no passion, anyway. And now, I was given a seat up above, among the other women, and after a little, they began singing the mass, and I, as was proper, was on my knees between my mother, Tina, and my aunt, Ciampolina, and a clerk was playing a laldettal on the organ; and after the mass, when my nun’s clothes, which were on the altar, had been blessed, the priest who had said the Epistle and the one who had said the Gospel raised me up and made me kneel again on the predella of the great altar. Then the one who had said the mass gave me the holy water, and after he had sung with the other priests the te deum laudamus and perhaps a hundred verses of the psalms, they divested me of my worldliness and clothed me in the spiritual habit, and the people, stepping on one another’s heels, made a noise like that in St. Peter’s or St. John’s, when some young woman, from madness, desperation or malice, lets herself be put behind walls, as I did once.

65 ANTONIA: Yes, yes, I can see you, surrounded by that crowd.

NANNA: When the ceremonies were over, and the incense had been given me, with the benedicamus and the oremus and the allelua, a door opened, making the same creaking sound that the poor boxes do; and then, I was raised to my feet and led to the door, where twenty sisters with the Abbess were waiting for me, and as soon as I saw her, I made her a reverence, and she, kissing me on the forehead, said something, I don’t know what, to my father, to my mother and to my relatives, who were all crying as though their hearts would break, and no sooner did the door close than I heard an oimè that made everybody start.

ANTONIA: And where did the oimè come from?

NANNA: From my poor little lover, who the very next day became a wooden-shoe brother or a hermit in sackcloth, if the truth must be told.

ANTONIA: Poor wretch.

NANNA: And then, as the door closed, which was so quick that it did not even give me time to say good-by to my people, I thought for sure that I was being buried alive in a sepulcher, and I thought I saw dead women in the disciplines and ember weeks; and I no longer wept for my parents, but for myself. And I walked with my eyes fixed on the ground and my heart on what my fate was going to be, until we reached the refectory, where a crowd of sisters came running up to embrace me, and, calling me sister from the start, they made me raise my face a little, and when I saw some clear, fresh, rosy countenances, I was greatly encouraged, and looking about me with more security, I said to myself: Certainly, the devils can’t be so ugly as they are painted; and as I stood there, I saw a throng of priests and brothers, with a few seculars mixed in, all quite young, and the most polished and the most merry that I had 66ever seen, and as each one took his friend by the hand, they looked like the angels that guide the celestial balls.

ANTONIA: Don’t put your mouth in the heavens.

NANNA: They looked like enamoured swains sporting with their nymphs.

ANTONIA: That’s a better comparison; go on.

NANNA: And taking them by the hands, they gave them the sweetest little kisses in the world and strove to see who could give the most honied ones.

ANTONIA: And who gave the most sugared ones, in your judgment?

NANNA: The brothers, undoubtedly.

ANTONIA: And for what reason?

NANNA: For the reason set forth in the legend of the whore of Venice.

ANTONIA: And then?

NANNA: And then, each one sat down at one of the nicest tables it seemed to me I had ever seen. In the handsomest place was my lady, the Abbess, with, at her left hand, Master Abbot; behind the Abbess was the Treasuress and, by her side, the Bachelor of Arts; opposite them sat the Sacristan and, beside her, the Master of Novices and a laymen and, so on, down to the foot, I don’t know how many clerks and as many again brothers. I was seated between the preacher and the confessor of the monastery; and then the victuals came on, and of such sort that, I must say, the Pope himself never had the like to eat. From the first onset, the morsels flew so fast that it appeared the law of Silence, written up where the fathers have their quarters, was being violated by everybody, for tongues and mouths both made the same murmur that silk worms do when they prolong their meal by devouring the leaves of those trees under that shadow of which that poor lad of a Pyramus and that poor lass of a Thisbe — may God 67keep them company there, as he kept them company here — used to amuse themselves.

ANTONIA: The leaves of the white mulberry, you mean.

NANNA: Ha, ha, ha.

ANTONIA: What are you laughing at?

NANNA: I am laughing at the thought of a poltroon of a brother, God forgive me. I can see him, as, grinding away with two millstones and his cheeks puffed out like a trumpet-player, he puts his mouth to a flask and swills it down.

ANTONIA: May the Lord choke him.

NANNA: And then, beginning to get their fill, they commenced to chatter, and it seemed to me, in the middle of the meal, like being in the market place of Navona and hearing, on this side and that, the noise of buying and selling which this one and that one makes with this and that Jew; being satisfied now, they proceeded to divide up, each one taking another, until the seemed like swallows billing with swallows. I could not tell you the laughter that arose over the passing of a hind of capon, nor would it be possible to tell you the disputes which sprang up over everything.

ANTONIA: What baseness.

NANNA: I wanted to puke when I saw one sister chew of mouthful of food and convey it with her own mouth to that of her friend.

ANTONIA: The rascals.

NANNA: Then, perceiving that the pleasure of eating had been converted into that distaste which another feels when he has done a certain thing, they began imitating the Germans with their toasts: and the General, taking a great flowing beaker, invited the Abbess to do likewise and lifted it up like a false sacrament; and now, the eyes of all were glittering with too much beer, like the dolls that one sees in a show, and, veiled with wine, like breath on a diamond, they began to shut, and the 68crowd, falling sleepily over the food, started making a bed of the table. Or would have done so if, up at the top of the board, had not come a fine lad with a basket in his hand, covered with one of the whitest and gauziest linen cloths that I can remember ever having seen. Was it snow? or frost? or milk? It surpassed in whiteness the moon in mid-month.

ANTONIA: What did he do with the basket, and what was in it?

NANNA: Wait a while. The lad, with a reverence to the Spaniardess from Naples, said: “Greetings to your ladyships;” and then, he added: “A servant of this fine brigade brings you the fruits of the earthly paradise.” And uncovering his gift, he placed it on the table, and at once, there was a clap like thunder, as the whole company burst into laughter, just as the little family which has seen the eyes of its father close forever bursts into weeping.

ANTONIA: Which is right and natural; see that you do the same.

NANNA: No sooner were the paradisical fruits visible than the hands of this one and that one began conversing with the thighs, breasts, cheeks and bagpipes of everybody else; and with the same distress with which rogues’ fingers converse with the pockets of dunces who allow their purses to be picked, they flung themselves on these fruits as does the crown on the candles which are flung down from the loggia on Wax-Chandleress’ Day.

ANTONIA: What were the fruits, tell me.

NANNA: They were those glass fruits which are made by Murano of Venice, in the likeness of a K, except that they have two little bells which would be an honor to any big cymbal.

ANTONIA: Ah, ha, now I have you by the beak; I’ve got you.

69 NANNA: And she was not merely fortunate, but blessed, who came by the thickest and broadest one; and none could keep from kissing her own, as she remarked: “These overcome the temptations of the flesh.”

ANTONIA: May the devil not tramp out the seed.

NANNA: I, who played the modest country girl, stealing a few peeps at the fruit, was like a cunning cat which, with its eyes, watches the kitchen-maid and, with its claws, tries to get the meat which she, through carelessness, has left unguarded. And if it had not been that all the company about me had taken a couple and given me one, I, not to appear a weakling, would have taken my own. To make matters short, the Abbess, laughing and jesting, rose to her feet, and every one else did likewise; and the benediction, which she pronounced at table, was in the vulgate.

70

CONVENT SPORTS

Are these old bones going to sleep alone?

NANNA: We saw the cook had forgotten and left her door half-way open, and so we took a peek and saw her sporting with a Pilgrim, who, having come (I judge) to ask for alms to take him on his way to St. Jacob of Galicia, had gone inside to collect. His slave’s frock was spread out on top the cupboard, and his staff, on which was a tablet with a miracle, was leaning against the wall, and his wallet, filled with odds and ends, was giving great sport to a cat, to which the lovers, joyously occupied, paid no heed, while a cask, fallen upside down, was spilling wine over everything. We did not deign to lose any time in so sordid an affair as this but went on to the chink of my lady, the Butleress, who, having given up hope of her Parson’s coming, had fallen into such a fury that she was now tying a rope to a crossbeam and, leaping up on a trestle, she fastened the cord about her neck and ventured to kick the support from under her. And she had just opened her mouth to say to the Parson, “I forgive you,” when he came to the door, pushed it open and came in and, seeing the light of his life about to be snuffed out, threw himself on her, took her in his arms and said: “What things are these? And so, dear heart, you think I am a faithless one? And where is that divine prudence of yours? Where is it, I ask you?” At these sweet words, she lifted up her head as those who have fainted do when cold water is dashed in their faces, and she became herself again as frozen limbs do in the heat of a fire. 71And the Parson, removing the rope and the trestle, placed her on the bed; and she, giving him a kiss, said slowly: “My prayers have been heard, and I want you to place a wax candle for me in front of the image of San Gimignano, with an inscription, saying, “She prayed to him and was freed’. ” And by saying this, she had the pious Parson well hooked on the prongs of her fork. Groping our way from these two, who did things out of duty, we came upon the mistress of novices in the act of drawing from under the bed a porter filthier than a mountain of rags; and she said to him, “Come out, my Trojan Hector, my bedroom Orlando, listen to your humble servant, and forgive me for the inconvenience I have caused you, for I had to do it” . . . And the big rascal, raising his breech-straps, replied with a sign from his member, which she, having no manual at hand to decipher his code, proceeded to interpret according to her fancy; and then the big clown, setting about to hunt the hare in the hedge, made her see a thousand glow-worms and bit her lips with his wolf’s teeth so charmingly that the tears came to her eyes; whereupon we, not caring to see the strawberry going into the bear’s mouth, went away.

ANTONIA: Where did you go?

NANNA: To a crack, where we saw a sister who appeared to be the mother of the discipline, the aunt of the Bible and the mother-in-law of the Old Testament, so far as I could get a good look at her. On her head, she had twenty hairs, like those on a bald wench, all of them full of nits, and perhaps a hundred wrinkles in her forehead; her eyebrow were thick and gray, and her eyes were oozing some yellow stuff.

ANTONIA: You must have had good sight, if you could see even the nits from so far away as that.

NANNA: Wait for me. She was slobbering, and her mouth and nose were snotty, and her jaws were like a bony 72comb with two lousy teeth. Her lips were dry and her chin sharp, like the head of a Genoese. From her chin, for ornament, a few hairs sprouted out, like those of a lion, but prickly, I thought, as thorns. Her breasts were like the purse of a man who has no grain and were attached to her bosom by two cords. Her body (mercy on us) all scrupulous, was drawn backward and bent forward. And it’s the truth I’m telling you, she had around her a garland of cabbage leaves which looked as though they had stood for a month on the head of a scurvy wretch.

ANTONIA: Just as Saint Nofrio wore a pothouse stave around his shame.

NANNA: So much the better. Her thighs were straws covered with dried parchment, and her knees trembled so that it was all she could do to keep from falling every time she walked. I will leave you to imagine her ankles, her arms, her feet. And I’m telling you, the claws on her hands were as long as the one Roffiano had on his little finger, but hers were full of malice and manure. Them, bending over the earth with a coal, she drew stars, moons, squares, circles, letters and a thousand other thingmajigs; and all the time she was doing this, she kept calling the demons by a hundred names which the devils themselves would not be able to remember. The, whirling around three times about these contraptions which she had drawn, she leaped sky-high, muttering all the time to herself. Then she took a figure of fresh wax into which a hundred needles had been stuck (if you have ever seen the mandrake, you know what it looked like), and placing this as near the fire as she could stand, she turned it over and over, as gardeners and fig-eaters do, in such a way that it would cook and not burn. And she kept repeating these words:

Fire burn, fire waste The cruel one who flees in haste.

73 And whirling it around with more fury than would support a lunatic asylum, she went on:

May this great itching that I feel Move my god of love to kneel.

And as the image began to get very hot, she muttered, with her face fixed on the ground:

May the Demon be my joy, Come or die, my pretty boy.

At the end of these verses, some one came beating on the door, out of breath, like one whose feet (when he has done damage in the kitchen) have saved him from a mountain of blows on the back. Then she, putting away quickly the instruments of incantation, opened the door.

ANTONIA: Naked as she was?

NANNA: Naked as she was, and the poor man, exhausted by her necromancy, as if he was famished with hunger, threw his arms around her neck and kissed her, with as much zest as if she had been the Rose and the Rainbow, and praised her beauty, as those do who make sonnets to their Tullias. And the cursed phantom, shaking all over and leaping for joy, said to him, “Are these old bones going to sleep alone?”

74

STORY OF A BITCH

Which commences with a laugh and ends in weeping.

We heard a brother, a most excellent brigand and a big greasy fellow, telling a fable to I don’t know how many sisters and priests and seculars, who, having played at dice and cards all night and ended by becoming tipsy, had come in to gossip and jest with the friar, who was telling them a story, which I am going to tell you, a story which commences with a laugh and ends in weeping, all on account of a big stallion of a hound. Having got an audience, the friar began:

Two days ago, as I was passing through the square, I stopped to watch a little bitch in heat, with two dozen whelps at her heels, attracted by the odor of her droppings, which were as round and rosy as burnt coral. They ran along smelling her all the way, now this one and now that one, and this silly sight had collected a great troop of lads, who were watching her as she would leap, now over this one, dropping a couple of handfuls, and now over this other, dropping a couple more. I, at the sight of such sport as this, had just put on a proper friar’s face, when there suddenly appeared on the scene a dog from a hayrick who seemed to be the lieutenant of all the butchers in the world, and seizing one of the other dogs, he threw him to the earth, furiously, and then, leaving him, downed another, nor did he leave a whole skin on their backs. At this, some of them flew this way and some that, and the big dog, arching up his back, ruffling his hair as a pig does its bristles, squinting his eyes, gnashing his teeth, snarling and foaming at the mouth, stood looking at the unlucky little bitch. After sniffing the pretty thing for a moment, he gave her two shoves which made her howl like 75a big dog, but she slipped out from under him and ran away. And the whelps, which had been standing guard, taking after her, the big one followed in a rage. The little once, spying a crack in a closed door, suddenly leaped inside, and the whelps with her. Whereupon, the poltroon of a hound squatted down outside, for the truth is, he was so stupid he did not see where the others had gone, and so, he stayed there, biting at the door, pawing the earth and howling like a lion with the fever. After he had been there a good bit, one of the poor things came out, and the treacherous hound, seizing it, took off an ear, and when a second one appeared, he did worse to it. One by one, he punished them as they came forth and made them clear the country as villains clear at the coming of the soldiery. Finally, the young bitch came out, and seizing her by the windpipe, he fixed his teeth in her throat, while the lads and the people who had gathered for this dog festival were sent scattering, and cries went up to heaven.

Here ends the First Day of the Capricious Dialogues of Aretino.

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a Critical and Biographical Essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes, Volume I., Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1926; pp. 77-94.

[77]

THE LIFE OF MARRIED WOMEN

She, having a wish to joust with the lances of the night —

The Second Day of the Capricious Dialogues of Aretino, in which Nanna recounts to Antonia the Life of Married Women.

[78]

Picture in profile of a full length nude woman walking behind a nude male walking before two willow trees, by Marquis de Bayros.

79

THE HERMIT

And they even made a sermon about her.

NANNA: There was a matron of forty years who in our town had the reputation of great wealth. She came of most worthy family and was the wife of a doctor who did miracles with his learning, which he got out of great books. Now, this one that I am telling you about always went dressed in gray, and the morning that she had not heard five or six masses, she did not rest that day. She was a string of ave-marias, a claw-saint and a whipchurch, and she always fasted on Fridays for all the masses, except in March, and at the mass she would make the responses like a clerk, singing the vespers as the brothers do; and it was said that she even went so far as to wear an iron girdle about her carnal parts.

ANTONIA: For that I blame Santa Verdiana.

NANNA: This one performed a hundred times more abstinences than she, and she wore nothing but clogs, and on the eve of the feast of San Francesco de la Vernia and that of the Resurrected she would eat only so much bread as you could hold in your fist, drinking nothing but a little pure water, and she would remain till the middle of the night in prayer, and what little she slept was on a bed of nettles.

ANTONIA: Without a nightgown?

NANNA: I cannot tell you. Now, it happened that a certain hermit was doing cut-throat penances in a retreat about a mile, or perhaps two, from the town, and he would come among us every day begging some little thing by which to live, and he never returned to his hermitage empty-handed, for the sackcloth that covered him, that 80skinny face of his, the beard that reached to his girdle, his tangled mane of hair and the rock which he always carried in his hand, in accordance with the practice of St. Jerome, moved the whole community to piety. To this venerable hermit, the doctor’s wife, whose husband was prospering by the ills of many in the city, turned her attention, and she did him great charity. She often went to his hermitage, certainly a devout spot and a delightful one, and from it she would bring back a few sour pickles in the belief that she was tasting sweet ones.

ANTONIA: What sort of place was the hermitage?

NANNA: It stood on a little mountain of rising ground, and it bore the name of Calvary. In the center stood a cross with three big wooden spikes, which greatly frightened the common wenches, and this cross had on its neck a crown of thorns and on each arm two hanging lashes made of knotted cord, and at the bottom was a death’s head, and on one side, fastened into the earth, was a sponge above a reed, and on the other sides a piece of iron in the form of a rusty javelin, on the top of which was an old partisan’s pike. Where the mountain sloped downward was a little garden, around which rosebushes made a low wall, with a postern gate made of the interwoven withes of briny shrubs; this gate had a wooden key of its own, and in the whole plot one would not have been able to find a single stone, so clean did the Hermit keep the place. The squares of the garden were separated by pretty little paths, and they were full of various herbs, on this side crisp lettuces and saltworts, on the other side fresh greens and tender, and some young garlic such as the whole compass could not raise or bear, some of the finest cabbages in the world, cap-mint, mint, anet, sweet marjoram; and the parsley, too, had its place in the little garden, in the middle of which an almond tree, one of those large ones without beards, cast its shade. Through a few little 81rivulets flowed clear water, which, issuing from a vein among the sprightly stones at the foot of the mountain, gushed forth among the greenery; and all the time that the Hermit stole for his devotions, they spent in nourishing the little garden. Not far away stood the chapel with its steeple and two small bells, and leaning against the wall of the chapel stood the hut where the Hermit took his repose. Into this little paradise came the doctor’s wife, as I have told you, and to keep the body from being envious of the soul, this pair one fine day, having retired into the hut on account of the sun, which gave them great discomfort, proceeded, I do not know how, to work their evil ends; and as they did so, a villager (their biting tongues are the worst of all), in looking for his ass’ he-colt which had wandered from its mother, and passing (quite by accident) the hut, saw the holy couple joined together; running back to the town, he signaled the people with a few strokes on the bell, and the populace hearing him, the most of them abandoned their tasks and gathered at the church, no fewer women among them than men; and there they found the villager, who told the priest how the Hermit was working miracles. Whereupon the priest, putting on his holy frock, with the stole about his neck and the book in his hand, and with no less than fifty persons following him, arrived in the midst of a credo at the hut, where they found these two heavenly slaves, the man-servant and the maid-servant, sleeping like ditch diggers. The Hermit, snoring, held his whip to the back of the devoted lady who loved the rope; whereupon the crowd, at first view, remained silent, as a good woman does when she sees a horse and a mare, and then they broke into a laugh at seeing their ladies come to such as this, and the laugh woke the two dormice. They roused from their sleep. As they did so, the priest, seeing them joined together, cried out in a thunderous voice: Et 82incarnatus est.

ANTONIA: I would not have believed you could go one better to the whorishness of nuns, but I see I was wrong. But tell me, the Hermit and that old Hypocrite, didn’t they die?

NANNA: Die? He drew his file out of the socket, rose to his feet, and, giving a couple pulls at the twined bryony that served him as a girdle, said: “Gentlemen, read the lives of the Holy Fathers, and then condemn me to the flames, or whatever seems good to you. The devil, in my person, has sinned, and not the body, for it would be treason to do harm to it.” And now, do you want me to tell you what happened? The big rogue, who had been a soldier, an assassin and a ruffian, and, out of desperation, had become a hermit, babbled so much that, as he stood before me, I, who know where the devil keeps his tail, and the priest, who had been advised by hearing the confession of the gentle lady, we each believed him; for I will swear by that bryony girdle of his that the spirits that tempt hermits are called succumbli and incumui.1 And this half-nun, who all the while the sackcloth Hermit was snipping away, had time to be thinking up mischief, now began to writhe, puff out her throat and choke, roll her eyes, howl and beat herself in a manner that was frightful to see, whereupon the Hermit said: “Behold, the evil spirit is upon the wretched one;” and when the mayor of the town wanted to take her, she commenced to bite and scream terribly. Finally, ten villagers led her to the church, and there they made her touch the two knuckle-bones which are said to be those of the holy innocents, and which are kept in a rude tabernacle of boughs and adored as relics; and when she had touched these for the third time, she became herself once more. And this ends the story of the doctor’s wife, who remained the little saint of the city, and they even made a sermon about her.

FOOTNOTES

1 Nanna’s Malapropisms

83

THE LADY WHO WALKED IN HER SLEEP

My Husband, it is this cursed nature of mine.

NANNA: A very rich old man, and a very miserable old ass, had a wife of seventeen years, who was the finest little piece of flesh that I think I ever saw, with a grace so gracious that whatever she said and whatever she did was full of gentleness, and her little gestures were so lady-like and her manners were so lofty and all her little actions were so charming that they would have thrown any one into spasms of love; place a lute in her hand, and you would have sworn that she was the mistress of sweet sound; give her a sword, and she was a lady-captain; to see her dance, she was a young deer, and to hear her sing, she was a little angel, and what a wonder it was to see her sporting about simply cannot be told. Her bright little eyes, filled with I do now know what fire, aroused a feeling of love in every one, and when she ate, it seemed that she was gilding her food, and when she drank, it was as though she were giving savour to the wine; she was so sharp in her movements, and so generous, and always spoke with so much majesty and wisdom that the duchess, by comparison, would have appeared a very pish-posh. And she would dress herself out in clothes, made in certain fashions of her own, which were the object of much regard. Sometimes, she was to be seen with her hair in a coif, sometimes with it done in a braid on the top of her head, with a little bang, which, dangling over one eye, made her blink; and thus did God with one stroke slay men with love and the women with envy. Her own native manners 84taught her all to well how to make slaves of her lovers, who were lost utterly when they beheld the trembling of her bosom, over which nature had sprinkled drops of vermilion-hued roses. She would often put out her hand in front of her, as if she desired to find some fault with it, and by so doing, she would bring a comparison between the lustre of her rings and that of her own eyes, all of which tended to dazzle the sight of the one who was ogling most intently the hand which she pretended to be regarding; she scarcely seemed to touch earth when she walked, but danced along with her eyes; and when she would take the holy water and sprinkle it over her head, she would genuflect with such a reverence that it seemed it must by the way they did it in paradise. And with all her prettinesses and all her virtues and all her graces, her father, of course, the big ox, had had to go and marry her to an old man of sixty — at least, being unwilling that any one should call him old, he confessed to sixty.

This husband of hers was called the Count, from some worthless old castle or other with two chimneys and a crumbling moat, and by virtue of certain silly old volumes, heavy with sheepskin, which had been given him, so folks said, by the emperor. Oh, he was able to lord it over the field with those young snipes who liked to fill their hide full of holes, and who came there almost every month to tourney. You would have said that he was the potta da Modona to see the way these young loafers, who had come to make fools of themselves in one way or another, doffed their hats to him. And on the day of the joustings, he would show himself in truly pontifical garb, clad in an old-fashioned coat of mail with gilded egrets, and with a wealth of violet-covered velvet above and below — not the peely kind, for velvet like that never peels — with a trencher’s cap on his head and with a cape that was a veritable 85rose-garden, lined in green, with a collar of brocaded silver, like those which scholars used to wear on certain of their cloaks, while in his hand was a sword, very sharp, with a hilt in brass and the whole in an antique scabbard. He would first give a couple of turns up and down the stockade on foot, with a score of barefoot followers, armed with crossbows and bailiff’s gear, at his heels, a part of them being his own servants, the rest having been borrowed for the occasion. And then, he would mount a speckled mare that could not have been made to take a hurdle by a hundred pricks of the spur, much less one, and which gave out entirely just as the tourney was beginning. On these days, he always kept his wife under lock and key; on other days, a watch-dog of a gardener sniffed her tail to the church, to the feste and everywhere she went. And afterwards, in bed, he would tell her of the deeds of valor he had done when he was a soldier, and when he came to tell her of the battle in which he was made a prisoner, he would imitate the bombardment for her with his mouth, throwing himself all over the bed like a mad-man. She, poor child, having a wish to joust with the lances of the night, was on the verge of despair; and so, sometimes, she would make him get down on the floor on all fours and, fixing a girdle in his mouth in the manner of a bridle, she would leap on his back, digging her heels into his sides and treating him the same way he treated his horse. And then, being in so melancholy a way of life, she thought up a gallant piece of malice.

NANNA: I should like to know what it was.

ANTONIA: She began talking in her sleep at night, speaking in disconnected words, which at first caused the old dotard to cackle loudly, but when she came to double up her little fist and give him a swat in the eye, so that he had to poultice it with oil of rose-water, he reproved her for it greatly. But she pretended not to remember 86what she had done or said, and in addition, she began leaving her bed, opening windows and trunks, and sometimes, she even went so far as to dress herself, whereupon the old fool would run after her, shaking all over and calling after her in a loud voice; and on one occasion it happened that, in his efforts to follow her out the door of a room, setting foot to the top of a stair which he thought led to the ground, he fell all the way down and broke himself all over, fracturing a leg and raising such an uproar that the family, on hearing his cries, which had aroused the neighborhood, came running to him and picked him up — though it would have served him right, if he had never got up. And she, pretending she had been awakened by her husband’s cries, on hearing what had happened, fell to weeping and grieved greatly, cursing the vice of sleepwalking; and night as it was, she straightway sent for the doctor to put the bones back in place.

ANTONIA: What was her object in pretending to be dreaming?

NANNA: Just to get him to fall, as he did fall, so that, breaking his bones, he wouldn’t be able to follow her. And at this, the big baby, in his jealousy, was more miserable than ever, but so vain, with his broken heart, that he had ten big strapping grooms lodged in a large hall on the ground-floor. The oldest of them was not more than twenty-four, and a misfit lot they were: the one that had a good cap had socks full of holes, and the one that had good socks had a worse doublet, and the one with a good doublet had a disastrous cloak, and the one with a good cloak had a ragged shirt; and they lived on bread and capers.

ANTONIA: Why did the rogues put up with it?

NANNA: Because of the liberty he gave them. And now, Antonia dear, this lady of ours had given a look at this company; and since she had the old blockhead safe in 87bed, with his thigh between a pair of splints, she resumed her dreaming, and, throwing her arms about and crying always “O la! O la!,” she would jump out of bed and, opening the door, she would leave him to strangle with calling for her. And then, she would go to the grooms who, around a lamp that was always about to sputter out, were gambling away a few farthings which they had stolen from their master in the purchase of trifles. Giving them goodnight, she would put out the light, and drawing upon her the first that came to hand, she would commence to sport with him, and in three hours which she spent with them, she would try them all ten, twice for each one; and returning up above, freed of the humors which had caused her to go rambling about, she would say: “My husband, it is this cursed nature of mine which, like a witch, forces me to go prowling about the house all night.”

88

THE PRISONER

Let us set up our tabernacle here.

NANNA: And now, we come to a lady who was taken with a great desire for a prisoner. The Mayor, not caring to hang himself, had nothing to do but give this fine fellow to the gallows. This latter, in his twentieth year, upon the death of his father, had been left heir to fourteen thousand ducats, half in cash and the rest in possessions, including the furnishings of what was really a palace, rather than a house. And in the course of three years, he had eaten, gambled and bawdied away all his denarii and, disposing of his farms, in three years more he had done away with the rest. Not being able to sell one of his houses, because his father’s will forbade it, he had torn it down and sold the stones; and then, he started doing away with the furniture, now pawning a sheet, now selling a table-cloth and, finally, first one bed and then the other. It was one thing today and tomorrow something else, until he was on the verge of ruin; and then, having thrown away his house for nothing, he was left without a coat to his back. And so, he had given himself to all the crimes which a man not merely might commit, but might imagine: to perjury, homicide, larceny, robbery, cards and false dice:2 to treasons, deceits knaveries and assassinations. He had been in various prisons, for four and five years at a time, and in these he had had more rope than dinners. He had ended up, if I am to tell you the truth, by spitting in the face of a certain good Master.

89 ANTONIA: The ribald traitor.

NANNA: He was so ribald that being conceived by his mother was the least of the sins he ever committed. And being a beggar so far as everything else was concerned, he was as rich as could be in syphilis; indeed, he had enough to share with a thousand of his fellows, and he still would have had a world of it left for himself. While this cut-throat was in prison, a doctor, hired by the community to care for the poor prisoners, while treating the left of one who was eaten up with cancer, remarked: “I have cured nature, against all the rules of nature, in that fellow there, and don’t you think I shall be able to cure your leg?” The fame of this unnatural specimen came to the ears of the lady I was telling you of, and when she heard of this wicked wretch who was lying there in prison, she burned more than, so ‘’tis said, did the Queen for the bull; and as there was no manner or means by which she could carry out her fantasy, she thought of committing a crime, so she might be placed in the same prison with this spit-on-the-cross. And so, when Easter time came, she went to communion without confessing herself, and being taken in the act, she insisted she had done no wrong. When the thing had come for judgment to the mayor, he caused her to be taken and bound with a cord; and then, she confessed that the cause of her fall had been the unbridled desire she had for the root of the fellow, whose eyes were so turned into his head and so small he could scarcely see out of them, while his nose was large and flattened into his face, with a deep trench across it, with two of Job’s boils so big they looked like slipper-buckles. He was ragged, stinking, filthy and all covered with lice of every sort. And to this fellow, the Mayor wisely gave the wench, saying: “Let him be the penance for your sin per infinita seculorum.” But she, upon being confined for life, was as joyful as one who 90had just gained his liberty. And ’tis said that she said, as she made proof of that big roasting-ear: “Let us set up our tabernacle here.”

ANTONIA: How big was that roasting ear that you are telling me about? Was it as big as that of a young ass?

NANNA: Bigger.

ANTONIA: And then what happened?

NANNA: While she was contented in the jail, the land became greatly annoyed with the Mayor, so that the latter was forced, loving justice, to condemn to the gallows the aforesaid malefactor; and having given him his ten days time . . . The lust-filled wench had no sooner gone to prison than the news, spreading through the city, created much talk among the populace, the artisans, and, above all, the ladies. Nothing else was to be heard in the streets, at the windows or on the terraces but hilarious gossipings and smutty jokes about her; and wherever six of these gossips could gather about a pillar of holy water, they would stand there for two hours chattering. Among the other groups, there was one in my neighborhood, and there was also a certain respectable country woman who, as soon as she had heard it, seeing the crowd hanging from a rock to listen, said: “Since we are women, an act of ribaldry like this is an insult to us all. We ought to go right away to the palace and drag her out of the prison with fire, and ride her on a cart and tear her with redhot pincers. We ought to stone her, flay her alive and crucify her.” And with these words, all puffed up like a toad, she went her way home, as though all the honor of the world rested on her shoulders.

ANTONIA: What a beast.

NANNA: Now when the ten days time had been given the wretch, this wouldn’t-spit-in-church that I am telling you of heard about it — she who wanted to run to the prison and drag the other one out with fire. And now 91she, smitten with sudden compassion, began to think to herself what a great loss the land was going to suffer in losing its big cannon, the fame of which alone, to say nothing of the experience, drew the poorly satisfied as a lodestone does a needle or a straw. And then it was, she fell into a frenzy to enjoy it — the old spurn-sacrament, speaking with all reverence — and so it was, she came to think up the most devilishly subtle piece of malice that was ever heard of.

ANTONIA: What was it she thought of, if God will forgive you for speaking of such things?

NANNA: Well, she had an infirm husband at home, who was out of bed for two hours at a time and flat on his back for two days; and sometimes, he had such constrictions of the heart that it seemed he would pass away in a fit of choking. And then it was, she heard that one of those sweep-brothers (may the devil take them) might save one who was going to justice by meeting him on his way to the gallows and saying: “This is my husband.”

ANTONIA: Why, I never heard of such a thing.

NANNA: And so, she came to think of putting her husband out of the way and then, with the authority of the law, taking the condemned wretch for a spouse. And while she was thinking of this, her poor unfortunate husband, crying “Oimè, oimè,” closing his eyes, clenching his fist and doubling up his legs, was about to pass on; whereupon she, who was like a cart of tunney fish, being wider than she was long, put a cushion on his mouth and sat upon it; and with no other assistance, she caused his soul to go to the place where the holy bread comes from.

ANTONIA: Oh, oh, oh.

NANNA: And then, raising a great hue and cry, and tearing her hair, she roused all the neighbors who, knowing the indisposition of the poor man, did not doubt that 92he had choked to death in one of his fits. Having buried him honorably enough, for she was decently rich, this mad old bitch, it’s the truth I’m telling you, straightway betook herself to a brothel. Having, neither on her own side nor her husband’s, any relative that was worth two denarii, there was no one to hinder her; and she gave folks to believe that she had been driven to madness by the death of her husband. And while she was there, the morning came of the day on which justice was to be done, and the land was emptied of men, and of women as well, and all assembled in the house of the Mayor to hear sentence of death pronounced on the one who had merited a thousand deaths. But the latter merely laughed, when he heard the Cavaliere saying: “It is pleasing to God and to his magnificence, the Mayor . . . what have you to say before you die?” And taken out of the prison and led into the public place, with his feet in stocks and his hands manacled, he was brought to a pile of straw, where he stood between two comforters, making no gruff face at all at the painted Bible which they handed him to kiss. As if it was no affair of his whatever, he babbled of a thousand foolish things, and every one who came up to him he called by name. When morning had passed, the great bell of the Commune, tolling slowly, slow, gave the signal for the justice that was to be done; and when the ecclesiastical standards had been brought out, and the sentence of condemnation had been read, which lasted till evening, the malefactor with the most resounding voice came down the way with a rope about his neck and a tinsel crown upon his head, signifying that he was the King of Ribaldries. And to the sound of the trumpet, in the middle of a throng of bailiffs, with the whole populace at his heels, the condemned man passed the crowded benches and the roofs and windows, filled with women and children. 93And so they came to the place where the she-wolf stood, waiting with beating heart, to throw herself on the neck of the big glutton, with the same madness with which one ridden with fever hurls himself on a pail of fresh water. Without any mistake, she made her way furiously to the front, forcing an opening through the crowd with her loud cries, tearing her hair and beating her palms. And throwing herself on him, she said: “I am your wife.” Seeing that justice had been prevented, the crowd stepped all over one another’s heels and raised such an uproar that it seemed all the bells in the world, by a single stroke, were calling to fire, to arms, to a sermon and to a feast day. When the news reached the Mayor, he was forced to maintain the laws of the region; and the traitor, having been saved, was led away to hang himself on the forks of the wicked old dame.

ANTONIA: Surely we’re coming to the end of the world.

NANNA: Ha, ha, ha!

ANTONIA: What are you laughing at?

NANNA: At the thought of that other, who became a Lutheran from living in prison all by herself. For she remained there, with three daggers in her heart. One was at seeing her lover led away, the second at believing him hanged, and the third came with hearing that her castle, her city and her state had been possessed by another.

ANTONIA: May God do good to God, who punished her with those three daggers.

Here ends the Second Day of the Capricious Dialogues of Aretino.

[94]

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FOOTNOTES

2 dadi falsissimi.

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a Critical and Biographical Essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes, Volume I., Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1926; pp. 95-112.

[95]

THE LIFE OF COURTEZANS

That is what her shop has to sell.

The Third day of the Capricious Dialogues of Aretino, in which Nanna recounts to Antonia the Life of Prostitutes.

[96]

Picture of a nude girl sitting on a couch with a man looking after covered in a robe and a hippo lying at their feet, by Marquis de Bayros.

[97]

THE LIAR

And in the morning, he gave me a dress of glorious old satin.

NANNA: I had a certain lover, a merchant and a good fellow, who not only loved me but adored me and supported me; and I certainly showed him a good time, not being at all crazy over him.1 And one day, I told him that some courtezan or other was dead over such and such a one, which was not the truth, for we courtezans are merely the victims of caprices which seize upon us occasionally and make us want to eat a great handful; but these caprices last only as long as the sun of spring or the rain of summer, and it is impossible that she who submits herself to everyone should love anyone.

ANTONIA: That I know well enough.

NANNA: Now this merchant I am telling you about was sleeping by my side one night, when I, to give myself a reputation in his eyes, and to cook his goose,2 decided to make him right gallantly jealous, although he made a profession of not being so. And how will you do it, Nanna? I said to myself. I decided to buy a couple of starlings and a pheasant, and I hired a ragged fellow who was not known to my lover to come beating on my door at dinner time, knowing the merchant would be eating with me at that time; and having told my maid to open the door, lo, up he came with a “health to your Ladyship,” adding: “I am the messenger of the ambassador of Spain, who begs that your Ladyship will deign to eat these little love trifles, and that when it is convenient to you you will deign to give my master five and 98twenty words.” I rebuffed him, saying: “Ambassador or no ambassador, take them away, for I do not care to have any ambassador speak to me except this one, who is better to me than I deserve.” And when I had kissed the old simpleton and turned threateningly on the ragamuffin, who took his departure, the merchant said to me: “Take them, you silly girl; take everything you can get.” And saying to the ragged fellow, “She does not want any love of yours,” after a few laughs, which did not sound just right, he remained quite beside himself, and I, going up to him and shaking him, said: “What are you thinking of? Not the emperor, much less his ambassador, shall have so much as a kiss from me, and I think more of the soles of your shoes than I do of a thousand thousand ducats.” Whereupon he, sufficiently reassured, went about his business.

In the meanwhile, I arranged that this ragged-breeches of mine should come at four o’clock, for it was at four o’clock that we were in the habit of dining together; and I found a ragged ribald wretch, with a piece of torch in his hand and his breeches bunged up behind, whom I caused to beat at my door, and from below he called up to me in most Spanish fashion, saying: “Signora, the Signor Ambassador has come to do his reverence to your Highness.” And I replied to him: “The ambassador will have to pardon me, because I am under obligations to this ambassador, whom you see here.” And as I said this, I placed my hand on the shoulder of my man.3 The ragged lad turned away, stood for a moment and turned back; and when I would not open the door to him, we heard him saying: “If you do not open, my Lord will come and tear your door down.” At this I went to the window and said; “Your Lord may slay me and burn me and ruin me at his pleasure, but I love only one, who by his grace, 99has made me what I am; for him, at need, I would die.” At this, behold, the Pharisees at the door, who were five or six in number, but who seemed to be a thousand, cried out, and one of them, with an imperial voice, said to me: “You skinny whore, you will be sorry for this, and that wet hen who scratches your back, I swear a dios, we’ll kill him.” “You may do what you will,” I replied, “but it is no act of a Lord to try to force a poor woman.” And when I wanted to say more, my own ninny pulled me by the cloak. “Don’t say any more, if you do not want to be cut to pieces by those Spaniards.” And drawing me inside, he showed me, in return for that esteem which I had showed for him, more graces than prisoners give to the Rioni who take them out of prison for the feast of mid-August; and in the morning, he gave me a dress of glorious old satin; and I should not have had so much as an ave maria out of him, if I had asked him for a kingdom, so fearful was he of those Spaniards, doubting not the Ambassador would carve an X on his face; and on every occasion he would remark: “I tell you, this woman of mine is well-treated by those ambassador chaps.”4

FOOTNOTES

1 Ed io certissimamente lo accarezzava, non essendo guasta di lui.

2 Cuocerlo a fatto.

3 The “Mon homme” theme was popular then as now.

4 Cf. “How He Lied to Her Husband.”

100

THE CRAFTY CUSTOMER

You gave him a dose of his own medicine there.

NANNA: I used to sleep often with a certain shake-crest, who, when I would say to him, look out for such and such a wench, would say: “Who, I? Who, me? When I was in the guard at Sienna, at Genoa, and at Piacenza, I learned a few things. The whores don’t get my money, no, by God.” And while he was making this boast, I would take the ten scudi which he had in his purse, and I might have taken them in the night and left chunks of coal in place without his knowing the difference. One day he was all occupied with the beating of his heart, which I had caused by telling him that I had fallen in love with another, and seeing him standing there like that, I went up to him and putting my hands in his beard and giving it a couple of cute little pulls, I said to him: “Who’s your girl?” And saying this, I took a seat on his neck and, spreading out my knees and kissing his face, I forced myself to cry, ei si sia, and then, falling silent with a sigh, which was like a wind, it was so great, I embraced him and caressed him so well that he was soon quite himself again. And even while I was saying to him, “I wish we could sleep together tonight,” there came a great knocking at the door from one who came on purpose, and when my maid went to the window, she called up to me: “Signora, it is the Master.” “Let him come up,” I replied. And he, coming up, asked me for ten scudi which he needed for a bed curtain, and he told me, moreover, to be as 101quick as possible about it; whereupon, I said to the maid: “Take this key, and from those scudi which are in the chest, give him his ten.” She went over to open it, leaving me to smooth out the tail of this big tom-cat, who was standing on his sharpness as a practical man; and as I stood there, bewitching him — the Master called to me, and I, having told her a number of times, hearing the beast of a maid growling, got up and went over to her. I found her busy with the chest, which could not be opened, for the reason that, just as the Master who had come for his denarii was no paragon, so the key was not the right one for the lock; and making a face to imply that she had broken it, I leaped upon her with great cries and beat her; then demanding that the chest be broken open, we were not able to find anything to break it open with. Whereupon I turned to the crafty one and said to him: “By your grace, if you have ten scudi, give them to me, and I will break this chest open right away and pay you back.”

ANTONIA: You gave him a dose of his own medicine there, ha, ha, ha!

NANNA: He put his hand into his purse and tossing them out said: “Take them, master, and go, for God’s sake.” And when I kicked the lock as though I wished to break it open, he said: “Send for a locksmith and have it opened, for there is no hurry.” And he gave me a “thou,” as though I, all of a sudden, had become one of his servants on account of the aid he had given me.

ANTONIA: The big tightwad.

NANNA: Leaving him to cool his heels I threw myself into bed with the intention of not giving him a billfull that night, and as soon as he had taken me in his arms, there came a loud pounding at the door, which I had been expecting, to annoy him. I rose up, although he tried to draw me back, begging me not to go see who it 102was beating at the door; and while he was eaten up with jealousy, I looked down and saw that it was a little Monsignor with a cap thrown back over his cloak and sitting astride a mule. He called up to me, offering me his crupper. I accepted it, and taking the cloak from his groom, since the lad had other clothes beneath it (the ones he always wore), I went with him. And then this business agent of whores as well as of men, tearing down out of spite a portrait of mine which was on the wall of my room, took his departure like a gambler from a swindle shop, perceiving he has got the worst of it. But I forgot to tell you, he broke open the chest to get his money, but my maid ran crying through the street and a great crowd gathered, and he was compelled to flee, undressed as he was. As for the chest, which he forced, he found there only a few unguents and ointments which I was keeping against certain evils to come.

103

THE LOVER OF HER HEART

They have made a comedy out of my simplicity.

NANNA: There came to Rome a young man of twenty-two years, noble and rich, a merchant and of good name, a proper pasturage for whores; and no sooner had he come than I laid hands on him, pretending to be truly in love with him, and the more he minded his own business, the less I minded mine. I commenced to send my maid to him four or six times a day, praying that he would deign to come to me, until it came to be generally believed that I was all minced chicken and holy oil over him.1 And so it was, everybody was soon saying, “The whore has met her match this time; she’s met one who will make the milk stink in her mouth, and who can make her crazy simply by staying with her for an hour.” And I let it be thought that I was becoming skin and bones for him, pretending that I could not eat or sleep, talking always of him and always sending for him, until they even laid bets that I would go to the tomb, dying for the love of his beautiful eyes. The young fellow, getting out of it a few good nights and a few good dinners, went about boasting, showing everyone a turquoise of small value which I had given him; and when he was with me, I would always say to him, “Never let yourself lack for anything for want of denarii, and never go to anyone but me, for all I have is yours, just as I myself am yours.” For this reason, he went strutting among the Benches, letting everyone see the ring on his finger; and it happened that when 104he was with me one day, there came to see me a great old lord, and I hid the young man in a neighboring room and locked him in. The lord came up and, sitting down, his eye caught sight of some linen sheet or other. “Who soils that?” he said, “Your Ganymede? Or Canymede, I don’t exactly remember which.” And I replied; “It is certainly he who soils it, and I love him and adore him; I look upon him as a god, and I am his servant and shall be for eternity, making love to you others only for the sake of your money.” You may imagine how puffed-up the young chap was when he heard this; and as soon as the other was gone, I ran to let him out, and when he came out, his neck was too big for his shirt, and strutting up and down, he lorded it, with haughty looks, over me and the servants and my house. But to come to the amen of my paternoster, one day, when he wanted to throw me across a chest in his usual manner, I left him and went out with another. He, being used to jokes like this, and used to adjusting his cloak to the wind, did not run after me, expecting that I would send for him as I usually did; but when he did not see the dove of peace appear, the very devil laid hold of him. When he came to my door, he was told, “The Signora has company”; whereupon he stood there like a fly in oil, with his chin on his chest, with a wry mouth, with lips drawn and melting eyes, his hat askew and his heart beating pitty-pat, his legs trembling like those of one who has just gotten up from a sick bed. And I, seeing that, under the plasters of jealousy, he was about to have a chill, laughed at him; and when someone greeted him, he replied only with a little raise of the head. When he came back that evening, I let him in and then returned to gossip with a large company which I had. Seeing that I did not ask him to be seated, he took the liberty of seating himself, and taking up his post in a corner, without enjoying all 105the pleasant things which were to be heard, he stayed till everyone had gone, and then, alone with me, he said: “Is this your love? Are these your caresses? Are these the protests you used to make? I replied: “My brother (by your leave), I have become the talk of the courtezans of Rome, and they have made a comedy out of my simplicity, and what cooks me more than anything is that my old lovers no longer want to give me anything, saying, ‘We don’t want to buy the bone while someone else eats the oiled bread.’ And in case you want me to be the girl that I was, and that I have been to you, there is one thing you can do.” At these words he raised his head as one does who is about to escape justice, swearing that for love of me he would give his eyes to the fleas. I had but to open my mouth and ask. And then, I said to him: “I wish to get a bed of silk, which costs, with the fringe, with the satin and the bedstead, without the cost of making, in the neighborhood of a hundred and ninety-nine ducats; and since my friends see that you have more than enough, and since you have promised to give me what I wanted, get it all on credit, and when the time comes to pay, leave that to me; I will see that they are paid or split.” But he said: “I cannot do this, because my father in his letters has let it be understood that I am not to have any more credit, and that whoever gives me anything must do so at his own risk.” At this, I turned my back on him and showed him out of the house. One mid-day when he was with me, I said: “Go find Solomon, who will provide you with the denarii on a writ of hand.” He went, and when Solomon said to him: “I cannot lend them to you without security,” he returned to me and told me the whole thing, and then I told him: “Go to such and such a one who will give you jewels for the said sum, which the Jew will be gracious enough to take.” So off he went, and having found the one with 106the jewels, he gave him his note for two months, and carrying the jewels to Solomon, he sold them to him and brought me the money.

ANTONIA: What did you have to say to that?

NANNA: The jewels were my own, and when he had got his denarii back, the Jew brought them back to me; and after eight days, I sent for the one who had given the jewels on the writ of hand and said: “Have the young man thrown into prison and swear that he is a suspected fugitive.” This order being carried out, the simpleton was taken, and before he got out, he had paid double for his meals, for those old hosts are not in the habit of giving free meals to a sponger.

FOOTNOTES

1 che io ero al pollo pesto, ed a l’olio santo per lui.

107

THE STORY OF TWO CATS

I’d wager my soul against a pistachio nut.

NANNA: And now we come to the one about the cats.

ANTONIA: What cats might those be?

NANNA: I had a debt of twenty-five ducats which I owed to a certain cloth vender, and having no thought of ever paying them, I was looking for a way of giving him the birdie.1 What did I do? I had two cats that were pretty enough, and when I saw him coming to my window for the denarii, I said to my maid: “Give me one of the cats and you take the other, and as soon as the old weaver gets here, I’ll cry out, and then I want you to pretend to choke it, and I will do the same with the one I have in my hand.” I had no sooner said this than there he was.

ANTONIA: Didn’t he knock at the door first?

NANNA: No, for he found it open. As soon as he came up, I began to cry, “Choke it! Choke it!” and my maid, almost weeping, fell to begging me to pardon them, promising that they would not eat the dinner any more; and I, who had the appearance of a mad woman, placing my hands at the throat of my cat, said to it: “You’ll never do it again.” My creditor, seeing the cats, at once felt pity for them and begged me to give them to him for a present. “Hardly,” I said. “By your grace, Signora, let me keep them for eight days, and then I will help you kill them, in case you do not want to give them to me or to pardon them.” And saying this, he took the cat, while I made a show of resistance, 108and taking the other from the hand of the maid, he gave them to the shop boy who followed him (having first put them into a sack) and caused them to be taken to his house. “Be sure you bring them back to me after eight days,” I told him, “for I want to kill the traitors.” He promised me to do so, and then asked me for the twenty-five ducats, which I, on the sacrament, promised to bring to his shop within the next ten days; and so I sent him away content. When the ten days were passed, and even fifteen he came back to ask me for them. Holding them in a handkerchief and jingling them all the time, I said: “Very willingly, but first I want my cats.” “What do you mean, your cats?” he replied. “They fled away over the roofs as soon as I let them out of the house.” When I heard this, which I knew all the time, putting on the face of a step-mother, I said to him: “See that my cats are brought back to me, if you don’t they will cost you more than twenty-five scurvy ducats. Those cats are promised, and are to be taken to Barbary. My cats, Mister, must be brought back here; they must be brought back here!” The poor man, leaning against the window, hearing the cries that I raised and seeing a crowd of persons gathering in the street, without saying anything more, ran down the stairs, saying: “The devil take you and all whores.”

ANTONIA: Nanna, I want to tell you a fancy I have.

NANNA: Tell it to me.

ANTONIA: This pretty story about the cats is such a gentle one that for love of it you shall be pardoned for four of those excommunications of yours.

NANNA: Do you believe it?

ANTONIA: I'd wager my soul against a pistachio nut.

FOOTNOTES

1 Exactly: uccellarlo.

109

THE BEST PROFESSION

As I understand it, the vices of whores are virtues.

NANNA: Oh, oh, oh, but I’ve got a bad cold; oh, oh, oh, this fig-bush of mine certainly hasn’t known how to keep the sun. This is no time to tell you of the many men I wheedled out of fate, making them believe that the Synagogue of the Jews was in the air, after the manner, so it is said, of the arca di Macometto. Oh, oh, I can’t breathe, I’m hoarse already, this cold makes my uvula drop.

ANTONIA: It’s the walnut, not the fig-tree, that casts a sorrowful shade.

NANNA: I want you to give me your advice in three words, as you promised — I’m choking, Oh, oh, oh, I’m sick. I feel worse about not being able to tell you how I reformed my lovers than if I had lost I don’t know what. Pretending charity toward their purses, I never let them spend their money on embroidered clothes, fine dinners, or useless things. And I did this because their denarii would better serve my own appetites, and the clowns thanked me for my discretion and for being so considerate of their pocketbooks. Oimè, I’m splitting, oh, oh, oh; I’m pained also at not being able to tell you that one about the espaliers, who pawned them, who had them in pawn, who bought them for me, of the two who were present when they were bought, of the one who brought them home for me, and of the one who was in distress while they were being set up in the house.

110 ANTONIA: Go on, force yourself to tell me. Go on, please, Nanna, sweet Nanna, dear Nanna.

NANNA: It happened that Master — help me say it — Master, Master — I’m dying, this is no place, pardon me if I tell you some other time — that one, too, about the Monsignor who fled naked over all the roofs in the street — Oimè, — I’m in a fit, Anto — Antonia mine — kerchoo!

ANTONIA: A curse on your cold, and on that gentle creature of a sun who has spoiled your conversation. Perhaps I ought not to tell you, but it was hardly to be believed you should have seen such things as you did on the very first day you entered among the nuns and that you made yourself so at home with the bachelor at the very start.

NANNA: I tell you, I became a Sister when I was still half a girl. And as to my having seen such foolish things all at once, you may believe me, I have seen far, far worse — damn this cough — kerchoo!

ANTONIA: Yes.

NANNA: Yes, yes. But give me your advice in three words, as you promised.

ANTONIA: To come back to the promise which I made you, that I would sum the matter up for you in three words, I cannot keep that promise.

NANNA: Why? Eh, eh — kerchoo!

ANTONIA: Because it was a thing which I could do at the time I told you I would do it, but not now; for we women are wise when we act without thinking and mad when we stop to think. But I will give you my advice, and you may take the rose and leave the thorn.

NANNA: Tell me.

ANTONIA: I will say that, having made an allowance for a part of all you have told me, I believe the rest, for there is always a little falsehood mixed with the truth, and 111sometimes, to make our conversation prettier, we tinsel it out with gewgaws. . . .

NANNA: When did you ever catch me in a lie?

ANTONIA: Not in a lie, but in a little neglect in your conversation, and I am inclined to believe, moreover, that you have it in for the nuns and the married women; though I must give you the credit of saying that there are a good deal worse ones among them than there ought to be. As for whores, I take no account of them.

NANNA: I can’t answer you, and I’m afraid this cough is going to become a catarrh. Be gracious enough to hurry and give me your advice.

ANTONIA: My advice is that you should make your Pippa a whore, for the nun betrays the sacrament, and the married woman assassinates the sanctity of matrimony; but the whore attacks neither the monastic life nor the husband; she is like a soldier, who is paid for doing wrong, and doing it, she is not to be held for so doing, because that is what her shop has to sell, that is what she has to sell. On the day when a landlord opens a tavern without putting up a sign, it is understood that one goes there to drink, to eat, to gamble, to bawdy, to curse, and to deceive, and that he goes away to say his prayers or to fast. But in the place itself you will not find any altar or days of Lent. The gardeners sell their vegetables and druggists their drugs, and the brothels sell blasphemies, lies, gossipings, scandals, dishonesty, thefts, filth, hatred, cruelty, death, syphilis, treasons, ill-fame and poverty. But the confessor is like the doctor, who can more readily cure a disease that shows in the palm of the hand than one which does not. And so I would advise you to make your Pippa a prostitute at the first flight,1 since any penitent lady, with a couple of drops of holy water, can wash away all whorishness from her soul. As I understand it, 112from what you have told me, the vices of whores are virtues. Beyond this, it is a fine thing to be called Signora, even by Signori, eating and dressing always like a signora, holding a continual feast and marriage day, as you yourself, who have told me so much of them, know better than I do. The important thing is, that she should not form a whim for anyone, since Rome always was and always will be — I will not say the city of whores, for there is no need of my confessing that.

Here ends the First Part of the Capricious Dialogues of Pietro Aretino

FOOTNOTES

1 di primo volo: “right off the bat.”

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a Critical and Biographical Essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes, Volume I., Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1926; pp. 113-131.

[113]

THE ART OF THE COURTEZAN

It is not enough to have pretty eyes and blonde hair.

The Second Part of the Capricious Dialogues of Aretino, in which Nanna, on the first day, teaches her daughter, Pippa, how to become a whore and on the second, recounts to her the manner in which men betray the wretched women who trust in them; while on the third day, Nanna and Pippa, seated in a garden, listen to a Godmother and a Nurse conversing on the art of the procuress.

[114]

Picture of a seated nude girl on a bed with a flock of sheep in huddles on it as well, the full moon is in the background, by Marquis de Bayros.

115

THE VOCATION

I’ll be one yet.

NANNA: What wrath, what anger, what madness, what restlessness, what heart-flutterings and fainting fits are these, fastidious girl that you are?

PIPPA: I am angry because you do not want to make me a courtezan, as my godmother, Nonna Antonia, advised you.

NANNA: It is time for dinner now.

PIPPA: You’re a step-mother, ugh!

NANNA: Cry on, little baby.

PIPPA: I’ll be one yet.

NANNA: Lay aside that pride of yours, lay it aside, I tell you, for if you do not change your ways, Pippa, if you do not change them, you will never have a diaper to your rump; for today there are so many whores that the one who does not work miracles with her wits will never have a dinner to go with her afternoon lunch; and it is not enough to be a fine piece of flesh, to have pretty eyes and blonde hair; art or fate is far more important; the rest is bubbles.

PIPPA: So you say.

NANNA: And so it is, Pippa, but if you lean on my bosom, if you open your ears to my precepts, you will be very, very, very well off.

PIPPA: If you will hasten to make me a signora, I will open them soon enough.

NANNA: If you will listen to me instead of playing with every straw that blows, with your head full of whims, as it used to be when I tried to teach you something 116useful, I swear to you by these paternosters I am always chewing over that, within fifteen days at the longest, I will take the matter in hand.

PIPPA: May God grant it, mamma!

NANNA: May you will it, rather.

PIPPA: I do will it, dear mammina, mammina d’oro.

117

THE A B C’S

For they deceive the poor courtezans.

NANNA: The art of entertaining your friends with a certain manner of gossiping, which never comes to the point of hatred, is the lemon squeezed into the frying-pan and the pepper sprinkled over the contents of the pan. It is a gentle novelty, when you find yourself at cross-roads with different generations, to satisfy them all with a little babbling, which never becomes boresome, and which is useful in filling in the pauses when someone comes in to see you. And since the customs of others are of more importance than individual fantasies, study, spy out, anticipate, consider, be attentive to, subtly analyze and sift the brains of all. Here you have a Spaniard, dandified, odoriferous, dirty. And if the Our Highnesses which he hurls upon your head and the kisses which he sugars your hand were a form of alchemy, between them and his ceremonious manners you would have the income of an Agostino Chigi. 1

PIPPA: I know well enough that there’s nothing to be got from them.

NANNA: You have nothing else to do but to provide smoke for their wind and breath for those belly-ripping sighs which they know so well to give; bow then to their bows, kissing not merely the hand but the glove, and if you do now want to be paid in the coin of Milan, get rid of them the best way you can.

PIPPA: I shall do so.

NANNA: Be firm. As for a Frenchman, open to him right away, open in a flash; and while he is embracing you as 118gaily as possible and kissing you in a careless fashion, cause the wine to be brought out, for with this nation, it is necessary to step out of the nature of prostitutes, who ordinarily would not give you a beaker of water if they saw you were dying; and then, with a couple of slices of bread, set yourself to make a domestic sort of love. And without standing too much on the conveniences, take him as your bed-fellow, chasing away all the others with a pretty manner. In the meanwhile, it will appear that you are about to hold a carnival, so much stuff will have rained down in the kitchen; and if he gets out of your claws with a shirt to his back, he is lucky, for these butlers, who know better how to lose than how to gain, and who more readily forget themselves than remember an injury which has been done them, give no heed at all whether you rob them or not.

PIPPA: The French are all right; blessed be the French.

NANNA: But remember, they give denarii and the Spaniards cups. The Germans now are of another stamp, and with them it is necessary to be upon your guard. I speak of the merchants, who fall into love, I will not say as they do into wine, because I have known some who were most polished, but, let us say, as they do into Lutheranisms. They will give you great ducats, if you know how to approach them, never permitting them to be your lovers nor to make or talk love. Skin in secret those who allow themselves to be skinned.

PIPPA: That is a good thing to remember.

NANNA: Their nature is hard, bitter, and bestial, and when they get a thing into their heads, God alone can take it out; and so, grease them as gently as you know how.

PIPPA: What else would there be for me to do?

NANNA: There is one thing I should like to warn you about, and yet I do not dare to do it.

PIPPA: What?

NANNA: Nothing.

119 PIPPA: Tell me, I want to know.

NANNA: I do not want to tell you, because I should be blamed for it, and it would be a sin.

PIPPA: Then why did you give me a fancy for hearing it?

NANNA: I will tell you one thing, that if you have a chance to mingle with Jews, you should do so, but with dexterity, finding as an excuse a desire to purchase espaliers, bed-furnishings, and similar trifles; and you will see there will be some of them who will take you to the bank, advance you all their usuries and all their pilferings, throwing in even their discounts; and if they stink like dogs, let them stink.

PIPPA: I thought you really had something to tell me.

NANNA: So I had. The odor with which they reek put me in mind to tell you. But do you know what? Sailors with all their fine gains are always in danger of the galleys, of chains, of drowning, of falling into the hands of the Turks or of Barbarossa, of shipwreck, of eating dry or vermin-infested bread, of drinking vinegar and water, and of all the other discomforts which I have heard tell there are; and if the one who goes to sea takes no thought of winds or rains or any hardships whatsoever in order to dispatch his cargo, surely a courtezan ought to make light of the smell of a few Jews.

PIPPA: You make the most beautiful comparisons. But if I associate with them, what will my friends say?

NANNA: What would you have them say, if they know nothing about it?

PIPPA: How do you mean, nothing?

NANNA: If you say nothing about it to them, the Jew, since his bones are not marked, will be as silent as a thief.

PIPPA: In that way, it’s all right.

NANNA: I can see a Florentine coming to your room with his chitter-chatter. Make love to him, for the Florentines outside of Florence are like those persons who, with a 120full bladder, are unwilling to go urinate out of respect for the place in which they find themselves, but when they get outside, they deluge a wide, wide space. I will tell you that they are more generous abroad than they are at home; beyond this, they are virtuous, gentle, polished, sharp and pungent; and if they give you nothing else than their gallant words, do you not think you could be content with those?

PIPPA: Not I.

NANNA: That was merely a method of speaking on my part; they must spend as much as possible, give papal dinners and feste in quite a different manner from what the others do; and then, their tongue is pleasing to all.

PIPPA: And now let’s speak a little of the Venetians.

NANNA: I do not want to tell you about them, for if my words are not equal to their merits, I shall be told that I am deceived in the love I have for them 2 and certainly I am not deceived at all, for they are gods, and the patrons of everything, and the finest youths, the finest men and the finest old men that there are in the world; all the rest of the world will appear to you like wax-work soldiers by comparison, and although they are proud, having a right to be, they are the very image of kindness itself. And while they live the life of merchants, in accordance with our custom, they do it on a royal scale, and he who is on the right side of them is fortunate. Everything else is a joke, saving the grace of those old money bags who have piles and piles of ducats and who, no matter how much it thunders or rains, would not give you so much as a bagattino.

PIPPA: God keep them.

NANNA: He does it well enough. . . . And now to jump from Florence to Sienna, I will tell you that the Sienese madmen are gentle fools, although for a number of years 121they have been turned wicked, according to the chatter of some; and according to the experience I have had of men, the odds appear to me to be that they hold, in the matter of gentleness and virtue, to the Florentine, but they are not so crafty nor so dog-like, and he who knows how to deceive can flay and shear them alive. Moreover, they are big fellows down below, and their practices are pleasing and honorable.

PIPPA: They will do for me.

NANNA: Yes, certainly. And now let’s on to Naples.

PIPPA: Don’t talk to me of that town; it gives me the asthma to think of it.

NANNA: Listen, Signora, even though it be a death in life. The Neapolitans are made to drive away sleep and to provide you with a fine bellyful some day of the month when you have the whim in your head, alone or in the company of someone else, it does not matter whom. I can tell you that their fripperies rise to heaven: talk of horses — they have the first that came from Spain — of clothing — two or three wardrobes full — money in piles, and all the belles of the kingdom are dying for them directly; and if you drop your handkerchief or your glove, they will recover it for you with the most gallant parables that were ever heard in a Capuan chair, si, Signora.

PIPPA: What sport.

NANNA: I once wanted to get rid of a certain traitor by the name of Giovanni Agnesi, the very scum of all filth, if I am to force myself to counterfeit him in words, although the hangman could not counterfeit him in deeds; and at the sight of this, a certain Genoese burst into laughter, whereupon I turned on him and said: “My proud Genoa, proud because you know how to buy beef without bones, we others can teach you a thing or two.” And it was true, because they are the subtlest of 122the subtle and the sharpest of the sharp, and they are altogether too good managers and cut the thing just as it should be cut and they will give you not the least bit too much. For the rest, I cannot tell you what glorious lovers they make, what gentle Neapolitan and un-Spanish breeding they show, reverent, making what little they give you appear as sweet as sugar, and never failing to give you that little. You must always know how to get the better of them and measure your gifts as they measure theirs; and, without turning your stomach, with a pleasant speech in your throat, with your nose and with a sigh, take things as they come.

PIPPA: The Bergamasks have more grace than their speech.

NANNA: They also are gentle and dear, that is certain. But now, let us come to the Romanians. Daughter, if you delight in eating bread and buffalo cheese with sword points and spear heads for a salad, pickled in the fine bravados which their great-grandfathers used to hurl at the town sheriffs, associate with them. The short of it is, on the day of the Sack, 3 they defecated upon us (speaking with all reverence), and Pope Clement has no regard for them any more.

PIPPA: Don’t forget Bologna, if for no other reason than for love of the count and of the cavalier who is of our house.

NANNA: Forget them, ah? What would the rooms of whores be without the shadow of those long-winded stocks? Born here solely for the purpose of making numbers and shade, says the canzona; I am speaking of love and not of arms, said Friar Mariano. A fine young chicken of twenty years old told me that she had never seen madmen who were plumper or better clad. And so, do you, Pippa, make a feast for them as you would for courtiers, and take your pleasure in their thoughtless and foolish 123conversation; and such a practice as this is by no means without its use, and it will be more useful than any other, if they delight as much in she-goats as they do in kids. As for the rest of the Lombardians, who are snails and great dandies, treat them in the whorish manner, taking from them what you can get, giving to each of them a “cavalier,” throwing in a “Count” for a moustache, with a “Signor, si” and a “Signor, no”; for such deceits as these do not spoil the soup, and it is honest to indulge in them and even to boast of them; for they deceive the poor courtezans, and moreover, those houses in which such customs are to be found are praised above all others.

FOOTNOTES

1 The Crœsus of Rome, Aretino’s patron.

2 Aretino never loses a chance to eulogize his own loved Venice.

3 Of Rome.

124

THE SCAR

And those were the denarii I spent on this house.

NANNA: A certain official who in the course of his duties had taken two thousand ducats from the port of entry was enamored of me, and so foolishly that it atoned for all his sins. This fellow was in the habit of spending by the moon, and anyone who wanted to get anything out of him, when he was not in the mood to give it, had to do some astrologizing. And what is more to the point, his bizarre nature started the day he came into the world, and whenever a word was spoken that was not to his liking, he would fall into a fury, and his hand would hunt his dagger, and a slash in the face was the least you had to fear with him. For this reason, the courtezans fled his company as countrymen do the rain. I, who had taken this old sock to new-foot, was in the habit of keeping him company at every meal, and although he played his asinine jokes on me, I waited patiently, thinking I would play one on him which would make up for everything. I thought and though until I found the way, and what do you think it was I did? I took a certain painter into my confidence, by name Maestro Andrea, or I will say it was that anyway; and I made an agreement with him that he was to be in waiting and hidden under my bed, with his colors and brushes, to paint a scar on my face when the time came. And then, I received Maestro Mercurio (bless his memory), if you remember him.

PIPPA: I remember him.

125 NANNA: And I told him that, when I should send for him on such and such an evening, he was to come with oakum and eggs; and he, to be of service to me, did not leave his house on that particular feast day when I wanted to do this. And now, look you, Maestro Andrea is under the bed and Maestro Mercurio in his house, and I am with this official at table; and when we had just about finished dinner, I reminded him of a certain chamberlain of his Reverence, to whom he did not even want me to speak, and whom he had driven out of the house. Now it did not take much raising for a wind that was already up, and calling me a prostitute, a low woman and a bandiera, he was hoping that I would ram the lie down his throat; and he gave me a blow on my cheek with his dagger, a blow that I could feel, and then I, who had at hand some oil of lacquer which had been given my by Maestro Andrea, dipped my hands in it and smeared my face, and with the most terrible cries that a woman ever gave I made him believe that he really had succeeded in cutting me. Thereupon, as frightened as one who had murdered another, he took to his legs and fled to the palace of Cardinal Colonna, and locking himself in the room of a courtier who was his friend, he kept moaning to himself: “Alas, I have lost my Nanna, Rome and my offices.” I, in the meanwhile, locked myself in my room, alone with my elderly servant maid, and Maestro Andrea, coming out of his nest, in a trice painted a scar across my right cheek, which was so real that when I looked in the mirror I trembled with fear. At this Maestro Mercurio came in, saying: “There seems to be something wrong here.” And having assisted the drying of the colors by applying oakum with oil of rose water and the white of an egg, he bandaged up the wound right gracefully, and then going out into the hall where a crowd had collected, he said: “She is not able to come out.” And so the report spread throughout 126Rome, and the rumor came to the would-be murderer, who wept like a child that is beaten.

Morning came, and with it the doctor, and with a great farthing candle lighted in his hand he applied the cure, until I do not know how many persons who had stuck their heads through the door of the room and who had filled all the windows, began weeping at the sight, and I cannot tell you how many of them, unused to looking on so cruel a wound, fainted dead away. And so the rumor became public that my face was spoiled forever, and the evil-doer began sending money, medicines and doctors, seeking thus to avoid the sheriff. When eight days had passed, I let it be known that I had escaped, but with a mark more bitter than death to a courtezan; and my friend, wishing to quiet the thing with his scudi, kept sending this and that; and I so employed my friends and patrons that it came to be understood I was only to be seen by a certain shell-bean of a Monsignor, who acted as go-between. In short, five hundred ducats were disbursed for my injury, and fifty more for doctor and medicines; and then I pardoned him, that is, I promised not to prosecute him before the governor, desiring from him only peace and security. And those were the denarii which I spent on this house, not counting the garden, which I have added since.

PIPPA: You were a good man, mamma, to do such a thing as that.

NANNA: But we have not yet come to the halleluia, and I should not come to an end in a year if I wanted to tell you everything; for in good faith, I have not squandered the time that I have lived, my faith no, I have not squandered it.

PIPPA: I knew that to begin with.

NANNA: And then, finding that the five hundred, with the fifty ducats, had merely touched my palate, I thought up most whorishly a piece of whorish malice, and what do 127you think it was? I sent for a certain Neapolitan, a swindler of the swindlers, with the reputation of possessing a secret by which he could remove every sign of a scar which had been left on the face. 1 He came to me and said: “When a hundred scudi have been deposited I will make your face appear as smooth as this.” And he showed me the palm of his hand. I began writhing and said, with a feigned sigh: “Go and tell that miracle to the one who is the cause of my being the way I am.” When he wanted to say more, I turned upon him, calling “Tom cat! Tom cat!” The swindler, with his all too fine clothes, took his departure, went to the official and laid before him an account of what he proposed to do. And now, would you believe it, the crucified wretch, despairing of ever having anything more to enjoy, deposited the hundred. But what use to prolong this story? The scar which was not there went away with a little holy water which I sprinkled on my face six times, with a few words which appeared to be saying a mirabilium, but which really said nothing. And so it was, the hundred pleasures, as the Greek says, came into my hand.

PIPPA: Welcome and a good year.

NANNA: But wait. When the rumor spread that I had been left without a trace in the world, everyone who had a scar under his moustache came running to the swindler’s rooms as the synagogues would run about the Messiah, if he were suddenly to appear in the Jewish piazza. The traitor, filling his purse with earnest-money, packed up and left, trusting to the discretion he thought I ought to show as a reward for the ducats which he had put me in the way of gaining.

PIPPA: The official, did he hear and believe this?

NANNA: He heard it, and he did not hear it; he believed it, and he did not believe it.

128 PIPPA: That’s enough.

NANNA: But the poison is in the tail.

PIPPA: What, is there more to come?

NANNA: The best part is to come. The big booby, after so many disbursements, for the sake of which, it is said, he sold a knighthood, was finally reconciled with me through the offices of go-betweens and by means of letters. These ambassadors kept telling me about his passion, and he came, himself, to throw himself at my feet, seeking the words that would put him back in my good graces. So I went with him to the shop of the painter, who had painted a tablet for me with a miracle, which I told him he should carry in person to Loreto. When he fixed his eyes on it, he saw himself depicted there with a dagger in his hand and about to slash me, a poor woman. This was nothing to what he read beneath it: “I, Signora Nanna, adoring Messer Maco, thanks to the devil which entered his cup, had from him as a reward for my adoration this wound of which that Madonna to whom I hang up this votive offering has cured me.”

PIPPA: Ha, ha!

NANNA: When he read this, he made a face like those which bishops make on reading their epitaphs, under the heels of the demons who flay them when they are excommunicated. Returning home off all his hinges, by means of a new dress he made me promise to take his name off the tablet.

PIPPA: Ha, ha, ha!

NANNA: The conclusion is this: The fine fellow gave me, besides, the denarii to go there, where I had no intention of going; and there was no need for me to go, for I forced him to get me an absolution from the Pope.

PIPPA: Is it possible he was so senseless that when he came to you he did not see your face had never had a scar?

NANNA: I will tell you, Pippa, I took something or other, 129like the back of a knife, and fastened it to my face; I kept it there all night, and as soon as he appeared. I removed it. And then, for a while, you would have believed, seeing the livid spot it left, that it was the same sort of scar you see about a bit of bruised flesh, such as would have been left by a knife-wound that had healed.

PIPPA: I see.

FOOTNOTES

1 Plastic surgery!

130 A NEW RUSE

Tell me if it isn’t a joke for whores to know how to keep themselves.

NANNA: I want to tell you that one about the crane, and then I shall finish the business I have with you.

PIPPA: Tell it first.

NANNA: I pretended that I wanted a crane to eat with vermicelli, and not being able to buy any, one of my lovers was forced to go out and kill one with his rifle, and so I had it. But what do you think I did with it? I took it to a delicatessen keeper, who knew all my subjects, or vassals, as Gianmaria the Jew called those of Verucchio. But I forgot to tell you, I made him who gave it to me swear to say nothing about it, and when he asked me what the difference was, I replied that I did not want to be taken for a glutton.

PIPPA: You did right. And now to the delicatessen keeper.

NANNA: I gave him to understand that he was not to sell it except to someone who bought it for me. And he, who had served me in such matters on other occasions, understood me at once. No sooner had he hung it up in his shop than one of those who knew my fancy was upon his back, saying, “How much do you want for it?” “It is not for sale,” replied the knave, in order to make him want it the more, “and besides, it costs too much.” The other swore an oath, saying, “Let it cost what it will.” He ended by taking out a ducat and sending the bird to my house by his groom, thinking I would believe that it had been given to him by a Cardinal. I, making sport, sent it back, cut up as it was, to be sold again. What then? The crane was 131bought by all my friends, and always for a ducat, and finally it came to my house. And now, Pippa, tell me if it isn’t a joke for whores to know how to keep themselves.

PIPPA: I am astonished.”

Here ends the First Day of the Pleasing Dialogues of M. Pietro Aretino.

[132]

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a Critical and Biographical Essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes, Volume I., Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1926; pp. 133-146.

[133]

THE BETRAYALS OF MEN

Treacherous men, lying men, false men —

The Second Day of the Pleasing Dialogues of Aretino, in which Nanna recounts to Pippa the manner in which men betray the wretched women who trust in them.

[134]

Picture of a naked woman seated on a rock, nursing a young half-boy, half-cow, with a bull swimming in a pond looking on.

135

THE SACK OF ROME1

The people who, to gain ten ducats, were destroyed.

NANNA: A certain Romanian baron, not a Roman, who had escaped through a hole, like a rat, from the sack of Rome, having taken to ship, was cast up with many of his company on the shores of a certain great city, the mistress of which was a Signora, whose name I am not able to tell you. She went down to see the poor man who had been tossed up on the land and who was drenched, broken, pale as death and disheveled, more like the image of fear than the courts of today are like that of knavery. Treacherous men, lying men, false men — these were the burden of his tale. Her ladyship was intoxicated with the speech and the gallantry of her guest, until it seemed to her that she only lived while listening to his charming conversation. And then they commenced to speak of Popes and of Cardinals. At this, she begged him please to tell her in what manner priestly astuteness had come to fall into the claws of the evil ones. Thereupon the baron, desirous of obeying the commands of his fair suppliant, giving vent to one of those highwayman sighs which come from the liver of a prostitute who sees an empty purse, said: “Since your Highness, Signora, wishes me to remember what makes me hate my memory, I will tell you how the empress of the world became the servant of the Spaniards, and I will also tell you all the wretched sights I saw. But what boor, what German, what Jew could be so cruel as to tell these things to another without bursting into tears?” And then he added: “Signora, 136it is the hour for sleep, and the stars are already scattering;2 but if it is your will to know our misfortunes, although I am merely renewing my griefs, I shall begin to tell them.” Saying this he began speaking of the people who, to gain ten ducats, were destroyed. Then he spoke of the news which Rome heard, of the German foot-soldiers and the oaths they swore, who had come with flying banners to make her the coda mundi.

“Thereupon everyone said to another: ‘Gather up your things and fly.’ And certainly everyone would have looked upon it as magic if that traitorous band had not come with an ’a pena de le forche.”3 He told how, after this news, the debased people devoted themselves to hiding their money and all things of value. He told of the little groups and circles of men, gathered here and there, speaking of that which caused their fear and talking of what it seemed to them was likely to happen. “In the meanwhile, the wards and boroughs and the paths that joined them began swarming with a file of foot-soldiers; and surely, if valor had been a matter of fine coats, of fine stockings or of gilded swords, the Spaniards and the Germans would have been out of luck.” Then the baron told how a hermit ran crying through the streets. “Do penance, priest; do penance, thieves, and ask mercy of God, for the hour of your punishment is at hand; it is here; it has sounded.”

But their pride had no ears, and by this time the Scribes and the Pharisees were appearing at the cross of Montemari; and when the sun struck their arms, the bestial light made the blackbirds tremble on the wall more than thunderbolts would have done. It had now come to such a point that no one any longer thought of 137resistance, but was only looking for some place to hide himself. At this point an uproar arose on the Monte di Santo Spirito, and our fine fellows in the piazza put up at first a gallant resistance. The enemy having gained I do no know how many weather vanes brought them to the palazzo with a ‘viva, viva!’ which deafened heaven and earth; and while it appeared that they had won the day, behold, the bars of the Monte, were broken and, having made a slaughtering of many who had no fault of war, the enemy ran on to the Borgo. Then a few of them passed over the ponte and went on to the Banchi, but soon came back; and it was said that the good Castello had not bombarded them for two reasons, one because it would have been a pity to throw away balls and powder; the other because they did not wish to make the enemy angrier than they were; and so they merely waited to let down ropes, lowering the old coach-boys to sacred ground. And then night came, the Ponte Sisto was fortified and from the Trastevere an army swept over Rome. What cries were heard then; gates crashed to the ground, everyone fled, everyone hid himself, everyone wailed. Blood bathed the streets, massacre was everywhere, tortured ones shrieked, prisoners prayed, women tore their hair, old men trembled, the city was topsy-turvy, and he was happy who died at once or who, in his agony found someone to dispatch him. But who can tell all the evils of such a night as that? Friars, monks, chaplains and other rabble, armed or disarmed, hid themselves in the sepulchres, more dead than alive, nor was there a hole or a cave or a well or a bell tower or a wine cellar or a secret place anywhere that was not suddenly filled with all sorts of persons. Respectable men were mocked and, with their clothes torn off their backs, were searched and spit upon. There was no church, no hospital, no house nor any other place that was 138respected; and even into those places where men do not enter, they entered, and out of spite they chased the women into those places where any woman is excommunicated for going. But the pity was to see the fire in the loggias and in the painted palaces; the pity was to hear husbands, red with the blood which streamed from their wounds, calling for their lost wives in a voice that would have made the solid block of marble in the Coliseum weep.”

The baron told the Signora this which I have told you, and she wanted to weep when she heard of the Pope in the Castello, cursing those who had broken the faith; and she shed such tears that she almost choked and, unable to utter any more words, she remained as one mute.

FOOTNOTES

1 A famous description.

2 Cf. Aeneas and Dido:

                                                 Et iam nox umida caelo

Praecipitat, suadentque cadentia sidera somnos.

3 Pain of the gallows, pain of death.

139

THE THIRTY AND ONE

A fine one, but not for the one that it’s about.

NANNA: And now I’m going to tell you a fine one, but not, as it turned out, for the one that it’s about. There was, on the other side of the Popolo, a certain lady — a female, I rather should say — of goodly size, goodly looks, as sweet as possible; and if ever a whore might be said to be good-natured, it was she. Pleasant and entertaining in her ways, she laughed and jested with all, with that very pleasing grace which was hers from the cradle. This one was invited to a dinner in a vineyard, and those who invited her did not have to urge her much, because she was always ready for a good time, and they seemed to her good fellows enough. They took here there — it was a two hours’ trip — on the crupper of a mule; and arrived at the vineyard, they found a fine dinner awaiting them: young kids, milk-fed calves, beef, partridges, tarts, ragoûts, and every pleasing kind of fruit; but it turned out to be an unfortunate dinner for the too fervent lady.

PIPPA: Did they cut her to pieces?

NANNA: Not to pieces, but in quarters, in the manner that you shall hear. The first stroke of the ave maria had barely sounded when she asked permission of her hosts to go back and sleep with him who kept her. The drunken, foolish and wicked fellows replied to her with cruel jests: “Signora, tonight you are under obligations to us and to our brother-grooms of the stable; you may as well make up your mind to stay here, for there are thirty other young birds coming. 140For your sake, they shall be called the arch-thirty, since there is between us and them the same difference that there is between Bishops and Archbishops; and if you are not treated according to your deserts, you will have to excuse us and blame it on the place.” And then, one of them began singing:

With the little widow who sleeps alone I should like to pick a bone.

The poor girl, betrayed by her own kindness and the malice of others, when she heard this, was like one who, on the wooded mountain of Fiascone, just before the dawn of day, strikes his shoulder against the breast of some hanged man. She was so overcome with grief that she was not able to speak a word. In the meanwhile, the big pig dragged her to the trunk of an almond tree and, bending her head down there, drew her clothes above her head and did what seemed best to him, thanking her for the service with two cruel and resounding slaps on the rump. This was a signal for the second one who, treating her in his own good fashion, took a great pleasure in the points of jagged wood which pricked her behind; when she attempted to push him away, he, in completing his pleasure, bent her head down monkey-fashion; and the screams she gave were the signal for the third tilter, but the sport he took was gentle by comparison. It was the very death to her to see a throng of overgrown grooms, under-cooks and hostlers, coming out of the casa of the vineyard with the same uproar which starved dogs make when they are released from the chain and turned loose on a full meal, or the Friars when they see their soup. . . .

PIPPA: I am amazed.

NANNA: When morning came, there were hisses, cries and kicks and more of an uproar than countrymen cause when they catch sight of a fox or a wolf. And then she, 141beside herself, with the sweetest and most pitiful words that were ever heard, begged them to let her be. With her inflamed eyes, her pulpous cheeks, her rumpled hair, her dry lips and her torn clothes, she was like one of those unfortunate Sisters abandoned by their Babbo and their Mamma in the path of the Germans, when the latter came to Rome.

PIPPA: I have great pity for all such.

NANNA: The end was even worse than the beginning. They sent her home at the hour of the Banchi, on the back of a pack horse, like one of those saddle mares that bear hucksters to the grain market. She never recovered from the shame she had and, feeling that she had lost fortune and reputation, she was no longer herself but died of grief and want.

142

MONNA QUINIMINA

In which she heard more praise than at the laudamus.

NANNA: A certain Monna Quinimina, an unlikely bit of flesh, to whom Nature had given a little figure and very little face, was breaking her neck to be literary, and this proved her undoing. Like one who knows only enough about gambling to lose, she knew only enough about letters to understand one sent her by some loafer or other. Oh my Lord, where the devil does Cupid keep himself, who snares us all in the dark; and how is it possible that a little dung-dropper like him should be able to draw a bow and wound hearts? Yet he is to blame for those pestilential tumors which come to us women when we believe his beeswax. He makes us believe that we have eyes like the sun, hair of gold, cheeks of cochineal, lips like rubies, teeth like pearls, a serene air, a divine mouth and an angelic tongue; and we women let ourselves be blinded by the letters he sends us, just as that foolish female was I am telling you about. She, to set the crowd to talking about the fact that she knew how to read, would steal every minute she could and plant herself at the window, book in hand. It was here that a certain jackdaw of a rhymester saw her and conceived the idea that it would be good sport to get up some idle contraption to deceive her. And so, taking a piece of paper and dipping it in the juice of red violets, and dipping his pen in fig-milk, he wrote to her how desperate he was over her beauty, which was like that of the angels. He went on to tell her that gold took lustre from her hair and Spring its 143flowers from her cheeks, making her more than believe that milk got its whiteness from being washed in her bosom and her hands. Now you may imagine whether she was vainglorious or not, hearing herself praised in this fashion.

PIPPA: The silly girl.

NANNA: When she had finished reading this letter, which was to be her undoing, in which she heard more praise than is to be heard at the laudamus, she became a bigger softy than ever; and when urged for a reply, she threw herself into the deceiver’s arms, directing him to come the day after next, for at that time her husband would be going to the country and she would be in waiting.

PIPPA: She had a husband, then?

NANNA: Yes, unfortunately.

PIPPA: Unfortunate for him.

NANNA: Now this fellow had found some sonnet-maker or other, some spoil-paper, some rhyme-stretcher, and had said to him: “I want to serenade a certain little married lady, with whom I expect to have sport very soon, and so that she won’t know the difference, here is my own hand-writing.” He showed the other a few lines written by himself, and after they had laughed over it for a while, they took a lute and, in a jiffy, they had strung together some silly thing which was crude enough. Then, with an “ah, ah” for the benefit of the lady, he took up his place under the window of her bedroom (for she lived in suburb where some one passed only once in a year). Leaning against the wall and striking a pose with his instrument, he turned his face upward and, while she leaned over from above, repeated the following:

For all the gold of all the world, Lady, I would not tell a lie, Even in praising you to the sky. 144By God, I would not say your mouth Smells like India or the perfumed South, Or that your hair, when all is told, Is finer than the finest gold; Your eyes may be the Inns of Love, But they are not the Sun above; Your lips and teeth, I’d hardly say, Were pearls or rubies by the light of day; And the charming costumes that you wear Will never drive me to despair. You are a pretty little thing, Though I wouldn’t say a lady; Your ways are very promising; They’d lure a Hermit maybe. In short, you’re not divine, I fear, Since you don’t pass orange water dear.

PIPPA: I would have thrown the mortar on his head; I would, for a fact.

NANNA: She was not so rude as that, as you would not have been, either. She took it all as very fine and grand and could scarcely wait for her husband to leave the next day before she fled with this fellow to the house of a baker, a friend of he whippersnapper in question. There, she gave him for safekeeping one of those ornaments which women wear around their waists. When the young jackanapes saw it, he at once said to himself: “This bit of ambergris will make a fine bracelet for my arm, while these gold nuggets will fill my purse.” Saying this, he went to the mint and transformed the uncoined into coined metal. Seven and thirty ducats he had for his pater nosters, for that was what the ambergirs brought; and these he at once proceeded to gamble away, returning to the baker’s house in one of those rages which take those who find themselves in the hole on account of an ace. Thereupon, he took that little bunch of petrosello (or parsley, as the wise 145Sibyls call it) who had tried to be an hepatica and gave her a good beating with his cane; in fact, he almost broke her bones. And then, with a certain precision of fists, he threw her down stairs.

PIPPA: Which served her quite right, I should say.

Here ends the Second Day of the Pleasing Dialogues of M. Pietro Aretino.

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a Critical and Biographical Essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes, Volume I., Chicago: Pascal Covici, 1926; pp. 147-158.

[147] THE ART OF THE PROCURESS

Why isn’t there some one to write down all these things and have them printed?

The third and last day of the Pleasing Dialogues of Aretino, in which Nanna and Pippa, seated in a garden, listen to a Godmother and a Nurse conversing on the Art of the Procuress.

[148]

149

PROLOGUE

I am astonished Solomon did not lay hold of such subtleties as these.

GODMOTHER: The art of the Procuress and that of the Whore, my dear Nurse, are not merely sisters but twins; and Madonna Lust is the mother and Messer Bordello the father, so say the chronicles. But I believe, rather than that the art of the Procuress is the daughter of the Whore’s trade, that the Whore’s trade comes from the belly of the Procuress.

NURSE: Why do you enter into this dispute with me?

GODMOTHER: By the leg which I hope he breaks who took away my right hand, because it must be that the art of the Procuress gives birth to that of the Whore; you may be assured of this, for so it is, and since it is so, we should not be regarded as the offspring of every great and stinking prostitute who happens to sit above us on the feast days.

NURSE: Well, well! I am astonished to think that Solomon did not lay hold so such subtleties as these.

GODMOTHER: But let us go on, being content with our art; which I hope to revive by recounting to you and, in the right time and place, making you see how the Whore renders us honor, having none of her own, and how even the Signori confess it by placing us, when they talk among themselves in secret, destram patribus. Listen, then, and afterwards tell me what you think.

NURSE: You see I am all attention.

GODMOTHER: Nurse, I am more certain of this than of anything which Nanna here may have been able to teach 150her Pippa. I know that the whore’s is not a trade for everyone. Her life is a game of chance, and for one that wins, there are a thousand blanks; but the procuress’ demands even more acuteness. I believe that when the whores would separate themselves from us, they are as mad as a pair of hands would be which should try to wash themselves by pouring the water upon themselves. The Procuress’ art fishes at the bottom of the Whore’s, and she need not turn up her nose at us, for that is the case.

151 STORY OF A FOX

They gave him Morgante’s laugh.

GODMOTHER: Where were we?

NURSE: We had come to the one about the fox and the mule-drivers.

GODMOTHER: Ah, that is a fine one. There was a certain fox, so old her fur was turning white, very wicked and malicious, and as crafty as the one who said to Godfather Wolf, when that big blockhead fell into a bucket he was drawing out of the well: “The world is a ladder, and some go up and some go down.1

NURSE: And he was right, wasn’t he?

GODMOTHER: This fox, desiring to get her belly full of fish, went to the lake of Perugia to see what she could steal; and having stood there a while on the side of a hill, with her tail drooping peacefully, with her snout in the air and her ears pricked, she saw coming toward her a band of mule-drivers. Their mules, tethered by a rope, were munching the straw in the bags which they wore on their mouths, and the muleteers were chattering about the scarcity of certain fish and the abundance of pike, praising a certain tench which they had devoured that morning with cabbage and sauce and planning how they would kill a great eel as soon as they had unloaded their pack-saddles. As soon as Monna Fox saw them, she smiled in her way and, throwing herself across their path, pretended to be dead. When she felt them draw near, she held her breath, as one does who crouches under water, and spread out her legs; nor did she so much as move, and anyone would have sworn that she was dead. The mules, which had glimpsed her 152from some little distance away, had more felling in the matter than their drivers. The latter, when they saw her, gave vent to an “Oh, Oh, Oh” as one does who sees a hare dart from a cluster of grain no higher than a hand. They ran up in a crowd to seize her and take her hide. All laid hold of her at once, each one claiming her for his own; and they came near cutting themselves to pieces in that way mule-drivers have, each one crying, “I saw her first,” “I got her before you did;” and if it had not been for an old man, who put a black stone and a number of white ones in a hat, shook them up, and made the crowd draw lots, there is no doubt that a number of them would have done for each other. As it was, they were satisfied.

NURSE: Talk often leads to sword-points and lances.

GODMOTHER: The one who drew the fox, bending over and touching her, perceived that she was warm. “By God,” he said, “she’s only just dead, and she’s fat enough, so far as I can see.” Saying this, he put her into the hamper of his mule and went back to join the others, whose anger had now passed. They went along in as friendly a fashion as ever and in their usual manner. The fine dame of a fox took advantage of this. Perceiving that she was not seen, she turned over very gently and, being half-starved, made a hole in the fish of those villains. Having devoured those in both hampers, she gave a leap, as one does who hurtles a wide ditch, leaving behind her only the patter of her heels. One of the mule-drivers saw her and gave a cry. When he ran up to the place where the fox that was supposed to be dead had been left, he did not see it. There was much scorn then for that brave fellow who had wanted to fight for it. Indeed, they gave him Morgante’s laugh.

NURSE: Margutte’s, you mean to say, don’t you?

GODMOTHER: Morgante’s!

NURSE: Margutte’s, I tell you, Margutte’s.

FOOTNOTES

1 il mondo e fatto a scale, per cie, chi scende e chi sale, a well known proverb.

153

A GAME FOR STRANGERS

And they could all go on waiting.

GODMOTHER: Sometimes, after lunch, I used to go for a walk among the Benches, through the Borough and all the way to St. Peter’s, just to look over the softies from the country. There is a way of knowing these, just as there is of knowing melons, though it is not the same way. When I saw that I had one, I would approach him giddily and speak to him. “From what country are you, my good man?” Then I would learn how long he had been at Rome and that he was looking for a master. There would be other talk of this sort, and I would make myself quite at home with him from the very first. And so, we would strike up a friendship, wondering together at the crowd which passed the Ponte Santo Angelo. Finally, I would say to him: “Would you mind coming with me to where I live, for I have to settle with my landlady, and I don’t know these four-farthing pieces, these giulii and other coins; in fact, I don’t know one ducat from another.” Then the simpleton, with a “Certainly, I will,” and without being the least bit on his guard, would come trotting after me. I would take him to a house where there was a young whore; and when we got there, I would say to her, “Call your mother.: And she, who knew the game would reply: “She’s waiting for you at her aunt’s house, and she left word you were to go there by all means; she has something or other to tell you, and you can come back later and settle your bill.”

NURSE: Such goings-on I never did hear of.

154 GODMOTHER: “Sta bene,” I would say, and then, turning to the old crow who was with me: “I’ll be back right away; you can have your supper while I am gone.” He, seeing how things were, would say: “Go on; I’ll wait for you a year if necessary.” And then, after they had spent the day in talk, the poor fellow, not being able to withstand the strumpet’s caresses any longer, would give in, thinking he would be able to go scot-free. But when he would go to leave, she would raise an uproar and take his cloak, shoving him out of the house with insults.

NURSE: Ah, eh, oh.

GODMOTHER: Every day I used to get them in this manner, and he who did not have a farthing might leave the clothes on his back behind him. And they could all go on waiting for me to return!

155

THE JEALOUS HUSBAND

And all who come to see must say “She is a pearl in every way.”

GODMOTHER: A certain jealous husband, one of the most obstinate wretches you ever saw, was so jealous that at night he would bar not only the room but the windows of the bedroom, the hall and the kitchen; nor did he ever retire without first having given a look under and above the bed, the trunks and every possible place. He was suspicious of his relatives and his friends, and he did not even want his own mother to talk to his innamorata. If anyone even passed by her, he would fall into a fury, with a “Who is he?” and “Who is she?” When he left the house, he would lock and seal her in, in order to find out if she was deceiving him. No man or woman ever knocked at the door, but he would at once cry out, “Away, ruffians!” Now I knew all this which I am telling you, and I also knew something about incantations and cures; so I watched to see if there was anything the matter with the husband, and I discovered he had a tooth which often killed him. Then it was I laid my plans, and I said to a certain one, who was very much in love with the pretty prisoner: “Don’t despair.”

NURSE: You encourage me simply by telling me how you encouraged him.

GODMOTHER: Having put heart into the dejected one, I sent a certain big glutton that I knew to the house of the jealous husband, where he kept the young wench under lock and key. I told this fellow that, when the 156crowd was passing, he should fall down in anguish, writhe and cry out: “I’m mad, I’m dying! This tooth is killing me!” He did so, and while he was crying and frothing at the mouth, a crowd of more than thirty pious persons gathered about him. Even the Madonna, who had been commanded not to appear at the window or the door, was attracted by the noise and came to the balcony. At this point, I came by, and, seeing him lying there, inquired what was the cause. When I learned that he was crucified with the tooth-ache, I said: “Give me room. I’ve no doubt I shall be able to cure him. Open your mouth.” And the rascal opened his mouth and showed me the tooth, and I placed on it a bit of straw in the form of a cross, mumbled some prayer or other, and made him repeat three times, “Credo, credo, credo.” His pain was banished at once, and everyone was astonished at the miracle, and I left with a flock of ragamuffins at my heels, who, in their simplicity, were telling everybody about the tooth.

NURSE: Why isn’t there someone to write down all these things and have them printed?

GODMOTHER: While I was returning home, the jealous husband appeared and, seeing a crowd about his door, was afraid that some mischief had been done him; but when he heard about my little trick, he ran to his wife and said: “Did you see that tooth cured?” “What tooth?” she replied. “Since I came into this house I’ve never had the air, nor do I know anything about what the people in the street are doing, as you see well enough.” When the suspicious wretch heard this story, he came to hunt me up and showed me his own tooth, which made his very mouth stink. I looked at it, and said to him: “I don’t want to wrong the dentist, and I have a conscience in the matter, but still, I want to relieve your pain. Where do you live? The more he tried to tell me, the farther I was from understanding. It ended by 157his taking me home with him and introducing me to her whom I was to convert to the love of etcetera.

NURSE: You mean to tell me you made yourself at home in his house through such a trick as that?

GODMOTHER: That’s just what I’m telling you, nothing else.

NURSE: You don’t say.

GODMOTHER: I had time, and more than time, to worm my way into My Lady’s heart, to convince her of the death-in-life she was leading, locked up like that, and to present the petition of my gentleman friend. Since she had not entirely lost her reason, it did not take her long to come over to my way of thinking. She not only consented to see a certain fine youth, but she ended by eloping with him. That, however, is not what I wanted to tell you. The joke comes at the end.

NURSE: I’d like to hear it.

GODMOTHER: The jealous poltroon had not had the pain he used to have for perhaps twenty days, while I was practising at his house. He was afraid he would lose me; and so, with gifts, promises and all sorts of foolish talk, he tried to get out of me the secret prayer which I used in curing teeth; that is, he thought he was going to get it out of me. I, who had neither prayer nor legend, as soon as his wife had fled, went to hunt him up. I found him in church talking with one of his friends and went up to him and handed him the following incantation:

My lady surely is divine; She passes orange water and has the stink Of musk and ambergris and civet, too, I think, And when she combs her pretty hair, Rubies rain down through the air. That nectar of her mouth, you see, Is as ambrosia to me. And in those parts that are most nice Are emeralds in place of lice. 158And all who come to see must say She is a pearly in every way.

You can imagine Nurse, what happened then, and what this jealous madman said when he read the joke, and when he went home and did not find his lady friend there.

NURSE: I can imagine it well enough.

Here ends the third and last day of the Pleasing Dialogues of M. Pietro Aretino.

The Works of Aretino, Volume 1, translated into English by Samuel Putnam; pp. 61-112.

159

THE COURTEZAN

[La Cortigiana]

by

PIETRO ARETINO

“L’è pure sfacciata questa tua Corte . . . . ella parta la mitera, e non se ne vergogna.”

160

Picture of a seated nude girl on a pedestal leaning against a tiger and petting its head, at her feet is a tonsured dwarf with a very long swor in his lap, by Marquis de Bayros.

161

Translator’s Note

LA CORTIGIANA is the second of Aretino’s “Medusa works,” the other being, as we have seen, the RAGIONAMENTI. In both THE COURTEZAN and the DIALOGUES, the author flays relentlessly the vices of an age — his own. In the play, it is the court of Rome under the Medici Popes which is the target for Aretino’s annihilating satire, the victim of his merciless realism. It is to be remembered that Pietro had himself lived at court and knew whereof he wrote. He had fared none too luckily there, had been driven out once on account of his SONNETS and, in the end, barely escaped with his life. He never forgot nor forgave the attempted assassination by the papal favorite, Giberti. This accounts for his animus in the matter — Aretino was never without a bias — but the picture he gives us is, we are forced from the accounts of other writers to believe, hardly overdrawn.

THE COURTEZAN is surprising in its essential modernity. It has a certain apparent formlessness which is characteristic of some of the best drama, as well as fiction, of recent years. Indeed, it is almost cinematographic in spots. It is a series of pictures. Hutton speaks of the CORTIGIANA and the MARESCALCO as “probably the best Italian comedies before Goldoni.” This estimate is, likely, correct. The British biographer also speaks of THE COURTEZAN as “The first dramatic work in Italian which completely disregards the classic models of Plautus and Terence and sets life as the writer saw it, the life of his own time, on the stage.” At the very outset, in the closing lines of his PROLOGUE, we hear the author hurling defiance at the pedants and their rules: “For the chains that hold the mills on the river shall not bind the madmen of today . . . for we are living in another manner at Rome than that in which they lived at Athens.” A character shall not appear more than five times in a scene, the pedants, say. Mine shall come out as often as they choose, says Aretino. He practically abolishes the aside and is rather sparing of the soliloquy.

162 Perhaps, however, his most distinctly modern quality as a dramatist is one which our contemporary Maiden Aunts would call his “unpleasantness.” Mere ribaldry and hilarious smut were by no means novel; but there is in Aretino something more than this. He was “unpleasant” often, in theme and in detail, in the same sense in which our modern novelists and playwrights frequently are. Instances might be cited, but they abound in this play.

Something should be said with reference to the language employed in the translation of this drama. An attempt has been made to render it into the American, rather the English language. Something of the same thing was attempted with the DIALOGUES, but the effort has been more conscious in the present instance. With a writer so essentially and intensely modern as Aretino, there would seem to be little point in doing his work into the language of Shakespeare, the sixteenth century in England. For this reason, all the old properties and clichè’s of classic English drama have been avoided so far as possible, with the object of seeking, rather, the current and homely Americanism. Only a few words, such as “poltroon,” “knave,” etc. have been retained in order, while bringing out the modern spirit of the play, not to be false to the century in which it was written. It has seemed to the present translator that his task was to preserve here as nice as possible a balance. He wishes he might have succeeded better than he has. He has kept in mind, too, that writing “in American” does not mean, of necessity, writing in the idiom of Ring Lardner or George Ade. It is amazing to note how many of our contemporary Americanisms were current in the Cinquecento — an interesting philological article might be written on the subject — an in a great many instances, faithful and literal rendering of the Italian text called for an American slang phrase. In a number of instances, this has been indicated in the notes.

Finally, this play should serve as another bit of evidence as to the Italian origin of Shakespearean and pre-Shakespearean English comedy.

163

To The Great Cardinal of Trent

Of the miracles which are wrought by the goodness of God, the votive offerings which are made bear testimony; those which come from the valor of men are witnessed by the statues which are consecrated to these men; and of that love which the courtesy of Princes bears to those of good genius we are made certain by the works which are addressed to those Princes. And so, I address to you my COURTEZAN, which you should hold dear, for in it all the world shall be enlightened as to those merits which I honor here, you being at once a Cardinal and a Lord. Indeed, reading here of the life of Courts and of Lords, you should be proud of yourself for being so far removed from the manners of these; wherefore, rejoice to see yourself different from your fellows, in the same manner as would a young girl disporting with a female Saracen of an ugly disfavor, who imitates her in every action, so that in her every movement the Saraceness appears to be more beautiful and more gracious. And thus, all the many gentlemen who serve you, all the virtuous ones who celebrate you, and all the many Cavalieri who court you will end by knowing (hearing of the ways of others) of what quality is the man whom they adore, in the same manner in which you have come to know the diabolic Luther, against the malignancy of whom all the Christian faith which lives under the King of the Romans has made a shield of your goodness, whose good counsel in every royal action always makes the doubtful clear and the perilous secure. And just as you could not be ruled by the grace of a better King than Ferdinando, so his Majesty could not put himself into the hands of a better minister than the great and most reverend Trent. But if you are such as this, should I not hope that you will take with a generous hand the gift which I, who am so low of person, bring to a personage so lofty.

PIETRO ARETINO

164

THE COURTEZAN A Comedy in Five Acts

THE PERSONS

A STRANGER A GENTLEMAN MESSER MACO SANESE, His Groom MAESTRO ANDREA FURFANTE, Who Sells Stories ROSSO { Parabolano’s Grooms} CAPPA FLAMMINIO {Parabolano’s Chamberlains} VALERIO SIGNOR PARABOLANO, Who Is In Love A FISHERMAN SACRISTAN OF ST. PETER’S SEMPRONIO, an Old Man ALVIGIA, a Procuress GRILLO, Messer Maco’s Groom ZOPPINO GUARDIANO OF ARACELI MAESTRO MERCURIO, a Doctor TOGNA, Wife of Arcolano ARCOLANO, a Baker A JEW SHERIFF AND BAILIFFS BIAGINA, Signora Camilla’s Maid.

165

PROLOGUE

Recited by a Stranger and a Gentleman

STRAN. This place appears to be the very mind of Antonio da Leva Magno, so beautiful is it and so loftily adorned. Surely, there must be going to be some great feast here. I shall ask this Gentleman about it, who is passing. Oh, Signor, can you tell me what is the reason for all these pompous preparations?

GENT. They are for a comedy which is to be given here directly.

STRAN. Who has composed it, the divine Marchesa di Pescara?

GENT. No, for His immortal pen is engaged in placing his great consort among the gods.

STRAN. Is it by the Signora Veronica da Correggio?

GENT. No, it is not hers, for she employs her lofty genius in more glorious tasks.

STRAN. Is it by Luigi Alamanni ?

GENT. Luigi celebrates the merits of the Most Christian King, the daily bread of all virtue.

STRAN. Is it by Ariosto?

GENT. Alas, Ariosto has gone to Heaven, since he had no more need of glory on the earth.

STRAN. Great loss has the world in such a man, who, in addition to his virtues, was kindness itself.

GENT. It would have been well if he had been Sorrow herself.

STRAN. Why?

GENT. Because then he would never have died.

STRAN. And that is no idle talk. But tell me, is this something by the most gentle Molza, or by Bembo, the father of the Muses, who should be the first of all to speak?

166 GENT. It is the work neither of Bembo nor of Molza, for the one is writing the Istoria Veneziana and the other the praises of Ippolito de’ Medici.

STRAN. It is by Guidiccione?

GENT. No, for he would not bring his miraculous hand so low as to write such foolish things as these.

STRAN. Then certainly it must be by Ricco, (1) one of whose very grave works was read to the Pope and the Emperor.

GENT. It is not his, for he has now turned to more worthy pursuits.

STRAN. It seems to me, it must be the work of some sheep, quae pars est; it may be that God is making the poets rain on us like the Lutherans; if the forest of Baccano were made of Laurels, there still would not be enough to crown the crucifiers of Petrarch, who, with their commentaries, make him say things which ten strokes of the lash would never have made him confess. And it is a good thing that Dante, who with his deviltries leaves the beasts behind, should now be put on the cross himself.

GENT. Ha, ha, ha!

STRAN. Perhaps it is by Giulio Camillo.

GENT. He is not the author, for he is engaged in demonstrating to the King the great and miraculous invention of his genius. (2)

STRAN. Is it by Tasso?

GENT. Tasso is waiting to thank the Princes of Salerno for their courtesy. To tell you the truth, it is a composition of Pietro Aretino’s.

STRAN. If I thought I should split with discomfort, I still should like to hear it; for I know certainly that I should hear things of the Prophets and Evangelists. 167And perhaps it looks to someone in particular?

GENT. He preaches the goodness of King FRANCIS with an incredible fervor.

STRAN. And who does not praise His Majesty?

GENT. Does he not praise also the Duke Alessandro, the Marchese del Vasto and Claudio Rangone, the gem of valor and of sense?

STRAN. Three flowers do not make a garland.

GENT. And the most liberal Massimino Stampa?

STRAN. Do you find he speaks of any others?

GENT. Lorena, Medici and Trent.

STRAN. It is true he praises all these, but they deserve it. But why do you not say the Cardinal de’ Medici,the Cardinal de’ Lorena, and the Cardinal di Trento?

GENT. In order not to assassinate their names with the word, Cardinal.

STRAN. Oh, a pretty pass! Ha, ha, ha! Tell me, then, of what does he treat?

GENT. He portrays two pieces of waggery at one time. In the first, Messer Maco Sanese appears upon the scene, who has come to Rome to satisfy a vow which his father had made to make a Cardinal of him; and having been given to understand that no once can become a Cardinal who does not first become a Courtier, he takes Maestro Andrea for his pedant, who believes himself to be the best master of making courtiers; and having been led by Maestro Andrea to take hot baths, he holds it for certain that hot baths are the best means of making courtiers; and at the end, ruined and repaired, he wants all Rome for himself, in the manner which shall be heard. And with Messer Maco there mingles a certain Signor Parabolano of Naples (one of those Acursii (3) and of the those Sarapichi (3), who, taken from the stirrups and the stalls, have been set up by a bold-faced Fortune to govern 168the world); this fellow, having fallen in love with Livia, the wife of Luzio Romano, revealing his secret to no one, thinks everything is hidden, but he is overheard by Rosso, his favorite groom, and is betrayed by him; for the latter makes him think that the lady with whom he is in love is inflamed for him, and bringing him Alvigia, a procuress, he makes him believe that she is Livia’s nurse, and in place of Livia he causes him to consummate matrimony with the wife of Arcolano, a baker. The comedy will tell you the rest in due course for I do not rightly remember it all.

STRAN. Where do such gentle jests take place?

GENT. In Rome, where you are, don’t you see?

STRAN. So this is Rome! Mercy on me, I would never have recognized it.

GENT. I would remind you that she has just done purging her sins in the hands of the Spaniards, and she has come well out of it to be no worse off than she is. And now, let’s withdraw to one side, and if you see the characters come out more than five times in a Scene, do not laugh at it, for the chains that hold the mills on the river shall not bind the madmen of today. Moreover, do not marvel if the comic style is not here observed as is customary, for we are living in another manner at Rome than that in which they lived in Athens.

STRAN. Who doubts it?

GENT. Look, here’s Messer Maco. Ha, ha, ha!

FOOTNOTES (1) Agostino Ricci, the Lucchese, who at the age of ten wrote a comedy, I tre tiranni and then set himself to study medicine, becoming chief physician to the Pope.

(2) Reference is to Giulio Camillo Delminio and his Teatro.

(3) Papal “Ganymedes.”

169

ACT FIRST (1)

(Enter Messer Maco and Sanese.)

MACO. In short, Rome is the Coda Mundi.

SAN. Capus, you mean to say.

MACO. It’s all the same. And if I had not come here. . . .

SAN. Your bread would be mouldy.

MACO. I was saying that if I had not come here I never would have believed that there was any place more beautiful than Siena.

SAN. Did I not tell you that Rome was Rome? At Sienna you have the guard with its braves, the university with its doctors, the fonte Branda, the fonte Becci, the Piazza with its crowds, the feast of mid-August, the carts with their candles, with the young kids, the fountains, the bull hunt, the race track and honey-cakes by the hundreds with the sweetbreads of Sienna.

MACO. Yes, but you don’t say that it’s favored by the Emperor.

SAN. You are not talking to the point.

MACO. Be quiet. Look at that monkey up there in the window. Mona, oh Mona?

SAN. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself to go through the street calling apes? You’re lucky if they do not take you for a madman, without knowing that you come from Sienna.

MACO. Listen, there’s a parrot talking.

SAN. That’s a woodpecker, Master.

MACO. It’s a parrot, in spite of what you say.

SAN. It is one of those animals of many colors that your grandfather used to buy for a parrot.

170 MACO. But I showed the feathers to the goldsmith who works in brass, and he said that, by comparison, they were from a parrot right enough.

SAN. You’re a beast, if you will pardon me, to believe a goldsmith.

MACO. I’ll punish you.

SAN. Don’t be angry.

MACO. I will be angry, I will, I will. And if you do not show the proper respect for me, it will be bad for you.

SAN. I do respect you.

MACO. How much?

SAN. A ducat’s worth.

MACO. Do you know, I like you now.

(Enter Maestro Andrea) AND. Are you looking for a master?

MACO. You know well enough that I am the master.

SAN. Let me do the talking, for I understand the speech of Rome.

MACO. Off with you.

AND. Tell me, if you are looking for a place.

SAN. Messer Maco, learned in libris, rich and of Sienna . . .

AND. To the point. I tell you, I will give you five carlins a month, and you will have nothing else to do but curry four horses and two mules, carry water and wood for the kitchen, sweep the house, follow me at stirrup, and clean my clothes. The rest of the time, you can lead the life of Riley. (2)

MACO. To tell you the truth, I have come here post haste to become. . .

SAN. Become a Cardinal and hold an audience with . . .

MACO. The King of France.

SAN. Also the pope — didn’t I tell you to leave the talking to me?

AND. Ha, ha, ha!

MACO. What are you laughing at, Mister?

AND. I am laughing at the idea of you seeking an audience. Don’t you know that you must first become a Courtier 171and then a Cardinal? And I am the master to teach you the Courtier’s Art. I have been the making of the Monsignor de la Starta, the Most Reverend di Baccano, the Provost of Montemari, the Patriarch of Magliana and a thousand others. And I shall be pleased to make a courtier of your Lordship, too, for you have the air of one who will be an honor to his country.

MACO. What do you say, Sanese?

SAN. That’s all right with me, la, la, that goes with me, that goes.

MACO. When can you lend me a hand?

AND. Today, tomorrow, or whenever it is pleasing to your Lordship.

MACO. Now suits me.

AND. By your grace, I’ll go for the book which teaches how to become a Courtier, and I’ll return to your Lordship on the wing. Where are you stopping?

MACO. [At the same time] SAN. In the house of Ceccotto, the Genovese.

AND. Speak one at a time, for speaking two at a time is not one of the precepts.

MACO. This poltroon threw me off.

SAN. I am not a poltroon. You know I was going to be a soldier, and you did not want me to run the risk.

AND. Be at peace, for poltroon at Rome is the name of a feast day. I’m going now, but I shall be back right away.

MACO. What is your name?

AND. Maestro Andrea. I commend myself to your Highness.

MACO. Farewell.

SAN. Come back soon.

AND. I’ll be with you in a jiffy.

(He goes out) MACO. Sic fata volunt.

SAN. There you go again with your prophecies.

MACO. What are you babbling about?

172 SAN. I said your Highness. Didn’t you hear the Maestro say, “I commend myself to Your Highness?”

MACO. I commend myself to Your Highness. With baretta in hand, è vero?

SAN. Signor, si. Get yourself on your legs, pull down your vest, do some tall spitting, and you’re all O. K. (3). Strut! Fine, that’s fine!

(Enter Furfante, a newsboy) FUR. Stories! Stories! (4)

MACO. Be quiet, what’s he crying there?

SAN. He must be crazy.

FUR. Stories! Fine Stories! the war on the Turks in Hungary, the preaching of Fra Martino, the council, stories! stories! the affair in England, the pomp of the Pope and the Emperor, the Circumcision of Via Vova, the sack of Rome, the siege of Florence, the fall of Marseilles, Stories! Stories! Stories!

MACO. Run, fly, trot, Sanese. Here’s a giulio. Buy the one about the Courtiers, so that I can become a Courtier before the Maestro comes; but don’t you become a Courtier before I do, do you understand?

SAN. The devil, no. Do you want the books, the orations or the sheets? (5) Hey there! Oh, you! oh you! I hope he breaks his neck! He’s turned the corner; I’ll run after him.

MACO. Run, I tell you!

(Sanese goes out) MACO. Oh what a street! It’s like a cemetery. I see, up there in that window, a fine Signora. She must be the 173Duchess of Rome. I feel that I am falling in love; if I am made Cardinal, if I become a Courtier, she’ll not get away from me. She’s looking at me; she’s admiring me; I’ll not let her slip out of my claws. There’s Sanese. Where is the oration, Sanese?

(Sanese comes in) SAN. Here it is, read the superscription.

MACO. “The Life of the Turks, composed by the Bishop of Nocera.” Oh the devil take you! What do I care about the Turks? I feel like washing myself when I even talk about them. Take it away.

SAN. I told him the one about the Courtier, and he gave me this one instead: “Give your Master, if you will, a dose of the syphilis from Stracino of Sienna.”

MACO. What does he mean, syphilis? Am I a man to have a thing like that?

SAN. Is it so bad a thing to have?

MACO. Come on home, I’m going to murder you.

SAN. I won’t stand for that, Master.

MACO. Come on then, I’ll take it out on Grillo, and let you go.

(They go out. Rosso and Cappa come in) ROSSO. Our master is the most gentle knave, the most excellent dolt, and the most venerable ass in all Italy. You have to speak to him by the points of the Moon.

CAPPA. Certainly, anyone who said that he was not a villain would be lying in his throat; and I have noticed one of his scurviest knaveries, when he says to servants who apply for a position: “You try me out for a month, and I will try you for a month; if I please you, you will remain, and if you do not please me, you will go.” At the end of the month he says: “You will not do for me.”

ROSSO. I understand the reason for that; he is well-served and does not have to pay a salary.

CAPPA. It is to laugh, and to curse God at the same time, 174to see him leaning on two of his servants to have his shoes tied. If the strings are not of equal length and if they do not happen to match one another, his cries go up to Heaven.

ROSSO. And don’t forget the perfumed card which must always be borne between two silver plates upon occasion, and which must always be inspected by him first.

CAPPA. Ha, ha! I have to laugh at him in church. For every Ave Maria which the page who stands in front of him mutters, he sends up a Paternoster from the rosary which he holds in his hand; and in taking the holy water, the said page first kisses his hand; and then, dipping his hand in the water, the master sprinkles it over him on the point of his finger and makes the sign of the cross on his forehead with a most Spanish reverence.

ROSSO. Ha, ha! He reminds me of the quondam prior of Capua who, whenever he urinated, had one page to open his cod-piece and another to take out his nightingale. And when he combs his beard, a chamberlain must stand in front of him, mirror in hand; and if one hair happens to be out of line, the barber’s in a hard way.

CAPPA. Ha, Ha. Tell me, have you observed the stupidities he commits in cleaning his teeth after a meal?

ROSSO. As if I hadn’t observed them! I am amazed at the diligence he employs, and after he has spent three hours with the water and some time with the napkin, he uses his finger to brush them; of all the silly things I ever heard, he opens his mouth as wide as he can to show his white teeth, and the majestic way he struts is something not to be passed over in silence, or the way he pulls his beard or the lascivious glances he gives to others.

CAPPA. I think we ought to put a hatchet in his head some night, don’t you?

175 ROSSO. That we ought, so others like him would learn a lesson. But here’s Valerio. I doubt if he has heard us. Let’s withdraw to one side.

(They go out. Valerio comes in.) VAL. Aha, drunkards, traitors, gallows-birds, where have you fled? But I’ve heard you. A fine thing it is to treat a master the way you do! Go hang yourselves, go! As if Rosso had not been well-looked-after by the Signor. The clothes the master gives him every year are more than he is worth. But fellows like these must do and say the worst they can against the Lords who would favor them. Whoever becomes a Dove, the Falcon at once eats him.

(Flaminio comes in.) FLAM . What quarrels are these you are holding with yourself?

VAL. I am beside myself over the poltrooneries which I have just heard spoken of the Signor by Rosso and Cappa. And if it were not that I do not want to do so great a wrong to the gallows, which is waiting for them, I surely would give them what they deserve. And all this comes from treating them too well; for, make a servant the companion of your appetites , he at once becomes the master.

FLAM . Who doesn’t know that? But do you think there are no others besides Rosso? I have heard with my own ears, from one whom you know, certain obscure things of his master, who, because the latter in truth is such a man as must be nowadays, and because he is a Signor like the others, looks better after them than he does to himself. But why am I telling you all this? These Lords of the court no longer take for their service the virtuous and the noble, but the ignorant and the pleabeian.

VAL. A gran maestro wants to do and say what he pleases without respect to anyone; he wants, in the house and in the bed, to have the food that is to his taste, 176without being reproved for it, and when he does not happen to know what he wants, the only thing left for him to do is to beat, vituperate and abuse the one who serves him, a thing which he could not do with a virtuous man or with one who was well-born. A noble would rather beg than empty a urinal, or clean a thundermug; and a virtuous man would split before he would wink at the dishonorable desires which come to these Signori. And so let us make up our minds that he who would do well at court must come there deaf, blind, mute, asinine, a cow and a goat, I should say.

FLAM .This comes from the fact that the majority of the great ones are of obscure origin, and so cannot bear to look upon those who come of illustrious blood. They force themselves to bear arms and to find cognomens which will make them appear genteel.

VAL. But who is more noble than the Signor Constantino, who was the despot of Lamorea and the Prince of Macedonia, and now is governor of Fano?

FLAM . Suppose we let this conversation go, since everything is in the hands of Fate. Tell me something; what do you think of a master who does nothing but sigh?

VAL. I think he must be in love.

FLAM . It couldn’t be anything else. Let’s go walk toward Belvedere for an hour.

VAL. Let’s go.

(They go out. Parabolano and Rosso come in.) PAR . Where do you come from?

ROSSO. From the Campo di Fiori.

PAR . Who was with you.

ROSSO. Frappa, Squarcia, Tartaglia, and Targa; and I have read the cartello which Don Cirimonia di Moncada has sent to the Signor Lindezza di Valenza. Then I did the Via de la Pace, and I saw the Signora, who spoke of going to some vineyard or other; I was on the point 177of giving a couple of dagger thrusts to the fellow I saw talking to her, but I restrained myself.

PAR . Another flame is cooking in my heart now.

ROSSO. If I were a woman, I would bank my fire before I would give it to a Signor. Two days ago you were in spasms over her, and now you turn up your nose at her; in short, gentlemen don’t know what they want.

PAR . Stop your chattering, take these ten scudi, buy all the lampreys you can find, and bring them to that gentleman, the Sanese, (6) who lodges in the house of Ceccotto.

ROSSO. What madness is this?

PAR . Madness or wisdom I shall go there, for I cannot forget the honor that was done to me at his house in Sienna.

ROSSO. It would be better to give him a couple of whelps.

PAR . Are dogs good to eat, you sheep?

ROSSO. Four artichokes would be a fine present.

PAR . Where will you find artichokes at this time of the year.

ROSSO. Grow them.

PAR . Go buy what I’ve told you to, and tell him to eat them for love of me, and that I shall come to call on him tomorrow, for today I am very busy at the palace.

ROSSO. Ten tortoises would not be displeasing to him; take my advice, master, in making presents to your friends.

PAR . Are tortoises a gift to make to one of my equals, you beast? Hurry and bring him the lampreys, and don’t let me have more than twenty words out of you.

ROSSO. More than thirty I do not know. It is a cruel thing that I should not have been sent by the Sofi to the Pope as an Ambassador. I can hear myself saying, “Most serene, most reverend, most excellent, your Majesty, Holiness, Paternity, Magnificence, Omnipotence, 178and Reverence, everything up to the Viro Domino;” and I should make a bow like this, and another like this.

PAR . Altaria fumant. Help me off with my cloak and take it home. I am going to see the horses and the giardino.

(He goes out.) ROSSO (holding the cloak of Parabolano). I’m going to see how I look in silk. Oh, what I would give for a mirror to see myself rigged out in these gallantries. The truth is, clothes make the page, and if those Signori were to go as poorly clothed as we do, they would look like monkeys or baboons. I am astonished they do not banish all mirrors so they would not have to see those big porters’ candles that they call faces. But I am a fine idiot not to make leva ejus with this cloak and the scudi that are in it. It is the greatest charity there is to rob a Lord. But we will go now and swindle this fisherman fellow; the Lord we will assassinate at our leisure. I see a fish-seller coming there. To me he has the air of a business man, but I think he’s a cold potato. (7)

(Enter the fisherman.) This cloak is too tight for me. I’m used to going in a cappa and using gravity and force. This is not my style. What is it, Fisherman? FISH . At your service.

ROSSO. Have you any other lampreys besides these?

FISH . The others have been taken by the steward of Fra Mariano, who’s giving a dinner to Moro, Brandino, Proto, Troia — and all the gluttons of the palace.

ROSSO. After this, before all these others, I want you to give me first choice. I am the steward of N. S., (7) and if you are a good fellow, the palace will do business with you.

FISH . I am your Lordship’s slave, in fact, not thought.

ROSSO. How much do you want for these?

179 FISH . Whatever is pleasing to your Lordship.

ROSSO. Speak out.

FISH . Ten ducats of carlins, more or less, at your Lordship’s pleasure.

ROSSO. Eight would be a very good price.

FISH . Does your Lordship want them for a gift? Don’t you see that I am a poor man and that I have a generous mind, in fact, not thought?

ROSSO. Earth does not degrade gold. But do you think my groom leads a mule? You shall see that he leads a genet which it takes almost four hours to saddle. May I die if I don’t chase you to the bordello.

FISH . Your Lordship will not be angry if I carry them home for him, and my bambolino shall stay here to watch the rest.

ROSSO. That suits me. By the body of . . . If I meet you in the town, I’ll give you something to remember . . . Off with you, my good fellow.

FISH . I am off.

ROSSO. Are you Colonese or Orsino?

FISH . I hold to a victorious name: Palle, Palle.

ROSSO. Of what country are you?

FISH . A Florentine, born at Porta Pinti, and I was the Landlord of a chiassolino, but I fell into disgrace.

ROSSO. Aha! What is your name?

FISH . Il Faccenda, (9) at your service, and I have three sisters in the Town, at the sign of the Walnut Tree, at the pleasure of your Lordship.

ROSSO. Have made for yourself a pair of stockings with my device.

FISH . I am grateful, indeed — in fact, not thought.

ROSSO. Old sport, the maestro di casa is at the gate of San Piero. I’ll have him pay you, although, to tell you the truth, he is very stingy with his scudi. Wait for me here, and I will see that you are taken care of.

180 FISH . Hurry up about it.

(Fisherman goes out.) ROSSO. Go on! Keep faith with servants! I’d like to break your neck with a club, you thief, you big-breeches, you traitor!

(The sacristan of St. Peter’s comes in.) Listen, father. That poor wretch you see there has a wife who is possessed, in the hostlery of the Moon, with ten spirits on her back; and so, I beseech your Reverence, for the love of God, take him and have him strapped to the colonna; and I would have your Lordship understand, the poor wretch is half silly and altogether balmy. (10) SAC. As soon as I have spoken a few words to my friend over there, I shall be very glad to be of service. Call him back.

ROSSO.Sire Faccenda!

(Fisherman comes in.) FISH . Here I am. What is your Lordship’s command?

CAC. As soon as I have spoken ten words to my friend over there, I shall do my duty with you. Wait here.

FISH . As your Lordship commands.

(Sacristan goes out.) ROSSO. Here are five giulii. Take them as a deposit for the stockingmaker. I will see him in Rome and pay him the rest.

FISH . Your Lordship is too kind. Take the lampreys, since you are going to the palace.

ROSSO.All right, since I must play the groom and the groom the master. Addio.

FISH . Listen, listen, Signor Steward. What kind of stockings are specified in your coat of arms?

ROSSO. Specify what you will, it makes no difference. Sta’ bene.

(Rosso goes out.) FISH . What a knave! He pays me eight scudi, and I would 181have given them to him for four; he’s a good enough spenditore, (11), ha, ha! Just because he has a silk cloak, he things he’s a six-hundred fiorino nag. (12) But isn’t that Maestro ever going to stop his chatter? He is longer about it than a day without bread.

(Sacristan comes in.) SAC. Well?

FISH . Your servant.

SAC. Pardon me if I have put you to any inconvenience.

FISH . What inconvenience? To serve you, I would even go to Paris.

SAC. I want to comfort you.

FISH . If you want to do me a charity, there are other ways than going to the Sepulchre; for in fact, I have five bambolini.

SAC. How many are there?

FISH . Ten.

SAC. That is a good many.

FISH . It is surely a load in these times.

SAC. They are not doing well, I take it?

FISH . No, Monsignor, lampreys are a light food.

SAC. Poor man, you are mad.

FISH . How, mad? Ask the doctor.

SAC. Do the spirits take you in the day-time or at night?

FISH . I have no fear of spirits, morning or night. Will your Lordship pay me, for I have business to do.

SAC. Your father left you a curse, that’s certain.

FISH . It was curse enough to leave me a beggar.

SAC. I must say for you the masses of St. Gregory.

FISH . What the devil have lampreys to do with the masses of St. Gregory? Pay me, if you will, or I shall have to post you in the Calendar.

SAC. (calling) Take him! Take him, priests! Make the sign of the cross on him in adiutorium altissimi.

182 FISH. Ah, poltroon!

SAC. Et homo factus est.

FISH. Ah, Sodomite!

SAC. Aha! So you bite, do you?

FISH. With my fists, you knave!

SAC. Et in virtute tua salvum me fac. Acqua santa.

FISH. Let me go, traitor! So I’m bewitched, am I? I’m bewitched?

SAC. In ignem aeternum.

FISH. Where are you dragging me, you turn-coat priest!

SAC. I’ll get him out of you. Conculcabis leonem et draconem.

(The Sacristan drags him out. Parabolano comes in.) PAR. Neither horses nor gardens nor any other pleasure can draw from my heart the obstinacy of that pleasant thought which the image of Livia has sculptured in me; and I am come to such a point that food to me is poison, repose is pain, day is darkness, and the night, which ought to quiet my soul, afflicts me so that, hating myself, I would rather die than live in such a state. But here is Maestro Andrea; if he has seen me, I shall be put into a canzone; it will be better to betake myself to my house.

(He goes out. Maestro Andrea, with a book in his hand, and Rosso come in.) AND. Ha, ha! I’ve found some fine sport! Aha, here’s Rosso. How goes it, old fellow?

ROSSO. You’re laughing, and I’m laughing too. Ha, ha! A divine farce, a Fisherman, ha ha! I’ll tell it to you at my leisure. I’m in a hurry to take these lampreys home; but he who should have them shall have half, and the other half I propose to eat, myself, at the most Reverend tavern. Addio.

AND. I commend myself to you.

(Rosso goes out.) AND. I wanted to be a master to Sanese, and here, I have passed myself off to him as a pedagogue, and I am bringing him this book which teaches the art of becoming a 183Courtier. Ah, I must tell him that Augustus liked it. I ought to have taught it to my own father, rather than to a Sanese, if only my father had wanted to turn madman; what greater charity is there than to pay the horses for those who want to send their brains by post? It is a greater charity than it would be to cure a good part of the friars and priests. For as soon as the head becomes empty of brains, it is filled with states, grandeurs and treasuries, and such a one would not change his rank with a quondam dog-keeper of a Sarapica; he goes in to ecstasies when you agree with what he says, and a fellow like that would not deign to change places with the Medici. And if I end by refining the madness of this simpleton Sanese, he will be under more obligations to me than are the treasuries of syphilis to the wood of India. I can see him strutting now, and with what grace. By my faith, but I would like to put him in the catalogue of the blockheads so as to make a solemn commemoration of him to the praise and glory of — I won’t say of Sienna.

(Maco comes in.) Salutations and consolations, etc. MACO. Good day and good year. And the book, where is it?

AND. Here it is, at your Lordship’s pleasure.

MACO. I shall die if you do not read me a lesson at once.

AND. You are facetious.

MACO. You are wrong to insult me.

AND. Do you call it an insult to say you are facetious?

MACO. Yes, for I was never facetious, neither I nor anyone else of my house. And so, begin.

AND. The principal thing which a Courtier must know is how to blaspheme; he must be a gambler, invidious, a whore-chaser, a heretic, an adulator, a slanderer, an ingrate, ignorant and asinine; he must know how to cheat, how to play the nymph, and he must be at once active and patient.

184 MACO. Easy, there easy! What do you mean, active and patient I don’t understand that cipher.

AND. Man and wife can tell you.

MACO. You may be right. But how does one become a heretic? That is what I would like to know.

AND. Listen.

MACO. I’m listening.

AND. When anyone says to you in the Court there is goodness, discretion, love, or conscience, say, “I don’t believe it.”

MACO. “I don’t believe it.”

AND. When anyone would have you believe that it is a sin to break Lent, say, “That’s a joke.”

MACO. “That’s a joke.”

AND. And finally, when anyone speaks well to you of the Court, say, “You’re a liar.”

MACO. It would be better if I were to say, “You lie by the throat.”

AND. It would be more intelligible and briefer.

MACO. Why do Courtiers blaspheme, Maestro?

AND. In order to appear to be practical men, and on account of the cruelty of Acursio and the others who dispense the power of the Court, who, giving entree to poltroons and keeping the good servants in want, throw all Courtiers into such despair that they feel like renouncing their Baptism.

MACO. How does one set about it to be ignorant?

AND. By keeping yourself a buffalo.

MACO. And invidious?

AND. By bursting at the good fortune of others.

MACO. How does one become an adulator?

AND. By praising every piece of blockheadedness.

MACO. How does one deceive?

AND. By telling miracles.

MACO. How does one play the nymph?

AND. This every knavish he-whore of a Courtier can teach 185you, who stands from one vespers to the other, like a pardoner cleaning vestments, and consumes hours before his mirror, in playing the game of the rich and greasing antique pates, in talking Tuscan, Petrarch in hand, with a “yes in faith,” with an “I swear to God,” and with an “I kiss your hand,” which appears to be the totum continens of the matter.

MACO. How does one slander?

AND. By speaking the truth, by speaking the truth.

MACO. How does one become an ingrate?

AND. By putting on a face as though you had never seen one who has done you a service.

MACO. How does one become an ass?

AND. Ask even the palace stairs. But this will be enough for the first lesson; in the second, we will treat of the art of Culiseo. (13)

MACO. Wait. The art of Culiseo. What kind of a thing is that?

AND. The treasure and the consolation of Rome.

MACO. How do you mean?

AND. I will tell you tomorrow; for now we are going to see Master Pasquino.

MACO. Who is Master Pasquino?

AND. One who has put a spoke in the wheels of the Signori and the Monsgnori.

MACO. What art is his?

AND. He works by turn at poetry.

MACO. I also am a poet, both by letter and by the vulgate, and I know a fine epigram in my own praise.

MACO. Who made it?

MACO. A very worthy man.

AND. Who is this very worthy man?

MACO. I am he.

AND. Aha! Recite it, for I want to hear it.

MACO. (reciting).

186 Hanc tua Penelope musam meditaris avenam. Nil mihi rescribas, nimium ne crede colori. Cornua cum Lunae recubans sub tegmine fagi. Tityre tu patulae lento tibi mittit Ulysses.

AND. Get the hook! Get the hook! Thief! Thief!

MACO. Why do you shout like that, wise man?

AND. Because some heroic madman has stolen your verses.

MACO. And who might that heroic madman be?

AND. Oh, some valiant fellow at stealing his master’s thunder. (14) But go on.

MACO. (reciting).

Arma virumque cano vacinia nigra leguntur. Italiam fato numerum sine viribus uxor. Omnia vincit amor nobis ut carmina dicunt. Silvestrem tenui, et nos cedamus Amori.

AND. You ought to have them printed and entitled after the humor of Bologna, and I will write the life of the author, my good fellow.

MACO. Ago vobis gratia.

AND. And now home, where everything shall be arranged; but where is the servant?

MACO. Sanese is a poltroon, but Grillo is a worthy fellow; I want Grillo and not Sanese. Let us go in.

(They go out. The Fisher man comes in from the Colonna) FISH. Roma, doma. And I thought it was paradise! What cruelty is this? To a Florentine they do those things which I thought they would do only to a Sanese. I am mad, I am bursting; two hours they held me bound to the Colunna as one bewitched, with all the world around me, flaying me, pounding me, and striking at me. Who willed that I should have to beat the door, lose my lampreys and have them eaten by the cancer? I swear to God, I do not understand this Rome, I have not deceived anyone with my merchandise, but if I find 187that sacristan and those crazy priests, body, body . . . blood . . . I’ll smash their noses, I’ll break their bones and tear out their eyes. Cursed be anyone, Rome, who loves you or believes in you. And I will say it in her despite, I had thought that the punishment which Christ had given her at the hands of the Spaniards would have made her a better women, but I find she is wickeder than ever.

(END OF ACT FIRST)

FOOTNOTES 1 No effort has been made to retain the original numerous scene divisions. The stage directions for the most part are the translator’s own.

2 menarvi la rilla

3 Tiratevi la persona in le gambe, acconciatevi la veste a dosso, sputate tondo, o bene. Passeggiate largo, bene, benissimo.

4 A le belle istorie, a le belle istorie. Later, it is merely istorie, istorie. This is nothing if not our “Extra!” This scene, indeed, is astonishingly modern. We see here modern journalism in the making. Reference is to the Pasquinades. See Hutton, pp. 35ff: “These verses were even then distributed in fly-sheets, it might seem precisely as the ‘istorie’ are cried and sold in La Cortigiana and as songs and verses are sold today on coloured single sheets of paper in Tuscany.”

5 Debbe esser pazzo.

6 Sanese: one of Sienna, from which city Maco comes; also the name of Maco’s servant.

7 zugo.

8 i. e., the Pope.

9 Business Man.

10 e tutto adombrato.

11 Steward [one who spends.]

12 A barbery horse which cost six-hundred fiorini d’oro. Hence, a presumptuous fellow, a braggart.

13 culo: rump.

in disfidare a le cannonate, etc.

———————— The Works of Aretino, Volume 1, translated into English by Samuel Putnam; pp. 188-212.

188

Picture looking from before them, of two nude girls, bent over lifting dumb-bells, with an old man clad in robes, with a staff, beside them looking on, by Marquis de Bayros.

189 ACT SECOND

(Enter Cappa.) CAPPA. He who has not been in a tavern does not know what paradise is. My good friend Rosso brought me here, and we have eaten five lampreys, which have put my throat in heaven. O holy tavern, miraculous tavern — I say holy, because in you there is no pain nor want, and you are miraculous for your spit which are always turning. Surely, good breeding and courtesy are born of the tavern, for the tavern is full of bowings, of signor si and signor no. And the great Turk is never obeyed as is one who dines in a tavern. If taverns were placed beside perfume jars, the civet itself would stink by comparison. O sweet, O gentle, O divine music which comes from those frying pans, trimmed with thrushes, with partridges and with capons! What a consolation you bring my soul! Who doubts that, if I were not always hungry, I should be always sleepy, hearing this music which resounds through the tavern? It is right sweet, but it is not as sweet as the tavern itself, and the reason is this: in a tavern there is no weeping, in a tavern there is no sighing, and in a tavern there is no remorse. And if that Caesar who triumphed under those arches which we see here and there had triumphed in a well-ordered tavern, his soldiers would have adored him, even as I adore these lampreys. I never fought with anyone in my life (so far as I can remember), but for a single lamprey I would commit murder with Bevilacqua; and I am not at all envious when I see one of my fellow grooms come into the inheritance of a thousand scudi, but my soul flies into my teeth when I behold Sire Cordial munching a 190lamprey. And now, I am going to look for the tailor, for my master will want to dress up tomorrow, or I am a big clown.

(He goes out. Maco and Andrea come in.) AND. You are dressed up like a paladin, with that cloak.

MACO. You make me laugh, you do, indeed.

AND. Your Lordship has well in mind what I have taught him?

MACO. I can cope with the world, I can.

AND. Why don’t you play the duke a little, as every knave does who would be taken for a Cardinal in disguise?

MACO. Like this, with my cloak up to my face?

AND. Yes, Signor.

MACO. Alas, that I should have fallen through not knowing how to play the Duke in the dark.

AND. Brace yourself, my fine ninny.

MACO. Give a couple of looks at my mantilla, if you want me to play the Duke. You know that I have made a vow to rise in the world.

AND. And you did quite right. Now, how do you reply to the Signori?

MACO. Signor si, and Signor no.

AND. Right gallant. And to the Signore?

MACO. I kiss your hand.

AND. Good. And to friends?

MACO. Yes, in faith.

AND. Right gentle. And to prelates?

MACO. I swear to God.

AND. And how do you give commands to servants?

MACO. Bring my mule, lead me my cloak, sweep the bed, and make the room, or by the body of Heaven I’ll beat you to death.

(Grillo comes in.) GRILLO. I heard what you said, master. Maestro Andrea, give me some instructions, for I don’t want to associate with such big beasts as these.

191 MACO. I have no doubt, Grillo, that I shall end by making you a Courtier.

GRILLO. I am quite reassured.

AND. Suppose we go have a look at the Campo Santo, the obelisk, St. Peter’s, the pine wood, the Banchi and the Tower of Nona.

MACO. Does the Tower of Nona ever ring for vespers?

AND. Yes, when they pull the rope.

MACO. Cazzia. (1)

AND. We will go then to the Ponte Sisto and through all the alleys of Rome.

MACO. And, is there, then, an alley through all Rome?

AND. And through all Italy.

MACO. What church is this?

SAN. St. Peter’s. Enter with devotion.

MACO. Laudaumus te, benedicimus te.

SAN. That’s the way.

MACO. Et in terra pax bonae voluntatis. I enter. Come, Maestro. Osanna in excelsis.

(They go out. Rosso comes in.) ROSSO. Adventures follow me as sorrows did the one who was mad over Beatrice. I do not speak of the ten scudi I have gained nor of the lampreys stolen form the Fisherman, for they are nothing. But there has come to me, thanks to God and my own good deportment, so great a fate that I would not change places with the Bishop. The Signor, my master, is enamoured, and he keeps as close a watch over his love as he does over his pocket-book. Some days ago I overheard him talking to himself and sighing and saw him standing all thoughtful-like, and I perceived that Cupid had made anatomy of his heart. Two or three times, I would have opened my mouth to say, “What is the matter, master?” but I decided to keep still. And then, what do you think happened? Last night I (who am as presumptuous as a 192Friar at precession) going through the house, put my ear to the door of the master’s room, and standing there, I heard him muttering in his sleep, and it seemed that he was at conclusions with his lady love. He was saying, “Livia, I am dying; Livia, I am burning up; Livia, I am in a spasm.” And then, with a long rigamarole, he went on commending himself to her most foolishly. Then, changing his conversation, he said: “Oh Luzio, how happy you are to have the pleasure of so beautiful a lady”; and coming back to Livia, after he had exclaimed, “My soul, my heart, dear blood, sweet hope, etc.”, I heard such a great shaking of the bedstead that I thought the Hungarians were on us. And when I returned to my own bed, chewing the thing over in my fancy, I tried to think of playing a joke on him which would enable me to get what I wanted from his hands. And here, I had almost forgotten it, being so busy with my own amusement, in making sport of the Fisherman and in eating with Cappa the lampreys in the most reverend tavern. And now the case is this: I shall go find Alvigia, who would corrupt chastity itself, for without her nothing can be done, and with her aid I shall set myself to the magnanimous enterprise of assassinating the old ass, the big wretch, and the arch blockhead of a Signor Mio. Those poltroons, the gran maestri, believed that everything depends on being loved by duchesses and queens; and for this reason, it would be easier for me to pull the wool over his eyes than it would be to come upon evil at court. And now, away to find Alvigia. Oh was a feast day this is going to be!

(He goes out. Parabolano comes in.) PAR. This living in the world is a strange madness. When I was in a low state, the spurs of ambition always pricked my flank, and now that I am what might be called fortunate, such a strange fever torments me that neither stones nor herbs nor words can lessen it. O love 193what can you not do? Surely, nature felt an envy against the peace of mortals when she created you, the irremediable scourge of men and Gods. And what good is it to me, Fortune, to be your friend, if love has taken that heart which, thanks to you, was in Heaven and placed it in the abyss? What is there for me to do except to weep and sigh, in the guise of a woman for a woman? I shall go back to my room which I have just left, and perhaps there I shall find a way out, the same way which thousands of other unfortunate lovers have found.

(He goes out. Enter Flamminio and Sempronio.) FLAM. What is your idea in putting Camillo to Court?

SEM. So that he may learn there virtues and good manners and by such means be able to come into some little useful reputation.

FLAM. Good manners and virtues at Court? Oho!

SEM. In my day, virtues and good manners were not to be found anywhere but at Court.

FLAM. In your day, asses kept school. You old men, you always follow the rules of ancient times, and we are living in modern times. I swear it by a hundred pair of devils.

SEM. What’s this I hear?

FLAM. The gospel truth, Sempronio.

SEM. Can it be that the world has gone to the dogs so soon?

FLAM. The world has found it easier to do evil than to do good, that is all I have to say to you.

SEM. I am translated, I am amazed.

FLAM. If you want more light on the subject, tell me about the goodness of your times, and I will tell you a part of the sorrows of mine, for to tell you all would be too great an undertaking.

SEM. To it, then. In my day, scarcely anyone arrived in Rome but a patron was found for him at once; and according to his age, condition, and his own desires, he 194was given an office, a room for himself, a bed and a groom; the patron paid for his horse, the laundress, the barber, the doctor and medicines; and once or twice a year, he was given a new suit of clothes; and whenever benefices fell vacant, they were divided honourably, and everyone was remunerated in such a manner that throughout the household no complaint was ever heard. Everyone took delight in letters or music, and the expense was paid by the master.

FLAM. Really?

SEM. They lived together in so much love and charity that no inequality of nations was known, and it appeared that all were of one father and one mother; and each one rejoiced in the welfare of his comrade as he did in his own. In case of sickness, one waited upon another, as the religious do.

FLAM. Is there any more to tell?

SEM. That will be enough. The love I had for a life at Court did not deceive me.

FLAM. Hear, then, my reasons, Courtier of Papa Janni. In my day there came to Rome one full of all the qualities which are to be desired in a Courtier. And before they would receive him even in the servants’ hall, he might have gone to Paradise. In my day, one groom was enough for two. How is it possible that half a man should serve a whole man? In my day, five or six persons were lodged in one room, ten feet long and eight feet wide; and he who did not like to sleep on the ground had to buy a bed or rent one. In my day, horses became chameleons, if you did not provide the corn, and hay out of your own purse. In my day, you sold your own household goods to dress yourself, and he who had none of his own went a poor and naked Philosopher. In my day, so soon as anyone fell sick in his master’s service, it was regarded as a great favor to find a place 195for him in Santo Spirito. (2) In my day, laundresses and barbers were paid by nos otros. And the benefices which fell vacant in my day were given to one who had not been at Court at all, or else were divided up into so many pieces that each was not worth a ducat; and yet, we were better off than the Pope, if that ducat had not had to be lawyered over for ten years. In my day, masters were not paid to teach virtue, but he who taught it at his own expense was persecuted as an enemy; for the Signori do now want about them persons more learned than themselves. And in my day, we are together, one with the other, and we fell upon our bread and wine with a greater hatred than highwaymen show to one who keeps them out of his house.

SEM. If things are like this, Camillo shall stay with me.

FLAM. Let him stay with you, if you do not wish to send him to Court to become a knave.

SEM. How, knave?

FLAM. Knave is an old story; for the least theft the Court ever did was to steal twenty-four years from the life of a good and gentle man like Messer Vincenzio Bovio, who for having grown old in service did not draw as a reward two suits of mourning clothes, even. He who doubts such things will soon learn that he has nothing to expect from his patrons; for only the ignorant, the plebian, parasites and ruffians win advancement. After knave comes traitor. What more? With a hypocritic shuffling of feet, which with them is incurable, they overlook even homicides.

SEM. Let’s speak of something else.

FLAM. But surely, the cruelty of Courts is incomprehensible, and it is true, moreover, that one at Court desires nothing so much as the death of this one or that one among his fellows; and if it happens that he himself escapes, as soon as he has obtained a benefice, he feels 196all the stomach-turnings, all the side-aches, and all the fevers of the others. And it is a most evil thing to long for the death of one who has never offended you.

SEM. That is the truth.

FLAM. Listen to this. Our patrons provided a meal for us once a day, alleging that two meals were homicidal; and so, each one pretended to make an evening collation solus peregrinus in is room. And this they did not so much to appear sober as to chase away a few virtuous ones whom have come intruding at their table.

SEM. Yet they tell miracles of the Medici.

FLAM. One garland does not make a Spring.

SEM. That’s true.

FLAM. And it is enough to make you split with laughing when they lock themselves in secret under pretense of studying. Ha, ha, ha!

SEM. Why do you laugh?

FLAM. Because they stand in conclave utriusque sexus and pretend to read Philosophy. But suppose we speak of the splendor of their repast. The cook of the Ponzetta, making three eggs an omelet for two persons, in order that the omelets may appear bigger, puts them into those bands where the priests keep their barrettas and stretches them on rungs dirtier than the cloak on the neck of Gulilian Leno; and then comes the wind, and they toss them in the air so that they fall on the heads of the nations in the guise of diadems.

SEM. Ha, ha, ha!

FLAM. The steward of Malfetta (that prodigious prelate who, dying of hunger, left so many thousands of ducats to Leo) having spent four farthings too much on a shad, was constrained by the Reverend Monsignor to report to him; whereupon those in the house made up the money to pay for the shad, and when they were seated at table to enjoy it together, the Bishop, attracted 197by the odor, came running up, saying: “Where’s my share? Leave some for me!”

SEM. Ha, ha, ha!

FLAM. I have heard, but these are not my own words, that the rivisore of Santa Maria, in the portico, used to measure the soup to his household, and he even counted the mouthfuls, giving so many for white days and so many for black.

SEM. Ha, Ha, Ha!

FLAM. But I have forgotten. In my day, men were masters of the house, and in our day, the masters of the house are the women.

SEM. How, the women?

FLAM. The women, I tell you. In the house of — I don’t want to tell you who it was — it is said that the mothers of some Cardinal or other water the wine, pay salaries, and hunt the servants and do everything. And whenever the most reverend sons are disorderly in their coitus or their eating, they are treated to dog-like rebuffs. And the father of a certain great prelate draws the revenues of his Monsignor son and gives the latter so much a month to live on.

SEM. My God, I understand. It is better then to be in the Inferno than at Court nowadays.

FLAM. A hundred times better; for in the Inferno, the soul it tormented, but at Court soul and body.

SEM. We shall speak of this again. In the meanwhile, I am resolved to choke Camillo with my own hands rather than let him go to Court. And now, I want to go to the bank of Agostino Chigi to draw my salary. Addio.

(They go out. Rosso and Alvigia come in.) ROSSO. Where are you going in such fury?

ALV. Here and there in tribulation.

ROSSO. Oh, in tribulation. One who governs Rome?

ALV. No, but you see, my mistress . . .

ROSSO. What is the matter with your mistress?

198 ALV. She is on fire.

ROSSO. Who the devil set her on fire?

ALV. Alas, a misfortune.

ROSSO. What has she done?

ALV. Nothing.

ROSSO. Do they set folks on fire for nothing then?

ALV. It’s only a drop of poison which she gave to her Godfather out of love for her Godmother, and this is the reason Rome is going to lose such a fine old lady.

ROSSO. People don’t know how to take jokes.

ALV. She threw a little girl baby into the river which a certain friend of hers had given birth to, as her habit is.

ROSSO. These are words.

ALV. She put some kind of beans on a stair and made a jealous lover break his neck.

ROSSO. A pistachio would have been no joke.

ALV. My, but you’re a straight-speaking man. and so she left me heir to all she has.

ROSSO. That’s fine. But what did she leave you, if you don’t mind telling me.

ALV. Alembics for distilling herbs grown in the light of the new Moon, waters for washing away freckles, ointments for removing spots from the face, an ampulla of lover’s tears, oil for reviving . . . I don’t want to tell you.

ROSSO. Tell me, foolish girl.

ALV. Flesh . . .

ROSSO. What flesh?

ALV. On the . . . you understand.

ROSSO. On the . . . ?

ALV. Yes.

ROSSO. Aha!

ALV. She left me bands for my breasts, which are pendulous, she left me an electuary against pregnancy and childbed; she left me a flask of maiden’s wine.

199 ROSSO. What’s that good for?

ALV. It is good for mothers on fast days and is especially good for marchionesses. She left me the rope of one who was wrongly hanged, powder for killing jealous men, incantations for producing madness, prayers for producing sleep and recipes for rejuvenation. She left me also a spirit confined —

ROSSO. Where?

ALV. In a thunder-mug.

ROSSO. Ha, ha!

ALV. What do you mean, ha, ha, big stupid? In a thunder-mug, I tell you, and it is a familiar spirit that knows how to find stolen property and tells you whether your lady friend loves you or not. It is called Il Folletto; and she left me an unguent which carries me above wind and water to the walnut tree of Benevento.

ROSSO. God give your soul all she has left you.

ALV. God will do it.

ROSSO. Don’t weep, weeping won’t help.

ALV. I am in despair, my heart is breaking; it is not a thousand years ago that she was drinking six kinds of wine at the Pavone, always from the decanter and without a thought of any reputation in the world.

ROSSO. God bless her, for at least she wasn’t one of those refuse-a-drops.

ALV. There never was an old lady who was so healthy an eater and so light a worker.

ROSSO. You don’t say.

ALV. At the butcher’s, at the delicatessen keeper’s, at the baker’s, at the stove, at the fair, at the Ponte Santa Maria, at the Ponte Quattro Capre and at the Ponte Sisto, folks always, always stopped to talk to her, and she was regarded as a Solomon, a Sybil, and a Chronicle by constables, innkeepers, porters, cooks, friars and all the world; and she would stalk like a dragon among the gallows, cutting out the eyes of a hanged men, and 200like a female paladin through the cemeteries, tearing off the claws of the dead on some fine midnight.

ROSSO. And so Death wanted her for his own.

ALV. And what a conscience was hers! On the eve of Pentecost she would not eat meat. On Christmas eve she fasted on bread and wine, and in Lent, beyond a few fresh eggs, she led the life of a lady hermit.

ROSSO. In short, every day she ought to have been hanged and burned; she was neither a good man nor a good woman.

ALV. You speak evil, but you speak the truth.

ROSSO. If they had plugged up her ears and made a sign on her forehead, she might have gone on living.

ALV. So she might, and she might now be wearing the mitre which she wore three years ago on the day of St. Peter Martyr; and she would just as soon ride on the ass as on the cart; and she was not at all concerned with the paintings on the mitre, so the neighbors could not say she did it out of vain glory.

ROSSO. He who is humble shall be exalted.

ALV. Poor woman, she was the sworn sister of the priests of good wine, God knows.

ROSSO. That was another sin of hers.

ALV. And so it was.

ROSSO. And now let’s leave these sorrowful things and speak of pleasant ones, for as soon as you give the word, we shall be out of the mud. My master is all minced chicken (3) for Livia, the wife of Livio.

ALV. He ought to look a little higher.

ROSSO. And while he tried to keep his love secret, he has revealed it to me.

ALV. How?

ROSSO. In a dream.

ALV. Aha! Tell me right away.

ROSSO. I gave him to understand, pretending to know nothing 201of his secret, that Livia was so bestially inflamed for him that she had been forced to confide in you, and that you are her nurse.

ALV. I get you. No more words. Come on, let’s get them on the turf. (4)

ROSSO. You get my meaning better than the rump of one who has taken a pill.

ALV. Come on, foolish lad.

ROSSO. One kiss, queen of queens. (He attempts to kiss her.)

ALV. Let me go, silly!

(They go out. Maco and Andrea, who have just come from St. Peter’s, come in.) MACO. Where do those big bronze pine cones come from?

AND. From the pine wood of Ravenna.

MACO. Whose ship is that with the suffocating saints?

AND. Musaico’s.

MACO. Where do they make those obelisks?

AND. At Pisa.

MACO. That Campo Santo is full of dead men, you mean to tell me?

AND. I don’t know.

MACO. I have a thirst.

AND. God be praised, you’ve taken the word out of my mouth.

MACO. Venite, adoremus.

(They go out. Parabolano comes in.) PAR. Shall I be silent? Or shall I speak? In silence is my death, and in speech is her disdain, since when I write her how much I love her, she is likely to hold it a vile thing to be loved by so base a person; and if I restrain my fire, the concealing of so great a passion will be the death of me.

(Valerio comes in.) VAL. Not to employ the presumption of a courtier, but to 202fulfill the office of a faithful servant, I should like to know the reason of your languishment and to find the remedy with my own blood, if needs be.

PAR. Is that you, Valerio?

VAL. It is I, who, perceiving that love does to you what it does to every gentle person, desire to know everything in order that my faith may be an aid to your desires.

PAR. You do not understand.

VAL. If I do not understand, why hide it from me, who holds your contentment more dear than the eyes in my own head? And if it is Love, are you so lacking in spirit as to place difficulties in the way of enjoying a lady? If that is the case, what should they do who, being in love, are as poor in everything as you are most rich?

PAR. If the plasters of wise words could cure another’s pain, you would have healed my own.

VAL. Alas, Signor mio, rid yourself of such a novel error, and do not suffer those who envy your greatness to rejoice in your affliction; for when the rumor of the melancholy which consumes you spreads, what joy will your friends have, what benefit your servants, and what glory your country?

PAR. Let us suppose I were in love, what remedy would you suggest?

VAL. That you find a procuress.

PAR. And then?

VAL. By means of her, send a letter to the one you love so much.

PAR. And if she will have none of it?

VAL. Neither letters nor presents are refused by women.

PAR. What would you have me write her?

VAL. Whatever love dictates.

PAR. If she takes me for a bad man?

VAL. For a bad man? Oh, they are not so cruel. There was a time already when one had to think ten years about getting a word, and to get a letter to his mistress had 203to resort even to necromancy and, finally, concealing his identity, was forced to cling to roofs at the peril of breaking his neck, or to stand a day and a night in some cold cellar in the heart of winter, or under a mountain of hay when the world was burning with heat; and the sound of a foot, a fart, a cat, a nothing was enough to ruin everything. Not to speak of those rope ladders which make my hair stand on end to think of them.

PAR. What do you mean to imply by that?

VAL. I mean to imply that now one enters by the door, in the light of day, and lovers are so lucky that they are even shown courtesies by husbands. For war, plague, famine and these times, which are inclined toward pleasure, have made a whore out of all Italy, to such an extent that cousins and relatives, brothers, and sisters mingle indiscriminately, without any shame or conscience in the world. And if it were not for my blushes, I could give you the names of as many guilty ones as there are hairs in your head. No, Signor, do not despair of attaining your desire, for you have more right to hope for it than the Scourge of Princes (5) had to hope for the courtesy of the Emperor’s general in Italy.

PAR. This security you offer does not diminish my pain in the least.

VAL. You have but to revive that ardor which in the past has brought you through the most difficult enterprises. Let us go home and think of some manner of dispatching the letter, and perhaps I shall be able to add a few amorous lines in your favor.

PAR. Come then, for neither at home nor abroad is there any peace for my heart.

(They go out. Andrea comes in.) AND. While Master Dunce was drinking, he fell enamoured of Camilla Pisana, having caught a glimpse of her from 204a window of his room. This is once when Cupid becomes a doctor, that is, a blockhead. And it would make a weeping man laugh to hear him improvising over her; he has all the style of the Abbott of Gieta, crowned on an elephant; he has composed a number of the most awful verses that were ever heard, so awful that Cinotto and Casto da Bologna and even Marco da Lodi are Virgils and Homers by the side of him; and if any other proof were needed, this letter in prose would give it. I’m going to see what the old baboon has written to Signora Camilla.

Letter of Messer Maco Salve Regina, have mercy on us, for your odoriferous eyes and your marble forehead, which distils a mellifluous manna, have so slain me that, therefore and thusly, gold and pearls subtract me to love you. And there were never seen anywhere erst such cheeks of emerald and hair of milk and purple which lithesomely disport themselves with your little bosom, where lodge two breasts in the guise of harmonious melons. And I have come here to make me a Cardinal, and then a Courtier, by your leave. Therefore, choose the time and name the place, so that I may be able to tell you the cruelty my heart feels, which will be comforted in the liquid crystal of your little sweetbread mouth, et fiat voluntas tua, for omnia vincit Amor.

Maco is all minced chicken over you, So do your duty, and do it quickly too.

These words would turn the stomach of a friar who was used to eating barrettas; and what is this written underneath? Can it be that God has turned his world contrary? Now, who would ever believe that out of Sienna, a good, noble, and courteous city and one filled with genius, should have come such a great blockhead as Messer Maco? It breaks my heart to think he comes from so splendid a province. For, not to speak of the 205famous men who have lived there and live there yet, its two Academies, la Grande and la Intronata, have made poetry beautiful and given the language a new gentility. I was astonished to hear what Jacopo Eterno, who in letters Greek, Latin, and Vulgate displays the highest excellence, had to tell me of this yesterday. But there are madmen everywhere, though there is none worse than this snail-sheller who has set out to get himself canonized as a fool. Here he comes now.

(Enter Maco.) MACO. With whom are you confabulating, Maestro?

AND. With your stupidity.

MACO. With my Poetry?

AND. Signor, si.

MACO. What do you think of it?

AND. Caecus non iudicat de coloris.

MACO. Take this little Roundelay again; read it in a loud voice.

AND. By your leave.

O star of love, O angel of my garden, Face of wood and visage oriental, I am a ship, begging your pardon, Braving at night a tempest temperamental: Your beauty comes from France, I swear, Like that of Giuda who was strangled, For love of you I will a courtier be, Such love as mine I never did see.

MACO. What do you say to it?

AND. Oh what sententious verses, full, slippery, gentle, learned, sweet, sharp, pleasant, bright, clear, agreeable, terse, sonorous, novel, and divine.

MACO. They astonish you, eh?

AND. They astonish me, translate me, and drive me to despair; but there is a false Latinity in them.

MACO. Which one? The one about the ship?

AND. Yes.

206 MACO. That’s a poetic license, is it not?

AND. The fact of a horse does not depend on the cruppers, you mean to say?

MACO. Yes, master. And now, I must off to my lady-love.

(He goes out.) AND. I am of the opinion that this fellow, being a dunce, a very rich simpleton and a twenty-four carat clown, will end up by becoming the favorite of this Court. It was wisely that Giannozzo Pandolfini exclaimed: “I am happy to be praised by Leo as a madman,” implying that with Princes one must be mad, feign madness and life the life of a madman. Messer Gimignano da Modena, the Doctor, was wise when, desiring to win a suit at Mantua from Giannino da Correggio, who has as much right in equity as the Doctor had in law, he played the part of the hedgebill in front of the Duke. We may make up our minds, then, to believe that one cannot do a greater injury to a Signor than by spreading the report that he is a wise man. And now, coming back to our Poet, he is first to become a Cardinal. Then, to find Zoppino and bring him to the Master as an ambassador to the Signora. Zoppino will congratulate him over his marvelous letter and that stupendous Roundelay.

(He goes out. Rosso comes in.) ROSSO. Alvigia, eh? Oh what a trimming! She has more spirit than Desiderio who, while he was being torn with red-hot pincers, kept on smiling; suppose she had said, “I don’t want to,” “I can’t,” or “I’m afraid of the risk in betraying so great a personage”? But she understood me before I told her how things were. She’s put me on the right track. We shall see her going to the Signor with Livia’s message. There’s Parabolano now. Oh what a face! He looks like one who is hungry and ashamed to eat in the servant’s hall. God content him.

207 (Parabolano comes in.) PAR. Only death can content me, for these women, who flee when one pursues them and pursue when one flees them, will be the death of me yet.

ROSSO. Don’t despair.

PAR. I will despair. I wish God would transform you into me and me into you.

ROSSO. Oh Christ, what a thing to say, and why don’t you do us the favor?

PAR. You would not want me to do so, if you knew how I feel.

ROSSO. Those are words.

PAR. They are not.

ROSSO. And now, I am going to tell you something that would cheer a priest’s servant.

PAR. Alas!

ROSSO. Smile a little or I will repent of my intentions. Look at me. One of the most gentle, richest and most beautiful (what more do you want?) women on this earth is so love-sick over your Lordship that, to keep from dying, she has revealed her love to her Nurse, and her Nurse out of compassion has told me.

PAR. Tell me who it is.

ROSSO. No, you must divine it.

PAR. Does her name begin with an A?

ROSSO. No, Signor.

PAR. With a G?

ROSSO. You’re wrong.

PAR. With an N?

ROSSO. You’re cold.

PAR. With an S?

ROSSO. You’re as far-off as the man in the moon.

PAR. With a B?

ROSSO. I see I shall have to tell you.

PAR. Tell away.

208 ROSSO. Do you know you’re A B C’s?

PAR. By God, I hope so.

ROSSO. That’s a miracle.

PAR. Why?

ROSSO. Because you Lords are not in the habit of delighting in such pedagogicalisms. And now say over you’re A B C’s, and when you come to that letter, which it the one her name begins with, I will tell you ; otherwise, I’ll never be able to remember. Begin.

PAR. A B C D E F G: is it any one of those?

ROSSO. Go on.

PAR. Where was I?

ROSSO. In the A B C’s. Collect your wits.

PAR. A B C D E F G H I K.

ROSSO. Steady now, you’re coming to it. Proceed.

PAR. M N O.

ROSSO. What would you say to an L?

PAR. Ah, Rosso, divine, celestial, immortal!

ROSSO. That’s all right; compose a book in my honor.

PAR. So it’s my Livia.

ROSSO. Was I right, or wasn’t I?

PAR. Where am I?

ROSSO. In Emmaus.

PAR. Am I asleep?

ROSSO. Yes, you’re just calling me out of the servant’s hall.

PAR. Let’s go home, honored Rosso.

ROSSO. A little while ago I was a traitor.

PAR. That’s not so.

(They go out. Andrea and Zoppino come in.) AND. Of all the jokes that ever were, there never was one like this.

ZOPP. I shall tell him that the Signora Camilla has sent me to him, and that if it were not out of respect to Don Diego di Lainis, who out of jealousy keeps a watch on her house, he might come to her in his own garb, but 209that for this reason, it is necessary that he come dressed as a porter. Be quiet, the blockhead appears. What a good time fools have.

(Maco comes in.) The Signora Camilla, my mistress, kisses the hand of your Lordship.

MACO. They tell me she’s ill over me; is that true?

ZOPP. I cannot tell you how ill.

MACO. If she gives me a son, I’ll pay for the cradle.

AND. You think so?

ZOPP. Now that I see him close up, I think she spoke the truth when she said he would be the death of her.

MACO. How many kisses did she give my letters?

ZOPP. Oh, more than a thousand!

MACO. Gluttoness! Traitress! And the Roundelay, what did she do with it?

ZOPP. She put it up on the wall.

MACO. By the hand of whom?

ZOPP. By the hand of her tailor. And now she’s going to replace the poet laureate who curries her horses and give drinks and hay to the asinine Pegasus, instead; so you’ll have plenty of manure to regale yourself with.

MACO. I made it up out of my head.

ZOPP. Oh what a madman!

MACO. I am I.

AND. You do yourself all possible honor.

MACO. O you, who come from the Signor, do you know what I’m going to say to you?

ZOPP. No, Signor.

MACO. When I get the next batch of honey cakes and sweetbreads from Sienna, I’m going to give you a couple.

AND. Didn’t I tell you, he was liberal as a Pope or an Emperor? And now, let’s go plan the means of sending this gentleman to the Signora.

210 MACO. Let’s hurry. Oh, Grillo, Grillo, come to the window.

(Grillo appears at a window.) GRILLO. What do you want?

MACO. Nothing. Yes, I do. Oh, Grillo.

GRILLO. Here I am. What do you want?

MACO. I’ve forgotten.

AND. Enter, Signor Zoppino.

ZOPP. You first, your Highness.

AND. I beg your Highness, you first.

ZOPP. No, your Highness must go first.

MACO. I’ll go first myself; you follow me.

(They all go out. Rosso comes in.) ROSSO. All the titles which were given by Norcia and by Todi to their ambassadors, Rosso’s master has given him. He wants to make me rich, right off, to give me a place in the world; he wants me to advice, govern, and command him. Run up an alley, you who only know how to make pretty reverences, with a platter in your hand or, it may be, a well-washed beaker, and to speak on the tips of your wooden shoes, entertaining the Signori by composing music and poems in their honor, thinking thereby to get into their good graces. You don’t know your business. To take affairs in hand, that is the whole thing; and when things begin to fall into the master’s mouth, he will carry you in the crupper all over Rome; he will caress you, flatter you and load you with gifts. Look at this barretta with a medallion and with the egrets of aurum sitisti which he has given me as a sign of his love. But I must go fetch Alvigia. If this hoax is discovered, I am lost. But I know all the brothels in Italy and outside of Italy, and the Calendar which finds the feast days of the year will not be able to find me. But I don’t think we shall be found out, for the master has more business on his hands than a tradesman.

(He goes out. Andrea and Zoppino come in.) 211 AND. We cannot do any better than to dress Grillo in his clothes and him in a Burgamask habit.

ZOPP. And when he comes to the Signora’s door, in those clothes, I will pretend to believe that he is a porter and ask him if he wants to carry a dead one to the Campo Santo. You will appear then and urge him to do it. And Grillo will pretend that I do not know him.

AND. Benissimo.

ZOPP. In the meanwhile, I shall tell him there has gone out an order for the arrest of a certain Messer Maco, who is being sought by the Sheriff. You have all his friends be there; I shall be close at hand, and you may leave the rest to me.

(Zoppino goes out. Grillo comes in, dressed in his master’s clothes, and Maco in those of a porter.) AND. Come on out. Ha, ha, ha!

GILLO. How do I look in velvet?

MACO. How do I look, Maestro?

AND. Ha, ha! Ho, ho! A navigation chart wouldn’t recognize you. And now, keep your wits about you, and if you see anyone, pretend that you have come to carry a trunk of the Signora’s; and if you don’t see anyone, go on in the house, attend to your business, and don’t let your imagination run away with you.

MACO. It seems to me like a thousand years, it does.

AND. Follow him, Grillo, a little way behind, and if any ruffian meets him, step in front so that it will seem you are Messer Maco and that Messer Maco is the porter. In that way we shall not be suspected.

MACO. Stay close to me and see to it that some Spanish gentleman doesn’t break me in pieces. Alas! Look at that one, I’m afraid, I’m trembling,

AND. Don’t be afraid. Go on. Oh what a subtle gallows-bird is this Zoppino. From his gestures, the way he struts and wears his cloak and sword, you would swear he was a very by-God to the life.

212 (Zoppino comes in.) ZOPP. Do you want to carry a dead one to the Campo Santo?

MACO. I’m a dead one already.

ZOPP. Just because bread is cheap, you beggars don’t want to work.

MACO. I don’t want to do any work except carry the Signora’s trunk.

AND. Serve this gentleman, porter.

MACO. Don’t you recognize me, Maestro?

AND. A cancer take you! Who are you!

MACO. O God, I’m lost! I’m translated in these clothes! Grillo, am I not your master? By God, I won’t stand for that, pesas dios; I’ll have you flogged.

ZOPP. Let the ass alone. I’ll see that he carries it if he splits. An order has just gone out that whoever knows the whereabouts of one Maco Sanese, who has come to Rome without passport as a spy, should report it at once to the Governor under pain of death, and it is thought they are going to have him castrated.

MACO. Oimè!

AND. Don’t be afraid. We’ll put your clothes on this porter, and the Sheriff, thinking he is Messer Maco, will take him and castrate him in your place.

MACO. I am a porter! I am a porter, and not Messer Maco. Help me! help me!

(He runs out.) ZOPP. Take him! Stop him! He’s a spy! He’s a deceiver! Ha, ha! Run after him, Grillo, and see that he doesn’t run into trouble. It will be good sport to see him strutting like an absurd fop among the Banchi with a throng of ragamuffins at his heels howling over the joke.

(End of Act Second.)

FOOTNOTES 1 Untranslatable exclamation.

2 That is, in the public hospital.

3 pollo pesto.

4 vieni dietro, che la farem andar al palio. Cf our “ let’s get going!”.

5 Aretino himself, of course.

The Works of Aretino, Volume 1, translated into English by Samuel Putnam; pp. 213-236.

213 ACT THIRD (Parabolano and Valerio come in.) PAR. What if Rosso plays a jest on me and slanders me with Cappa?

VAL. If to be praised by such a man does not help, to be blamed by him cannot hurt. I grant Rosso is not to be praised as the splendor of all virtue.

PAR. I praise the splendor of my own welfare, and not a servant for his solicitousness in making my bed or his diligence in brushing my clothes; who brings me word of what all my household say about me ands splits my head with music and with poetry, exhorting me and encouraging me to make a present to this one and to that one. You understand me?

VAL. As for me. I’ve always performed the offices of a good servant and of one who loves your honour, and I would hold it dearer to be blamed for this then to be praised for having laid before you anything that was unworthy of your rank and of mine. But it is a vice common to all the Signori not to want to listen to the truth.

PAR. Keep still, keep still, I tell you.

VAL. I am a plain man, and I speak freely.

PAR. Come on and keep quiet.

(They go out. Rosso and Alvigia come in.) ROSSO. There’s the master now. See with what a gruff visage he regards the Heavens. He crosses his hands, bites his finger and scratches his head. He looks like a blasphemer at heart.

ALV. That’s a sign he’s in love.

VAL. Oh what big beasts are these Latin hearts, always 214murmuring about their princesses. It think it’s a foolish labor to try to make (1) a gentle lady, and that those who boast of having spoken with this Signora or that are having sport in the privy when all is said.

ALV. Certainly, it is a labor; not that they are not all of one stripe, and that they do not all like it well enough; but this one is restrained by fear, this one by shame, this one from fear of being seen and this one from sheer laziness. And so, no one ever gets their love except some groom or some household steward, simply because this is more convenient.

ROSSO. And the pedants, too, pick off a few; (2) and they frequently put the burden on the husbands of their mistresses.

ALV. Aha! The Signor has seen us.

(Parabolano comes in.) PAR. Well met, you two.

ROSSO. This lady, Signor mio, has come to hand you a bit of Heaven.

PAR. You are my Angel’s nurse?

ALV. I am your servant and the nurse of her to whom you are life, soul, heart and hope. Although the love I bear her will end by sending me to the hot-house . . .

PAR. Why, reverend madre mia?

ALV. Because honor is the treasure of the world; but I want to see my mistress and little daughter, Livia, go on living. And so it pleases her to send me to your Lordship and beg your Lordship to deign to be loved by her. But who would not be enamoured of so gentle a Signor?

PAR. I am on my knees to hear you. (He drops to his knees.)

ALV. That’s too much, Signor.

PAR. I am only doing my duty.

ROSSO. Get up; those Neapolitan manners of yours are a bore to everybody nowadays.

215 PPAR. Say on, honored mother. (He rises.)

ALV. I am ashamed to speak to such a gran maestro in such a petticoat as this.

PAR. This necklace will touch it up.

ROSSO. Didn’t I tell you he thought no more of giving a hundred scudi than a lawyer does of stealing a thousand? (He would choke a bedbug to drink its blood.)

ALV. His face shows it.

ROSSO. He gives us a pile of clothes every year. (Oh, if he would only pay us our back salaries!)

ALV. You don’t say. What a Signor!

ROSSO. And there is always carnival in his servants’ hall. (We are dying of hunger.)

ALV. So everybody tells me.

ROSSO. We are all his comrades. (He would rather die than show a good face to any one.)

ALV. As a gran maestro should.

ROSSO. He would even speak to the Pope on behalf of the least in his household. (If he saw the halter on our necks, he wouldn’t say a word.)

ALV. I’ll swear he wouldn’t.

ROSSO. He shows us the love of a father. (He wishes we would all die.)

ALV. I believe you.

PAR. Rosso knows my nature.

ROSSO. And for that reason I praise you. And to think, Madonna Alvigia, that your ward has said the paternoster of San Giuliano to cure herself of him; and would you believe it, he does not deign to love any other but her, although he has half the women in Rome at his heels.

ALV. And he doesn’t yield to them?

ROSSO. Madre, no.

PAR. I thank benign fortune that Livia loves me.

ROSSO. Live up to your fortune.

216 PAR. Tell me, my dear lady, what face does she put on when she speaks of me?

ALV. An imperial face.

PAR. How does she act?

ALV. Her actions would corrupt a hermit.

PAR. What promises does she make me?

ALV. Magnificent and large ones.

PAR. You think she’s lying?

ALV. Lying?

PAR. Does she love another?

ALV. Another? Why, she suffers so much for you that she — she —

PAR. She shall never suffer on my account.

ALV. I hope to God she doesn’t!

PAR. What is she doing at this moment?

ALV. She’s cursing the day, which seems a thousand years long to her.

PAR. What does she care how long it is?

ROSSO. She cases so much that if she does not meet you this very night she will die.

PAR. Is this true what Rosso says?

ALV. So it is. She wants to die in case your Lordship denies her his grace. Come on, and I will explain everything. Look, Rosso, we are at your house.

PAR. Enter, Madre mia.

ALV. Ah, Signor mio, don’t make sport of me. Enter, your Lordship.

ROSSO. Content the Signor, old lady.

ALV. Anything to please you.

(Parabolano and Alvigia go out. Maco, still dressed as a porter, comes in.) MACO. What do you advise me to do?

ROSSO. Go hang yourself, poltroon of a porter.

MACO. (Panting) I’m just getting my breath.

ROSSO. I’m sorry you don’t choke.

217 MACO. The Sheriff is wrong in looking for me.

ROSSO. What if you were wrongly sought by the Hangman as well as by the Sheriff?

MACO. Do you know the Signor Rapolano?

ROSSO. What Rapolano?

MACO. That Signor who sent me the lampreys. Don’t you recognize me?

ROSSO. Are you Messer Maco?

MACO. Yes, ma’am, I mean, yes, sir.

ROSSO. What are you doing in this silly get-up?

MACO. Maestro Andrea took me down to see the whores in disguise.

ROSSO. The brains of all the Sanesi are of one stripe, like those of Priests and Friars.

(Parabolano and Alvigia come in.) PAR. What were you saying, Rosso?

ROSSO. I was saying that this is your Messer Sanese, and he comes from the hands of that do-nothing of a Maestro Andrea, as you see.

PAR. Body of God! I’ll pay him for it.

MACO. Don’t harm him, for the Sheriff is a traitor.

PAR. Rosso, keep company with mother here. Come with me, Messer Maco.

MACO. Signor Rapolano, I commend myself to your Lordship.

(Parabolano and Maco go out.) ROSSO. Well.

ALV. Oh, but he is a great boaster!

ROSSO. Ha, ha, ha!

ALV. Do you know what I’m wondering?

ROSSO. Not I.

ALV. How he, who is dying for this Livia, can believe that she who has never seen him, in a manner of speaking, should be dying for him.

ROSSO. You should not be astonished at that, for a Signor 218like this, who was formerly chamberlain to ten dogs and is now drunk with his own grandeur, holds it as assured that all the world adores him; and if he could but see himself, he would want to lay hands on himself for having made love to Livia and thinking that she is obliged to run after the likes of him, as we have given him to understand.

ALV. Poor old hoot-owl! Nowadays, to tell you the truth, I feel like saying, “To hell with the world.” (3) I have seen so many of its whims. In my day, neither Lorenzina nor Beatricicca nor Angioletta da Napoli nor Beatrice nor Madrema nor her Imperial Highness herself were fit to lace my shoes. Oh, the fashions, the masks, the fine houses, the bull fights, the cavalcades, the sables trimmed in gold, the parrots, the monkeys, and the chamberlains and maids by the tens — these were nothing to me. And Signori and Monsignori and ambassadors by the score. Ha, ha! I have to laugh when I think how we took his mitre away from a Bishop and put it on the head of one of my maids, making sport of the poor man. And a sugar merchant once left all his cases with me, and at my house for a long time after everything was spiced with sugar. Then I contracted a disease, the name of which was never known. We treated it for the syphilis, and I took so many medicines that I became an old woman and began to take rented rooms, selling first my rings, clothing and all the possessions of my youth, and then was reduced to washing fine shirts. So, I devoted myself to advising young girls not to do as I had done, you understand. But what was it I wanted to say?

ROSSO. You were about to say that I have been a friar, a hostler’s boy, a Jew at the customs house, a muleteer, a sheriff’s mate, a galley slave, a miller (for love of the thing), a currier, a ruffian, a charlatan, a knave, a groom 219to scholars, a servant to Courtiers and now I am a Greek.

ALV. There was no malice in my fine discourse. I merely wanted to say that I have spent a number of years on my rump and I have never been in an undertaking like this before.

ROSSO. For that reason, you ought to be obliged to me all the more, since it is going to be your last.

ALV. Why the last? Am I going to be killed in this adventure?

ROSSO. Hardly. I say the last for the reason that women are no longer employed at court. It happens that, since it is not permitted to take a wife, one takes a husband; and in this fine fashion, each one gets his desire and still does not go against the law.

ALV. That court of yours is a brazen hussy. She wears the mitre and is not ashamed o it.

ROSSO. Leave off your chronicles. What do you propose to do for my master?

ALV. Do you think I lack ways? You must take me for a simpleton.

ROSSO. Tell me one.

ALV. The wife of Arcolano, the baker, is a good sort and a great crony of mine. I will have her come to our house and we will sneak her in in the dark.

ROSSO. You have it.

ALV. How many gentle women do you think there are who look divine, thanks to their embroidered robes and their rouge, who are really most sad creatures? Togna (the wife of that baker I was telling you about) has flesh so white, so firm, so young and so clear that a Queen might be proud of it.

ROSSO. Assuming that Togna was ugly and worthless, she still would appear an angel to the Signor. For the Signori have less taste than a dead man, and they always drink the worst wines and eat the most wicked 220foods which are to be found, thinking they are the best and most precious.

ALV. We understand each other. Here is our little house. Return to the Signor and bring me his resolution, the hour of his coming and the necklace. The rest we will settle at our leisure.

ROSSO. Yes, yes, I’m off.

(They go out. Valerio and Flamminio come in.) VAL. You’ve been in a great frenzy for the last hour. Why not continue with your service, for the fruit of a courtier’s hope ripens in an unexpected manner.

FLAM. How can the fruit of my hope ripen when it has not yet put forth any flowers? When I look in the glass and see my white beard, tears come into my eyes from the pity I have for myself, who have nothing left to live for. Alas, unfortunate me! How many simpletons, how many grooms, how many ignorant ones and gluttons do I know who are rich, while I am a beggar? I have made up my mind to go elsewhere to die. It grieves my very soul when I think how I came here a young man and I am going away an old one; I came here clad, and I am going away naked; I came here contented, and I am going away in despair.

VAL. But what about your honors? Do you want to throw away the time you have spent, with so much faith and so much solicitude in the service of the Court.

FLAM. It is that which pierces me.

VAL. Your patron loves you, and there will come a time when you will see that he has your interests at heart.

FLAM. At heart? Ha! If the Tiber ran milk, he would not let me dip my finger in it.

VAL. You imagine all that. But tell me, where are you going? To what land? With what Lord?

FLAM. The world is large.

VAL. It was large once; today it is so small that virtuous men are no longer to be found in it. I do not deny that 221our Court is in a bad way; but in the end, everyone comes here and everyone lives here.

FLAM. Have it as you will; I want to go away.

VAL. Think it over well, and make up your mind, for there are no longer the times there used to be from one end of Italy to the other. Then, every land had real men at Court. At Naples, the King, at Rome the Barons, as today we have the Medici at Florence, the Petrucci at Sienna, the Bentivogli at Bologna, the Rangoni at Modina, and then there was, above all, the Count Guido, who with his courtesy made every fine spirit rejoice in his gentleness; and then there was the magnanimous Signora Argentina, unique ray of modesty in this cursed century.

FLAM. I know what she is, and in addition to her noble virtues, I adore her for the great affection she bears to that fine soul, King Francis, and I hope to see, and that soon, Her Majesty in the enjoyment of that felicity which such a Lady, as all the world must see, deserves.

VAL. Let’s come back to what we were talking about. Where will you go from here? To Ferrara? To do what? To Mantua? To say what? To Milan? To hope what? Take the advice of one who wises you well and stay in Rome, for, if for no other reason than the example which the Court must take from the liberality of Ippolito da’ Medici, that refuge of the virtuous, the good old days must come back again.

FLAM. Perhaps I shall go to Venice, where I already have been, and enrich my poverty with her liberty; for there, at least, poor men are not assassinated at the whim of any male or female favorite; for only in Venice does justice hold the scales with an even balance; there alone fear of disgrace does not force you to adore one who yesterday was a lousy wretch. Anyone who doubts her merits has but to regard the manner in which God exalts her. Surely, she is the Holy City and 222the Terrestrial Paradise. The plying of her gondolas is a melodious accompaniment to leisure. What is a cavalcade? To ride in a cavalcade is to spoil your heels, curse your grooms and break your bones.

VAL. You speak well; and moreover, life there is more secure and longer than it is elsewhere, but you will find that time hangs heavy on your hands.

FLAM. Why?

VAL. Since you will not have there the conversation of the virtuous. (3)

FLAM. You are ill-informed. The virtuous are there. At Venice there is personal gentility and at Rome rudeness and envy. Where is there another reverend friar like Francesco Giorgi, product of all the sciences? Happy would the Court be if God would inspire it to give him the rank which his merit deserves. And what do you think of the venerable Padre Damiano, who breaks marble hearts with his preaching, and who is the true interpreter of the Holy Scriptures? Did not I hear you yesterday speaking of Gasparao Contarino, the sun and life of Philosophy and of Greek and Latin studies, as well as the mirror of goodness and manners?

VAL. I knew his Magnificence in Bologna, when he was the Ambassador of Caesar. Of the two reverend fathers I have heard mention, and I have seen Giorgi here in Rome.

FLAM. And who would not run post-haste to see the worthy Giambatista Memo, who has redeemed the mathematical sciences and who is truly a wise man?

VAL. I know him by reputation.

FLAM. You know by reputation also Bevazzano, for he was formerly a luminary among the learned ones of Rome; and I know that you have heard the name of the honored Capello. But why do I omit the great Trifon Gabrielli, 223whose judgment is a lesson to nature and to art? And I understand there is to be found there, among the other fine spirits, Girolamo Quirini, all sense and grace, and that the world is astonished when it attempts to imitate the divine M. Vincenzio, his uncle, who honored his fatherland in life and Rome in death; and there is also Giralamo Molino, the favorite of the Muses. And who would not be happy listening to the pleasant inventions of Lorenzo Veniero? (7) What gentle conversation is that of Luigi Quirini, who, after his honors in the army, has adorned himself with those of the law! And I have been told by our Eurialo di Ascoli, who is also an Apollo, and by Pero, that in Venice there is Francesco Salamone, who, when he strikes his lyre, makes Orpheus ashamed.

VAL. So I have heard.

FLAM. I have been told by the good Molza that there are two miraculous youths, Luigi Priuli and Marco Antonio Soranzo, who have reached the summit, not only of all there is to learn, but of all one might desire to know. And what a paragon of the courtier’s art, of virtue and of judgment, is Monsignor Valerio, the complete gentleman, and Monsignor Brevio.

VAL. They are well-known in Rome.

FLAM. In Venice, moreover, there are virtuous manners and gentle entertainments. But the astonishing thing was to listen to the great Andrea Navagiero, who follows the arms of the good Bernardo; and I had forgotten Maffio Leone, another Demosthenes, another Cicero; without speaking of a thousand other noble geniuses who illuminate our century even as does Egnazio, who is today the sole support of Latin eloquence. And how history will honor him. Nor would you believe there was in Rome a Messer Giovanni Da Legge, cavalier 224and count of the Holy Cross, who showed at Bologna, with a wise liberality, the splendid generosity of his mind.

VAL. In short, if things are as you say, we others, aside from the Accademia of the Medici, are but a flock of infamous and starveling servants.

FLAM. I have not told you the half of it. To enlighten you further, the gentle Firenzuola tells me that there is a certain Francesco Beretti, who is more valiant at improvising than those of us who deafen the ears of Pasquin. But putting to one side the Philosophers and the Poets, where is peace to be found if not in Venice? Where love, if not in Venice? Where abundance, where charity, in not in Venice? And to that mirror of sanctity the Bishop of Chieti, I may tell you, that father of humility and example of good religion, has repaired with his train for the welfare of their souls, spurning to the point of abhorrence this Rome of ours and the dirty life that is lived here. I was there once for two carnivals, and I was astonished at the triumphs and at the stupendous feasts which were furnished by the magnanimous Reali, the gracious Floridi, and the honored Cortesi. And at the sight of so many Fathers of their Country, so many illustrious Senators, so many egregious Procurators, so many doctors and Cavalieri, and so much nobility, so much youth, and so much wealth — at the sight of all this I was beside myself. And I have seen a letter to the Most Christian King, (4) in which it was related that when the truly Most Serene Prince Andrea Gritti, with his Omnipotent Highness, boarded the Bucentaut (5) to honor the royal blood of France and the Duchess of Ferrara, it was as much as the barge could do to keep from foundering, so heavily was it laden with good sense. The deeds done 225by the most prudent arms of their Captain General F. M., Duke of Urbino, will live eternally in the pages of the Most Divine Monsignor Bembo. And you need not doubt that those Signori who, through their princes, express their will in the good and just Venetian Senate, are any less affable or less courteous than those who here are orators to his Holiness. There is also the Right Reverend Legate Monsignor Alcandro, whose learning and religion, if it were held up to themselves by other prelates as a mirror, would redound to the reputation of the clergy. But I must not forget Don Lopes, heir to the secrets and the undertakings of the most felicitous Caesar, Charles V, support of the Christian faith.

VAL. Are you speaking of Don Lopes Soria, on whose courteous kindness the hopes of Pietro Aretino lean?

FLAM. I am speaking of a new Ulysses.

VAL. I bow to the sound of his name, and it is quite right to say that he is the protector of all virtue.

FLAM. I spoke with the worthy and faithful Giangioacchino and with all the gentle souls who come to that land, and I heard of the merits of the most learned Monsignor di Selva, Bishop of Lavaur, in whose manners one readily recognizes the creature of the great King Francis; and as His Highness’ orator there, he astonished everyone with his prudence and his modesty. Regard also the continent gravity and gentle breeding of the Prothonotary Cassale, example of true liberality; half of all England would not equal his merits toward his King. By God, Valerio, but the man who there enjoys the favor of His Excellency, the Duke of Urbino, deserves to rule the world and must be truly worthy of His Lordship’s grace. What a personage is Vesconte in carrying out the behests of his master, the Duke of Milan. Of the kindness of Benedetto Agnello toward the great Duke of Mantua I am silent. As I am of the good Gian Jacopo Tebaldo and what he does for his good Ferrara; nor do 226I speak of what a gentle old man he is or what a faithful friend. He is the cousin, I believe, of our Messer Antonio Tabeldeo, who is the unique spirit of the Muses and astonishes the world with his writings, as does Pollio Aretino with his Trionfi which he is soon to give to the world.

VAL. You have truly closed my mouth.

FLAM. I have passed over the throng of painters and of sculptors who, with the good M. Simon Biaco, are to be found there; nor do I speak of those whom the singular Luigi Caorlini has taken with him to Constantinople, from which place the splendid Marco di Niccolo has just returned, in whose mind is as much magnificence as there is in the minds of kings; and for this reason, the lofty and fortunate Signor Luigi Gritti has given him a place in the bosom of his grace; and despite the carpings of the plebeians and the maligned, there is also the glorious, great and wonderful Titian, whose color breathes like flesh. The stupendous Michelangelo praised with astonishment his portrait of the Duke of Ferrara, which the Emperor has taken for his own. Look at Pordonone, whose works make one doubt whether nature gives relief to art or art to nature. And while I do not deny that Marcantonio was the first with the burin, Gianiacobo Caralio, the Veronese, his pupil, has surpassed him, as may be seen in the works he has carved in wood. And I know for a certainty that Matteo del Nasar, famous and dear to the King of France, and to the most valiant Giovanni da Castell Bolognese, regarded as miraculous the works in crystal, stone and steel of Luigi Anichini, who is also in Venice. And there, too, is Francesco Marcolini, full of virtue and of a flowering genius. There, too, you will find the good Serlio, the architect of Bologna, and M. Francesco Alunno, the divine inventor of the alphabets of all the languages of the world. What more? The good Jacopo 227Sansovino has exchanged Rome for Venice, and wisely; for as the great Adriano, father of music said, Venice is a veritable Noah’s Ark.

VAL. I believe you, and in return for my believing what you have said, I want you to believe what I am about to tell you.

FLAM. Go on and tell me.

VAL. I should like to say, leaping from one argument to another, that your lack of fortune comes from the little respect that you have always had for the Court. Finding fault with everything she thought and did, you created a prejudice against yourself, and always will.

FLAM. I would rather create a prejudice against myself by speaking the truth than win favor by telling lies.

VAL. That speaking the truth is the thing that is displeasing, and that is the only beam the Signori have in their eyes, the fact that you speak the truth. Of the great ones one must say that the evil they do is good, and it is as perilous and harmful to blame them as it is safe and profitable to praise them. They are permitted to do anything, and we are permitted to say nothing, and it is for God to correct their wickedness, not for us. Collect your mind a little, and let us speak without passion. Do you feel that you did a good thing by speaking of the Court as you did?

FLAM. What have I said of her?

VAL. You have spread the story that she is a heretic, a falsifier, a traitress, a brazen and dishonest wench. And she has become the talk of the people, thanks to those reports of yours.

FLAM. It is no more than she deserves.

VAL. It may be so, but there is little point in gossiping about the Court, for there is always Pasquin to speak of her, as he always will. You have encroached on papal ground and abused the nobility. Don’t you think you should be ashamed to say the things you have said.?

228 FLAM. Why should I be ashamed to say what they are not ashamed to do?

VAL. Because Lords are Lords.

FLAM. Yes, Lords are Lords, and men are men. They take pleasure in seeing those who serve them die of hunger, and they rejoice at the sight as much as a good man would suffer. It is a triumph to me to tell of their poltrooneries. I shall be glad to be silent when any two of them can be found who will imitate the kindness and liberality of the King of France. But I shall never be silent.

VAL. Why?

FLAM. Because you will find a discreet and respectable Court long before you will find two such persons. I am opening my mind to you, because, having wasted so many years in service, I can endure it no longer, and I am resolved to go to the court of his Majesty. If I had had no other pleasure there, it would be enough to see so many Lords, so many Captains, and so many virtuous men and I should live happy; for that pomp, that gayety and that liberty is the consolation of all; while at this Court, every man is miserable, melancholy and despairing. I have heard that the pleasing kindness of the Most Christian King is such as to lead everyone to adore him, just as here, the malignant uncouthness of the Lords forces one to hate them.

VAL. It cannot be denied that things are as you say and even worse. And there is but one King of France in the world; and his grace is very great, so great that even those who have never seen him call upon him, celebrate, respect and adore him. (6)

FLAM. And for that reason I want to cure myself of this place by going to serve him; and as you know, I hold letters from the Monsignor di Baif, the vase of all good 229literature, who was formerly his ambassador in Venice, and who assures me of a favorable reception from his Majesty. If it were not for this, I should go to Constantinople to serve the Signor Alvigi Gritti, in whom is to be found the courtesy which has fled from those plebeian Lords who are Princes only in name. To him Pietro Aretino would go, if it were not that King Francis had bound him with chains of gold, and if the magnanimous Antonio da Leva had not enriched him with cups of gold and pensions.

VAL. I have heard of the King and of the gift which was made him by Signor Antonio, which is indeed the chariot of Caesar’s triumphs. But since you are disposed to go, wait long enough to see the departure of His Holiness for Marseilles.

FLAM. I would be waiting for the raven, if I did.

VAL. Don’t you believe that he is going?

FLAM. I believe in Christ.

VAL. Everyone is getting ready for the departure, and you make light of it.

FLAM. If the Pope goes there, I shall began to believe either that the world is coming to an end or that he is becoming a good man.

VAL. Why do you doubt it?

FLAM. Because if this were so, I should be willing to groom the horses in this Court and call myself fortunate. because if His Holiness were to unite with the King, we should be rid of lice; but it seems to me that if he goes to Marseilles in the same fashion he went to Bologna, we shall be the sport of the French courtiers, who employ more style in dressing and dining than there is misery among us; and if it were not that the pomp of the Cardinal de’ Medici covers everything, we should be like a crowd of bankrupt tradesmen.

VAL. Keep still. The master is coming out. Let us go to the 230place you know, and there I will answer you on this subject of the departure of the Court.

(They go out. Parabolano and Rosso come in.) PAR. I saw you coming out of the garden door. What did Madonna Alvigia have to say?

ROSSO. She is astonished at your good breeding, your grace and liberality, and she has something she wants to put in your arms; everything is all right. Your Lordship has not shown courtesy to an ungrateful person.

PAR. That is nothing to what I intend to do for her.

ROSSO. At a quarter after six your friend will be in her house. But be advised; she is overcome with shame at being obliged to traffic with your Lordship in the dark; but do y0u see that it doesn’t come to light.

PAR. Surely she will deign to be seen by me, though I am unworthy of looking upon her.

ROSSO. That is nothing. All women are capricious at first, and then, laying aside all their timid modesty, they would be seen in the Square of St. Peter’s in order to get their desires.

PAR. Do you think she does it out of timidity?

ROSSO. I’m sure of it. But what do you think?

PAR. That it is a sweet and bitter thing to be loved.

ROSSO. The tavern is a sweet thing, says Cappa.

PAR. Livia will be sweet too.

ROSSO. That’s your imagination. For my part, I have more respect for a decanter of Greek wine than for a Greek angel.

PAR. If you had tasted the ambrosia which amorous mouths distill, wines would appear to you bitter by comparison.

ROSSO. You seem to think that I’m a virgin, I’ve tasted my share, and I have not found that melody which you did.

PAR. But gentle ladies have a different taste.

ROSSO. That’s true; because they don’t urinate like the others.

231 PAR. You’re mad to speak of it.

ROSSO. And you are mad to answer. Listen, didn’t you use to tell me that the sweetness which comes from tongues that know how to speak well of others was greater than that of grapes, than that of figs, and that of mallows?

PAR. Yes, up to a certain point.

ROSSO. Oh how they murder me, those sonnets of Pasquin. (6)

PAR. I didn’t know you enjoyed poetry.

ROSSO. Why not? Do you know, if I had studied, I might have become a Philosopher or a Bonnet-Maker.

PAR. Ha, ha, ha!

ROSSO. When I was with Antonio Lelio Romano, I used to pass the time in reading the things which he composed in honor of the Cardinals, and I know a lot of them by heart. Oh they are divine, and I am a slave to that Barbieraccio who says that it would be no error to read every morning two of the Epistles and a Gospel.

PAR. Oh, a pretty pass!

ROSSO. What to you think of that one which says:

Non ha Papa Leon tanti parenti?

PAR. Fine.

ROSSO. And this one:

Da poi che Costantin fece il presente. Per levarsi la lebbra de la spalle? (9)

PAR. Very sharp.

ROSSO. The Cook is St. Peter, if the Pope is one of the three friars. (7)

232 PAR. Ha, ha, ha!

ROSSO.

Piacevi, monna Chiesa belle e buona. Per legittimo sposo l’ermellino? (8)

PAR. Oh, good!

ROSSO.

O Cardinali, se, voi, fossi, noi, Che noi per nulla vorremmo esser voi? (11)

PAR. Excellent!

ROSSO. I am going to hunt up those which have been made by Master Pasquin this year. There ought to be a thousand knavish things in them.

PAR. By my faith, Rosso, but you are a gallant fellow.

ROSSO. Who doesn’t know it?

PAR. But let’s not lose time. To the house, for I want you to take a message to the old lady.

(They go out. Andrea and Maco come in.) AND. You took to your legs, and there was no need of it, and on your account the Signor Parabolano has given me a Neapolitan reproof.

MACO. Tell me, how does one come into the world, Maestro?

AND. Through a cave.

MACO. Large 0r narrow?

AND. Large as an oven.

MACO. What does he come here to do?

AND. To live.

MACO. How does one live here?

AND. By eating and by drinking.

MACO. I shall live here all right, for I eat like a wolf and drink like a horse; yes, in faith, I swear to God, I kiss your hand. But what happens when a man is through living?

AND. He dies in a hole as spiders do.

MACO. Are we not all the sons of Andare and of Andera?

233 AND. We are all the sons of Adam and Eve, old maccaroon without salt, without cheese and without fire.

MACO. I think It would be a good thing to make me a Courtier with the moulds. I dreamed about it last night, and besides, Grillo has told me.

AND. You speak better than a crayfish with two mouths. And your Lordship understands that bombards, bells and towers are also made with moulds.

MACO. I had thought that towers grow, as they do at Sienna.

AND. You were very far wrong.

MACO. Will I do well in a mould?

AND. Very well.

MACO. Why?

AND. Because it is less labor to make a man than it is to make a bombard; but since you are so expedient in the matter, let’s hurry.

MACO. I want to go there and be put in the moulds today, or I shall burst.

(They go out. Alvigia comes in.) ALV. I have more to do than a pair of newlyweds. This one wants ointments, this one a pregnancy powder, this one wants to give me letters, this one to send me to the witches, and this one this thing and that one that, and I ought to be looking for Rosso.

(Rosso comes in.) ROSSO. What luck to find you here.

ALV. I am the she-ass of the Commons.

ROSSO. Let the other trifles go and astrologize what you are going to do to my master tonight.

ALV. I’ve just had a hundred words with my spiritual confessor before I came here, and so, do what you think best.

ROSSO. You’ll find me near my master’s place; but what brother is that?

234 ALV. The one I’m looking for.

(Rosso goes out and Guardiano comes in.) GUAR. Oves et boves universas insuper et pecora campi.

ALV. You are always saying your prayers.

GUAR. I don’t give myself too much trouble about it, for I am not one of those who are overly nimble about going to Paradise, since if I don’t go there today, I will go tomorrow; it is so big that there’s room enough for us all, God be praised.

ALV. I believe it, and yet I think not. So many folks have gone there and so many want to go; and it breaks my heart, when I hear the passion at the Coliseum and think that all the folks in the world will not be able to go there.

GUAR. Don’t wonder at a thing like that, for souls (they are like lies, in a manner of speaking, I may tell you) do not occupy any space.

ALV. I don’t understand.

GUAR. Exempli gratia. Let’s say that we are in a little room, and I tell you that the elephant is about to die and has made his will; now isn’t that a lie worthy of excommunication?

ALV. Yes, father.

GUAR. And yet the room is not encumbered with it nor by the thousands of others that have been told there; and so it is, the souls in Paradise do not take up any space, just as lies do not. And in short, in Paradise we shall enjoy two worlds.

ALV. If if a fine thing to know the Scripture. And now, my spiritual father, I want your Paternity to tell me two things: one, if my mistress is to go to the place of salvation; the other, if the Turk is coming or not?

GUAR. As to the first, your mistress will remain twenty-five days in Purgatory circum circa, and then she will go into Limbo for five or six days, and then dextram patris caeli caelorum.

235 ALV. He says she won’t, and she is lost.

GUAR. Shouldn’t I know?

ALV. Serpent’s tongue.

GUAR. As to the coming of the Turk, that is really nothing. And if he did come, what difference would it make to you?

ALV. What difference would it make to me? Being impaled alive doesn’t suit my fancy in any way. Impaling poor ladies is a little thing to you, I suppose? And I am in despair when I think that our Priests here deserve to be impaled.

GUAR. Gossip and fables. Now go, and God be with you. I must look after a treatise which I am to make in Verucchio, and which is to tear the Count Gian Maria Giudeo, the musician, to pieces.

(He goes out) ALV. God be with you. These friars must have a finger in every pie, and maybe you don’t think they look holy while they are about it? But who wouldn’t believe them in their wooden shoes and their cinctures? He must be virtuous who would be saved like my mistress, and when I come to think of it, I am rather glad she is to burn; for she will be a good go-between for me there as she was here. And now to find Rosso.

(She goes out. Grillo comes in.) GRILLO. I must find Maestro Mercurio, the best companion and the best banterer in Rome, for Maestro Andrea has given M. Maco to believe that Mercurio is the doctor who has the moulds for making courtiers. But here he comes, by my faith.

(Mercurio comes in.) MER. What’s the news?

GRILLO. Knavish news. A big bird of a Sanese has come here to make himself a Cardinal, and Maestro Andrea has made him believe that you are the most eminent doctor with the moulds.

236 MER. You don’t need to tell me any more, for one of his grooms who was angry at him and looking for a new master, has told me everything.

GRILLO. Ha, ha, ha!

MER. I want to put him in one of those great water kettles; but we must first make him take a dose of pills.

GRILLO. Ha, ha, ha! But look, Messer Priamo and Maestro Andrea are waiting for us.

(End of Act Third)

FOOTNOTES 1 In our slang sense. The original is l’ ottenere d’una, etc.

2 Et i pedanti ancor ne vanno beccando qualch’una.

3 “mondo fatti con Dio.”.

4 This is the cue for Aretino to drag in a tiresome bit of log-rolling, in the style of his worst letters.

5 Veniero, Aretino’s secretary, the author of the Puttana errante. See Introduction.

6 Francis I.

7 The state barge of Venice.

8 This was written at a time when Aretino expected to get something out of Francis.

9 Parabolano’s remark apparentlyreminds him of a line in the Pasquinades.

10 See Hutton, p. 38: “In La Cortegiana he gives us the first verses of several of the Pasquinades he wrote at this time when he attacked every candidate [for the papal throne] except Cardinal de’ Medici with the vilest abuse, and he reminds his candidate later, when he had become Clement VII., of his services on this occasion.” This line [“Has not Pope Leo many relatives”] reminds one of a certain obscene ditty beginning, “The Pope has many nephews.”

11 This too is a line from the Pasquinades.

12 “Mistress Church, so fine and good, How should you like to wed an ermine hood?”.

13 “O, Cardinals, if you were we, We should not wish like you to be.”

The Works of Aretino, Volume 1, translated into English by Samuel Putnam; pp. 237-257.

237 ACT FOURTH

(Enter Andrea, Maco, Mercurio, the doctor and Grillo.) AND. We are agreed then on the price, and the Messer, with the courage of a Sanese, will fun the risk of taking the pills.

MACO. They make me very pensive, very.

MER. Pilularum romanae Curiae sunt dulciora.

GRILLO. Scherzate co’ santi e lasciate star i fanti. (1)

MACO. Why do you say that?

GRILLO. Don’t you hear the doctor swearing like a gambler?

MACO. He speaks by letter, you beast. Listen to me, my Lord.

MER. Dico vobis dulciora sunt Curiae Romanae pilularum.

MACO. Nego istam.

MER. Aprogressus herbis, et in verbis sic inquit totiens quotiens aliquo cortigianos diventare volunt pilularum accipere necessitatis est.

MACO. But Petrarch doesn’t say Cortegianos.

AND. He says it in a thousand places.

MACO. That’s right; Petrarch does say it in that sonnet: E si debile il filo.

AND. You are more learned than Orlando.

MER. In conclusion, does your Lordship know the medlars?

MACO. Yes, master.

MER. The medlars of Sienna are the pills of Rome.

MACO. If the pills of Rome are the medlars of Sienna, I will take a thousand.

GRILLO. Che tutta notte canta. (2)

MACO. What are you saying?

238 GRILLO. I was saying that it would be a good thing if you would dispatch me to look after the moulds.

MACO. Go ahead and pick out the most comfortable ones.

GRILLO. I’ll go.

MACO. Listen. Pick out the best-looking ones.

GRILLO. I understand.

MACO. And see to it, Grillo, that no one becomes a Courtier before I do.

GRILLO. It shall be done.

AND. And don’t forget the scales, for as soon as we have him in the moulds, we want to weigh him and charge him so much a pound.

GRILLO. There will be nothing lacking.

(He goes out.) AND. There is nothing more, except for you to swear that when you shall have become a Courtier and a Cardinal, you will show me favors, for one no sooner enters the Court than he puts on a different face, and, from being learned, wise and good, he becomes a sorry and ignorant madman; every vile knave, as soon as he feels the camlet on him, will not deign to speak to anyone, and he is the mortal enemy of the one who once helped him, for the reason that he is ashamed to confess that he was once in misery. And so, swear.

MACO. I’ll touch you under the chin.

AND. That’s a boyish sport; swear a real oath.

MACO. By the blessed Cross.

AND. That’s a woman’s oath.

MACO. By the holy Gospel.

AND. That’s a countryman’s oath.

MACO. By the faith of God.

AND. That’s the way a porter swears.

MACO. By my soul.

MACO. That sounds like a hypocrite.

MACO. Body of the world.

AND. That sounds stupid and silly.

MACO. Do you want me to say Lord’s Day?

239 MER. Co’ Santi, e lasciate star i fanti, as Grillo said before.

MACO. I want to satisfy the Maestro, I do.

AND. Haven’t I told you that profanity is necessary to a Courtier?

MACO. Yes, but I had forgotten it, I had.

MER. Let’s not waste time till the moulds get cold, for wood at Rome costs an eyeful.

MACO. If you want some, I’ll send for a pile from Sienna.

AND. Ha, ha, ha! What a plusquam perfect madman!.

MACO. What’s that you say?

MER. That you will be a plusquam perfect Courtier.

MACO. Gran mercè, doctor.

(Grillo enters.) GRILLO. The pills, the moulds and everything are waiting.

MACO. The moon, in what position is it?

MER. In Colocut.

MACO. If it’s not at mid-month, that’s all right.

MER. It’s been a year since it was.

MACO. Then I can take the medlars without fear of the flux.

MER. That’s right gallant.

AND. Enter.

MACO. I go, I enter.

(They go out. Alvigia and Rosso come in.) ALV. How goes it, Rosso old top?

ROSSO. I thought you were lost.

ALV. I’m all out of breath, I’ve just spoken to my confessor, and I know when the madonna’s day of mid-August comes.

ROSSO. What good does it do you to know that?

ALV. Because I have made a vow to fast on her vigil. Then I had a dream explained and arranged to have the miracles of my mistress put into a sermon. I did the Via de la Piamontese; she has miscarried, you know. Then I gave a look at the ulcerated leg of Beatrice, oh for shame! Then I found in the monastery of the Convertite a place for the pagnina; and I went to Santo Janni 240to visit the Spanish lady who has shut herself up there out of spite to Don Diego.

ROSSO. I’ve heard that gossip.

ALV. And having done this, I gulped down a decanter of Corso at the Lepre and here I am.

ROSSO. Alvigia, we are two, and ye t we are one; and when you do me a service in words, by the body — by the blood of the immaculate, the blessed and consecrate, I am yours, body and soul.

ALV. If you don’t go beyond words, the cow is ours.

ROSSO. Cow? And am I not to have a little of something else?

ALV. Such talk! Aren’t you ashamed?

ROSSO. One at court ashamed? Ha! The bracelet is yours.

ALV. I accept it and I do not accept it. I accept it, in case I am of service to you, and in case I am not, I do not accept it.

ROSSO. You talk like the Sybil. Do you know what, I have it in for Valerio, and I should be the whole thing if he fell into disgrace with the master, and that would be a good thing for you.

ALV. I understand. A good thing for me, eh? Rest assured, I’ll find a way to ruin him.

ROSSO. How?

ALV. Let me think.

ROSSO. Think well, for, if he goes to the bordello, I shall be dominus dominantium..

ALV. I have it.

ROSSO. I can breathe a little more freely now.

ALV. I will say that this Valerio of yours has told Liello di Rienzo Mazzienzo, the brother of Livia, how I am pimping for his sister, and make out that there is not a worse man in all Rome; and I think your master from the experience he has had in the past, will believe it.

ROSSO. Oh what genius! Oh what foresight! It is a treason that you are not Princess of Corneto, of Palo, of Magliana, etc. But there’s the master. Alvigia, in te domine 241speravi, and I shall not forget what you do for me.

(Parabolano comes in.) PAR. What is my Goddess doing?

ALV. My goodness does not deserve that.

PAR. God help me.

ROSSO. There’s bad news.

PAR. What is it?

ALV. Go on, tell him, go on.

ROSSO. For my own part, I would defecate on the world, but I am grieved for this poor woman’s sake.

PAR. Don’t keep me in suspense.

ROSSO. Your Valerio . . .

PAR. What has my Valerio done?

ROSSO. Nothing.

ALV. Do you know, Signor? he has gone to tell the brother of Livia that Rosso and I are pimping for his sister.

PAR. Oimè, what’s this I hear?

ROSSO. Yes, and the cruel braggart of Trastevere has been the death of forty Bailiffs and five or six Sheriffs, and yesterday he beat two of the guard; he bears arms in despite of the governor, and he’s on the point of fighting with that Rienzo who with his great sword cut to pieces the pilgrim’s crown; and I only hope to God your Lordship comes out of it clean. (4)

PAR. I am bursting! Don’t hold me! I’ll go at once and stick a dagger in his heart. Don’t hold me!

ALV. Easy, easy, simulation, punishment, and not fury.

PAR. Traitor!

ROSSO. Be quiet. Folks will hear you and there will be a bigger scandal.

PAR. Assassin!

ALV. Don’t remind me, the honor of Livia is in your keeping.

PAR. With five hundred scudi I’ve lifted him out of the mud.

ROSSO. He has the income of a Signor.

242 PAR. Tell me, shall I be able to have Livia now? You’re silent.

ROSSO. She is silent because her heart is breaking at not being able to serve you.

PAR. Beseech her, dear Rosso, conjure her, or I’ll die.

ROSSO. You make me blush, Signor, to think I’m your slave; but Alvigia is not to be forced, ever; it is better to be a live ass than a dead Bishop.

ALV. Don’t weep, dear Signor, for I could throw myself in the fire at the sight of your Lordship. What if her brother does kill me? I’ll only be out of my misery, and I shan’t have to suffer from famine any more, for there at least I shan’t die of hunger.

PAR. Here, take this diamond and eat it.

ROSSO. The devil, no, for they are poisonous.

ALV. What do you know about it?

ROSSO. So I’ve been told by Mainoldo Mantavano, a Catholic cavalier and the apostolic jeweler and the most diabolic madman besides, who used to be my master. Oh he is a big blockhead.

PAR. Take it, Madonna madre

ALV. Gran mercè to your Lordship. Come into the house. Wait here, Rosso.

ROSSO. I’ll wait.

(Alvigia and Parabolano go out.) ROSSO. He who is an ass and thinks he is a stag will lose his friend and never have any money, says Mescolino da Sienna. I have given you bread for your cakes, Sire Zugo, I know where you’re going. You’re going to play the Lord at Tigoli. I know you of old, dressed up like an ox and stinking like one, hurling insults at everybody and treating everyone like a beast, talking always of war, as if you had been the Signor Giovanni de’ Medici himself; and if anyone answers you, you are on his back at once, like a furious ass; and the priests who surround the master of ceremonies when he waits on 243the Pope in the Cappella are not so numerous as are his bowings and scrapings when he talks with anyone; and he would kill you for not taking off your barretta to him or for failing to give him a Signor si and a Signor no. And he plays the imperial, as if the King of France took any notice of such simpletons, poltroons who are not even fit to take care of his Majesty’s dogs. He was angry with his own brother for not addressing him as reverence in the superscriptions of his letters. You may be a Lord, but you’ll turn out a knave, even if you are rich, you poltroon.

(Alvigia comes in.) ALV. Whom were you barking at?

ROSSO. At myself. How go our plans?

ALV. Very fine: kicks, fists, tugs of the beard, the devil is to pay.

ROSSO. What did he say?

ALV. Why do this to me, Signor? What have I done, master?

ROSSO. And the Signor, what did he reply?

ALV. You know well enough, you big traitor.

ROSSO. Ha, ha, ha!

ALV. And now do I get the necklace?

ROSSO. And the diamond too.

ALV. Why is it that the first day a lover gets snared he becomes a dotard? But he is to be here at a quarter after six. The time is almost up. I must go, for I have no time to throw away. Sta’ sano.

(She goes out.) (Parabolano come in.) PAR. Is it true Valerio said such things about me?

ROSSO. And worse yet, but I don’t like to repeat them.

PAR. To the galleys with him. I’ve made up my mind.

ROSSO. Poison and things . . .

PAR. How poison and things?

244 ROSSO. Poison that he bought, etc.

PAR. This is a case for the Sheriff!

ROSSO. Whores and lads and gambling.

PAR. What’s that you say?

ROSSO. Then he spread that story about your family and the one about your aunt.

PAR. What?

ROSSO. And how you kept him in want.

PAR. Like servants, like enemies.

ROSSO. He added that you were ignorant, an ingrate, and envious.

PAR. He lies in the throat.

ROSSO. But I shall be faithful. I have no spite to take out on anyone. Since he has erred, punish him, that’s all there is to it. Meanwhile, Alvigia will do her duty, but what will you say to the Signora at the first meeting?

PAR. What would you say?

ROSSO. I should let my hands do the talking.

PAR. Ha, ha, ha!

ROSSO. It’s a treason she can’t see you in the light.

PAR. Why?

ROSSO. Because, to tell you the truth, where will they find another like you? What eyes, what attractive brows, what lips, what teeth and what a breath! (5) Your Lordship has the most admirable grace, and I do not say this to flatter you; I swear to God that, when you walk down the street, they hand out of the windows. But why am I not a woman?

PAR. What would you do if you were a woman?

ROSSO. Pull you on top of me or die.

PAR. Ha, ha, ha!

ROSSO. If your Lordship would like to ride in cavalcade, the mules should be waiting.

PAR. I want to take a little exercise.

245 ROSSO. Don’t tire yourself, for remember that the jousts of love require strong men.

PAR. You take me for a weakling?

ROSSO. No, but I should like to see you fresh when you meet Livia.

PAR. Let us go, then, in peace.

ROSSO. As your Lordship pleases.

(They go out, Valerio comes in.) VAL. I’ve fallen into a fine pile of straw, and it might be said that I’ve broken my neck. I have been assaulted by my Lord, in deed and in words, and I cannot imagine why. Surely some invidious tongue has been whispering in his ear. Is it possible that Lords are so easy, they give credence to every bit of gossip they hear, and, without seeking the truth, proceed to act without respect, without reason and without advice? What a nature is theirs! What a life is that of a servant, and what manners are those of the Court! The Lords always act furiously, and the welfare of servants is always dependent on the volubility of others. The Court takes no greater pleasure than in driving this one or that one to despair with the gnawings of envy, which is born and dies with the Court. As for me, I have no desire except to go and take a little rest; I’m only afflicted by the thought that I must leave in disgrace him who has made me what I am, and that my leaving in this manner will win me the name of an ingrate. Everyone will say: “The good Valerio grew rich at his master’s expense, and now he turns his back on him.” And so, I am beside myself, not from the injury I have wrongly received, for he who serves is obliged to suffer the wrath and spite of his master as he would those of his own father. But I am grieved to think of the thing which has turned him against me. Can it be that the passion he suffers from being in love has led him, like a blind man, to take it out on me? Surely it all comes 246from this. I’ll wait and see how the thing comes out, keeping as humble as I can, and God must do the rest. And now I must go see what I can learn from those in the house.

(He goes out. Alvigia comes in, goes up to Togna’s door, and knocks.) TOGNA. (From within). Who’s there?

ALV. It is I.

TOGNA. Who are you?

ALV. Alvigia, my daughter.

TOGNA. Wait a minute. (She opens the door).

ALV. Greetings, dear daughter. Ave Maria.

TOGNA. What miracle brings you here?

ALV. This Advent and these Ember Days have so distempered me with their cursed fast days that I am not myself any more. Gratia plena dominus tecum.

TOGNA. You are always saying your prayers, and here I never go to church nor do anything I ought to.

ALV. Benedicta tu. (6) I am the greatest sinner of all. In mulieribus. Do you know what I’ve come to tell you?

TOGNA. Madonna, no.

ALV. I want you to come to my house at five o’clock, for I’m going to introduce you to the nobility. Et benedictus ventris tui. I’ll treat you better than I did the other day. In hunc et en hora. Look at me. Mortis nostrae. What do you think of it? Amen.

TOGNA. The end of it is, I’ll do what you want me to, for that old souse deserves all that’s coming to him.

ALV. That’s right. Pater noster — you must come dressed like a man, for these stable boys — qui es in caelis — play some foolish jokes at night — sanctificetur nomen tuum — and I don’t want you to get into trouble — adveniat regnum tuum — As Angela did — in caelo et in terra.

247 TOGNA. Oimè, there’s my husband.

ALV. Don’t be a ninny and lose your wits. Panem nostrum quotidiano da nobis hodie (7) There’s no other feast day that I know of this week, daughter, except the pilgrimage to San Lorenzo extra . . .

(Enter Arcolano.) ARC. What are you gossiping about?

TOGNA. Debita nostra debitoribus. Monna Antonia was just asking me about the pilgrimage to San Lorenzo extra muros. Sic nos demittimus.

ARC. I don’t like these carryings-on.

ALV. Et ne nos inducas. My good man, it is necessary once in a while to think of one’s soul. In tentatione.

ARC. My conscience!

TOGNA. You think everyone is like yourself, who never go to mass or matins.

ARC. Keep still, you sow.

TOGNA. Anima tua, manica mia. (8)

ARC. I’ll fix you.

ALV. Don’t be angry. Sed libera nos a malo.

ARC. Do you know what I have to say to you, old woman?

ALV. No, my sweetness and life, what have you to say?

ARC. That if I find you talking any more with this brazen-faced old pile of dung, I won’t be responsible for what I do.

ALV. Lagrimarum valle. I wouldn’t care if you covered me with gold. A te suspiramus. Got knows my good intentions. Monna Antonia, you are not to come on the pilgrimage I told you of, for it is the devil himself who has taken your husband by the hair, clementes et flentes.

TOGNA. It is wine that has him by the hair, I can see that.

ARC. Where are you going?

TOGNA. On the pilgrimage, to do my duty, can’t you see?

ARC. Go on in the house and hurry up about it.

248 TOGNA. I’ll go but what then?

(Togna and Alvigia go out.) ARC. He who has a she-goat has horns; all the proverbs are true. My wife is not of much weight, I’m wise to the fact that she is going out to look for her own consolations, and this old bitch has made me think of my plans. It will be a good thing for me to play the drunkard tonight. That won’t be much trouble for me, and maybe I can find out where this pilgrimage is she’s talking about. (Calling.) Togna, Togna, don’t you hear?

TOGNA. (from within.) What do you want?

ARC. Come down.

TOGNA. Here I am. (She comes in.).

ARC. Weren’t you waiting dinner on me?

TOGNA. Nothing else but. (9)

ARC. That’s fair enough. (10)

TOGNA. You would do better to stay home and leave the taverns and wenches alone.

ARC. You give me a headache.

TOGNA. I hope you meet someone who gives you what you deserve.

ARC. Shut up, old long-tongue.

TOGNA. Is this the thanks I get?

ARC. Well, anyway, you don’t see me flirting at the windows.

TOGNA. So you think I’m one of that kind, do you, old soak?

ARC. I’m off.

(He goes out.) TOGNA. At the same time, but not to the same place. You go your way and I’ll go mine, and I’ll get even with you yet. You with your lady friends and I with my gentleman friends, you to wine and I to love. And I don’t care if you split, you jealous old drunkard.

(She goes out. Rosso and Parabolano come in.) 249 ROSSO. You seem to be afraid that the Sun and Moon will fall in love with her.

PAR. Who knows?

ROSSO. Only I. Do you think the Moon would fall in love with a woman like her?

PAR. It might be. But the Sun?

ROSSO. The Sun is too busy.

PAR. Why?

ROSSO. Because it’s too busy drying the shirt of Venus which Mercury — I mean, Mars — has p——— on.

PAR. That’s silly talk. Why I’m afraid the very bed she sleeps in and the room she lives in will enjoy her love.

ROSSO. You are most diabolically jealous. Do you think that the room and the bed have (saving your reverence) the same lust as you?

PAR. Let’s go home then.

ROSSO. Your Lordship has quicksilver on his back; and so, don’t let anything stop you.

(They go out. Grillo comes in.) GRILLO. Ha, ha, ha! Messer Maco has been in the kettle, which he thought was a mould, and he has belched up his bowels, as anyone would who hadn’t the stomach to suffer heat. They’ve perfumed, shaved and dressed him up so that he looks like another person. He leaps, dances, sings and says all sorts of things, such knavish words that you would think he came from Bergamo rather than Sienna. And Maestro Andrea pretends to be astonished at every word that drops from his mouth and makes him believe, with unheard of oaths, that he is the finest Courtier that ever was seen. And Messer Maco thinks he is the finest ever. Ha, ha, ha! And he is determined at all costs to break the kettle, so that no other Courtier so fine as he can be made in it. And now, he is sending me for sweetbreads to Sienna, and he has told me that if I don’t come back right away, he will give me a beating, and the old raven 250is waiting for me. The best part will be, when they make him look in a concave mirror, which will show him his face all changed. What sport that will be! If I did not have to go to the garden of Messer Agostino Chigi, I would stay to see the fun, but I can’t do it. Hello, Rosso, I wasn’t expecting you.

(Rosso comes in. Grillo goes out.) ROSSO. Addio, Grillo, a rivederci. A cancer on love and all that goes with it. I’ve become a messenger boy to fetch procuresses for my master, who wants to make me his Maestro di Casa, I’d rather be anything else than one of those major-domos who fatten themselves, their concubines and he-concubines, on the mouthfuls which the big knaves steal from the other servants. I know one traitor who even lent his master at interest the money he had stolen in the government of his house. Oh, the gluttons, oh, the big asses! You go to the privy with a fine torch, and we go to bed in the dark; you drink divine wines and we drink vinegar and mouldy wine; you feed on choice meats and we on stale beef. But where is that phantasm of an Alvigia? And what the devil is that Jew crying?

(Romanello, a Jew, enters.) JEW. Old iron, old iron, old iron.

ROSSO. I ought to treat him as I did the Fisherman.

JEW. Old iron, old iron.

ROSSO. Come here, Jew.

JEW. What will you have?

ROSSO. What doublet is that?

JEW. It used to belong to the Cavalier Grandino. And what satin!

ROSSO. What’s it worth?

JEW. Try it on, and then we’ll talk of the price.

ROSSO. Now you’re talking.

JEW. Put the cloak on first. Put your arm in here. May I 251never see the Messiah, if it wasn’t made for your back; and the very latest cut.

ROSSO. You don’t say.

JEW. May I never go to the Synagogue on the Sabbath if is wasn’t made for your figure.

ROSSO. And now to the price, and in case you treat me right, I will buy also that friar’s hood for a brother of mine in Aracoeli.

JEW. If you take this hood also, I’ll make you a bargain, and I would have you know that it came from the most reverend Aracoeli in minoribus.

ROSSO. So much the better. But since my brother has a figure out of the ordinary, I’d like to see it on your poor back, and then we’ll make a bargain.

JEW. That suits me, I want you to fell safe in spending your four farthings.

ROSSO. You’ve dropped the cord. Now put on the scapular. In faith, it’s a fine one.

JEW. And what cloth!

ROSSO. And now, since you seem to be a good fellow, I’ve thought up something good for you.

JEW. A cancer on your thoughts.

ROSSO. I want to make you a Christian. (8)

JEW. You must feel like talking. You believe in God and I in God. If you want to buy, that’s one thing; and if you want to talk, that’s another.

ROSSO. It’s a sin to do you a favor. Who said anything about the soul? The soul is a minor matter.

JEW. Take off my jerkin.

ROSSO. Listen to me. There are three reasons why I’m going to make you a Christian.

JEW. Take it off, I tell you.

ROSSO. Listen, you beast. If I make you a Christian, the very day you are baptised you will lay your claws on a basin 252full of denarii, and besides, all Rome will come to see you crowned with olive, which is a fine thing.

JEW. You are having a good time.

ROSSO. Another reason is, so you can eat pork.

JEW. I don’t care much for that.

ROSSO. You don’t care much for it? If you had ever had your fill of oiled bread, (11) you would thank a a hundred Messiahs for love of it. Oh what a melody it is when the pane unto is on eh fire with a jug between the legs and nothing to do but eat and drink. (12)

JEW. Give me my jerkin. I’ve got something to do.

ROSSO. The last reason is, so you will not have to wear the red sign on your breast.

JEW. What difference does that make.

ROSSO. It makes this difference, that the Spaniards would crucify you for that sign.

JEW. Why crucify me?

ROSSO. Because it makes you look like one of them.

JEW. There’s a difference between them and us.

ROSSO. There is no difference if you wear that. And then, if you don’t have the sign of a Jew, the urchins won’t pelt you with orange peel and melons. And so, become a Christian, become a Christian, become a Christian, I say it to you three times.

JEW. I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to. I also say it to you three times.

ROSSO. Well, master Jew, like the good fellow I am, I’ve done my duty and relieved my conscience. And now, what do you want for the whole thing.

JEW. Twelve ducats.

ROSSO. In gold or carlins?

JEW. In Romanian coin, that’s understood.

ROSSO. Wait a minute, I’ll be right back.

JEW. Here, where are you going?

253 ROSSO. Don’t worry. It’s full of moths anyway.

JEW. That’s nothing.

ROSSO. Wait here. Don’t move.

JEW. Don’t move, eh? Just watch me. (Rosso starts to run out with the doublet, and the Jew, clad as a Friar, starts after him.)

JEW. Stop, thief! Stop, thief!

(The Sheriff and Bailiffs come in.) SHERIFF. What’s all the racket?

ROSSO. Signor Capitano, this Friar just came out of a whore’s house, or from some tavern, drunk. He started to run after me and I, who have nothing to do with the religious, took to my heels. But when I looked at him closely, I saw that he was neither a priest nor St. Francis himself.

JEW. I’m not a Friar; I’m Romanello, the Jew, and I want the jerkin he has on his back.

SHERIFF. Ha! you dirty stinking dog, you, so you’d make sport of our religion? Take him, bind him and throw him in prison.

JEW. Mister Sheriff, that man’s an imposter.

BAILIFFS. Shut up, you dog of a Jew!

SHERIFF. Put him in the stocks, in irons and in handcuffs.

BAILIFFS. It shall be done.

SHERIFF. And this evening, give him ten lashes.

BAILIFFS. Twenty-five, if ten are not enough.

ROSSO. Your Lordship is giving him a proper punishment. I think I’ve caught a cold, running like this; I’m sweating all over.

SHERIFF. Ha, ha!

ROSSO. You’ve got what’s coming to you, poltroon of a Friar!

SHERIFF. (to Rosso). Come along with us; you’ve got the face of a good fellow.

ROSSO. At your Highness’ service.

(They all go out except Rosso.) 254 What does he know about faces? Oh these Sheriffs! They give someone the rope for carrying a dagger and let thieves go free; they even praise them, as this fellow did me just now, all for having called a hangman a Capitano. And now to find the old lady. I’ll tell her the Signor has given me this doublet, and I’ll tell the Signor that Livia has made me a present.

(He goes out. Andrea, Maco and Mercurio come in.) AND. By God, but a little sense is enough, as the motto says which Todeschino has on his shield.

MACO. Oh what a fine, what a divine Courtier I am!

MER. You’ll never see your match in a thousand years.

MACO. I want to see how I look as a Courtier.

AND. (handing him a concave mirror.) Take a look then, and I hope you don’t lose your head, as Sire Narcissus did.

MACO. I want to look at my face; give it to me. Oh what pain I’ve suffered! I’d rather give birth to a child than be in those moulds.

AND. Look, then.

MACO. O God! O my Lord! I’m ruined! Ah, knaves! Give me back my face, give me back my head, my hair, my nose! Oh what a mouth! Oimè, what eyes! Commendo spiritum meum. (He sinks to his knees.)

MER. Get up! It’s the cobwebs in your brain that make you see double.

AND. (handing him another mirror.) Here, look, and you’ll see it’s all an accident.

MACO. I’ll take another look. (With the other mirror in his hand.) Ah, I’m myself again!

AND. Your Lordship has told a fib in saying you were ruined.

MACO. I am saved! I am alive! I am I! And now, I want to run through all Rome, I want to flay the Governor alive, who sent the Sheriff out to look for me. I want to curse, I want to bear arms, I want to spike all the ladies. 255Away, doctor, puttana nostra vostra. (13). Away, Maestro, for by the body . . . you don’t know me now that I’ve become a Courtier, eh?

MER. I commend myself to your Lordship, a rivederci.

AND. Ha, ha, ha!

MACO. I want to be a Bishop, and tomorrow a Cardinal, and tomorrow night Pope. Here we are at the house of Camilla. Knock hard.

BIAGINA. (from inside the house). Who’s knocking?

AND. Open to a gentleman.

BIAG. Who is the gentleman?

MACO. The Signor Maco.

BIAG. What Signor Maco?

MACO. What Signor Maco? May God give you an evil year, poltroon of a she-pig!

BIAG. The Signora has company.

MACO. Chase them away.

BIAG. What, chase away my mistress’ gentleman friends?

MACO. Yes, away with them, or I’ll give you a flogging; I’ll give you a thousand cold-water enemas.

AND. Open to a new Courtier.

BIAG. At your service, Maestro Andrea.

AND. Draw the bolt.

BIAG. Ora. (14)

MACO. What does she say?

AND. Che ti adora. (15)

MACO. Mora. (16)

BIAG. Oh, what a madman!

MACO. What’s she barking about?

AND. She’s excusing herself for not having recognized you.

MACO. I want to be recognized, I do.

AND. Enter, your Lordship.

256 MACO. I enter. ’Ods blood but . . . I’ll spike all the women in the house.

(They go out. Rosso comes in, goes up to the house of Alvigia, and knocks.) ALV. (from within.) The man must be crazy to knock like that.

(Rosso knocks again.) ALV. Do you want to break the door down?

ROSSO. Open, it’s Rosso.

ALV. I thought you wanted to tear the door down.

ROSSO. What are you up to? Some witchcraft?

ALV. I was drying some roots in the shade, but I can’t tell you what they were. And I had a few alembics in the oven to make a little acqua vita.

ROSSO. Have you spoken to her?

ALV. Yes, but . . .

ROSSO. What do you mean by that pause?

ALV. Her husband is a jealous bird . . . (15)

ROSSO. What! Is he wise? (16)

ALV. He is wise, and he is not wise; but we shall see what we shall see.

ROSSO. Tell me in plain Italian, for I don’t understand your cipher.

ALV. You have to talk that way not to be taken for a rogue. Go back to the Signor and tell him to come at a quarter after six.

ROSSO. One kiss, Queen of Empresses, for Roe without you would be like a spring without a bucket.

ALV. Silly boy!

ROSSO. There, go back to your distillations, and I’ll see if I can find the master; for now he’s up, and now he’s down, now he’s in, now he’s out; what a windmill love makes of a man!

ALV. You’ve got the idea.

257 (Alvigia goes out and Parabolano comes in.) ROSSO. Here he is himself. Greetings.

PAR. What’s the news?

ROSSO. Good news; at a quarter after six she’ll be waiting for you in the house of the blessed Lady, Madonna Alvigia.

PAR. I congratulate you, her, and my benign fortune. Listen, One two, three, four.

ROSSO. Ha, ha, ha! The bells ring and you think they’re clocks.

PAR. I can’t possibly live so long.

ROSSO. Nor I fast so long.

PAR. Oh what a passion!

ROSSO. Don’t you think I want a little supper, not being made of lead.

PAR. That’s for you to say. As for me, I feed on my memories.

ROSSO. I’d feed on them too, if they were good to eat, those memories of yours. Let’s go in.

PAR. I’m coming.

(End of Act Fourth)

FOOTNOTES

1 “Play with saints and leave infants alone.”

2 Which sings all night.

3 ne vada netto.

4 From which it may be seen, “halitosis” is as old as the cinquecento!

5 Camerini remarks, in a note to his edition of this play: “This mixture of mutilated prayers and gallant remarks is the high point of Aretino’s impiety, which is yet marvelously characteristic of teh devtions of a pollastriera.”

6 Alvigia’s Latin is a little off at times

7 Your soul, my sleeve.

8 Non fu mai piu.

9 Basta mo.

10 The old theme. It is not hard to see where Shakespeare got his Shylock.

11 pane unto.

12 See Letters, LVI., et al.

13 Your whore is ours.

14 Now, right away. A word play such as characterizes the early Shakespearean comedies.

15 That she adores you.

16 Untranslatable here.

17 becco geloso.

18 Se n’e accorto?

———————— The Works of Aretino, Volume 1, translated into English by Samuel Putnam; pp. 258-281.

[258]

Picture of a hude girl with two small horns on her head, giving a letter to an eagle and riding a bull, by Marquis de Bayros.

259 ACT FIFTH (Valerio comes in.) VAL. I’ve just been relieved of a great doubt. I say this because I used to believe that faces and tongues corresponded to hearts and minds, and this belief came from the knowledge I had of my own ability and the consciousness that I had made an amiable use of my ability towards all; and for the one reason and the other, I has thought that I was not merely loved but adored, and now I can say; Oh, my credulity, how you have deceived me! Oh, the perverse, ungrateful and envious nature of the Court! Is there any malevolence in the world, is there any deceit in the world, and is there any cruelty in the world which are not to be found in it? As soon as my Lord changed his attitude toward me, the love, the faith, the countenances and the minds of all his household dropped that mask which for so long a time had concealed from me the truth, and now, every vile servant abhors me, as if I were a venomous serpent, and as it used to seem the very walls bowed to me, so now it seems they flee me. And those who used to praise me to the skies now condemn me to the abyss. Every one is pushing to get into the master’s presence, and they show in their bearing the same humanity that is to be seen in those who demand without asking and speak without opening their mouths; and everyone with his gestures and his words forces himself to show a disdain for my present condition. One, fearing I may return to my former state, merely shrugs his shoulders and is careful not to offend or defend me; another, certain that his desires have 260been fulfilled, transfixes me without any respect whatever. And so it is, envy, which is the mother and daughter of the Court, has already begun to make them strive together, and he who is nearest in rank to the one who has fallen is assailed by whoever is a rung lower on the ladder of hope. (1) In short, each one, seeking elevation through my fall, wounds, me and exalts himself. And in such a plight, it seems to me, I am like a river with which every little stream vies when, swollen by rains, it overflows and makes a bed of the surrounding land. But I trust to my innocence to protect me from their haughty malice just as the rivulets which trust to the sun to destroy the snow and ice of the mountains are swallowed up by the plains which they have so impetuously presumed to dominate. And since patience disarms envy, I shall strive with patience to cut the cords with which my fate, as I may say, has bound me; for every benefit and every injury is to be placed to the account of fate. And now, I want to go home, for, to live at Court it is to be presupposed that one is deaf, dumb, and blind.

(He goes out. Togna comes in.) TOGNA. I want to see if that old drunkard has come back yet. I hope he falls and breaks a leg. It’s too bad the devil hasn’t sense enough to take him when he’s snoring away in the tavern. Do I see him coming there? I hope who ever gave me such a husband dies a terrible death. I ought to give him something, and I wouldn’t be the first wife who did such a thing as that. There’s the big pig now. He looks fresh enough. He’s got three sheets in the wind already. (2)

ARC. W-where is the d-door, h-house, the w-window are d-dancing, I’ll f-fall in the r-river.

261 TOGNA. I wish to God you would! Who bought you the wine you’ve been drinking?

ARC. Wine your r-rump. Ha, ha, ha! B-bring me the d-dog that I w-wanted to get . . .

TOGNA. You get what you deserve. I don’t know why I don’t choke you.

ARC. Oh, oh, but I’m h-hot!

(They go out, Parabolano and Rosso come in.) PAR. Waiting is as hard as death.

ROSSO. Waiting for dinner?

PAR. I was speaking of love.

ROSSO. Oh, I thought you were speaking of dinner, your Lordship, pardon me.

PAR. There’s nothing to pardon. Listen: one, two, three.

ROSSO. You’re crazy; the cook bangs the frying-pan, and you think it is a clock. The devil take all women, assassins that they are.

PAR. Let’s go into the house. I thought it was time. That’s why I came out.

ROSSO. These old fellow with bats in their belfry will drive me crazy yet.

(They go out.) (Togna comes in, in her husband’s clothes.) T OGNA. Oh God, why wasn’t I born a man? How do I look in these clothes? It is a great misfortune to be born a woman, and after all, what are we women good for? To cook, to sew, and to stay locked up in the house all year, and for what? To be beaten and insulted every day, and by whom? By a big drunkard and a lazy dolt like this old sport of mine. Oh poor we, what a lot is ours! If your man is a gambler and loses, it is you who are out of luck; if he has no money, it falls on you; if wine takes him off his pegs, it is you who bear the blame; and they are so jealous they think every fly is making or talking love. And if it wasn’t that we have brains enough to make sport of them, we might as well go hang ourselves. It is a great sin that the preacher 262doesn’t put in a word for us with the Lord, for it is not right that one like me should go to hell simply for having a husband like the one God has given me. And if the confessor gives me a penance for what I am doing, I hope I die if I don’t say to him, for once: “Would you give a penance to a poor unfortunate woman who has for a husband a brute, a gambler, a tavern-hound, a jealous fool and a dog of a gardener?” But Alvigia must be expecting me. I must go find her. What man is that I see there?

(She goes out. Andrea comes in.) AND. Old master dung-hill has fallen on Camilla’s back like a kite on a full meal, and he tells her his love with innumerable oaths and kisses her hand like a passionate Don Sancio. He slashes away in the Neapolitan manner, sighs in the Spanish manner, laughs in the manner of a Sanese, and prays in the manner of a Courtier; and he wants to copulate in all the fashions there are in the world, till the Signora nearly bursts with laughter. But here’s Zoppino. You disappeared before, like meat in the servant’s hall.

(Zoppino comes in.) ZOPP. I left because the silliness of your Sanese was getting on my nerves.

AND. By God, but you speak the truth; it is beginning to bore me too.

ZOPP. You know what I’m afraid will happen?

AND. What?

ZOPP. I’m afraid by mingling with him we shall become as foolish as he is. But I’ve an idea. Let’s change cloaks and barrettas and, with brave words, assault the Signora’s house and make him jump out of the window. The window is so low he can’t hurt himself.

AND. That’s a good idea. Here, take mine, and give me yours.

ZOPP. Give me your barretta and take mine.

263 AND. In this disguise they will never recognize us.

ZOPP. Force the door, yell, hurl defiance.

AND. Ah, coward! Chippy-chaser, traitor!

ZOPP. I’ll have the law on you!

AND. Open up! open up!

(Maco leaps out of the window in his giubbone. Andrea and Zoppino run out.) MACO. I’m done for! To the street, to the street! Spaniards are after me! Where shall I go? Where shall I flee! Where shall I hide myself?

(He goes out. Parabolano and Rosso come running in.) PAR. What’s the matter, Rosso? What’s all the uproar?

ROSSO. I ask your Lordship.

PAR. I don’t see anyone.

ROSSO. Let us go back, it was just some lazy jokers, beating their swords against the wall.

PAR. The beasts.

(They go out. Arcolano comes in, dressed in his wife’s clothes.) ARC. The whore, the cow, the sow! I ought to give her to the Friars, I ought. Oh, oh, oh! Go pass blood. I wonder to what hole she’s gone now? A wife knows them all! I barely closed my eyes when she put on my clothes and ran out, leaving her own on the bed-chest, and, not to run out naked, I had to put on hers to follow her. I must think where I can find her, and when I’ve found her, I’ll eat her alive! I must go here and go there, but it would be better for me to go to the ponte and wait till she passes. So you would, would you? Ribald traitress!

(He goes out. Parabolano and Rosso come in.) PAR. How many was that?

ROSSO. I don’t know because I didn’t count.

PAR. I heard it strike one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

ROSSO. You’ll soon be playing rumps with Livia. (3)

264 PAR. You make me laugh.

ROSSO. Look, there’s someone with a lantern in her hand. It is Alvigia. I know her by her walk. Am I right?

(Alvigia comes in.) ALV. By my grace and yours, your friend is in my house, and she’s like a dove who fears the falcon. Your Lordship will not forget about not taking her into the light; and since, for appearance’s sake, she has come dressed as a man, I doubt not there will be no scandal.

PAR. How, a scandal? I would sooner open all my veins than displease her.

ALV. So say all of you Lords, and then you go and do good women in.

PAR. I don’t understand.

ALV. Rosso understands me right enough.

ROSSO. No, I don’t, by God.

PAR. What scandal can come from her being dressed as a man?

ALV. The devil is subtle, and the gran Maestri are always wide-awake.

ROSSO. I get you now. Master, she’s afraid of what will be said afterwards.

PAR. Hell’s fire, (4) and I hope it burns anyone who would tell on a lady.

ROSSO. Don’t swear such an oath as that.

PAR. Why?

ROSSO. Because it would empty the world of Signori and of great men.

PAR. Let us go.

ALV. I trust to your Lordship; wait here till I come back to you.

(She goes out.) ROSSO. Your face looks altogether different.

PAR. Mine?

ROSSO. Yours.

PAR Overcome by sovereign love . . .

265 ROSSO. What’s that?

PAR. I am unable to say a word.

ROSSO. It’s a silly fellow that’s afraid to speak a word to a lady. Your Lordship has a face whiter than the faces of those whom, at Venice, those Excellent doctors, Carlo da Fano, Polo Romano, Dio Nisio Capucci of the Città di Castello, bring to life from the dead.

PAR. He who loves, fears.

ROSSO. He who loves, has a good time, as you will be having very soon.

PAR. O most blessed night, dearer to me than all the happy days of those who rejoice in fortune’s favor. I would not change place with those souls who, in the Heavens above, are happy in contemplating the aspect of the wonderful God. O serene forehead, O sacred breast, O golden hair, O precious hands, the treasury of my singular Phoenix! Can it be true, then, that I am worthy of admiring you, of kissing you and of touching you? O sweet mouth, adorned with pearls without flaw, amid which breathes the most nectarous odor. Can it be you will consent that I, who am all fire, should moisten my dry lips in the celestial ambrosia which you so sweetly distill? O divine eyes, which lend light to the Sun, which comes to nest in you when the day is done, will you not illuminate with your benign rays my bedroom and put to flight those inimical shadows which contend to keep me from the sight of that angel on whom my life depends?

ROSSO. Your Lordship has made a great proem.

PAR. Thus do I bind great things in a little bundle. (5)

(Alvigia comes in.) ALV. Be quiet, for the love of God. Don’t make a sound.

ROSSO. Tell me, Alvigia . . .

ALV. Quiet, the neighbors, the neighbors will hear; see that 266you don’t make any noise. Oimè, what a risk to run.

ROSSO Don’t be afraid.

ALV. Quiet, quiet. Give me your hand, my Lord.

PAR. Oh, how happy I am!

ALV. Easy, my Lord.

ROSSO. I had forgot one thing . . .

ALV. You want to ruin us. They’ll hear us. Damn this squeaking door.

(Alvigia and Parabolano go out.) ROSSO. If you’re lucky, you’ll eat her; if you’re unlucky, you’ll find yourself eating cow’s meat of the kind the poor servants do in their hall. There’s only one thing I’m sorry for, and that is that Alvigia hasn’t in the house Sgozza, Roina, Squartapoggio, or some other pimp who would cut his throat, draw and quarter him.

(Alvigia comes back.) What are you laughing at? Has he come to the point with the Signora Fornaia?

ALV. He is with her and neighing like a stallion that sees the mare. He sighs, he spits, he slashes, and he promises to make her a Popess.

ROSSO. That comes from his Neapolitan nature, if he slashes.

ALV. Is that simpleton a Neapolitan?

ROSSO. Didn’t you know it?

ALV. No.

ROSSO. He’s a relative of Giovanni Agnese.

ALV. Of that bird who goes around looking in key-holes?

ROSSO. Of that swindler, that knave and that traitor, whose least vice is to be an infamous fisherman.

ALV. What a rascal and what a glutton! But let’s not talk of him; it’s a shame to mention such a dolt, trickster and pimp, saving my own honor. But what are you thinking of?

ROSSO. I’m thinking, we’re treating the master like a gran maestro.

ALV. How’s that?

ROSSO. By making him acquainted with Togna.

267 ALV. Ha, ha, ha!

ROSSO. And after this, I think maybe I’ll get out of the servants’ hall; it makes me tremble even to think of it; I have more fear of the servant’s hall than a thousand masters.

ALV. And if the thing is discovered, won’t you be afraid?

ROSSO. Why should I be afraid? I’ll take to my legs.

ALV. Tell me, is the servants’ hall such a terrible thing that it makes even a Rosso tremble?

ROSSO. It is so terrible that it would frighten Morgante and Margutte, not to speak of that Catellaccio, whose least accomplishment was to eat a wether, two pairs of capons, and a hundred eggs at a meal.

ALV. He’s a man after my own heart, your Messer Catellaccio.

ROSSO. Alvigia, while that old vulture is in there, getting his fill of that carrion-hag, I want to say a couple of words to you about that gentle institution, the servants’ hall. (6)

ALV. Do, please.

ROSSO. If evil fortune forces you to go into the servants’ hall, you will find, as soon as you enter, a place that reminds you of a dark, dank tomb, so horrible that sepulchres are a hundred times more inviting. And if you have ever seen the prison of the Corte Savello, when it is full of prisoners, you have seen the servants’ hall full of servants at eating-time. Yes, the servants’ hall is like a prison, but prisons are more comfortable, for in winter the prisoners are as warm as in summer, while the servants’ halls in summer are boiling and in winter are so cold that your words freeze in your mouth; and the smell of the prison is less displeasing than the stink of the servants’ hall, for the former comes from the prisoners and the latter from dying men.

268 ALV. You have reason to fear it.

ROSSO. But listen. They eat off a table-cloth of more colors than a painter’s apron, and if it were not improper, I should say of more colors than those pieces of cloth which women soil when they are sick.

ALV. Ehu, ehu, ohe, ohe!

ROSSO. It makes you want to vomit to think of it. And do you know where they wash that tablecloth at the end of a meal?

ALV. Where?

ROSSO. In the pig’s grease of the candles which were burned the night before, although very often we eat without any light, and that is fortunate, for in the dark our stomachs do not turn at sight of the rascally repasts they bring us, which, starving as we are, satisfy us and, satisfying us, drives us to despair.

ALV. May God damn the one that’s to blame for that.

ROSSO. Neither God nor the devil could do worse. We may never keep Easter nor Carnival, but all the year around we keep the feast of the mother of St. Luke.

ALV. Do you eat the flesh of Saints?

ROSSO. And of the Crucified also; although that is not why I am telling you this. I am telling you because St. Luke is pictured as an ox, and the mother of an ox?

ALV. As a cow. Ha, ha!

ROSSO. And then come the fruits. When the melons, artichokes, figs, grapes and plums are rotten enough to be thrown away, they give them to us. Sometimes, it is true, in place of the fruits, they give us four slices of buffalo cheese, so dry and hard it gives us a colic that would kill a Marforio; and if anyone, with a thousand supplications, begs the cook for a platter of thin soup, they give him a plate of lye.

ALV. Don’t they give you good soup?

ROSSO. Like that the Friars have. Do you know why so many Friars leave their orders? It is for no other reason than on account of the soup.

269 ALV. You mean to say . . . yes, yes, I understand.

ROSSO. I mean to say, they kill the soup, as the Court kills the faith of those who serve it. But who could tell you all the treasons of the servants’ hall, when Lent comes with its fast days? And they do this from their own stinginess and not for the good of our souls.

ALV. Why speak of the soul?

ROSSO. Lent comes, and look you, for dinner you have two anchovies to go around, as an antipasto; they then bring on a few Sardinian herbs, burned and not cooked, accompanied by a certain bean soup, without salt and without oil, which is enough to make anyone curse heaven. Then, in the evening, we make a supper on ten nettle leaves as a salad, a small loaf of bread, and God help you.

ALV. What a shame!

ROSSO. All this would be a light matter, if they only showed us a little mercy in the dog-days. Then, in addition to the horrible perfume which comes from the bone-piles, covered with filth that is never swept up and with enough flies to fill a city, you are given to drink wine diluted with tepid water, which, before you taste it, has stood four hours to settle in a wooden vase; and all drink out of a single pewter cup which all the water in the Tiber would not be able to wash clean; and while they are eating, it is a fine sight to see this one wiping his hands on his stockings, this one on his cloak, another on his jerkin and another against the wall. (6)

ALV. How terrible! And is this true of all of them?

ROSSO. Of all of them. And for a greater torment, we have to gulp it down posthaste in the manner of kites.

ALV. Who keeps you from eating at your leisure?

ROSSO. That respectable man, the reverend steward, with the music of his baton. When he has sounded twice a laetamus genua, we have to rise. And it’s a shame! We 270are not only not allowed to have our fill of food, we cannot even have our fill of words.

ALV. The steward is a knave!

ROSSO. Once in a lifetime they give you a banquet. If you could see that procession of heads, feet, neck, carcasses, bones and skeletons, you would think you were watching that procession which you see at San Marco on Master Pasquin’s day. Just as, on that day, parsons, archpriests, canons and similar gentry carry in their hands the relics of martyrs and confessors, so these doorkeepers stewards, spies and other leprous and lousy officials come bearing a capon and partridges, and having first set aside a portion for themselves and their whores, they toss the rest to us.

ALV. What a life!

ROSSO. Alvigia, I saw one yesterday who, upon hearing the dinner bell, began weeping as one would for the death of his father. When I asked him why he was weeping, he replied: “I am weeping because that bell is calling us to eat the bread of sorrow, to drink our own blood, and to feed on the flesh of our own life, cooked in our own sweat.” And he was a Prelate who told me that, who had that evening four nuts to break his fast, while the chamberlain had three, a shield-bearer two and myself one.

ALV. Do the Prelates eat in the servants’ hall?

ROSSO. It is all the same; and that is the reason why everyone does not come to Rome. And yet, they are rich enough.

ALV. Blessed be the Spaniards. (7)

ROSSO. Yes, if they had punished the wicked and not the good. It is the truth, as that Prelate I told you of, he of the four nuts, swore to me, they are richer than ever; and he says that when they are reproved for letting 271their household die of hunger, they blame it on the Sack and not on their own poltroonery.

ALV. I can see that you know them all. But what’ this I hear? A racket in the house? We’re undone, ruined, keep still . . . Oimè! That’s the Signor raising his voice. We shall be discovered. I deserve all that’s coming to me for running such a risk on account of you.

ROSSO. Be quiet. I want to hear what they’re saying.

ALV. Put your ear to the door.

ROSSO. That’s a good idea.

ALV. What are they saying?

ROSSO. Cow, she-pig, poltroon, traitor, pimp, thief.

ALV. Who is that meant for?

ROSSO. Cow, she-pig, that’s for Togna. Poltroon, traitor, that means Rosso. And pimp, thief, that’s Alvigia.

ALV. Damn the day I met you.

ROSSO. He’s saying he’s going to break her in two, burn you alive, and hang me. A rivederci.

(He runs out.) ALV. So, you run away, you big glutton! I’m in a pretty pickle. I make a vow that if I get out of this I’ll fast all the Fridays in March, I’ll go to all the six churches ten times every month. I’ll go barefoot; I promise to make acqua cotta for the incurables; I’ll make clysters for the sick of Santo Joanni for a year. I’ll wait on the religious; I’ll go wash clothes at the hospital eight days for nothing. And if I have deceived the saints in my other vows, I won’t in this. Blessed Angelo Raffaello, I beg you by your wings to aid me; Messer San Tubia, I beg you by your fish, keep me out of hell-fire; Messer San Giuliano, save me by your rosary which I’m going home now to say

(She runs out. Parabolano comes in.) PAR. I have been the victim of a groom and an old procuress, and I’ve got what I deserve. Now I know how silly it is for one like me, on account of what he is, to believe 273that he can have anything he wants, and, blinded by delusions of his own grandeur, to refuse to listen to good advice or the truth. Thinking only of our own lascivious desires, we hate and drive away from us those who propose what is fitting to our station. To this, my Valerio can bear witness. I am a fool, and I can hear even now the story of my stupidity being shouted over Rome. There’s Valerio now. He looks sad.

(Enter Valerio.) VAL Signor mio, since the envy of my enemies has conquered your kindness, I, with your permission, will go away some place where you shall never hear of me again.

PAR. Do not weep, brother. Love, my own rash will and simple nature, are the things which have offended you. I will tell you one of the most novel jokes that was ever heard of in a thousand years, and one that ought to be enough for a hundred comedies. You know how I used to laugh at Messer Filippo Adimari, who, when he was in Leo’s house, was led to believe that those who were working on the foundations of his casa at Trastevere had found a number of bronze statues; whereupon he, alone, on foot and in his cassock, ran to have a look at them. He found himself in the same plight in which I am, thanks to the joke Rosso has played on me.

VAL Rosso, eh? He never deceived me.

PAR. You know, too, the laugh I had over the wax figure which Messer Marco Bracci found under his pillow, on account of which he caused Signora Marticca, who happened to be sleeping with him that night, to be arrested, being convinced that it was a piece of witchcraft on her part.

VAL Ha, ha, ha!

PAR. What good fun I used to have at the expense of Messer 273Francesco Tornabuoni for taking twelve syrups and a medicine, though not sick at all, being certain he had the syphilis.

VAL I know all those things.

PAR. And now, what do you advise me to do in such a case?

VAL I should snap my fingers at all gossip, and I myself should tell the joke just as it is; for that way there will be less of a laugh, and it will not get about so much.

PAR. You speak like a wise man. Wait here till I have a word with her whom I took for a Roman gentlewoman.

(Parabolano goes out.) VAL It is a thing well-known to everybody that he alone is master of his Lord who holds the keys to his pleasures and his appetites; and if anyone doubts this, he needs but look at what Rosso has done to me. All Rosso knows is how to promise to bring, not how to bring ladies to his Lordship. The short of the matter is, gran maestri have more esteem for those who give them pleasure than they have for all the glory in the world; and I believe that anyone who had attained such a rank would do the same.

(Enter Parabolano with Alvigia and Togna.) PAR. So you thought I wouldn’t find you?

ALV. Mercy and not justice.

PAR. What the devil do you mean, I told Rosso in his sleep?

ALV. In your sleep you let Rosso know that you were in love with Livia.

PAR. Ha, ha, ha!

ALV. From being too compassionate I’ve put my foot in it.

PAR. Too compassionate, eh?

ALV. Signor, si. When Rosso swore that you were on the point of dying for Livia, not to see so fine a youth and so fine a Signor perish. I did what I did.

PAR. I am greatly obliged to you. Ha, ha, ha! And now tell me something. Come here, madonna Filatoia. But I did not notice you were dressed like a baker.

274 TOGNA Signor, this old sorceress has dragged me into her house by the hair of the head, through necromancy.

ALV. That’s a lie, you old gossip, you pile of mule dung!

TOGNA It’s not!

ALV. It is!

PAR. Peace, and leave the screaming to me, as well as the laughing.

VAL. On all occasions I have known you for a wise man, and now on this one, I regard you as most wife; I understand the whole thing now, and it is truly to laugh. But who is this with the beard, dressed like a woman?

(Arcolano enters.) ARC. I’ve got you! I’ve found you! And you, old traitress, are you here? I’ll kill you both! Don’t hold me, my good fellow.

PAR. Stand back.

ARC. Let me punish my wife and this old she-ruffian.

VAL. Hold your temper. Ha, ha, ha!

ARC. You would, would you, you whore! You would, would you, you ruffian!

VAL. Ha, ha, ha!

TOGNA You lie, you big loafer.

ALV. Sire Arcolano, you speak the truth.

PAR. Is this your wife?

ARC. Yes, sir.

PAR. She looks to me like your husband. Ha, ha, ha! (Arcolano draws a dagger.) Here, put up that dagger! It would be a sin to turn so fine a comedy into a tragedy.

(Messer Maco comes in. Arcolano, Togna and Alvigia go out.) MACO. The Spaniards! The Spaniards!

PAR. Here’s Messer Maco.

MACO. The Spaniards have cut me to pieces.

PAR. What business have you with the Spaniards?

MACO. Let me get my breath. I — I — I —

PAR. Well?

275 MACO. W — went ——

VAL. Where?

MACO. W-went, had gone, had — went to the — to the Signora Ca — Camilla — I don’t seem to be able to get myself together. Wait a minute, if you want to hear the story. Maestro Andrea had made me a Courtier with the moulds, and the devil ruined me; then Maestro Andrea repaired, ruined, and repaired me again, till I was made over into the fine gallant you see. I went to the house of Signora Camilla, because I had a right to go there, I had a right, because I am a Courtier, I am. And the Spaniards made me jump out of a window, I think it was — high, very high.

PAR. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks; but surely, God must help children and madmen.

MACO. What do you mean?

PAR. The way he helped you, who were first ruined and then repaired. The trouble is, most of us come to Rome repaired and leave it undone, without finding anyone who will take the trouble to make us over or to keep us from ruin in the end. There is no respect for nobility, good sense or any virtue whatsoever.

(Rosso and Andrea come in. Andrea is bearing Maco’s coat and barretta.) MACO. There’s one of those Spaniards now! Aha, poltroon! Give me my cloak! Don’t hold me!

PAR. Ha, ha, ha! Why, that’s your own Maestro Andrea!

AND. Don’t be angry, Messer Maco.

MACO. Spanish knave!

AND. I am Maestro Andrea, and I’ve just killed the one who took your cloak and barretta and have brought them back to you.

MACO. What do you mean, Maestro Andrea? You are the Spaniard. I’ll have your life!

VAL. Ha, ha, ha! Keep your head, put your wrath back in the scabbard.

(Alvigia, the Fisherman and the Jew come in.) 276 FISH. So you thought you’d get away from me, you cheat? You thought you’d be safe at night? You thought you could treat a Florentine like this and get out of it clean?

ROSSO. You wrong me; you’ve made a mistake.

FISH. I’ve got you. Where are my lampreys, you traitorous glutton?

VAL. Our Rosso . . .

(The Fisherman leaps at Rosso.) PAR. Take him away, take him away. Don’t kill our comedy.

FISH. Let me break that thief’s neck who got ten lampreys from me on pretence of being the Pope’s steward; and on account of him, the Maestro di Casa, as I thought, I’ve had to stand at the Colonna as one bewitched.

PAR. Ha, ha, ha! Gallant Rosso.

ROSSO. (Dropping on his knees.) Signor mio, pardon, and don’t punish me. I am your Lordship’s slave and Maestro Valerio’s, and you know well enough this good fellow has made a mistake.

PAR. Get up, ha, ha, ha!

ROSSO. Alvigia here has your diamond and your necklace.

VAL. Ha, ha, ha! You thought . . .

ALV. I’ll give them back to you. Rosso, the big glutton has kept me on the jump. (7)

ROSSO. You’ve done the same to Rosso, you old ribald, and I’m going to see that you are punished. (He makes for her.)

PAR. Stand back, I tell you. Ha, ha, ha! We’ll be lucky if this doesn’t end in a tragedy yet.

JEW. I want my doublet. This is the way they deceive poor Hebrews. Oimè, my arms! The lash is the pay I get. O swinish Rome, what fine manners you have! But the devil would not be willing for the Messiah to come, of things were otherwise.

PAR. Be quite, Isaac or Jacob, or whatever your name is. It’s pay enough for you to let you live, since your are one of those who crucified Christ.

277 JEW. Patience!

(Maco, Andrea, Arcolano and Togna come in.) PAR. Be quiet, all of you. I will speak first with you, Messer Maco.

MACO. That’s right, because I am a Courtier, I am.

PAR. Ha, ha, ha! You will make peace here with Maestro Andrea, or the Spaniard, as you believe him to be. If you look upon him as a maestro, make peace with him for having undone and then remade you; and moreover, reflect that he would have done the same to his own father, if his father had wanted to be made a courtier in the way he made one out of you. And if you look upon him as a Spaniard, make peace with him, anyway; and the reason for that I will tell you another time.

MACO. I’ll make peace with him.

PAR. Give him his cloak and his barretta, Maestro Andrea.

AND. Your Lordship’s servant.

MACO. That’s a good fellow.

PAR. You, baker, take back your wife for better or for worse; for the wives of today are looked upon a more chaste when they are whores. And he who thinks he has a better one has a worse.

ARC. I will do what your Lordship advises.

VAL. And you are wise.

PAR. I pardon you, Alvigia, because it was wrong to believe in you in the first place and because you have only followed your profession.

ALV. God reward you.

VAL. Ha, ha, ha!

PAR. I will also pardon you, Rosso, because you are a Greek, and have only acted in the manner of a Greek, with the astuteness of a Greek. And you, Valerio, be content to reconcile yourself with Rosso, since I have forgiven him, and since he has had the genius to lead me around by the nose in the manner I’ve told you.

VAL. I am wholly at your bidding.

278 ROSSO. You know, Messer Valerio, that Rosso would let himself be drawn and quartered for you.

VAL. Ha, ha, ha!

FISH. And am I to go without pay for my lampreys?

PAR. You, Fisherman, are to pardon Rosso, since there is so little of the Florentine in you that you let yourself traffic with him as you have said. And as to this Jewish beast, let Valerio see that he is satisfied; let his jerkin be given back or paid for.

FISH. Gran mercè to your Lordship.

JEW. Your Lordship’s servant.

FISH. I’ll pardon Rosso, but not those traitorous priests who flayed me.

PAR. Go to with your priests, who dressed your breeches for you at the Colonna. And now you, Valerio, making every excuse for me, forgive me for what I did to you in the insanity of love; and remember, moreover, it is not a little thing for one of my rank to seek forgiveness from an inferior. Now, good Baker, he who has horns under his feet and does not put them on his head is a beast. (8)

ARC. The devil he is.

PAR. Certainly, for horns are very ancient and come form above, and it is my opinion that God put them on Moses with his own hand, and the same with the moon; and since both Moses and the moon have horns, they are not what they appear to you to be; the Moon with its horns adorns the heavens and Moses the Old Testament.

ARC. By that, you give me to understand my disease is a health.

PAR. Why not? All good things have horns. Oxen, snails, and what do you think of the winged-horns? Their horns are worth a world and are good against poison. 279And what do you think the horn of a man is worth, when that of an animal is so valuable and has such virtues? The horns of men are good against poverty, etc. And many gentlemen bear them as arms.

ARC. Be that as it may; for, as you see, I’ve given mine to one who would never believe it; it is enough that he is what you say he is.

PAR. And now, Monna Loathe-Little, come kiss your husband.

ARC. Yes, come give me a kiss.

TOGNA. Go ’way from me, old soak; don’t touch me!

ARC. Ah, cruel woman, why have you betrayed me?

TOGNA. What would you have me do when a gentleman makes advances? Throw him to the pigs?

VAL. She’s right. Ha, ha, ha!

ALV. Signor, since you are such a gentle creature, I’ll give you what Livia didn’t. For she, if you take away what little face she has, (9) is not very chipper.

PAR. You’ll give me nothing more, by God. Ha, ha, ha! She’s of a mind to do me again! Valerio, let’s all go into the house. I want all of these comedians to dine with me, and I want you to hear the whole story. We will laugh together all night, and in every way it is Carnival time.

VAL. Here is the house, Maestro Andrea, bring up the rear with this rabble. Maestro Maco, your Lordship should enter first.

MACO. Gran mercè. But his Lordship, the Signor Rapolano should enter first.

PAR. Let us go. Let us go and dine and laugh till morning.

(They go out, with the exception of Rosso, who remains behind.) ROSSO. And now, folks, if you blame the length of our discourse, know that we merely have followed the fashion in use at Court. Knowing that at Rome all things run 280to length, to have done otherwise would have been to court ruin. And so, we hope you will praise our long chitter-chatter, for it could not all be told in saecula saeculorum.

The End.

FOOTNOTES 1 See Letters, CIX.

2 cammina a onde.

3 far gemini dei tarocchi con.

4 Fuoco venga dal cielo.

5 The line is lifted from Petrarch [Trionf della fama, Cap II.]: Molto gran cose in picciol fascio stringo.

6 We must remember Aretino himself, when he first came to Rome, had been a servant, of one grade or another, in the house of Agostino Cigi and perhaps in other houses.

7 An example of Aretino’s “unpleasant” realism.

8 Who sacked Rome.

9 mi ha messo ne’ salti.

10 Follows a play on the cuckold idea.

11 quel suo poco di viso: cf. Boccaccio [Dec. VIII., 7]: Cotesto tuo pachetto di viso.

[281]

Picture of a seated nude girl on a pedestal, with crossed legs, running necklaces through her hands, by Marquis de Bayros.

[End of Volume I of The Works of Pietro Aretino, by Samuel Putnam] [end-

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 9-35.

9

PIETRO ARETINO

From the Italian of Francesco De Sanctis1

The theological-ethical world of the middle ages touched the extremity of its contradictions in the positive world of Guicciardini, a world purely human and natural, walled by individual egoism, superior to all the moral chains that bind men together. The living portrait of this world, in its most cynical and most depraved form, is Pietro Aretino. The picture of the century was given in him its last fine pencil strokes.

Pietro was born in 1492, in a hospital of Arezzo, the son of Tita, the beautiful courtezan, the model sculptured and painted by a number of artists. He was without name, without family, without friends and protectors, without education, “I went to school only long enough to learn the Santa Croce . . . conniving thievishly, calling for many excuses, not being one of those who pore over the art of the Greeks and Latins.” At thirteen years, he robbed his mother and fled to Perugia and took up his lodgings with a bookbinder. At nineteen years, drawn by the fame of the Court of Rome and the report that everybody became rich there, together with the fact that he himself had not a farthing, he went to Rome and was received as a domestic in the house of a rich merchant, 10Agostino Chigi, and, a little later, in the house of the Cardinal of San Giovanni. He sought his fortune with Pope Julius; and, not meeting with success, he became a vagabond and a libertine throughout Lombardy, finally becoming a Capuchin Monk in Ravenna. When Leo the tenth became Pope, and men of letters, buffoons, actors, singers and adventurers of every sort began running to that court, it seemed to him that his place was there; he doffed his habit and went to Rome and, putting on the livery of the Pope, became the latter’s valet. High spirited, merry, a libertine, impudent and a go-between, he completed his education and instruction in that school. He learned to put into sonnets his lusts, his adulations and his buffooneries; he began to make a business of it, a business which brought him many fine farthings. But he was always a valet, and he had little to hope in a court in which it was the custom to improvise in Latin. Armed with letters of recommendation, he goes to Milan, to Pisa, to Bologna, to Ferrara, to Mantua and presents himself, brazenly, to the princes and monsignori, with the airs and presumption of a man of letters. He studies, like a woman, the art of pleasing and he lends his aid with complacency to the arts of the charlatan:

“I find myself at Mantua, in the house of the Signor Marchese, in so much grace that he even leaves his bed and board to talk with me and says that he has never had so much pleasure at all, and he has written to the cardinal things of me which have truly been of most honorable assistance, and I have been regaled with three hundred crowns . . . all the court adores me, and he is happy who can come by one of my sets of verses; and as many as I make, the Signor has them copied, and I have made a few in praise of him. So it is with me here, and he gives the whole day to me and does great things, as you shall see at Arezzo . . . at Bologna they commenced to load me with gifts; the Bishop of Pisa made me a present of a great coat of black satin, embroidered in gold, the superbest ever.”

11 They give him the titles of “messere and signore:” the valet is a gentleman, and returns to Rome with a throng of tavern pages, dressed like a Duke, the companion and go-between of gentlemanly pleasures, with, at his side, Estensi and Gonzaga, who sometimes slap him familiarly on the back. He continues the trade in which he has made so good a beginning. One of his “praises” of Clement VII. gains him his first pension; it is the following effusion:

Or queste si che saran lodi, queste lodi chiari saranno, e sole e vere appunto come il vero e come il sole.2 His spirit, his jovial humor, his libidinous inclinations won him such a reputation that, driven out of Rome on account of his sixteen sonnets, illustrated with obscene designs by Giulio Romano,3 he was sought as a boon companion by Giovanni de’ Medici, the head of the “bande nere” called the “gran diavolo.” He was little more than thirty years old. Giovanni and Francis I. were disputing his friendship. Giovanni wanted to make the signor of Arezzo the companion of his orgies and lusts, when a German ball cut short, at once, this design and his life. Pietro had now a consciousness of his strength and, leaving the Court, he repaired to Venice, as to a rock of safety, and from there he lorded it over Italy with his pen. Listen to him, as he paints himself in his letters:4

12 ”I, who, in the liberty of many states, have managed to remain a free man, fleeing the court forever, have set up here (at Venice) a perpetual tabernacle against the years which are advancing upon me, for the reason that here treason has no place, here favour can do no wrong to right, here the cruelty of the meretricious does not reign, here the insolence of the effeminate gives no commands, here there is no robbery, here no coercion, here no murder . . . O universal fatherland! O communal liberty! O inn of all the dispersed peoples! . . . She inflames you, others elude; she rules you, others pursue; she gives you pasturage, others starve you; she receives you, others hunt you down; and, as she regales you in your tribulations, she preserves you in charity and in love . . .

”By the Grace of God a free man . .

”I laugh at pedants . . .

”I, in my ignorance, have not followed in the footsteps of Petrarch or Boccaccio, although I know what they are, but I have not wanted to lose time, patience, and reputation in the desire to transform myself into them, since this is not possible. Bread eaten in one’s own house does one more good than bread accompanied by fine viands at the table of another. I walk here with leisurely step, in the garden of the Muses, and no word drops from me which I have learned from any stinkpot of old. I wear the face of genius unmasked, and, not knowing an h, I can still teach those who know their l’s and their m’s; so that now they should hold their peace who think there is no better work under heaven than the “Dottrinale novellis” . . .

”As to things in Florence . . . I give myself very little concern for them; the bases of my hope are in God and in Caesar, and, thanks to Their Majesties, I am assured of a hundred crowns pension, which the Marchese del Vasto gives me, and others which the prince of Salerno pays to me, so that I have an income of six hundred, with about a thousand more which I make every year with a folio of 13paper and a bottle of ink; and this is the manner in which I live in this serenest of cities . . .

”In addition to medallions, coins, carvings in plaster, gold and silver, wood, lead and stucco, I have a reproduction of my effigy on the facade of palaces, and I have had it printed on my comb cases, on the ornaments of my mirrors, on my majolica plates, in the manner of Alexander, of Caesar and of Scipio. And, more, I would have you know that, at Murano, a certain sort of crystal vases called “aretini.” And ‘aretina’ is the name given to a race of ponies, in memory of one which Pope Clement gave to me and which I gave to Duke Frederick. ‘Rio dell’ Aretino’ is the name with which the stream is baptized that bathes one side of the house in which I dwell on the grand canal. And besides the ‘Aretino Style,’ which comes from the hair-splitting of pedagogues, three of my chamber maids or housekeepers have left me and become ladies, and they are called ‘aretine.’ Such are the penalties of striving for distinction through a ‘Ianua Sum Rudibus.’5

And these were no idle boasts. Ariosto called him “the scourge of princes, the divine Pietro Aretino.”6 A pedant, speaking of the letters of Aretino and those of Bembo, said to Bembo: “I should call you our Cicero and him our Pliny.” “But Pietro would not be content with that,” replied Bembo.7 And he was not content with it. To Bernardo Tasso, who praised his letters, he wrote:

”It is certain that the excess of love which you bear your own things and the too little consideration you have for those of others have caused you to compromise your judgment . . . 14Beyond confronting you with the opinion of one who knows, additional confirmation is to be found in your mode of procedure in letter writing, in which necessary exercise you display a lack of ability to counterfeit me, either in thought or in comparisons (which with me are born and with you are still born), or in the smoothness and beauty of the fertile correspondences which I ordinarily employ . . . The truth is, in any such contest, you follow me on foot. But you could not do otherwise since your taste is more inclined to the glow of the flowers than to the savour of the fruit; and, so it is, with that angelic grace of style and your celestial harmonies, you show to better advantage in wedding songs and in hymns, the sweetness of which is not in place in letters, which call for the high relief of intention and not an artificial miniature-making . . . Now since it is not an error to praise one’s self to a man of some merit in the presence of one who does not know it, I am going to give you here a few maxims in letter writing . . . But since presumption is the smoke of greatness in shadow, which is extinguished in the degree to which it appears to be and is not, in the degree to which it remains satisfied with less instead of striving for more, I, not to be like these, do not say that the virtuosi ought to make a festival of my birthday, although I, without running after posts, without serving courts and without moving a foot, have made a number of dukes, a number of princes and a number of monarchs pay tribute to my virtues, and this for the reason that, throughout the world, fame is sold by me. In Persia and in India,8 my portrait has its price and my name is esteemed. Finally, I salute you, with the assurance that no one concerned with letter-writing blames you out of envy, but that many who have written letters praise you out of compassion.”

So he regarded himself and so the world regarded him. He was believed to be a great man on his own say-so. He did not look for glory; he was not concerned with the 15future; he wanted the present. And he had it, more than any mortal. Medallions, crowns, titles, pensions, gifts, stuff of gold and silver, chains and rings of gold, statues and paintings, vases and precious gems: he had everything that the cupidity of man could obtain. Julius III. named him a cavalier of St. Peter. And he came near being made cardinal.9 He had a sole pension of eight hundred twenty crowns. Of gifts, he had, in eighteen years, twenty-five-thousand crowns. He spent, during his life, more than a million francs. Royal gifts came to him from the corsair, Barbarossa,10 and from the sultan, Solimano. His princely house is thronged with artists, ladies, priests, musicians, monks, valets, pages;11 and many bring him their presents: this one a vase of gold, this one a picture, this one a purse filled with ducats, and this one clothing and fine stuffs. At the entrance, one sees a bust of white marble, wreathed with laurel; it is Pietro Aretino. Aretino to the right, Aretino to the left: look at those medallions, of all sizes and every metal, suspended from the tapestries of rose-colored velvet: always the image of Pietro Aretino. He died, at seventy-five years, in 1577; and of all his reputation, nothing remained. His works were almost forgotten; his memory was infamous; a well bred man would not pronounce his name in the presence of a lady.

Who was, then, this Pietro, courted by women, feared by his rivals, exalted by writers, the popular idol, kissed by the 16Pope, and who rode in cavalcade by the side of Charles V.12 He was the consciousness and the image of his century. And his century made him great.

Machiavelli and Guicciardini said that appetite is the lever of the world. What they thought, Pietro was.

He had by nature great appetites, and forces which were proportionate to them. He saw his portrait done by Titian,13 the figure of a wolf that seeks its prey. The artist had formed a background of the hide and claws of a wolf; and the head of the wolf, like enough in structure, stood above the head of the man. Scintillating eyes, nostrils far apart, teeth in evidence through the drooping lower lip, the lower part of the head, seat of the sensual appetites, very large, toward which the rest of the head seemed to slope, bald in front . . . Son of a courtezan, soul of a king . . . he said. Reader of books, valet of the Pope, Alas! His needs are infinite. It is not enough for him to eat, he wants to taste; he is not satisfied with pleasure, he wants voluptuousness; he is not satisfied with clothes, he wants pomp; he is not satisfied with becoming rich himself, he wants to make others rich, to spend and to expand. And to one who marveled at all this he replied: . . . “Well, what would you have me do? If I am born to live this way, what is going to keep me from living this way?” . . . His gilded dreams are: exquisite wines, delicate 17foods, rich palaces, pretty girls, fine clothes. For all this, he has the appetite, he has the taste. And no one is a more competent judge in the matter of good mouthfuls and of joys, licit and illicit. There is in him not only the sense of pleasure but the sense of art. He seeks, in his joys, the magnificent, the splendid, the beautiful, good taste and elegance.14

And he has forces proportionate to his appetites. A body of iron, an energy of will, a knowledge of and a contempt for men, and that marvelous faculty which Guicciardini called “discretion,” the instinct to take things as they come. He knows what he wants. His life is not cut up in various directions; it is one in scope, the satisfaction of his appetites, or, as Guicciardini says, his own “particuliarity.” All means are excellent and he adopts them according to occasion. He is now a hypocrite, now impudent, now evasive, now insolent. Now he adulates, now he calumniates. The credulity, fear, vanity and generosity of the man are, in his hands, a ram to batter the breach to victory. He has the keys to all doors. Today, a man like him would be called a “gangster,”15 and many of his letters would be called “blackmail.” He is the master of the genre. He speculates, above all, on fear. The language of the century is officious, adulatory; his own tone is disdainful and brazen. Printed calumnies were worse than daggers; a printed thing meant a true thing; and he had his price for slander, silence and eulogy. It made no difference 18to him if he had the reputation of an evil tongue; that was part of his strength. Francis I. sent him a golden chain, made up of linked tongues with vermilion points, as though they had been dipped in poison, and bearing the inscription: “Lingua eius loquetur mendacium.”16 Aretino gave him a thousand thanks. When it was not convenient for him to speak evil of persons, he would speak evil of things, just to keep up his reputation, as in the case of his diatribes against the ecclesiastics, the nobles and the princes. And so, the abject fellow was held an apostle and was called “scourge of princes.” Sometimes, he would find a person who was not afraid. Achille della Volta stuck a dagger in his back. Niccolò Franco, his secretary, wrote him messages of vituperation. Pietro Strozzi threatened to kill him if he dared pronounce Strozzi’s name. He was beaten, spit upon. And it was he, then, who was afraid, because he was vile and a poltroon. The ambassador from England beat him. And he praised the signor who had given him the opportunity of pardoning the injury. Giovanni, the “gran diavolo,” on his death bed, said to him: “What makes me suffer most is the sight of a poltroon.”17 . . . But in general, they preferred to treat him as a Cerberus and to stop his barking by tossing him a cake. His letters are full of malice and effrontery. He takes all forms and all habits, that of the buffoon and that of 19the braggart, even that of the holy man, slandered and slighted. As a sage, take his letter to the most pious and petrarchian marchesa di Bescara, who had exhorted him to change his life and to write pious works:

“ . . . I confess that I am less useful to the world and less acceptable to Christ, spending my efforts in false gossiping, rather than in true works. But the cause of all the evil is the pleasure of others and my own necessity. If princes were as hypocritical as I am needy, I would not draw from my pen anything but misereres. My excellent lady, all do not have the grace of divine inspiration. Some burn with angelic fire, and we have offices and preachings, which are to them music and comedy. You would not turn your eyes to Hercules in the flames nor to Marsia without her hide, and these others would not tarry in the room to see San Lorenzo on the spit nor the apostle flayed alive. Look you: My colleague, Bruciolo, dedicated his Bible to the king, who is certainly most Christian, and in five years, he has not had an acknowledgement. Was it, perhaps, that the book was not well translated and well put together? On the other hand, my Courtezan18 drew from him a great chain; for the reason that he is not honest. The excuse for my babblings must be that they were composed by me in order to live, and not out of malice. But, you see, Jesus inspires me to take account of Messer Sebastiano da Pesaro, from whom I have received the thirty crowns I levied on him, and the rest I owe to him, since he 20has been true to his word.”

At the end, a thrust,19 as we would say today. We have here a letter with the breath of an infernal genius. With what bonhomie he makes sport20 of the pious lady, having all the air of praising her! With what cynicism he proclaims his own speculations on lust and on human obscenity, as if they were the most natural things in this world!21 He speculates, also, in devotion and, with an equal indifference, writes obscene books and the lives of saints; his Ragionamento della Nanna and his Vita di santa Caterina da Siena, the Cortigiana errant and the Vita di Christo. And, why not, since he got a reward on this side and on that? He wrote of all matters and in all forms; dialogues, romances, epics, articles, comedies and even a tragedy, the Orazia. Imagine what sort of heroes the Orzaii could be, what sort of a heroine Orazia, and what sort of Roman populace could issue from the imagination of Pietro. And yet, this is the only work which has artistic intentions, composed after he was already old and satiated and thinking more of glory than he was of money. The result was cold, an abstract and pedestrian world, a world the simplicity and grandeur of which he was incapable of comprehending. In his other works, he felt himself true to his own nature, dedicated to pleasing the public, concerned only with interesting it, getting what he could out of it, making an effect. There is in him a species of mercantile morality;22 he knows 21what are the goods most sought after, the easiest to dispose of and at the dearest price. He created for himself a conscience and an art that were fictitious, and which varied according to the tastes of his patron, the public. For he was the writer the most in the mode, the most popular and the best paid. His obscene books are the model of a literary genre which, under the name of “gallant tales,” invaded Europe. Obscenity was a sauce much sought after in Italy, by Boccaccio among others; but here it is dyed in the wool. The lives of the saints are true romances into which all sorts of things are packed, appealing to the fantastic and sentimental nature of hypocrites. Maker of verses sufficiently coarse, Aretino unloaded, in his sonnets and articles, a store of bile and malignity joined with servility. And so, alluding to the munificence of Francis I., he said to “Pier Luigi Farnese:”

Impara tu, Pier Luigi ammorbato, impara, ducarel da tre quattrani, il costume da un re tanto onorato.

    Ogni signor di trenta contadini

e di una bicoccazza usupar vuole le ceremonie de’ culti divini.23 Pietro is not a villain by nature. He is a villain by calculation and from necessity. Reared among unfortunate examples, without religion, without country, without family, deprived of every moral sense, with the most unrestrained appetites and with the intellectual means of satisfying them, he himself is the center of the universe: the world appears made for his service. On this basis, his logic is equal to his temperament. He had a clear perception of means, and no hesitation or scruple in putting them into action. He makes no dissimulation of this; indeed, he glories in it; it is his strength, and he wants everybody to be persuaded of the 22fact. The world was somewhat after his own imagination. There were many who would have liked to imitate him; but they did not have his genius, his industry, his penetration, his versatility, his spirit. And so, they took it out in admiring him. Among so many adventurers and condottieri, with whom Italy was infected, a vagabond race, without profession and in search of fortune at any cost, the prince, the model, was he. Titian called him “il condottiero della letteratura.”24 And he was not offended: he strutted over it. Left to his own spontaneity, when he was not oppressed by need and not working by calculation, he displayed good qualities. He was merry, sociable, liberal, as well as magnificent, a tried friend, grateful, and an admirer of great artists like Michelangelo and Titian. He had the logic of evil and the vanity of good.

Pietro, as a man, is an important personage, the study of whom takes us behind the scenes into the mysteries of that Italian society of which he was the image, a mixture of moral depravation, of intellectual force and artistic feeling. But he is not less important as a writer.

Culture at that time was tending to become fixed, and Aretino debated long as to whether he should write in the vulgate or in Latin. The popular idiom already had conquered its right of citizenship. But the question was as to whether this idiom was to be called “Tuscan” or “Italian.” And it was not a matter of words, merely, but of things. For many writers pretended to write as the language was spoken, from one end of Italy to the other, and were not disposed to go to Florence to take lessons. But they preferred Latinizing to Tuscanizing. They recognized as their models Boccaccio and Petrarch, but gave no authority to the living tongue. The living tongue, for them, was that common dialect which resembled Latin, on the one hand, and the common word-of-mouth speech on the other. This mechanism was generally 23accepted, with the exception that in Florence the basis of the language was not the common dialect, mixed with local, Lombardian and Venetian elements, but the Tuscan idiom which had been established by writers. Florence, exhausting its intellectual production, had elevated the colonies of Hercules, in the vocabulary of Crusca, by saying: You shall not go beyond this. Bembo and, later, Salviati fixed the grammatical forms. And the rules of writing, in all genres, were laid down in the “rhetorics,” which were translations of, or refinements on Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian. Added to this was the fact that Giulio Camillo pretended to teach all knowledge by a device of his own. This tendency to mechanize is a constant phenomenon in all periods in which production is exhausted; and as a result, culture is arrested, takes refuge in forms and becomes crystallized.

Pietro, of very mediocre culture, looked upon all these rules as pedantry. His own inner life, so spontaneous and so full of productive force, found little point of contact here. Pedantry is his enemy, and he combats it with might and main. And he calls “pedantry” the viewing of things, not in themselves, by direct vision, but through preconceptions, books and rules. Involutions of words and forms are as odious to him as hypocrisy, or the covering of one’s self with an affected modesty, or with the skin of the fox while preaching humility and decency, without being any better than the rest.

”How much better is it,” he wrote to the cardinal of Ravenna, “for a gran maestro to keep in his house a few faithful men, free folk and persons of good will, than to attempt to adorn himself with the vulpine modesty of the asinine pedants who write books, who, when they have assassinated and, with their labors, have succeeded in croaking25 the dead, will not rest until they have crucified the living. I am telling you the truth: it was pedantry that poisoned Medici, it was 24pedantry that cut the throat of Duke Alexander, and, what is worse, it has provoked a heresy against our faith through the mouth of Luther, the greatest pedant of them all.”

He is not less implacable toward literary pedantry. To Dolce, he wrote:

“Follow the path that nature shows you. Petrarch and Boccaccio are imitated by those who express their conceits with the same sweetness and light26 with which Petrarch and Boccaccio expressed theirs; you will not find them imitated by the man who would plunder these writers, not of their “wherefores” and their “whences,” their tricks and qualifications, but of the poetry that is in them . . . The faecal blood of pedants who would poetize feeds on imitation and, while they cackle away in their worthless books, they transform the works they imitate into locutions, which they embroider with phthisical words according to rote. O wandering tribe, I tell you, and I tell you again, that poetry is a caprice of Nature in her lighter moods; it requires nothing but its own madness and, lacking that, it becomes a soundless cymbal, a belfry without a bell; for which reason, he who would compose without taking beauty out of its swaddling clothes is nothing more than a cold potato.27 . . . Take a lesson from what I am going to tell you about that wise painter who, when asked whom he imitated, pointed with his finger to a crowd of men, implying that he drew his models from life and truth, as I do when I speak and write. Nature herself, and Simplicity, her hand-maid,28 give me what I put into my compositions. And, certainly, I imitate myself, since Nature as a companion is a large order,29 and art is a clinging beetle; and so, I advise you to strive to become a 25sculptor of the senses, and not a miniaturist of vocabularies.”

Many were trying to write according to nature; above all, one must cite Cellini, whose work is replete with life. But Cellini looked upon himself as an ignorant man, and he wanted Varchi to edit his Vita into learned form; while Aretino, on the contrary, looked upon himself as the superior to all these others and was ready to give the name of “pedant” to those who spent their time distilling words. There is in him a critical consciousness so direct and decisive that, in such an age as his, it must strike one as extraordinary. The very freedom and elevation of his judgment took him into the arts, for which he had the proper feeling. To Michelangelo, he wrote: I sigh to think of your merit so great and my own powers which are so puny.” His favorite is his friend and gossip, Titian, whose realism, so complete and so sensual, was attractive to Aretino’s nature. Taken with fever, he leans against the window and looks out on the gondolas and the Grand Canal of Venice and falls into a thoughtful and contemplative mood; he, Pietro Aretino! The sight of nature purifies, transforms him. And he writes to Titian:30

“Like a man who is weary of himself, I do not know what to do with my mind, my thoughts, and so, I turn my eyes toward the heavens, which, since the day that God created them, never presented so beautiful and elusive a picture of lights and shadows; the atmosphere was the kind those painters strive to express who envy you because they are not you . . . The houses . . . although made of stone, appeared to be made of some artificial material. And then, you perceived that the air on one side was pure and lively, on another turbid and pale as death. Consider also what marvels I had in the way of clouds which, from the principal point of view, stood half touching the house tops, half melting away in the distance, for a black-gray mist hung over all. I surely was amazed at the varied color they displayed, the 26nearer ones glowing with the flames of the sun, the more distant flushed with a fainter vermilion. Oh, with what fine drawing the brush of Nature had painted that atmosphere, giving the palaces perspective in the same manner that Vecellio does in his landscapes! On some sides, there appeared an azure-green, on others a greenish-azure, truly composed by the caprice of Nature, who is the mistress of all masters . . . She, with her clear colors and her dark, achieved background and relief in such a manner that I, who know what a spirited brush you wield, three or four times exclaimed: “O Titian, why aren’t you here? . . . through my faith that if you had depicted all I have told you, you would have given men the same confused amazement that I feel.”

It is to be noted that this sentiment in the presence of living nature did not produce in him nany moral impression or moral elevation,31 but only an artistic admiration or stupefaction, as in the ordinary Italian of his day. He sees nature through the brush of Titian and the landscapes of Vecellio, but he sees her alive, sees her immediately and with a feeling for art that we seek for in vain in Vasari. Amid so many pedantic works of that time, pertaining to art and the art of writing, his letters on artistic and literary subjects exhibit the first splendors of independent criticism, a criticism that was to outstrip books and traditions and find its base in a love of nature.

Like critic, like writer. Words do not give thought to the world. He takes them all, from wherever they come and whatever they are: Tuscan, local and foreign, noble and plebeian, poetic and prosaic, bitter and sweet, humble and sonorous. And from it issued a written language which is 27the dialect commonly spoken today by the cultivated classes of Italy. He abolishes the period, breaks up complexities, dissolves periphrases, does away with pleonasms and ellipses and shatters every artifice of that mechanism known as “literary form,” all in his effort to speak naturally. In Lasca, in Cellini, in Cecchi and in Machiavelli, there is the same naturalness; but with them, the Tuscan imprint is everywhere to be felt; all is prettiness and grace. Here, on the other hand, we have an uneducated Tuscan, a son of nature, living outside his native province, who speaks all languages and exercises his speculations in them. He flees Tuscanizing as a pedantry, in the quest of expression and relief. A word is good when it renders the thing perceived as it is in his mind, and when he does not have to go looking for it; the thing and the word seem to come to him at once, so great is his facility. The word is not always the proper one and not always adapted to its purpose, because sometimes, abusing his facility, he scribbles and does not write. His motto is: “Come as comes,”32 and from this spring great inequalities. He wastes no time on Cicero and Boccaccio, but, rather, does just the opposite, seeking not magnificence and grandeur of form, in the search for which an indolent brain squanders time, but the most rapid form and the one most suited to the velocity of his perceptions. He does not even affect brevity, as Davanzati does, a lazy mind, all at grips with words and images; for his attention is not directed outward but inward.33 He abandons mechanical processes and takes no thought of verbal niceties and the lascivious aspects of form. He has so much force and facility in production and so much richness of conceit and imagery, that it all rushes out impetuously and by the most direct route possible. There are 28no obstacles, no digressions or distractions; he is immediate and decisive, in style as in life. As his ego is the center of the universe, so is it the center also of his style. The world of representation does not exist by itself, but through him, and he treats it and handles it as a thing of his own , with the same caprice and the same liberty as that with which Folengo treats the world of his imagination. Except that, in the case of Folengo, we have the development of humor, inasmuch as his world is wholly imaginary, and he treats it without any seriousness whatever, for the simple purpose of getting a laugh out of it; whereas th world of Pietro is a real thing, and he has a perfect consciousness of it and treats it for the purpose of exhausting it and carving out of it his style. And for this reason, he does not respect his own argument; he does not hide himself or lose himself in it, but makes of it his instrument, his means, even at the cost of profaning it unworthily. He treats Jesus Christ as a wandering knight. “Poetic lies,” he said, speaking of the Virgin, “which become gospels when they come to speak of Him who is the refuge of our hopes.” In his Vita di Santa Caterina, he wrote that “it practically all rests upon the back of invention . . . for, in addition to the fact that in every case whatever results to the glory of God is admitted, the work itself would be nothing without the assistance I have lent it.”34

Sometimes, he falls by the way, his brain is empty, and he amasses adjectives with a show of oratorical pomp that rivals the charlatan:

“The facile, the religious, the bright, the gracious, the noble, the fervid, the faithful, the veracious, the sweet, the good, the health-bringing, the sacred and the holy sayings of Catherine, virgin, saintly, holy, health-bringing, good, sweet, veracious, faithful, fervid, noble, gracious, bright, religious and facile, had in a manner sequestrated the spirits.”

It is like a bell that deafens one’s ears. And he was the 29one who talked of a “florid style,” a style with which Aretino himself will regale you when he has nothing better to offer. There are times when he has something to say and is unable to strike the vein or lacks the feeling, and on such occasions, he falls into the most confused metaphors and the most absurd subtleties, especially in his elegies, for which he was so well paid.

“Since your merits,” he wrote to the Duke of Urbino, “are like the stars in the heaven of glory, they have inclined the planet of my genius, as it were, to find in my style in words the image of the mind, so that the true face of those virtues, desired by the world; may be seen in all parts; but the power of that genius, notwithstanding it is elevated by the altitude of the subject, is not able to express the manner in which goodness, clemency and strength, in equal concord, have given you, as though by fatal decree, the true name of prince.”

This is a period in the popular word-of-mouth manner, stretched out in form and conceits. Here there is no “Come as comes,” but won’t-come and must-make-come-at-all-costs. His panegyrics are altogether rhetorical, metaphorical, manufactured, falsely pompous and puffed out to the point of absurdity; they are almost like ironic caricatures under the guise of praise. Speaking good was not for him so easy a thing as speaking evil, in which latter pursuit he spent all the vigor of his cynical and sarcastic nature. He assumes an emphatic tone and seeks a strangeness of concepts and of manner, a dialect precious, composed wholly of pearls, but of false pearls. It is that preciosity which passed into France with Voiture and Balzac, which was flayed by Moliere, and which in Italy was to become the physiognomy of our literature. Here are a few of these false pearls placed in circulation by Aretino.

“(Your eloquence) moves from the nature of your intellect with so much fecundity that the language which profits by it, the conceptions it embodies and the ears which listen to 30it remain confused in wonderment . . .

“He took from Solimano in the service of Christianity the mind from the soul, the soul from the body and the body from its arms . . .

“I give myself to you, fathers of your peoples, brothers of your servants, little sons of truth, friends of virtue, companions of strangers, supports of religion, observers of the faith, executors of justice, heirs of charity and subjects of clemency . . .

“To gather up my affection in a hem of your piety . . .

“The face of liberality has for mirror the hearts of those to whom it gives assistance . . .

“Your Excellency seeks of me a few gossipings of which to make a fan against the great heat we are having these days . . .

“To fish with the hook of thought in the depths of the lake of memory . . .

“The honesty of some is adorned with the corroding of others’ favor . . .

“The coin of affection stamps in the heart the imperishable name of friends . . .

“To buy hope in the urn of false promises . . .”

This precious and florid style is crossed, from time to time, by flashes of genius: original comparisons, splendid images, new and glowing conceptions, incisive pencil-strokes;’ and we discover in it, when it is abandoned to itself, and when it does not seek effects, a truth of feeling and of coloring, as in the following letter, so moving in its simplicity:

“The stockings of turquoise and gold, which I have received, caused me as much weeping as pleasure, for the reason that the little girl who should have enjoyed them was receiving extreme unction the morning they arrived; and I cannot write you more on account of the compassion that I feel for her.”

The dissolution of the literary mechanism results in a form of writing which is closer to that of conversation, freed 31from all preconceptions, being the immediate expression of an inner feeling; a style now florid, now precious, is a form of the decline of arts and letters; and here lies the significance of Pietro Aretino as a writer. His influence was not small. He had about him secretaries, pupils and imitators of his manner, like Franco, Dolce, Lando, Doni and other tradesmen. “I live by a Lord-ha’-mercy,” wrote Doni. “My books are written before they are composed and read before they are printed.” His Libreria is still read today for a certain brio it possesses and for the curious bits of information to be found in it.

But Pietro has yet a certain other importance, as a writer of comedies. His was a conventional comic world, based on Plautus and Terence, with accessories drawn from the popular and plebeian life of the times. Its bases were equivocations, rewards and the confusion of accidents,35 all of which kept the interest alive. About this frame-work he set up characters thoroughly conventionalized: the parasite, the gluttonous servant, the courtezan, the thievish servant-maid and go-between, the prodigal son, the avaricious and bantered father, the poltroon who pretends to be brave, the broker, the usurer. A study of our comic figures is interesting to one who would see well into the corruption which characterized the Italy of that day. He will see there family bonds broken and worthless sons deceiving their fathers, while the latter are, themselves, come-ons for usurers, courtezans and pimps, all this accompanied by the laughter of a respectable public. This world was the world of a comedy with its forms patterned after the Latin and sprinkled with jests and obscenities. The most fecund comic writer was Cecchi, who died in 1587, and who, in less than ten days, would improvise comedies, farces, histories and sacred representations. He has the Florentine grace and brio in common with Lasca, but he has less spirit and movement, so that sometimes it 32seems, in reading his plays, as though one were standing in a dead sewer. His world and his characters are like a repertory that is known and established, and his haste in composition prevents him from giving them flesh and color. He conveys the impression of being thin, lean and muddy. Pietro sees through all this trickery and does away with it. He recognizes no rules and no traditions and no theatrical usages. “Do not marvel,” he says in the prologue to his Cortigiana, “if the comic style does not here observe the rules that are laid down, for life is lived in another manner at Rome from that in which it was lived at Athens.” Among the rules referred to was this one: that no characters could appear more than five times in a scene. Pietro burlesqued this rule with much spirit: “If you see characters coming out more than five times in a scene, do not laugh, for the chains that bind the mills to the rivers do not confine the follies of today.” He looks to the effect; he cuts out delays, removes dramatic obstacles, avoids preparations,36 episodes, descriptions, long harangues and frequent soliloquies; he seeks, above all, action and movement, and he hurls you, from the very beginning, into that roguish, vividly individualized world of his. He has not Machiavelli’s gift of synthesis, the ability to take in, with a firm gaze, a vast ensemble, to bind it together and develop it with a logical fatality, as though it were a piece of argumentation. His is not a speculative genius; he is a man of action, and himself a character in a comedy. For he does not give you action well studied and ordered, as in the Mandragola;37 he flees the ensemble; the world presents itself to him in pieces and in mouthfuls. But, like Machiavelli, he has a profound experience of the human heart and a wide knowledge of character; his characters develop in a related manner, through a variety of accidents, and dominate the scene, generating the invention and the piquancy of situation. How this rogue rejoices us with all 33the brigandages which he sets upon the stage! It is because that comic world is his world, the world in which he has known so much malice and charlatanry. His fundamental concept is that the world belongs to those who take it, because there are so many rogues and bold-faced rascals, and woe to the foolish ones! He deals in jests and injuries, for the reason that they are so fertile in laughs for the public, because they are the comic material. His Ipocrito is the apotheosis of a knave who, by the madness of intrigue and malice, becomes rich, just like Aretino. La Talanta38 is a courtezan who deceives all her lovers, and who ends up rich, esteemed and married to an old and faithful sweetheart under the beards of her other lovers. His “philosopher,” while he studies Plato and Aristotle, is made a cuckold by his wife, and then the good man is reconciled with her. In the Cortigiana, messer Maco, who wants to be a cardinal, and Parabolano, who thinks that, on account of his riches, he has all the ladies at his feet, are, throughout the comedy, the lure for courtezans, pimps and knaves. His “big booby of a sailor or great shield-bearer,”39 in order not to displease the Duke of Mantua, his lord, consents to marry a lady whom he has never seen, though he is himself an enemy of women and of matrimony. Nor is this a world imaginary and subjective, so properly pictured is the society of the day, with its customs egregiously represented in the finest and most minute detail. Pietro leaped into it, gleefully, as into his element, launching satires, elegies, epigrams, knaveries and deformities with a brilliancy and an ardor of movement which were like fireworks. Some of his characters have remained famous, and all of them are alive and true. His marescalco has inspired Rabelais and Shakespeare40 and is a most original scherzo, while Parabolano has remained the appellation given to vain 34and fatuous fellows. Messer Maco is the type from which issued Pourceaugnac. His “hypocrite”41 is a Tartuffe, innocuous and placed in a good light. His “philosopher,”42 whom he calls Plataristotile, is a caricature of the Platonists of the time. To hear him wax sententious, he is a wise man; but he has no practical experience of the world, and his servant knows it better than he; and Tessa, his wife, knows it better still. This philosopher, whose wife makes sport of him under his nose, pronounces fine sentiments upon women, while the servant, who knows everything, has a good time at his expense.

PLATOARISTOTILE. Woman is the guide to evil and the mistress of wickedness.

SERVANT. He who knows that doesn’t say it.

PLATOARISTOTILE. The breast of woman is strong in deceits.

SERVANT. Which is sad for the one who doesn’t perceive . . .

PLATOARISTOTILE. He who supports the perfidy of his wife is learning to endure the injuries of his enemies.

SERVANT. That’s a fine story { ——}

And the servant concludes: “Your Wisdom, you should take what comes in good part and not let yourself go in doctrinal speculations, or if you do, the devil will let you go to grass.”43

“You speak eloquently,” replied the philosopher, “but those things are not to be considered too much by me, on account of the appetite for glory which I have acquired by philosophizing.”

His Boccaccio44 is one of those blackbirds, caught in the claws of a courtezan and flayed alive. The serving maid offers him an ambuscade.

BOCCACCIO. What moves your mistress to wish to speak to me, who am a stranger?

35 LISA. Perhaps, the grace that is in you; yes, by my faith, that’s it.

BOCCACCIO. You like to say nice things.

LISA. May death take me, if I don’t convulse myself in serving you.

BOCCACCIO. Breeding always tells.

LISA. To see her, you would forget all the other beauties . . . Stay where you are, stop and look at the sun, moon and stars coming through that door.

BOCCACCIO. What a fine sight!

LISA. There is grace in your judgment.

BOCCACCIO. If only I’m the man she’s looking for . . . Names sometimes get confused.

LISA. Yours is so sweet that it sticks to the lips. See, she’s running to you with open arms.

Courtezans are his favorite theme. His Angelica is the type of all the others, and his Nanna45 is the mistress of the species.

This was the comedy which the century produced, the last act of the Decamerone: a world brazen and cynical, the protagonists of which are courtezans, male and female, and the center of which is the court of Rome, a world open to the flagellations of a man who, in his fortress of Venice, was assured of impunity.

According to a popular tradition, and a very expressive one, Pietro died in a fit of laughter, as Margutte and as Italy died.46

FOOTNOTES

1 This vivid essay by the author of the Storia della Letteratura Italiana, the leading Italian critic of the Nineteenth century, is printed here for its critical, rather than its biographic interest, but above all, for its qualities as a piece of forceful writing. As to its scholarship, there may be a question, particularly in the light of the latest Aretino researches. For historic accuracy, it cannot compare, for example, with the study by the Englishman, Edward Hutton (Pietro Aretino, Scourge of Princes, Constable, London, 1922). There is much of value in De Sanctis’ view of Pietro as an embodiment of the riotously chromatic cinquecento; his opinions are only marred by a certain moralistic tendency. In my footnotes, I have endeavored to apply an occasional corrective, or at least to note the danger when it occurs.

2 “Now this which is to be praise, this praise shall be clear, single and true, exactly like the truth and like the sun.”

3 Engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, the most famous engraver of his age. Romano, according to the account given by Vasari (Milanesi, Florence, 1906, Vol. V., p. 418), first made the designs and then employed Raimondi to engrave them. Aretino then wrote an indecent sonnet for each — “so that I do not know which was the more revolting, the spectacle presented to the eye by the designs of Giulio or the affront offered to the ear by the words of Aretino.” Vasari concludes: “Certain it is that the endowments which God has conferred on men of ability ought not to be abused, as they too frequently are, to the offense of the whole world, and to the promotion of ends which are disapproved by all men.”

4 Lettere, I., 2. This letter was written to the Doge of Venice, when the latter intervened between Aretino and the Pope to secure a privilegio for the printing of the former’s epic poem, Marfisa.

5 See Doni’s letter, quoted by Camerini, Appendix I.

6 Orlando Furioso, Canto XLVI., 14:

                                  “ecco il flagello

De’ Principi, il divin Pietro Aretino.” Aretino was overcome with delight at this. See also his letter to Ersilia del Monte, quoted by Camarini, and Gaddi’s comment, Appendix I.

7 See Aretino’s own comment on this, in a letter to Bembo, quoted by Camerini, Appendix I.

8 See Aretino’s letter to Ersilia del Monte, Appendix I.

9 Aretino at least pretends, rather successfully, not to want a cardinal’s hat. Perhaps, he was a little loathe to leave his loved Venice, even for an honor which would have been the supremely ironical crown of an ironical life. (His sense of irony would have told him that.) Nevertheless, we find Titian pleading his cause in the matter with the Emperor Charles V., who, it appears, was inclined to look favorably on the idea. See Hutton, op. cit., pp. 223ff., where Titian’s letter to Aretino, describing his interview with Charles, is quoted. The letter is printed in Lettere all’ Aretino, Bologna, 1874.

10 A friendship exists between the pirate of the high seas and the buccaneer of the mondo altero. Pietro, in one of his letters, exhorts Barbarossa to be kind to Christian captives! Barbarossa had called Aretino “the first of Christian writers.” For this fascinating letter, in full, see Appendix I.

11 See Alessandro Andrea, quoted by Camerini, Appendix I.

12 The emperor, in his last days, had a strange fondness, not to say a weakness, for the “screw of princes.” The story of this meeting, not without its touching side, will be found in Hutton, op. cit., where a chapter (Chapter X.) is devoted to the rivalry between Charles and Francis I. For Aretino’s favors. See Camerini’s interesting comment, Appendix I.

13 He served Titian as a model repeatedly.

14 (De Sanctis’ Note:) Here are a few citations:

“And Boccamezza . . . although I always regarded him as a man of abundant wealth, when I showed him twenty-two women with their babes at their breasts, who had come to eat the bones of my poor ink — for not a day passes that not more, or at least as many, hungry ones come to me — was surprised . . . Oh, he said to me, ‘and why spend so unrestrainedly, when you have no more than enough for yourself?’ ‘Because,’ I replied, ‘real souls are always unbridled in their expenditures.’ ”

“Eating . . . the day before yesterday, some hares torn by dogs which the captain Giovan Tiepoli had sent me, I was so pleased that I decided ‘Floria prima lepus’ was a saying worthy of being posted up in the hearts of hypocrites on their fast days, in place of the ‘silentium’ which a garrulous brother tacks up over the monk’s quarters. And while their praises were running to caeli caelorum, I was feasting on the thrushes which had been brought to me by one of your lackeys, and the very taste of them made me hum the ‘Inter aves.’ They were so fine, indeed, that our messer Tiziano (Titian), upon catching a glimpse of them on a plate and getting a whiff with his nostrils . . . deserted a crowd of gentlemen who were giving him a dinner party. And everybody gave great praise to the bird with the long beak which, boiled with a bit of dried beef, two laurel leaves and a pinch of pepper, we ate out of love for you and because it pleased us, even as Fra Mariano, Moro dei Nobili, Porto da Luca, Brandino and the Bishop of Troy were pleased with the ortolans, fig-peckers, pheasants, peacocks and lampreys with which they filled their stomachs, with the consent of their cooks’ souls and that of the mad and knavish stars which had given them such big bellies . . . And blessed is he who is mad, and in his madness pleases others and himself.”

15 Camorrista.

16 Hutton has another interpretation. Mendacium, he thinks (op. cit., p. 149), “referred not so much to the lies which Aretino himself owns he told as to the flattering epithets with which he had overwhelmed Francis.” It was Aretino’s boast (see Hutton, ibid.): “Per Dio, che la bugia campeggia cosi bene in bocca a me come si faccia la verita in bocca al clero. — By God, a lie sits in my mouth as well as truth does in the mouth of a cleric.” Is it not possible that Francis had the same sense of humor, inverted it may be, or the same sense of irony, that Pietro had? There is also another reading, judicium, which, however, appears to have little to support it. (See Hutton’s note.) In any event, Aretino always wore this chain, thereafter, and it is to be seen in all his portraits. It was, as Hutton remarks, “the crowing of his reputation,” and “Henceforth he was a sort of institution.”

17 This is, it seems to me, a piece of deliberate misrepresentation. See Aretino’s own account, Lettere, I., 5, quoted at length by Hutton, (op. cit., Chapter VI.) “And he, as soon as he saw me, began to say to me that the thought of the poltroons distressed him more than the pain.” Hutton thinks, and I agree with him, that this is “Probably an allusion to the Pope and the politicians, e. g. the Datario” — in other words, to Italy’s enemies, the foes of that Italy which Giovanni of the bande nere died trying to save, and which speedily went to pieces when he was gone — the sack of Rome, described in the second day of the Ragionamenti, followed soon afterward. Aretino and the gran diavolo had been too good bosom-cronies, companions in lust and life, to let such a remark as this, with the interpretation De Sanctis gives it, ring true. They were, indeed, two of a kind, in walks of life not so widely separated as they might seem to have been. (For additional data, see Appendix I.)

There is also a misrepresentation of the affair with the British ambassador, if we are to credit Hutton, (op. cit., pp. 219ff.) Aretino was an old man then, and his deportment in the matteer appears to have been rather to his credit. The evident animus in such a remark as “it was he, then, who was afraid, because he was vile and a poltroon,” rather tends to disqualify the witness, it seems to me.

18 His play, La Cortigiana.

19 Una stoccata, a fencing term — a “knockout,” as we would say.

20 And why, one might ask, should he not? Aretino doubtless knew his correspondent as a pious old meddler, if not a hypocrite.

21 The capable cynic might put up rather a good argument to prove that they are. It has been done. At any rate, de Sanctis’ moralizing, at points, becomes a bit tiresome.

22 It is interesting to compare De Foe, who came not far from being the British Aretino. See Paul Dottin’s Vie et aventures de Daniel de Foe, auteur de Robinson Crusoe (Perrin et cie., Paris, 1925). Reviewing Dottin, the present translator once wrote: “De Foe, who started life as a merchant, who became a scheming politician and who ended as a best-seller, tossing off ‘Crusoe’ to provide his daughter’s dowry, remained, in the end, the merchant, selling his soul to God on the Puritan’s hard-driving bargain terms. And ‘Robinson’ is but the reflection of his creator, keeping always a moralistic profit and loss account, with an ear deaf to the song of birds but keenly attuned to the tinkle of coins in a till.”

23 “Learn you, sickly Pier Luigi, learn, you three-farthings dukelet, the ways of so honored a king. Every signor with thirty peasants and an old wreck of a castle tries to usurp the rites which are paid to the gods.”

24 The phrase stuck; it has become famous. “Street-car conductor (or elevatorman) of literature” might be the equivalent in Americanese.

25 The casa Aretina was rich in works of Art but contained few books. See Appendix I. 26 The rendering is exact: con la dolcezza e con la leggiadria.

27 Zugo infreddato. A zugo is a variety of fritter.

28 Literally, her secretary (secretario).

29 una compagnone badiale che ci si sbraca. This phrase is only one of many in which Aretino’s concentrated vividness is hard to translate. The force of si sbraca is to be noted; sbracarsi is, literally, to take off one’s small clothes, or breeches. The phrase is a strong one, and one which painters well might commit to memory.

30 Lettere, III., 48.

31 “It certainly did not,” remarks Hutton (op. cit., p. 238), “but why should it? It awoke in him as in any other artist a sheer delight. Surely that was enough? He was not a pantheist to worship Nature, nor, perhaps, would he have cared for the Lesser Celandine. Let us leave the moral elevation to Vasari, and only regret that Vasari was totally lacking in Aretino’s critical judgment and artistic appreciation of painting; and let us acknowledge in Aretino the first critic of modern art, in painting and letters, who refers us not to the classics but to nature and to life.” Appendix I.

32 Come viene viene.

33 Cf. the sonnet, Mentre voi Titian, voi Sansovino (Lettere, II., 249):

Benche il mio stil non puo forma e colore Al buon di dentro dar; qual puote il vostro Colorire e formare il bel di fore . . . 34 An example of daring auctorial frankness, which is punished as the author might have foreseen.

35 Cf. the Shakespearean comedy of errors, which likewise has classical antecedents.

36 The “exposition” over which our contemporary dramatists dawdle. In this respect, and in his tendency to slay the soliloquy and the aside, Aretino displays marks of modernity.

37 Machiavelli’s play.

38 Title character in the play of that name.

39 marescalco o grande scudiere. Marescalco is the title character in the comedy, il Marescalco.

40 Cf. Malvilio. Camerini’s “brio Shakesperiano.”

41 Title character in Lo Ipocrito. If we are to credit Horologgi, Aretino was to be found on almost every reading table in France. See Appendix I.

42 Title character in il Filosofo.

43 che il diavolo non vi lasciasse poi andare pei canneti.

44 In il Filosofo.

45 Of the Ragionamenti.

46 Aretino, whose death was due to apoplexy, died, according to popular account, by falling over backward from his chair in a fit of laughter at an obscene story told him by his sister. This account is repeated in the article on Aretino in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The falling from the chair, at least, is authenticated. This is established by a letter to the Duke of Mantua from his ambassador at Venice, Ludovico Nelli. The letter is printed in A. Luzio’s Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana. See Hutton, (op. cit., p. 230). Margutte died watching the antics of a monkey.

[The Letters]

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 36-42.

[36]

A Black and White Lithograph of a painting by the Marquis de Bayros, of a woman in a dark dress dancing, with a clown in white behind her.

THE LETTERS

of

PIETRO DE ARETINO

“Scholars and common youths even amongst ye lustiet and bravest courtiers are yet to learn ye lesson in ye world.”

GABRIEL HARVEY

[38] [blank]

39

Translator’s Note

In his letters, Aretino is to be seen at his worst and at his best. At his worst as an always designing hypocrite, fawning — almost incredibly, at times — on princes, prelates and the powerful ones of the earth, and sniffling the usual religious buncombe, and patriotic platitudes. At his best as the good fellow, enjoying the good things of life, a good bottle of wine, a pretty girl, a well-cooked thrush — with a wholesome relish. At his very best, in his letters to Titian and other artist, as a highly sensitized and keenly intelligent art critic. His hypocrisy, as has been said, was part of his fame; and it is of interest to not that even in his most servile epistles to kings, popes and emperors, there is to be found, beneath the all too obvious flattery, an undercurrent of threats. See, for example, his letters to the Duke d’Atri and the Duke de Montmorency (XLIV. And XLV.), in which he demands a fixed stipend for “praising” Francis I. It is such letters that de Sanctis calls “masterpieces of malice and effrontery.

“He said,”1 Camerini2 tells us, “that it was the prick of want and not the spur of fame that led him to soil paper. His letters were mercantile documents, and being honored, with him, consisted in being paid. ‘With me,’ he added, ‘there is a necessity of transforming digressions, metaphors, pedagogicalisms into levers that move and pincers that open. It is necessary for me, in my writings, to rouse others from their avaricious sleep, and so I need the baptism of invention and of locutions which will fetch me crowns of gold and not of laurel.’ Something, in short, between a ‘jimmy’ and a lead-pipe.3 One would not be able to attribute anything more to him, if it were not that a certain irony leaks out, when he abases himself to say: 40‘No one thinks so ill of me as to believe that I do not know the weak figure I cut and the triviality of my complexion, which is without any point of relief.’ Yet . . . Aretino marks a departure from the epistolographers of his century in his presentiments of modernity. He is notable, not so much for those hyperboles, of the seventeenth century, as for the forms and conceits which might be said to be of our time, and which in his day must have made a strange impression. . . . These two masks may be taken as representing the writer (of the day) in his double aspect: the mendicant and literary retainer, like the poets of ancient Rome; and the independent writer, who anticipates modern frankness, but who was slow in developing, even in a country like England. Aretino sometimes asks charity, sometimes demands tribute, and he lacks neither philanthropists nor tributaries. Battista Tornielli wrote him: ‘Your pen has made you, as it were, the conqueror of all the princes of the world, who are in the position of being your tributaries and feudal subjects. You ought . . . to be decorated with those titles which were given the old Roman emperors, according to the provinces they had conquered.’ ”

Not only as a man but as a stylist, Aretino is frequently at his worst in his letters. His style in the state communications is tortuous, ornate and effusive. It reminds one of the oration which a high school junior, who had been a little too attentive to his Cicero,4 might turn out. It is deadly, the worst of models. This style was severely criticized by French writers, including Bayle, Ménage and Montaigne. Their criticisms will be found in an appendix.5 But criticism like that of Montaigne, for example, should be taken with such critical correctives as those supplied by Camerini.6 Even in the murkiest spots, there are astonishing sparks, while there are a number of extended passages of really fine writing — such — to mention but two — as the letter to Titian describing the view from a Venetian window, or the letter describing the death of Giovanni de’ Medici. 41The letters in which he set forth his views of writing and his hatred of pedants are almost invariably good reading; it is to be regretted he did not always follow his own precepts.7

But it is for the picture they give us of a century and of the Venice of his day that Aretino’s letters are preeminently valuable. It is in these letters, remarks Hutton, “that we find perhaps the best picture of the city at this time — in the letters of Aretino, who, vile as he was, was yet a man of genius; scoundrel though he was, was yet full of humanity; brutal though he was, was yet full of pity and love for the miserable, the unfortunate, the poor; ignoble though he was, was yet able to dominate the Italy of his time.” The Lettere are, indeed, a piece of valuable historical documentation for the age of Charles V.

However, history is more than likely to be dull reading. The joy lies in the little revelations. Speaking of Casanova, Arthur Machen writes:

“ . . . the parts of him which I recall with the greatest pleasure are the small adventures and the back alley business rather than the meetings with kings and popes and philosophers. I like to hear of little things; of the super of pork chops that the scopatore santissimo provided for his guests; of the ways of Italian strolling players in the eighteenth century ‘fit-ups’; of that magic figure that the witch was to bathe in blood; of the significant salad prepared in the Casino at Venice; of the Italian scholar correcting proofs of the Decameron in a London coffee-house. There are some people who prefer the small talk in the dressing-room to the larger speech of the stage; and I am one of them.”

You will find a number of these “significant salads” in Pietro’s letters. They are the spice to a sometimes too heavy pudding. The Letters give us the detail with which to fill in the picture. Outside of eating, drinking, making love, collecting his revenues and running the universe, Aretino had very little to do.

FOOTNOTES

1  Writing to Bembo in a well known letter.

2  Prefazione al primo volume delle Lettere dell’ Aretino, Milano, Daelli, 1864, reprinted, Prefazione alle Commedie, Casa Editrice Sonzogno, Milano. See also Camerini’s article: I corrispondenti dell’ Aretino, Rivista critica, Milano, 1869. See Appendices I and IV.
3  il grimaldello e la sveglia.

4  See Appendix IV.
5  Ibid.

6  Ibid.

7  In the present translation, no effort whatever has been made to touch up Aretino’s style. It has been left, in the state epistles, in all its labored fulsomeness. The attempt has been, always, to convey the spirit.

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 43-81.

43

THE LETTERS OF PIETRO ARETINO

Letters I-XIX

I To THE GREAT DUKE OF URBINO

Dedication of the First Book of Letters1

Since your merits are the stars of the heaven of glory, they have inclined, as it were, the planet of my genius to trace with my style in words the image of the mind, in order that the true face of your virtues, desired by all the world, may be visible in every part. But my powers, advanced as they are by the altitude of the subject, notwithstanding the fact that they are moved by so great an influence, are not able to express the manner in which goodness, clemency and strength, in equal concord, have conceded to you by fatal decree the true name of prince. And so I, who am not able to praise you as I ought, spurred by necessity to do what I can, am sending you here a few letters, by leave of that fame of yours, in the attempt to express which words grow cold and hoarse. And if any reproach me with audacity by saying that the benignity of my idol is diminished in giving audience to such chatterings as these, I am sure that you will still be able to pardon the error committed by my presumption against your nobility. I, who am disenamoured with my condition in the severity of my own judgment, which makes it clear to me that I am like the noise which two countrymen make when they call to each other across the market-place, hasten to dedicate this work to you, hoping that I shall be as the relics of an antique column, which, covered with mud, are yet put up on high out of reverence for the subject. Certainly, vile things become prized when they are placed in temples. And so, this whole book will be preserved, when 44men read in the front the inscription: “Francesco Maria,” whose generosity climbs the stairs of the heavens to the stupefaction of the peoples, while the greatness of his fortune even in the ascent, in him alone becomes the will and the power to aid others. As it is, neither my inclination upward nor the election which my temerity makes nor the grace of your gentleness is apt to deter me, not even the dram of fear that is in me, from dedicating such a volume as this to you; for your only goddess is the one called “eloquence,” who moves from the nature of your intellect with so much fecundity that the tongue which profits by her, the concepts in which she is embodied and the ears which hear her remain dumfounded with wonder. And so, my writing sought to succeed by passing under the censorship of so great a duke and so great a judge. And yet, I must revere you in your rank and fear you in your judgment. Nor am I alone in this case, but all Italy, because with the one you have enlarged the boundaries of honor, and with the other the confines of genius. Two distinctions has nature placed in the collection of your virtues: leisure and velocity; the former stabilizes the sense, and the latter incites to valor, so that we always know where you are and where, of necessity, you must be. Happy was the gift which Jesus made of you to Mark, his evangelist;2 beautiful also was the present which he with his arms has made to you, and most beautiful of all, the reward of gratitude shown to you for the inviolability of your faith. Truly, you are the subject of the republic of Venice, and she is the object of those qualities with which you assure her against dangers and resolve her doubts. Does not Charles V., our Caesar, in seeing and hearing you, honor the sight of you and prize the sound of your voice? Since in your countenance one perceives fidelity to the truth and in your words the spirit of deeds. Whoever has viewed the superb works of the temple and the theatre, begun by that greatest of Popes, Julius II., to whose eternal memory 45you are heir, has seen at the same time the ruins of the Orient restored to their original form through the providence of your courageous efforts; and as the church does not give its solemn sanction to such wrongs, so the leaving of these works unperfected is an offense against baptism. As God, to destroy the Amorites, gave to Joshua the privilege of stopping the sun and moon, so ought not the vicar of Christ, since the Turks have been dispersed, receive into his grace Urbino, the fame of Italy, the glory of Italians and the hope of religion? For such divine qualities as these, more than human demonstrations are required. States, ranks and honors in any other are like the head of a lion suspended above the door of a palace, which is looked upon by all as the remains of a terrible wild beast; but the sources and the fine web and woof of the boldness of your counsels are the limits of immortality viewed from the sun over the gates of the universe. And so it is, God and the mind of Your Excellency are outraged when there is any perturbation in that order which they have established by taking from Solimano,3 in the service of Christianity, the mind from the soul, the soul from the body, the body from his arms, his arms from their praises, his praises from his name, his name from memory, and his memory from history’s pages.

From Venice, the 10th of December, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

1 This letter is a splendid example of Aretino’s style at its worst, that style which de Sanctis condemns so severely.

2 Reference is to St. Mark’s, Venice.

3 Referring to the Duke's part in the Turkish wars.

2 To THE KING OF FRANCE

Concerning the captivity in which Charles V. held him.

I do not know, Most Christian Sire, since your loss is an example of another’s gain, who merits the greater praise, the vanquished or the conqueror: for Francis, in the sport which fate has made of him, has freed his mind from the doubt that she could make a prisoner of a king; and Charles, in the gift which has been conceded to him by chance, has become her servant by thinking that the same thing could happen to an 46emperor. Certainly, you are free by seeing how fragile a thing felicity is and how you should contemn her; and he has been put in servitude by learning how variable she is and how much to be feared; and so, His Majesty is robed in cares, of which Yours has been despoiled. Do not grieve for fortune since, having no more to do, she has done all she can to you, by placing you in the state in which you are; for, by her doing this, the virtues which adorn you have become enfranchised, so resplendent are you in the most moderate temperance and the firmest constancy in the world, and by consenting that such virtues as these should administer to your heart and mind, you have made her turn woman who, by the laments of men, is a goddess. For my own part, I believe that Fortune, perceiving that others lose by winning and you by losing, holds it too cheap to triumph over you, who have triumphed over her, since the necessity which guides you, in the endeavor to cast you down into the abyss, has lifted you up to heaven. All this is evident in the manner in which you support her, as you learn to look upon her and to know that her contrarieties are the lamps of life to him who is not lost so long as he has himself. Look you: victory does not make Caesar happy when it appears, for the reason that its appearance, not having a certain end, is but the shadow of the image of felicity; and not only he, but his stars and those virtues to which he owes so much well-being, are unhappy through having overridden the will of God. Whence, I would propose you as a model to every conqueror, since you cast down with your prudence the one who casts you down by force. The great fact is that Augustus, in whose power you are, has but one life in which to show himself generous to you, while you have so many in which to show yourself magnanimous to him! I speak of clemency, but if it is lacking, he remains subjugated by your wisdom in suffering his lack of clemency, you conquering by patience, which is always victorious; for, among all the virtues, it is the truest and none other can be found more 47worthy of a man. But when a king like you bedecks himself with it, does it not then become an invention of the gods, not to say of “God”? They merit more praise who know how to suffer misery than those who temper themselves in contentment. A high heart ought to bear calamities and not flee them, since in bearing them appears the grandeur of the mind and in fleeing them the cowardice of the heart. But who ever heard of so great a king, in the sudden fortunes of the day, having to do, by himself alone, the work which his captains, knights and foot-soldiers ought to do? Your title was committed, by your own deliberation, to ensigns and coats of mail, but you kept your dignity when, your sword warm with the enemy’s blood, you made Fortune confess that she was facing one who fought, not one who had others do his fighting for him, affirming thereby that human events are not governed without reason, but by a knotty aggregation of causes which are most secret to us, and predestined, before they occur, by immutable laws. Victories are the ruin of the one who wins and the salvation of the one who loses; for the victors, blinded by the insolence of pride, are out of harmony with God and think only of themselves; while the losers, reilluminated with the modesty of humility, forget themselves and think of God. Who does not know that Fortune favors those who sleep in her lap, by taking them to her bosom? Do not be ashamed, then, of the jar she has given you, since you would be deserving of any evil if you blushed for your fate. Collect your mind, which has been dispersed by your annoyances, leaning with all your mind’s gifts against the pillar of your strength, keeping always awake that vivacious spirit which burns continually in the heart of valor, virtues which inspire no less fear when they are collected than when they are scattered. And may misfortune, whenever you come upon it, be a bridle which will keep you from running away by thinking of or too much considering your lot; and may it leave upon you the impress of temerity, since you shall surely see the time when the sweet 48remembrance of present things will be useful to you. For no other reason has it pleased Christ that Your Majesty should be judged by your adversary than that you might be a man, even as He was before you. And if you measure the shadow cast by your body, you will find it neither greater nor less than it was before you became the vanquished and he victorious.

From Rome, the 24th of April, 1525.

III To MESSER FRANCESCO DEGLI ALBIZI

On the Death of Giovanni delle Bande Nere.

As the hour drew near which the fates, with the consent of God, had prescribed as the end of our lord, His Highness moved, with that terrible fierceness of his, against Governo, around which the enemy had fortified themselves, and attacking them in the neighborhood of some furnaces, alas! a musket ball struck him in the leg which had already been wounded by an arquebus. And no sooner had he felt the blow than fear and depression fell upon the army, and ardor and joy died in the hearts of all. And every one, forgetting his own duty, began to weep, reproaching fate for having senselessly slain so noble and, beyond the memory of any century, so altogether excellent a leader, and this at the very beginning of so many superhuman undertakings and in Italy’s greatest need. The captains who, out of love and veneration, had followed him blamed Fortune and their commander’s own temerity for their loss, speaking, as they lamented him, of his age, which was ripe for enterprise, sufficient in any pinch and capable of overcoming any obstacle. They sighed for the grandeur of his thoughts and the fierceness of his valor. They could not refrain from recalling with what homely comradeship he had shared with them everything, even to his cloak, nor could they keep from mentioning the providential acuteness of his genius nor the astuteness of his mind. With the fiery ardor of their lamentations, 49they warmed the snows, which lay everywhere as far as the eyes could see. Meanwhile, they had put him on a bed and taken him to Mantua, to the house of the signor Luigi Gonzaga. Here, that very evening, the Duke of Urbino came to visit him, for the duke loved him and adored him to such an extent that he was even afraid to speak in his presence, which was to his credit. And as soon as he saw the duke, he gave signs of being greatly consoled; and the duke, very sincerely, seeing the state he was in, said; “It is not enough for you to be bright and glorious in the trade of arms, if you do not support your name with the observances of the religion under which you were born.” And he, understanding that the other had reference to confession, replied: “As in all things I have always done my duty at need, I will do the same now.” And as the duke left, he began to talk with me, speaking of Lucantonio with extreme affection; and so, I said: “We will send for him.” “Would you have him,” he replied, “leave the war to come see a sick man?” He remembered the Count of San Secondo, remarking: “If only he were here, he would be able to take my place.” Sometimes, he would scratch his head with his fingers; then he would put his fingers to his mouth and say: “what is going to happen?” — answering the question himself: “I’ve never done any wrong.” But I, on the exhortation of the physicians, came to him and told him: “I should be wronging your mind if, with painted words, I endeavored to persuade you that death is the cure for all evils and more feared than to be feared. But since it is the greatest happiness to do everything freely, let them cut away the effects of this horrible gunshot wound, and in eight days you will make Italy queen who is now a slave; and if you are a bit lame, you can take orders from your limp, instead of from the king whose collar you have never been willing to wear about your neck, since wounds and the loss of limbs are the collars and the medals of the familiars of Mars.” “Let it all be done,” he replied. At this, the physicians came in and, extolling the bravery of 50his decision, finished by evening the things they had to do; and then, having made him take a little medicine, they went to put in order the instruments which they needed. It was now the dinner hour, when vomiting assailed him, and he said to me: “The signs of Caesar! It is time now to think of something else besides life.” And when he had said this, with joined hands, he made a vow to go to the Apostle of Galizia. But, the time having come, the valorous men returned with instruments suited to their task, and said that eight or ten persons could be found to hold him, while the agony of the sawing lasted — “Not twenty men,” he said with a smile, “would be able to hold me.” And recovering possession of himself, with a face as firm as could be, he took the candle in his hands to give light to the doctors. Whereupon, I fled and, stopping my ears, I heard two groans only, and then I heard him calling me. And when I came to him, he said: “I am cured!” and, turning himself this way and that, he made a great rejoicing. And if it had not been that the Duke of Urbino restrained him, he would have made us bring him his foot, with the piece of leg still clinging to it, laughing at us because we were not able to bear the sight of what he had suffered. And his sufferings were worse than those of Alexander or of Trajan, who kept a cheerful face while he pulled out the tiny arrow-head and cut the nerve. The pain, which had left him for a while, two hours before dawn returned upon him with every kind of torment; and hearing him beat upon the wall in a frenzy, I was stabbed to the heart, and dressing in a moment, I ran to him. He, as soon as he saw me, began speaking, saying that the pain he had from thinking about poltroons4 was worse than his wound. And so, he chatted on with me, in the effort, by not giving any heed to his misfortune, to free his spirit, which was already given over to the ambuscade of death. When day dawned, things became so much worse that he made his will, in which he dispensed many thousands of scudi, in money 51and in goods, among those who had served him, leaving four giuli for his sepulture, and of this, the duke was made executor. He came then to confession, most Christianly, and when he saw the friar, said to him: “Father, since I have followed the profession of arms, I have lived according to the custom of soldiers, even as I should have lived according to religion, if I had put on the habit that you wear; and if it were not forbidden, I would confess myself in the presence of everybody, for I have not done anything unworthy of myself.” The evening passed, when the marquis, moved by his own innate benignity and my prayers, came to him, kissed him tenderly on the head and spoke words which I never would have believed any prince, except Francesco Maria, could utter. And with these proper sayings, His Excellency concluded: “Since your fierce nature has never deigned to make use of anything that belonged to me, ask me one favor that is suited to your quality and to mine.” “Love me when I am dead,” he replied. “The virtues by which you have acquired so much glory,” said the Marquis, “will make you not loved, but adored by me and others.” At the end, he turned to me and asked me to have madonna Maria bring Cosimo.5 At this, death, which was already summoning him below, renewed his agonies. And now, the whole household, without observing longer the modesty of respect, surged about him, the servants mingling with their betters about the bed and, overshadowed by a great depression, weeping for the bread, the hopes and the service which they were losing with their master, each striving to catch the dying man’s eyes with his own, in order to show the depth of his affliction. In such surroundings as these, he took the hand of His Excellency, saying: “You are losing today the greatest friend and best servant that you ever had.” And His Most Illustrious Highness, putting on a false tongue and face, on which he had feigned the semblance of joy, tried to make him believe that he would be cured; and he, 52whom the thought of death did not frighten, although he was sure he was going to die, began to speak of the successful conduct of the war: things which would have been stupendous, had we felt that he was now alive, and not half-dead already. And so, he continued fighting till the ninth hour of the night, which was the vigil of St. Andrew. And because his torments had become so unbearable, he begged me to put him to sleep by reading to him; and as I did so, he seemed to go from sleep to sleep. Finally, having slept, it may have been, a quarter of an hour, he awoke and said: “I thought I was making my will, and here I am cured and did not know it. If I keep on getting better like this, I’ll show the Germans how to fight and how I revenge myself.” When he had said this, the light failed, and he yielded to the perpetual darkness. Then, having himself asked for extreme unction, he received the sacrament by saying: “I don’t want to die among all these bandages.” And so, they brought a camp bed and placed him on it, and while his mind slept, he was taken by death.6

Such was the end of the great Giovanni de’ Medici, who was gifted from his cradle with as much generosity as ever was. The vigor of his mind was incredible. Liberality in him was a greater force than power, and he gave more to his soldiers than he left for himself, a soldier also. He always endured labor with the grace of patience, and anger never dominated him for long; he had transformed his actions before he was through speaking. He prized brave men more than riches, which he only desired as a reward for his followers. He was difficult to know, by one who did not know him, either in the skirmish or the camp. When he fought, he always appeared in the character of a private in the ranks, and in times of peace, he made no difference between himself and others; the cheapness of the clothes with which he disordered his person was a testimony of the love he bore the army, only decorating his legs, arms and chest with the 53insignia that he bore on his shoulders. He was very eager for praise and glory and, while pretending to despise it, longed for it. But the thing which, above all, won the hearts of his men was his habit of saying: “Follow me, don’t precede me.” There is no doubt that his virtues were a part of his nature and his vices the faults of youth. And would to God we could see his like today! and that every one might have known the goodness of the man as I knew it. He excelled, in affability, the most affable. His aim was fame and not profit; and his possessions, sold to his son in order to supply him with means to pay his men, are a sign that my boasts of him are due to his merits and not to my own adulations. He was always the first to mount his horse and the last to dismount, and in fighting, he rejoiced in the ardor of his own audacity. He proposed and executed plans, and in council, he did not put on a high and lofty air, as though to say: “Enterprises are governed by reputations.” But he always saw to it that the plans of those who had made a trade of the sword were followed. He was so expert in the art of war that, at night, he would place the escorts back upon the right road when they had lost their way. He was marvelous in preserving peace among his soldiers, overcoming everything with love, with fear, with punishment or with rewards. Never was there a man who knew better how to employ cunning and force in an assault on the enemy; nor did he arm his heart with a false bravery, but rather thundered with a natural ardor against the fear-stricken. Idleness was his capital enemy. No one before him employed Turkish horses. He introduced a comfortable attire into military fashions. He delighted in an abundance of good food, but not for himself; he satisfied his own thirst with a little water, tinged with wine. In short, every one might envy him; no one could imitate him. And Florence and Rome (would to God I were lying!) upon hearing all this will hold that it is none of their affair. I can hear already the growls of 54the Pope, who will believe that he is better off in having lost such a man.

From Mantua, the 10th of December, 1526.

FOOTNOTES

4 This is the passage which De Sanctis misinterprets.

5 Giovanni’s son.

6 e . . . mentre il suo animo dormiva, fu occupato da la morte.

IV To MADONNA MARIA DE’ MEDICI

Consoling Her for the Death of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, Her Husband.

I have no desire, Signora, to contend with you in your grief. Not that I might not be successful, for I mourned the death of your husband more than any person living; but my efforts in overcoming your sorrow would be lost, for you are his wife, and all griefs in want of comfort are added to yours. And it is not to be assumed, therefore, that my passion does not precede yours, since having accustomed himself here to do without caresses, he had grown hard toward love, which was so much more tender in me that not an hour, not a moment, not an instant could I stand its absence, and his affection for me is better known than that which he bore you. And I must be believed, since I have always seen and you always have merely heard; and others take more pleasure in the virtue of their own eyes than they do in the reports of fame. And, in the event that I yield my passion to your suffering, it is because it gives so much pre-eminence to the valor and the wisdom I know are yours, realizing that there is more capacity for things in you, a woman, than in me, a man; and yet, even so, grief is greater on the side where more, not less, is known. But give me, if you will, the second place in your affliction, which is so supreme in my own heart that there is no room for any greater grief. And though he was dead, I have viewed the exhalations of his illustrious spirit, both in the formation of the face, which Giulio di Rafaello made, and in the act of closing him in his sepulchre, which I did with my own hands. But the comfort which the eternity of his memory has given me has sustained me in life. The public voice, proclaiming his virtues, which 55were the joys and the ornaments of your own widowhood, has dried my tears. The stories of his deeds do not bring me depression, but made me glad. And I feed on such remarks from great persons as: “He is dead and with him the work of nature. He is gone, the exemplar of the ancient faith. He has departed, the true and mighty arm of battle.” And of a very certainty, there was never any other who so raised the hopes of the Italian arms. What finer tribute could one have who has been taken out of this world than that which was paid to him by King Francis, who many times was heard to say: “If Signor Giovanni had not been wounded, fortune would not have made me a prisoner.” Behold, he is scarcely underground before the pride-filled barbarians, rising up to heaven, strike fear into the hearts of the most courageous; and already fear rules Clement, who has learned to approve the death of him who, while alive, was his able supporter. But the wrath of God, whose will it is to proceed over the failings of others, has taken him away. His Majesty has taken him to Himself in order to chastise the errant ones. And so, we consent to the divine will, without our hearts being stabbed any more, giving ear to the harmony of his praise. It restrains our heart in the delight which it takes in his honors; and speaking of his victories, we bring him light with the rays of his own glory, which has gone on before his bier, even while the funeral pomps were pausing in astonishment at the splendid sight, among the famous captains, of him whom they had brought to bury, on their own honored shoulders. And the marchese, with all the nobility of the house of Gonzaga and of his court, with a crowd of people behind and a throng of women, their interest turned to amazement, at the windows above, went to pay reverence to the body of him who was your spouse and my lord, affirming that he had never beheld the obsequies of a greater warrior. Let your mind repose in the lap of his memory, and send Cosimo to His Excellency, who has commanded me to write to you, on account of that 56desire to follow in the steps of his father which the latter has bequeathed to his young son. And if I did not believe that God would render to you with twofold interest the dignities which have been stolen from my idol by death and an invidious destiny, I should throw myself into the arms of despair. But let us live, for so it shall be, because it cannot be otherwise.

From Mantua, the 10th of December, 1526.

V To THE EMPEROR

In Which He Exhorts Him to Liberate Pope Clement VII.

It is quite true that felicity grows with a greater vehemence than that with which it is born; and this is to be seen in the person of Your Majesty, under whose judgment fortune and your own virtue have placed the liberty of the pontiff, even before the door has scarcely closed on the prison from which you lately drew the king, to overcome him with your pity as you had conquered him with your arms. Truly, every one confesses that there is in you something of God, whose goodness causes you to exercise that clemency of yours; for no other would have been able to endure such a trade, and only you have a mind capable of taking in the grandeur of those compassions which are the scourges of the humiliated pride of the perverse, who are punished by your kindness. What mind, what heart, what intellect, except your mind, your heart, your intellect would have conceived the desire to free an enemy? Who except you would have rested his fate in the promises, the instability and the nobility of a vanquished prince, since it is characteristic of those who have lost to give over soul and body, as well as their treasuries and their peoples to revenge? You have had ample opportunity to view the world in the light in which it must appear to the breast of a Caesar; you have known the generosity of mercy and the security that lies in valor. You have understood that in the former lies hope and 57in the latter cause to fear, and that it is given to us to flee neither the one nor the other. Beyond this, who ever heard of any man, save Charles, who, in the summit of victory, thought of God and of his own better nature? How you have thought of God is shown by the grace which, in this matter, you have rendered Him; and how you have thought of yourself is shown in the fact that you look upon yourself as a mere mortal. What lamps shall be burned in front of the image of the name of so much self-knowledge! Since to know God in felicity is to stabilize one’s self in perpetual beatitude; and he who knows himself in the prosperity of his desires, makes himself, thereby, known to God, and who is known of God takes on some of His qualities. And so, put into operation the benignity of that clemency of which I have spoken, without which fame is plucked and glory extinguished. And since this is the triumphal crown for the one who has triumphed, the reasons which lead him to grant pardon are of greater dignity than the virtues to which he owes his conquest, and that victory may be said to have been lost which is not accompanied by such clemency. But if this clemency, the shadow of the arm of God, rains down into your heart, who can doubt that the pastor of the church shall be freed from the position into which he has been placed — placed there, not because he has abrogated to himself the license of war, but, rather, by the will of heaven, which has breathed over the head of the court a wind of adversity, in which all Rome has suffered? But since the justice of your mercy does not exact payment in cruelty, may it please you that the ruin go no further. In your judgment rests piety and the welfare of the Pope; release him, and let him go free, yielding, to that favor which has been conceded by Christ to your victories, His vicar, being loath to consent that the joy of victory should interfere with the offices of your own divine custom. This being the case, most certainly, among all the crowns which you have acquired, and which God and the fates owe you for the remainder of your illustrious life, 58none other will be seen more worthy of admiration. But who would not place his hope in the best, the religious and courteous Majesty of Charles V., who is always are own august Caesar?

From Venice, the 20th of May, 1527.

VI To CLEMENT VII

In Which He Exhorts Him to Pardon The Emperor Charles V.

While fortune, my lord, does, indeed, rule the affairs of men in a manner which no foresight on their part can resist; nevertheless, where God has placed His hand, His jurisdiction must prevail. For which reason, one who has fallen, as has Your Holiness, into her bad graces should turn to Jesus with his prayers, and not to Fate with his laments. It was a necessity that the vicar of Christ, by suffering the miseries of chance, should pay the debts due for the short-comings of others; nor would that justice with which heaven corrects our errors be clear to all the world, if your prison were not a witness. So console yourself in your anxieties, since it is His will that has placed you in the judgment of Caesar, a situation in which you may experience, at once, divine mercy and human clemency. But if it is an honor for a prince, who has been always brave, always cautious and always provident against the insults of fate — if it is an honor for him, after he has known those insults, to bear in peace whatever misfortune the malignity of destiny would have him bear, how great shall be your glory if, cinctured with patience, after having come to the end of your industry, your strength and your prudence, you choose to suffer all that the will of God may place before you? Collect that supreme mind of yours and, examining each virtue that is in you, tell me if it is worthy of you not to hope to surmount more stairs than those you have already climbed. Nor is there any doubt that God will sustain the religion of His church, or that, sustaining it, he will fail to guide you; and with His guidance, 59your downfall lies merely in the appearance, not in the fact. It is, however, in fact and not in appearance that your pontifical mind must act, by thinking of pardon rather than of vengeance; for by resolving to pardon and not to take revenge you prepare for yourself an end befitting your own high dignity and the office that you hold. What work is better fitted to enlarge the limits of the name of “most holy?” and that of “most blessed” than the one of overcoming hatred with piety and perfidy with liberality? The wheel sharpens steel and renders it apt to cut the hardness of things: and in the same manner do adversities serve as a whet to generous minds, by teaching them to make sport of fortune, which, on the other hand, is to be vituperated, if you do not place to her account the grandeur of the accident which has deprived you of your liberty. It cannot be denied that you have been assailed with every species of cruel occurrence, and your misfortunes have brought perversity to the fatherland, timidity to our arms, ingratitude to those who have profited by your benevolence, a wavering to the faith and envy to potentates. But if God had had nothing to do with it, your own prudence would yet teach men how to serve, as well as how to rule. Yield, then, all things to Him who can do all things, and when you fall into mischance, thank Him for it; and since the emperor is the firmament of that faith of which you are the father, God has given you into his power in order that you might graft the papal will to that of Caesar, to the end that the great accretion of your honors may be resplendent in all parts of he universe. The good Charles, I assure you, is all kindness and will soon restore you to your primal state; I can see him even now on his knees before you with that humility which is due to him who holds the place of Christ, and due also to his own rank of Caesar. In His Majesty, there is no pride. Give yourself, then, to the arms of that power which has been conceded from above: and drawing once more the Catholic sword against the proud bosom of the Orient, transform the 60latter into the object of your disdain. Thus out of this sorry pass to which the licentious sins of the clergy have brought you, shall issue, with praise and glory, the reward of that patience in suffering which has been displayed by Your Holiness, whose feet I most devotedly kiss.

From Venice, the last day of May, 1527.

VII To MESSER GIROLAMO AGNELLI

In Which The Author Thanks Him for a Gift of Wine.7

I do not wish to speak, dear brother, of the sixty scudi which you have sent me on the account of the horse. I shall merely remark that, if I had the name of a saint, instead of that of a demon, or if I were the friend of the Pope in place of being his enemy, folks surely would say, on seeing the crowd about my door, either that I was working miracles or that it must be the day of jubilee. And all this comes from the fine gift of wine you sent me. I do not believe there are such servants anywhere as mine. As soon as it is daylight, they begin to fill the flasks of the retainers to all the ambassadors there are — save his grace, the ambassador of France, to give him all the credit that his king deserves. And I, for my part, do not put on airs, as those bald-headed courtiers do, when their lord claps them on the back or gives them some of his cast-off things. Though I have reason enough to play the great man, seeing that every good companion in town gets up a thirst to come and swill down two or three beakers with me. Now when I eat, sit or walk is there any other conversation except about what perfect wine I have; so you see, I am better known on my own account than I am on yours, and it would be a disgrace, indeed, if anything happened to interrupt such solemn-fine drinking. The finest thing about it, it seems to me, is the fact that it ends up in the mouths of the wenches and tavern lads, who love its kissing, biting taste. And the tears that come to one’s eyes 61when he drinks it make me weep even now, as I write this. It makes me forget all the other wines you’ve sent me. And I am only sorry your brother, Benedetto, sent me those two coifs of gold and turquoise silk, since I should like to exchange them for more wine like this. If it were not that I fear Bacchus and Apollo do not get on well together, I should dedicate an opus to the cask in which it stood, which calls for other devotions than those paid to the blessed Lena of the oil. There is nothing more for me to say, except that, in despite of immortality, I shall become divine, if only once a year I get such a taste of the grape as this.

From Venice, the 11th of November, 1520.

FOOTNOTES

7 Here, we have the other note. Aretino is himself.

VIII To THE BISHOP OF VASONE

In Which He Accepts a Collar and Refuses the Title of Cavaliere.

The collar which you sent me is the most pleasing and lovely one that was ever seen. It is so lovely, indeed, that I either must not wear it or, if I do wear it, I must conceal both from whom it comes and who the wearer is. I certainly shall never part with it, both because it comes from one whom I respect and love above all other men, and because of its own novel charm. In short, I accept the chain, but not your proposal to make me a cavaliere through an imperial privilegio; for, as I have said in my Marescalco, a cavaliere without entree is a wall without crosses, that everybody wets against. Leave such dignities to those citizens who swell up over them, and who, at every opportunity, put in with “we cavalier.” As for myself, I am content with what I am, since to my honors are added the ability to support myself. But let us speak of something else. The valorous joy that came to me with your chain I shall keep as long as I am able. And as to my keeping it invisible, the remedy for that lies in the additional favor which you are in a position to render me 62in my needs, which I would remind you to remember to the Pope.

From Venice, the 17th of September, 1530.

IX To THE MOST SERENE ANDREA GRITTI, DOGE OF VENICE

In Which He Thanks His Highness for Having Reconciled Him with the Pope.

I, sublime prince, have two obligations toward Christ, according to the station in which God preserves me. One is to adjust myself, whatever He my do, to His will; the other is to show my gratitude to you for my present condition; for it is through you, I confess, that my honor and my life have been saved. The credence which I always had given to the reports of this land, and to the fame of its worthy Doge, has now tasted the fruits of its own just hope. And so, I ought to celebrate the city and revere you: the former for having taken me in; you for having defended me against the persecutions of others, leading me back into the grace of Clement by appeasing the wrath of His Holiness, to the satisfaction of my own reason, which is very good and which, in the failure of the papal promises, observes that silence which Your Serene Highness has imposed on me. Here may be seen the difference between the faith of a virtuous man and that of a great man. But I who, in the liberty of many states, have contrived to remain a free man, fleeing courts forever, have set up here a perpetual tabernacle against the years which are advancing upon me; because here, treason has no place; here, favor does no wrong to right; here, the cruelty of the meretricious does not reign; here, the insolence of ganymedes gives no commands; here, there is no robbery; here, there is no coercion; and here, there is no murder. And for this reason I, who have made kings tremble and who have assured them of prosperity, give myself to you, the fathers of your people, the brothers of your servants, the little sons of truth, the friends of virtue, the companions of strangers, the 63supports of religion, the observers of the faith, the executors of justice, the heirs of charity and the subjects of clemency. For the same reason, illustrious prince, receive my affection into a hem of your piety, so that I may go on praising the nurse of cities and the mother elect of God. Make her the most famous of any in the world, by moderating her customs, by giving humanity to me, by humiliating the proud and by pardoning the erring. Such an exercise is, indeed, your proper task, as is the giving of a beginning to peace and an end to wars. It is for this reason that the angels guide their celestial balls, strengthening their hearts and rolling their splendors over the field of the air above, exceeding, under the ordering of their own laws, that span of life which has been prescribed by nature. O universal fatherland! O communal liberty! O inn of all the dispersed peoples! How great would be the woes of Italy if your bounty were any the less! Here, there is refuge for the nations; here, there is security for richness; and here, there is safety for honors. She receives you with open arms; others shun you. She rules you; others abase you. She pastures you; others starve you. She takes you in; others hunt you down. And while she regales you in your tribulations, she preserves you in charity and in love. And so, I rightly bow to her, and through her offer my prayers to God, whose Majesty by means of altars and sacrifices has willed that Venice should be the rival of eternity in this world, that world which is astonished at Nature’s having, miraculously, set her down in so impossible a place; the heavens are richer with her gifts, and she shines there, in her nobility, in her magnificence, in her dominion, in her edifices, in her temples, in her pious houses, in her counsels, in her fame and in her glory, more than any other ever did. She is Rome’s reproach, since here there are no minds which could or would tyrannize over liberty and make a slave of the minds of their people. Wherefore, I, with the greatest of reverence, salute and respect your Most Sincere and Serene Highness, who has been placed 64in the seat of public power, as I would not salute or respect any king or emperor of ancient times. And no less do I wish that your generous life may, with the privilege of God, enter into eternity long after mine. For there is no other payment I can render for the benefits with which you have sustained me; and so, may your Sublimity be paid in the prophecy, by means of which I have endeavored to lengthen your days, which shall, surely, be very long, because Your Highness knows how to employ them.

From Venice (1530).

X To POPE CLEMENT

In Which He Repents of Having Written Against His Holiness.

The cruelty of stubborness is not conformable to either Your Holiness’ rank or temper; for you have shown yourself more facile in results than in intercessions. Monsignor Girolamo da Vicenza, bishop of Vasone, your major-domo, here in the house of the queen of Cyprus, the sister of Cornaro, has placed in my hands your brief. And since it was given to him with certain commandments, he has told me all that you told him to tell me: how even the event of a quartermaster of Rhodes becoming Pope and the Pope a prisoner did not so amaze you as the fact that I had lacerated your name in my writings, especially since I knew why it was you did not punish those others for their attempted assassination of me.7 Holy Father, in all things, my heart has always been in agreement with my tongue; but in touching your honor, its fidelity always has protested that there was no blame in its reproof of you. But if those who have gained the heights of greatness by your aid have outraged you with their deeds, is it any marvel if I have injured you with my idle words? I feel repentance and shame for two things. I repent the fact that I have blamed that Pope whose glory 65I always held dearer than my life; and I am ashamed that, if I had to blame you, it should have happened in the heat of your misfortunes. But that fate which locked you in the Castello would not have been the worst, if it had not made you my enemy once more. As it is, I thank God who has taken from your mind the harshness of contempt and from my pen the sweetness of revenge. For the future, I shall be the good servant I was when my virtue, feeding on your praise, armed itself against Rome in the vacancy of the seat of Leo,8 and my conduct shall be such that the Most Serene Gritti, whose modesty has interposed between your patience and my fury, shall have cause to reward, rather than to punish me. In the meanwhile, with the very best wishes, I kiss Your Holiness’ sacred feet with the same tenderness of heart with which I have kissed them in the past.

From Venice, the 20th of September, 1530.

FOOTNOTES

8 Hutton, pp. 73 ff.

9 See Hutton, Chapter III.

XI To COUNT MANFREDO DI COLLALTO

Thanking Him for a Gift of Thrushes.

Dining, signor, the other day with some friends on a mess of hares that had been torn by dogs, and which the Captain Giovan Tiepoli had sent me, I was so pleased that I decided “Gloria prima lepus” was a saying worthy of being posted up in the hypocrites’ choir on feast days, in place of the “Silentium” which a garrulous friar tacks up over the monks’ quarters. And while their praises were going “caeli caelorum,” one of your lackeys came along and brought me your thrushes; and as I tasted them, I found myself humming the “Inter aves turdus.” They were so good, indeed, that our master Titian, upon seeing them on a platter and getting a whiff of them with his nostrils, gave one look at the snow which, while the table was being laid, was falling outside and decided to disappoint a group of gentlemen who were giving him a dinner party. And they all gave great praise to the 66bird with the long beak which, boiled with a bit of dried beef, two leaves of laurel and a pinch of pepper, we ate from love of you and because we liked it. We liked it as well as Fra Mariano, Moro dei Nobili, Proto da Luca, Brandino and the Bishop of Troy liked the ortalans, fig-peckers, pheasants, peacocks and lampreys with which they filled their stomachs, with the consent of their cooks’ souls and that of the mad and knavish stars which had given them such big bellies — bellies that were gourmands’ treasuries and paradises of fine viands; which was the idea of high life that such asses had. But woe to the fine art of poltroonery, if all of us had been born sage and sober! For doctrine, sobriety, and wisdom are a cloak in the wind of princes. Happy is he who is a bit mad, and who, in his madness, pleases himself and others! Certainly, Leo had a nature that ran from extreme to extreme, and it would not be for every one to judge which delighted him most, gifts or the chatter of his buffoons; and this is proved by the fact that he gave as much heed to one as the other, exalting one as well as the other. And when he would say to me: “Whose servant would you rather have been” (you know that I was his servant) “Virgil’s or the poet-laureate’s?” I would reply: “The laureate’s, master; for he, drinking by himself in the Castello in July, had more good hot toddies9 than Sire Maro could have gotten if he had written two thousand fawning Aeneids and a million Georgics. For there is no doubt that the great masters love strong-drinkers better than good-versifiers. I commend myself to Your Lordship.

From Venice, the 10th of October, 1532.

FOOTNOTES

10 il vin temperato con l’ acqua calda..

XII To THE KING OF FRANCE

In Which He Thanks Him for the Gift of a Chain of Gold.11

SIRE, your gift is so in keeping with the most Christian Francis, and so of the very essence of liberality, that, as to 67earthly things, you wold almost rival God in my thanks, if I thanked you with haste; for true courtesy walks with its own feet, while a limping pretence goes with those of ambition. Men who are tossed on the sea or struck down on land are accustomed to turn to Christ, and when his goodness, in response to their zealously ardent hearts and faithful feet, suddenly frees them from peril, they are wont to hang up their votive offerings in his temples. And so, the virtuous, devoured by their necessities, turn to you, and Your Highness thus becomes the second God of the peoples. But gifts are so slow in coming to those who receive them that they are like placing food before a man who has gone without eating for three days; when he goes to break his fast, he finds that he cannot touch what is set before him, and so either dies or is in danger of it. Behold, it is three years now since you promised me a five-pound gold chain, and I could not have been more doubtful of the coming of the Messiah of the Jews, when along it came, with its vermilion-tinted tongues and with the inscription:

LINGUA EIUS LOQUETUR MEDACIUM12

By God! if a lie does not sit better in my mouth than the truth in the mouth of a cleric. I suppose, if I were to tell you that you are to your people what God is to the world, and that you are a father to your little sons, I should be telling a lie? If I told you that you have all the rare virtues, bravery and justice and clemency and gravity and magnanimity and a knowledge of things, I should be a liar? If I told you that you know how to rule yourself to the amazement of all, should I not be speaking the truth? If I told you that your subjects feel your power more in the benefits they receive than in the injuries they suffer, should I be speaking evil? If I cry out that you are the father of virtue, the brother of your servants, the little son of religion, the companion of the faith and the support of charity, shall I not be speaking 68well? If I proclaim that the great merit of your valor moves others in their love to make you the heir of the kingdom, shall you oppose me? It is true, that if I cared to brag of this present of the collar as a present, I should be lying, because that cannot be called a “gift” which, devoured by hope in the expectation, is no sooner seen than sold. And so, if I did not know that your kindness is without measure and innocent in intent, if I were not resolved to believe that I have always enjoyed it, I should tear out all these linked tongues and make them ring so that the ministers of the royal treasuries would hear them for days to come, in order that they might learn to send in haste what their king gives quickly.13 But as I know there is no deceit in your loyalty, I ought not to be contemptuous in my own virtue, which shall always be the humble prattle of the ineffable benignity of Your Majesty, in whose grace Christ keep me.

From Venice, the 10th of November, 1533.

FOOTNOTES

11 The famous one. See Introduction.

12 See my note on the De Sanctis passage regarding this inscription.

13 Aretino was under the impression that Francis’ agents had held up the gift.

XIII To THE CARDINAL IPPOLITO DE’ MEDICI

He Wishes to Go to Constantinople.

Since I am under obligations, my lord, to the courtesy of the king of France and to that of the Cardinal Ippolito, who have relieved me somewhat of the necessities I experience, on account of the envy with which my enemies have conquered the kindness of His Holiness — since I am under such obligations as these, I should not think of going to Constantinople, whither the liberality of Gritti14 draws me and my own poverty drags me, if it were not that you already have done what you could in my behalf, as I have asked you, with His Majesty; but since he disdains to do anything for me in that direction, I shall go on serving you with the same heart with which a just man serves his God. And so, Aretino, 69a veracious man, except in the reproofs which reasons all too bitter have caused him to make our lord,15 an old man and a wretched one, must needs go to seek his bread in Turkey, leaving to the happy Christians the pimps, flatterers and hermaphrodites, tools of princes, who, closing their eyes to the example which your own royal nature gives them, live only by begging the goods which you scatter with so lavish a hand, at all times and in all places. With your permission, then, I, who have redeemed the truth with my own blood, will go there and, while others show the ranks, entree and favors they have acquired through their vices at the court of Rome, I will show the wounds which I have received for my virtues, the sight of which, though it never has moved these lords to pity, will move those savages to compassion. And Christ, who to some great end has saved me so many times from death, shall be with me always, because I have held to his truth; and moreover, I am not Pietro, but a miraculous monster among men.16 In this faith, I alone wear my heart on my forehead,17 where all the world may see the respect I bear you. I know that, by leaving, I am wronging your own greatness of heart, despairing of that grace of yours with which you console the afflicted. But the reason lies in the fear which the years bring to me, and the suspicion that I have the ill will of some who, being unable to forgive me for the wounds they have made me suffer, may, it is possible, cause your warm will towards me to grow cold. Besides, I plan to go on preaching in the Orient, as I have preached here, until the peoples that do not know reverence shall revere you. In divorcing myself from Italy, perhaps forever, I do not lament the reasons which have led to my exile, but, rather, the fact that I have been able to leave behind me no testimonial of the love I bear you, as I do leave behind me the hatred I 70bear to others; although I am comforted by the hope that I shall be able, in my new lot, to supply the old lack of fortune. May God consent, before I die, that I may be able to repay that courtesy of yours which has come voluntarily to aid me in my needs. I speak with a sincere soul, stripped of all fraud and adulation — which only make me miserable, so great is my abhorrence for them, though others are happy in practicing them.

From Venice, the 19th of December, 1533.

FOOTNOTES

14 The natural son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was his father’s representative at Constantinople, and who wrote urging Pietro to come to him that he might enjoy “that charming conversation of yours.” See Introduction.

15 The Pope.

16 per esser io non pur Pietro, ma un miraculoso mostro degli uomini..

17 Cf. Cicero’s Catalinarian: Sit inscriptum in fronte unius cuiusque quid le republica sentiat.

XIV To VERGERIO

In Which He Speaks of the Avarice of Clement VII. and of the Liberality of Francis I.

It was with great consolation that I received Your Lordship’s two letters, and they were all the more gratifying because unexpected; for when one begins mingling with prelates, he becomes like them, and it is all the greater miracle to find that Vergerio is the same Vergerio I used to know, and to perceive that he has not become, as I should have done, the apprentice18 and good fellow of the priests. On the contrary, I discover the same gentle and lovable Pietro Paolo that you have always been, with me and with all; and so, I am glad, rather than sorry, for the transformation from the first profession to the second, since if self-preservation were the essence of good, I should have said you were better off at the Venetian than at the Roman court. But if you persevere, as I see you are doing, in the ways of a righteous man, I judge your choice most wise, for, of a truth, you are playing time against a larger hope. But to return to your letters, in which you speak to me of the worthy merits of the best king of the Romans, I may say that I have already been informed of them by my friend, the Duke d’ Atri. His Excellency has given me a long story of 71His Highness’ kindness, his religion and his liberality, and how he brings to the office of prince more kindness, more religion and more faith than are to be found anywhere else in the world. And it is by just such a path as this that King Francis ascends, without whose courtesy every species of virtue would be a species of divine progeny abandoned by heaven. Lest it may appear that I am praising His Majesty for his gift of a collar, I would have you see what he has done for the divine Luigi Alamanni, for Giulio Camillo, for my friend, Alberto, and for so many other fine spirits. He entertains painters, rewards sculptors and contents musicians. And in case your lordship should ever go to Nizza for an interview, you will see there the strangest miracle that was ever heard of. As Gaurico, a prophet after the fact, speaking of my chain of tongues, says: the liberality of Francis is such that if only the pontiff could see it, it would convert even his innate misery and incomprehensible avarice into prodigality. Oh! would not that be a greater miracle than any Gilberto ever wrought? By God, if his immense and royal courtesy could only turn Clement into a Leo! O God, what a fine life it would be, if the Holy Father, like a chameleon, were to put on the colors of a truly Christian mind! But have I nothing to say to you? The herd of Pasquins is afraid that the king, by dealing with the Pope, may transform himself into one, from which God save us! And, while I have succeeded in getting out of him this fantasy, he was more stubborn about it than is the Cardinal de’ Medici in giving to the well-deserving all that he has, all that he hopes to have or ever had; and all these follies, I may tell you, he commits in order that he may be imitated by other princes. But I hope to Christ he does not thereby acquire for himself an envy that will rob him of his life and rob the virtuous of their support.

From Venice, the 20th of January, 1534.

FOOTNOTES

18 We have here almost our modern slang phrase, “be the goat”: che io sia alievo dei preti. Alievo is also a foal or a calf.

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XV To MONSIGNOR GUIDICCIONE

He Would Not Serve in the Papal Court.

I, Elegant Spirit, wondered more, when I read a letter of Bernardi’s about my coming to take service in the papal court, than the good folks would have wondered, if Farnese had not risen to that rank which the deceits of simony and of men had forbidden him for so many years. And I may tell your Most Celebrated Lordship that, being prey to a most malignant fever and being wholly occupied in my bed, I was shown an article in which Monsignor Giovanbattista exhorted me to proclaim the merits of His Holiness, who had been made pontiff by divine will and not by human favor. At that time, quite appropriately, they brought me my Salmi from the press; whereupon I, to show that I had not need to be exhorted to praise so just an old man, directed Ricchi to send you one of these books. Then, moved by I do not know what impulse, I commissioned him to ask you, in my name, to obtain from his Holiness a letter of friendship, and I told him twice to make clear to you that I was not seeking this in order to come out scot-free, nor because I wished to come to Rome nor for any reason at all, except to have the means of enjoying a little pleasure once a month. And as it seemed to me that what I asked should not be denied to the Rector Arlotto, I waited. As to the fact that Messer Agostino, who has gone to Lucca, had published a work in his usual manner, I was in no wise to blame. From this error, I have drawn both pleasure and displeasure. It pleased me because it brought me a letter from you, dearer to me than those of kings; and it displeased me because I knew you had been pained not by the thought of how you were going to satisfy the desire you thought was mine, but by the reflection that you had not yet been able to accomplish it. And for all of this, I thank you, with my heart and with my soul. I am writing to His Excellency, the Signor Pier Luigi. God knows, I have always been his servant, and 73when the devil takes me and makes a servant out of a free man, I would sooner serve him than the Father, because I am used to camps; from soldiers I have had honors and money, and from priests insults and robberies. And I would sooner be confined in a prison for ten years than in a palace with Accursio, Sarapica and Troiano.19 What my friends eat in my house is worth more than what I hoped to get at court, and the clothes I wear on my back are better than those Ganymedes ever saw. To conclude, please put a stop to any movement that may have been started to bring me back to Rome, for I would not live there with St. Peter, himself, much less with his successor. I am, indeed, grateful for being remembered by so great a pastor, whose Holiness, I know, will deign to read two or three pages of my Vita di Cristo, which will be out soon. I implore you, in case you happen to speak with the innately good and virtuous del Molza, to remember me to him.

From Venice, the 15th of January, 1535.

FOOTNOTES

19 Papal favorites.

XVI To SIGNOR BINO SIGNORELLI

Of Giovanni delle Bande Nere.

I, Captain, in the news of the two victories which, in open stockade, having taken one of his adversaries and slain the other, Messer Antonnino has obtained, have taken, as I believe, not only as much pleasure as all the numerous friends and relatives he has, but, it seems to me, even more, since my pleasure is increased by the fact that he has proved his own valor to himself. But why is not Giovanni de’ Medici living yet? Why is he not here to complete our consolation by letting us see him reap the rewards of his own glorious virtues and his glorious deeds? It is a great thing that we now see not only his nobles, but even the stewards and butlers who once served him, become illustrious captains! Everybody knows his grooms, his light horse and his men of 74arms, and the latter, in whatever position they are placed, shine like the most resplendent cavalieri. Nevertheless, it is a fine boast which Francesco Maria, among so many others, may make, that, fierce lord that he was, by reason of his kindness as well as because of his merits as a grand duke, the riders of His Excellency were reverenced, not merely obeyed. Tell me, you who, since death separated you from his regal conversation and he schooling of his invincible actions, have sought out and conversed with an infinite variety of soldier — tell me if you have found a complexion so generous, so affable and so regardful of honor, necessity and the blood of his followers? Do you not weep when you chance to remember how you felt when he used to share with us his horses, his money and even his garments? Do you not fall to weeping when you think how you were always his friend and companion? For my part, I always looked upon his outbursts of anger as a manifestation of the greatness of his nature, and nothing more; and the world knows that whoever was not a coward could look into his heart and share with him his rule. How many have wanted to usurp his name through the bravura of their slaughterings? Every occurrence that moved him to speak came from his nature and his custom; and he alone it was who looked upon brave men as riches. How often have I seen them at his feet, wounded, famished and alone, and then, in three hours’ time, lodged, provided with horses and servants, clothed and well fed! He was the true interpreter of the military physiognomy, and in the lines of his face and forehead could be read a comprehension of the animosities and the vileness of others. For this reason, being our brother and accepted by the grace of his friendship as a gentleman, he could not but conquer whomsoever he fought with; and always, when I hear the fame of his deeds, I feel that they are dear to me but not new. And now, may Your Highness be moved to command me in any way in which I may delight or serve you.

From Venice, the 28th of April, 1535.

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XVII To THE DIVINE MOLZA

On the Death of the Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici.

Who ever would have believed, brother, that I would have to praise the fate which drove me from Rome; and yet, if it had not been for that, would the kindness of my faith and the tenderness of my nature ever have been made at home with the ineffable affability of him who, betrayed by the invincible courtesies of his own royal nature, is now dead? My sorrow at having known him and having taken his gifts is even greater than my joy in having known him and having received them. For if I had not known him, or the taste of his liberality, his countenance, which shall always remain fixed in my mind, would not afflict me as it now does; nor would the obligation I feel for the good he has done me be now moving me, as it does move me, to render suitable gratitude to his memory. But if I, who barely saw him and rarely enjoyed his presents, thinking of the misery of chance, suffered an insufferable grief, how much greater should be that which consumes you, who, with the keys of your dignities opening to you at every hour the doors of that magnanimous breast, ministered to his soul? It seems to me impossible — it seems to me you have to be more than a man, if you bore without grief the absence of that celestial face, in which health-bringing atmosphere the hopes of all were nourished — of all who knew how to hope in the benignity of his works. I am amazed at the method of Death in outraging an immortal personality. Surely, when she saw in his mind the preparations of his fine virtues, she ought to have drawn back her weapons against the one who provoked her to so inhuman an office. Alas! tell me, out of the divinity of your spirit, to which it was permitted to penetrate all the profundities of his heart: what were the splendors of those places in which he lodged the excellences of his generosity? Tell me: how was the room of the love he bore his friends furnished? Tell me: how was that nest built in which he 76received the miseries of the virtuous? Tell me: how did he dwell in his own ardent valor? Describe to me the inns in which he sojourned his charity, his benignity and his religion. Point out to me the footprints which his graces, promenading always about the world, have left. Ah, unheard of wickedness! Ah, mad Tuscan!20 Ah, unjust mind! Why did you offend one who not only had not offended you, but who, with his own splendors, had made your life resplendent? But what influences are those of the heavens? Those influences struggle because they comprehend the power of the fatal effects of such a deed; and as thought they envied him, they consent that fortune, in the flowering of the years, shall make us cruelly lack, as we have lacked, this refuge of the rare virtues. But you who, thanks to the charity with which the stars have used you, are in a position to give life to others, do you avenge the outrages which have been done to us by death and destiny, and, feeding with the food of eternity the name of the one who was the nourishment to all the necessities of you and others, give cause to every prince to receive under his roof the familiars of the muse; for it is clear that the memory of such a lord commends itself to their pages. But as those lords who rejoice in the riches of Christ imitate the footsteps of the eternal Cardinal de’ Medici, so by your own and other intellects shall be satisfied the excessive debt which every generation owes itself. And this and no other is the light in which the matter is viewed by Rome, which from century to century shames the courts by reproving their supreme magnificences.

From Venice, the 20th of August, 1535.

FOOTNOTES

20 Referring to the Cardinal’s slayer.

XVIII To THE COUNT MASSIMILIANO STAMPA

On the Death of Francesco Il Sforza.

The duke is dead, and one must believe that such an event has taken with it, not only your happiness, but also a part of 77your soul, since you were nourished by the same milk and so were, in a manner, joined in one flesh, even as you always were one in will. But you should find peace in the thought that human privileges are those sorrows which afflict every one living, and which God permits so that we may trust solely in Him. And upon thinking well of your adversity, you should thank fate which has taught you to know heaven and to make sport of the world. Furthermore, if I, who am so weak in spirit, have suffered, at one stroke, three blows of fate, what reason is there that you, who are so strong, should not be able to make your peace with grief, since you have suffered but one? Fell first, struck down by a bullet, the great Luigi Gritti; following him, laid low by poison, our only Cardinal de’ Medici; and now, as though to ruin me under the weight of misfortunes, comes the end of His Excellency. He, after all, should be happy, who, a wanderer from the sage of six, and knowing exile before he knew his native land, after so many confusions, so many accidents of war, disease, and famine, after so many travails on the part of his followers and all the afflictions which the necessity of the times has imposed on his people, was able, in the quietest State that could be desired, in the warmest love that Milan could bear him, in all security and with the friendship of Caesar, as well as the grace of all Italy, to render up his spirit to Him who gave it; and so, without noise, without fear and without hatred, he has left to the succession the most just, the loftiest and the most fortunate emperor that ever was. All praise and all glory be given to Francesco Sforza, who, in the virtue of his own bosom, kicking fortune under heel, had the happiness both to die in his native land and to die a prince. Therefore, signor mio, cheer with that accustomed serenity of yours the hearts of those who revere you even as I revere you; and may your comfort be the felicity in which so great a one has left you. Show to His Majesty that you are as much pleased with the State you have come into as you are grieved at the loss of him; and rejoice in the 78inviolable faith which he always reposed in you, when he was emboldened to receive you into the lap of his divine favor. May your consolation be the report which comes, from the tongues of the soldiery, the learned and the nobility, of your courtesy, which is your trumpet everywhere; and giving no heed to the devastations of time, rout fate and bury death, permitting your thoughts to return to their original state. And do not any longer mingle the bitter with the sweet of life, since you are naturally the friend of gladness. There lies the sacred body of the best of dukes; give him an honored sepulchre and see that his spirit is paid the rites that are its due, recalling that, since he made you in his image, it is not fitting that his name should go unremembered. Look at me, I do not vary with the variations of fortune; and even if the rank which your liberality has made me hope for should fail me, I shall not fail every to celebrate him dead, as you living, since the object of the devotion that I fell for Massimiliano is not reward. I am what I always was, and the stars may make me miserable, but they shall not make me a liar. I, in my last letter, which was filled with sorrowful forebodings, wrote you of the variable end of things, and how the finest of pomps fade into mist. I concluded by promising such stability as ink can give, and you shall have the work I promised. Be at peace and, being at peace, thank Christ who has made you what you are.

From Venice, the 25th of November, 1535.

XIX To THE GREAT ANTONIO DA LEVA VASONE

In Which Comforts Him for the Death of His Little Daughter, Giovanna.

Your Excellency ought not to marvel at the theft of your little daughter, which heaven has committed by the hand of death, nor should you raise an eyelash at what the continuous accidents of evil bring. You should rather be astonished if adversity does not assail you, since every grave occurrence 79of that sort comes from God, who does not consent that men shall be his companions, as you, whose glory illuminated the world, were, unless they are oppressed by those sufferings to which the title of “most blessed” might be given — not merely “blessed.” Alas! Your honored daughter is dead; but is that any miracle? Did she not have to die? Was she not born for that purpose? Must we not make way fro those who come? Has not Christ shared this lot with us? And if she had not died, by what way should she have gone to paradise? And if all this is so, is weeping worthy of your soul? A little earth, which resolved itself into earth again, does not merit tears. And if that flesh which you loved so tenderly brings you affliction, comfort your self with the thought that she is now in the lap of her Maker. And while the captains of the eternal militia rejoice as they hear sung the deeds of their great father, the angels also are glad at seeing her come back to them, as beautiful, as pure and as gleaming as she left. But what am I saying? Neither son nor daughter of yours has died, for your true sons cannot die, since fame, the soul of noble names, is the consort of your valor, and Giovanna and the others cannot take away your victories and your triumphs. Let, then, your grandsons be praises and honors, and, after them, armies and the peoples whom you rule and conquer. Your blood-children are merely yours by nature and have nothing to do with your immortality. Look to that which lasts forever, and not to that which lasts but an hour. And when pain perturbs your breast, turn your thoughts to yourself; console yourself by thinking of yourself alone, and say: “I am.” And saying that, you shall shine once more in your proper spirit as a divine being. There is little doubt that Antonio is more God than man, since if he were more man than God, he would not, from a private citizen, have become a prince, and from a mortal an immortal. His dignity takes from Alexander the glory of being born a king and is like Caesar’s in that he is not called emperor; for it was virtue and not

[80]

Black and white lithograph by the Marquis de Bayros, of a nude man carrying a nude girl, with a large angel behind them.

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fortune that crowned Caesar in the same world that shall crown you. And that will not be long, so soon as you shall have looked into yourself and seen there all that is to be seen. The fortunate Augustus should regard it as a felicity to have as his devoted servant the good Leva, without whose counsels and without whose arms His Majesty would not make any impression. But he has done much without His Majesty, and has been so fortunate that history, which commemorates him, shall be no less astonished than Milan is astonished now — astonished to see itself come back under the sway of your calm prudence, which shall acquit it for whatever misfortunes it may have suffered in the past through the iniquity of the times, misfortunes which, with his universal peace, Charles V shall set right again, to whose empire no limits can be fixed. Since he alone knows how to fight and how to conquer, there is no reason why you should not return laden with all the spoils of the Orient. Do this, and your season of grief shall end, wars shall be disposed of, faith shall appear again and justice shall take up her abode with us once more. And religion, by the aid of Caesar, being more revered than ever, the universe shall give itself to building temples to him, consecrating statues and erecting votive shrines. And since His Highness never has been able, never has desired, to act without your mind, you shall participate in those celestial pre-eminences which the peoples shall give him, placing him among the number of the gods, along with your own divine Excellency, whose kindness is consolation to the hopes of all who deserve to hope in you.

From Venice, the last day of November, 1535.

[Letters XX-XXXIX]

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 80-116.

[80]

Black and white lithograph by the Marquis de Bayros, of a nude man carrying a nude girl, with a large angel behind them.

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THE LETTERS OF PIETRO ARETINO

Letters XX-XXXIX

XX To THE EMPEROR

Concerning the New War between Francis I and Charles V.

Having always looked upon Your Majesty as nearer to God than any man that ever was, it being a property of God 82to give ear to the prayers of servants, as much as to the vows of princes, I hasten to salute the faith, the religion, the piety, the fortune, the mercy, the kindness, the prudence and the valor of Your Highness with this, my own. And if this paper had a soul, I should prefer it to all the glorious ones of antiquity, since it is to be not only read but touched by the trued friend of Christ, Charles the august, to whose merits all the universe must bow. And if it is true that God, to make room for his own merits, enlarged the world, then he ought also to raise the heavens, since there is not room enough in all the air for the flight of your fame. Who can but believe that the divine grace,s reposed in Moses, in Joshua and in David (who conquered with their prayers and with their arms) are infused in your own most lofty breast, as well as lodged in that blind fury which overwhelms the armies that move against you. I, O Caesar, should liken you to a torrent, swollen with rains, snows and sun-melted ice, swallowed by the fields that think they are drinking, while your own superb course is making a bed of them. It ell you that this new onslaught shall disappear, as every one else that is made upon you always does disappear, and as every race, every banner and every name that contends with you shall disappear, for who fights with Caesar fights with God, and who fights with God confounds himself, and he who annuls his own being remains nothing. Since every one who persecutes you falls into the river, why doubt of the happy outcome of your fortunes? I kiss that sacred hand of yours, adored by all who know it through faith, through liberality and through the power of arms.

From Venice, the 10th of March, 1536.

XXI To THE GREAT ANTONIO DA LEVA

On the Same Subject.

This is the last step, O ardent soul, by which that name of yours shall attain the end of human honors. The hour has 83now come in which that clear mind of yours, armed with its own proper counsels. Shall teach the army how to fight, in fighting how to conquer, and in conquering how to triumph. You are now at the point where glory may be laid hold of, if you must be immortal. It is a great thing to say, and one almost impossible to believer, that leisure is pain to you and labor is repose! Whose body, except yours, ever languished in peace and grew well in war? God does all things well, and so, he restrains you better than with an indisposition; and if he did not do this, you would be lording it over the kingdom of Mars, whose executor you are. And if any one doubts that there is a man born with such qualities, he has but to regard the results which always issue form your spirited genius. You make the banners of pertinacity and terror tremble, you move peoples with your prudence and your valor, and you open a path through difficulties by the virtue of your arms. It is certain that every victory brings its doubts, but in an imperial victory there is none; and even if there were, they would be reassured by the wise foresight of Your Excellency, who should be greatly rejoiced at the fact that His Majesty, having merely heard of the things you have done in his service, has taken you into the heart of his grace, and so, what reward will he bestow for the works which you shall do in his own high presence? Your good sense will produce the greatest effect in his eyes; that effect, indeed, will appear superhuman, inasmuch as it will be wrought in the face of the strongest obstacles. The fact that you are never relied upon in vain is what feeds the fame of your honors. You are like the lion, which sometimes takes its prey among the smaller animals. This war should be to you as, in ancient times, was the Piazza di Navona, in the middle of which was erected a stake which the Roman youth assailed every day with a stick, for no other purpose than to exercise their robust arms, that they might be able to put a yoke on the world’s neck. One lives, so long as he has a sword in his hand, on the point of which rests promotion, 84fame and the praises of those who are wise enough to follow in your footsteps — steps which lead to the heavens.

From Venice, the 4th day of June, 1536.

XXII To CAESAR21

Praises.

Those warm thanks, sovereign emperor, which one who has attained his desires renders to Christ, I render to the celestial benignity of Your Majesty, who not only have deigned to receive my unworthy letters, but who have, by the integrity of your promises, snatched away the poverty of my hopes. O greatest ruler of the peoples and of kingdoms, truly, you are the only monarch who show that you are made in the image of God; for you are the only one who transcends the stars with the feathers of humility; you alone of kings make inviolable the laws of religion; you alone of princes arm yourself for the honor of Jesus; you alone of lords do not despise human generosity, but, as though each were the nearest of kin, you embrace us and, in doing so, relieve us of that fear in which the most just dagger of your eternal power holds the depravity of the erring. And so it was, Rome, trembling, feared the face of her conqueror; but soon, perceiving that her own virtue and fate lay in a valorous prudence, better armed with simplicity than with steel, she began to adore you, giving, after Jesus, praises and glory to you alone, as did the other cities through which you passed, which you, in grace and in love, made the companions of your mercy, so that they took the palm of affability from all others and gave it to you. It is a great thing that, while the Caesars of old, with all their counsels and arms, sweated five centuries and a half in the pacification of the state of Italy, you have taken possession in a day; and where your strength ends, your kindness begins, by means of which you dominate minds no less than nations. I, O 85Caesar, who soil your high deeds with my low words, do so that I may boast of having written to one who is elected to immortality; for when you are enshrined among the deities, it will be permitted me to do so no longer, and I shall then have to bring votive offerings, rather than send letters. For, in short, it cannot be denied that Your Majesty merits altars and sacrifices, and that you have your place in the sky with the other gods. Nevertheless, it would seem to writers that your rare deeds can not last throughout the world unless record is made of them, and they say that pens and tongues, armed with a steel and a fire that always cuts and always burns, are adapted, fighting for your honors, to enlarge the confines of your name as much as your captains do the bounds of your empire. Sane and highest, on every occasion, is the judgment of Caesar, but not to bait ink with gifts defeats itself, leaving the duty to those who have need of the preachings of others. Alexander the Great, on viewing the tomb of Achilles, sighed with envy for the hero of song, desiring such an honor for himself and feeling that his own deeds had more fame than glory. And so that first Caesar, who wrote commentaries in his own praise, hiding behind the grandeur of his style many things, may have stolen some of his splendor from those who did not write. But since your Divine Majesty knows that falsehood is the mother of history, which, by its nature, adds to that which was and is, having honors which are enough for all future ages, you should see to it that your miracles, handed down from generation to generation as the legitimate heritage of men, go on living by your own virtues, and not by the say-so of others. And so I look forward to consoling myself with your august courtesy, without which my writings would be obliged to pay you usury. And I here kiss those unconquered hands, destined to place the chains of servitude on the arms of all the Orient.

From Venice, the 4th of June, 1536.

FOOTNOTES

21 Charles V. This, or Augustus, is Aretino’s usual adulatory term.

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XXIII To MESSER GIORGIO D’ AREZZO

Descriptions of the Preparations for the Coming of Charles V to Florence.

If, after Xerxes the king had been conquered, you had been there when Paul sent to the Athenians for a philosopher to teach his sons and a painter to decorate his chariot, he would have invited you and not Metrodorus, for you are historian, poet, philosopher and painter. I am one of those who would not be able to describe to you in a thousand years the order of Caesar’s triumph, nor the pomp of the peoples and the arches, even if I had that dexterity of ornate words with which you have written me. I, for my part, see in your letter the two great colonnades with the “Plus ultra” across them; I see the monsters painted on the bases; I see the epigram, with the eagle above it and that falsehood which bites the tongue while it sustains the arms of His Majesty. I see the edifice of the great gate and the diligenzia of Barticino; I see the tumult which the innumerable princes make as they follow the august Charles. I see the pontifically most reverend ones with our Lord Alexander who go to meet him. I see, also, with what dexterity he dismounts form his horse, presenting the hearts and the keys of Florence. I hear him saying to His Highness; “And this, and this, which I hold, is yours.” I see the throng of pages on the imperial horses and my sight is dazzled by the tremulous gleam of golden aglets with which the drapes of the Florentine youth are bristling. I see the two beadles whose custom it is to remain in front of the Emperor, and the cavalierizzo with the sword of his justice; and I bow to His Excellency as, in my mind’s eye, I see him between the Duke d’ Alba and the count di Benevento. I do not see the prelates who are with Caesar, because I do not have an eye that can see priests, saving the grace of my friend Marzi. I see the arco del Canto at the Cuculia. I see the august hilarity and read the titles on all the equipages. I see all the devices of 87the mother-in-law of our Lord. I see the figure of Piety with the two fat cherubs upon it. I see the figure of Strength and about it the cuirasses and the helmets; and of all the inventions, I am pleased with the liberality of the horn, from which flows crowns, among them that of the king of the Romans and that of the king of Tunis, but the other, which appears half out, belongs rather to our day. I see Faith with cross in hand and the vase at her feet, and the words are divine; and the arch with the eagle and the inscription appears to me tremendous. I find unique the story in which is figured the flight of the Turks, and the coronation of Ferdinand is very fine, and even more beautiful from the fact that Caesar is present. I see, on the other side, the bound prisoners with their barbarous faces, the strange habits on their heads, and their varied gestures; and I give great thanks to the father and to the son who so graciously have brought together this great mass. But that flight of horse on the facade of San Felice is marvelous. I see Faith and Justice, bare swords in hand, hunting down Barbarossa. I see the dead under the terrible horses. I see the painting which is a design of Asia and the sculpture which is a sketch of Africa. I see on the base the car filled with spoils and trophies. I see the sweating of the lads who, in accordance with ancient usage, bear the litter. I see the king of Tunis in a coronation history. I see victories with their most gracious epigrams, with all the beauty that there is above and below, and it seems to me that I am one of those who have stopped with upturned face to admire the miraculous work. I see the via Maggia, the ponte a Santa Trinita and the strada del Canto and the Cuculia, all filled with crowds in bizarre attitudes. Beyond this, I see being brought to perfection the new fabrica. I see the wood, thanks to your brush, not different from variegated stones. I see Hercules strangling the hydra, and I feel sure that the living one was not so robust, nor so short-necked, nor so full of nerves, nor so thick with muscles as that which has issued from the gifted hands of my friend, 88Tribolo. I see, near the ponte Santa Trinita the river d’ Arno, like bronze, and I perceive that it is raining the same waters. I see the other rivers, and Bagradas of Africa, and the Iber of Spain. The spoil of the serpent brought to Rome is natural, as are the horns of plenty and the letters; but one should know that they are from the hands of Tribolo. I should like the second palm to be given to Friar de’ Servi, since he is a disciple of the master, and since it is characteristic of most friars to be able to do nothing but kill their soup. Now the Wolf mountain in the river of Germany and of Pannonia is borne by no other than a man of merit, and the bases of this work which are wrought in so delicate a manner, are not new to me. I am sorry the aforesaid exquisite Tribolo did not have time, or he surely would have done such a horse of fate that the one by Leonardo at Milan would be forgotten. I see the Victory, palm in hand and with the bat’s wings, at the corner of the Strozzi; and if I did not have a very good stomach, I would vomit at seeing that bean-faced Victory with the swollen arm. And yet, I tell you, the one who did it is prouder than the emperor, in whose honor such marvels are made. But it’s the truth that the most stupid always get ahead by having more money than reputation. I see the colossus clad in the golden fleece, and his gleaming sword strikes me with fear. I see the trophies and I read the histories painted on the base with the Jason, an impression of His Majesty, but the big fat friar would burst if he did not make it clear to others that he is the friar in this Morgantaccio of his. I see above the portal of Santa Maria del fiore the inscription between the two great eagles with the grotesques; and I know how much praise they merit for having come from Giorgio, the pilgrim intellect. I lose myself, upon entering the church, in the splendor of the lights reverberating in the gold of the draperies. I see the Justice and the Prudence in the via dei Martelli, much maltreated by the one who made them; as is the mondaccio, although it is the best of them. Meanwhile I 89re-create for myself the view in the Pace in the rear of the palace of the Medici, the arms lighted by the torch; and it was with good reason that in the most worthy place of the city this was the work the most praised. It was a happy thought to adorn with verdure the ornate casa, to make it look like a room of the woodland gods; and the parted foliage has I cannot tell you what appearance of sacredness and religion, which is well suited to the ardor of the heat. And, to conclude, I have seen all this in the sample of your work. To get an idea of the greatness of our leader, one must see such preparations as these. In short, it would not be possible to find more beautiful things nor ones more appropriate to the titles and the distichs in praise of the emperor.

From Venice, the 7th of June, 1536.

XXIV To THE CAVALIER MALVEZZI

In Praise of Friendship and Sincerity.

It has been many a day since I had a letter than moved me more than yours. And the gentle affection which issues from the kindness of your heart is evident to me in the words you write: it is a gift which your gentle blood has conferred upon you. It is a noble thing to love a woman, and it is divine to wish a virtuous man well, for love, directed to virtue, has in it something of the quality of God; it, moreover, endures forever and cannot be diminished by envy or jealousy. It is for this reason that I esteem great the love you bear me, not because my own merit is great, but because you make me worthy of it, since you appear to see in me the qualities of which I have spoken. But with what service, with what labor can I ever repay that cordial benevolence of yours? If I shall be able to repay it otherwise, I shall do so, but if not, good will will have to be paid in good will, and I shall endeavor to feel for you the affection you feel towards me. I thank you for having remembered me to Colonna; you really ought to call him Pompey the Great 90and to pride yourself also on having been his patron, since in all his deeds your own miraculous greatness shines with the most real splendor; just as I do not doubt will shine one day that bitter honesty with which I have followed the path of truth . . . I can only hope that the goodness of my nature will be confessed, from year to year, in the same manner in which you confess it, although, so far as the world is concerned, I might call myself happy if I could only be satisfied with a lie as I am with the truth. And yet the name which, with the just, I have acquired by being what I am, to me is infinite riches. I am one who will bear poverty sooner than he will a lie. But let him go. He will not find a pretext in the Marchesa di Pescara letter; nor, by rendering me incapable of sending him one with all my accustomed diligence, will he convince me that he is a veracious person. Who will ever believe that I am in the habit of begging? Such a mistake comes from my having judged that they were not worthy of true fame, having written them only upon occasion and familiarly. It is certain that they are deserving of little praise, and if they have any, they should attribute it to the courtesy of others. And I am not proud merely because i do not go to excess when I speak of them. And so, I await your wishes.

From Venice, the 10th of March, 1536.

XXV To SIGNOR DON LUIGI DA LEVA

In Which He Celebrates Antonio da Leva, Dead at Marseilles.

Since your great father has known so well how to live and how to die, put from you all overplus of grief, which merely places upon the shoulders of the heart the compassion of the flesh. And since his end has made room for your principality, commence, then, to exercise in the field of his merits the thoughts which he exercised in the pursuit of fame, with whose wings he has taken flight for all time over 91all the world. Bringing on his own death by going to France, he has willed to die at the peak of glory, as a thing that is blessed. Though God many years before had taken him from the commonalty of men, while consenting that his wonderful spirit should lodge in his members; for he, abandoning his body in the presence of his most lofty emperor, gave completely the last happy touch of his measureless virtues — those virtues which, with invincible hands, have wreathed laurel crowns for all the victories of Caesar. What life was ever more deserving of the death that the great Antonio met, who spent himself in the sight of Augustus and in the bosom of the most famous and most glorious of armies that the sun of our day ever saw? And that nothing might be lacking his praises, his honors, his fame and his glory have drawn tears from the eyes of Charles’ great Majesty. And his bones, surrounded by friendly armies, disdaining enemy soil, with terrible pomp, as though in the triumph that was his due, have been brought back to Italy as true relics by an ardent soldiery, all of which was a miracle to those generous souls who, with sane mind, recalled how even in the loss of his natural forces he had been able to win so many hopeless wars. Surely, future centuries will have cause for astonishment, when they hear from history how every prince who was revered and feared, revered and feared him. And I do not know if Alexander, raising himself from a base so low, attained a greater height. There is no confine in the summit of the heavens which has not heard his name. His effigy remains in the hearts of his soldiers who, laden with spoils and adorned with prayers, have borne his death with the same patience with which he supported his labors. Death could bring no fear to the intrepid heart of so great a captain, because he, used to meeting death in battle and at every hour, did not dread the latter’s terrors.

And now, let us speak of myself who, losing my genius in the infinity of his praise, am still unable to praise him; and hence, although I have been elevated by his beneficences, 92I am unable to get up the heat to speak of them, and I am ashamed not to speak of them. Surely, I should like to sculpt with my pen those virtues of his which never sighted anything so terrifying of aspect that they recoiled from doing what he thought to be useful and honorable. I should like also to paint a picture showing how the insolence of unexpected circumstance was never able to oppress him, circumstance being rather itself perturbed. He not only saw what was to come and what was to be fled, but perceiving it, he could not be deterred by any labor or peril from carrying out the work he had begun. It is well known that, in the course of military discipline, there was no task looked upon as difficult or impossible which he did not overcome; but always, with an invincible superiority, he removed enemies and fears from his path. His foresight, wrapped in its own proper spirit, took the palm from the readiest hands, the most audacious minds and the most robust beings that ever were.

From Venice, the 15th of November, 1536.

XXVI To SIGNOR ERCOLE, DUKE OF FERRARA

In Which He Describes the Delusion of the Venetians over the Delayed Arrival of the Duke.

If, the minds of men being like the wind, the wind had a form like men, I, Signor, would teach it to crucify those good folks who are awaiting your coming with the same bounding heart with which cardinals draw on the stockings of the Pope. How cruel it was on Sunday to see, on all the balconies of the Grand Canal, angels and archangels consuming themselves over the arrival of Your Excellency! And what compassion I felt at seeing myself there with all the tribes of Israel at table! My own fate was enough, which had kept me for a year and a half fixed in the hope of Your Highness’ coming; this was enough without any more. I survived the crush at the appearance of the queen and her consort, the 93duchess; but I was not able to do so at your entrance, for the uncomfortable and cursing crowd kept crying, “He’s coming!” and “He won’t come!” and “There he is! There he is!” like loafers at a race track. But above all, you brought anger to the legion of lads who were turning the synagogues upside-down, not to speak of the Jews who were trying to put them in order, the expense of which left wounds in their purses like those a friend leaves in the flesh. But if Aeolus, the cheat, who was the cause of all this, had not been possessed of the discretion of a priest, he would have had the good sense to quiet down and let you reach this paradise. I say paradise, for here you will not encounter any of those looks with which avaricious and insatiable Rome eats you alive; here, they will, rather, look at you with the light of kindness as they reverently place you in the seat of honor. You will see here not the bucentaur, but a theatre encircled, in the form of firm and lofty columns, by most just Brutuses and Catos; they court the serenity of their prince who, placed in the middle, appears to be the architect of feeling, and with the altitude of their countenances, they give laws and liberty to the world. You will see all this of which I am telling you, and we shall see, for once, a lord and not a mere executor of exequies, as a great master appears to me to be, who, with his balanced pomps, enters a city not to rejoice it but to render it disconsolate with his funereal shows. And perhaps you have found it necessary to draw the rapier or to lay a price on the head of subjects in order to re-embellish your court, as kings have to do? Certainly, Your Most Excellent Lordship has the favor of God, of fortune and of nature, which has lost no time in making you happy, before cold blood turns the generous mind of youth into a mercenary. Ah, well! come and, coming, accompany the superb pomp of your arrival with the splendor of liberality, for it is the breath of that voice which announces to all the world that you are here. Have no doubt of it, a triumph without the adornment of courtesy is not 94worth as much as one of those fine fellows in the piazza with a velvet coat on his back, a ragged jerkin and a rag-tag-and-bobtail of a family at his heels. For my part, I am more inclined to praise the brocade and fine cloth which with you appear to be the rooms and chambers of the mind, than those who in the ducal palace cause wonderment to be astonished. And so, come, whether the wind wills it or not.

From Venice, the 24th of January, 1537.

XXVII To THE SIGNOR ERCOLE, DUKE OF FERRARA

In Which He Thanks Him for a Distinguished Gift.

Your Highness, my lord, who excels every other prince in intellect and humanity, must for that very reason excuse me for not having come to make my reverence in your palace; since this has not been due to pride nor ingratitude nor ignorance, but purely to modesty and a knowledge of my own lowliness, which, while you were here, always succeeded in cooling the heat of my ardor, inspired by the obligations I feel toward you and the affection that I have for you, though my impulse was to run to your feet. And in any case, without merit as I am, I should have broken the bonds of respect if I had not restrained myself and been restrained by the multitude of your occupations, as well as by the fact that there was no one at hand properly to introduce me into your sight. Messer Nicolo Buonleo and Messer Agostin da Mosto will tell you faithfully with what submission I besought them that, when the proper time for kissing your hand had come, they would let me know; and when this was not done, I was convinced that my virtue was not dear to you. But the hundred gold ducats brought me by your ambassador here have fastened on me the snare of my servitude, and I shall ever after be faithful to you. And my faith has grown since it has been made clear to me that only the duke of Ferrara can equal the signor Ercole. For with all the glories which he may have acquired, a true prince ought to 95be master of himself and ought to propose and carry out those intentions which are in accord with his own will; he ought to receive into his grace those whom his own judgment selects, and with the gift of his own fantasy, he ought to do that which receives his own approbation, not that which is approved by his favorites. But to do tacit benefits to men is a pure act of God. Behold, his Caesarean Majesty made me a present six months before we were acquainted, and now Your Excellency has three times rewarded me, without knowing me at all. For my part, I esteem it a disgrace for one who knows to trumpet a century in the face of a villainous courtesy which slays the hope that expects but never receives it; and so, all too sweet is the pleasure which presents not hoped for give one. I have experienced this through your own tempered liberality, which I shall compensate with memories that may be eternal. As to the medallion, I am not sending it because a lord like you would deign to honor it with his eyes, but because it is a marvel of the miraculous workmanship of Lione, your lordship’s servant, and this should make the gift more innocently valuable, as well as the fact that he is a countryman of mine. The crowd cries you wrong to your back, but such calumny is the privilege of virtue, which is always trampled on by ignorance. Should, then, a spirit that is comparable to the ancients be hunted out of the place where he is more than necessary and which he adorns with his presence? He fled, but who would not have fled, having good comfort? For it is wise foresight to flee the plenitude of fury, since the envy of enemies, most of the time, overcomes the goodness of justice, for justice, altered by the indictments of the calumniator, in the first severe and rigid moves it makes, so terrifies the slandered one that, confounding the pretext in the quarrel, he comes to lose all reason and the one who has committed no sin at all appears a criminal. And then pardon comes, when the virtue of the accused is greater than the vice and able to punish the 96latter with its own ammunition. Without saying any more of this, I kiss the hand of Your Excellency.

From Venice, the 5th of February, 1537.

XXVIII To CHIETI, IN ROME

         (Gian Pietro Carafa, Bishop of Chieti).

         He Promises Him Public Praises.

Most just man, in you I do not enjoy the kindness of the cardinalate, for the reason that where the thought never was, the rank is not; but, being a Christian, I join with you in thanking God who has clothed your will in such a habit for the interest of the Church, that Church which Paul III. sustains, whose merits in the presence of his modest life will win for him all the days which Peter’s gained for him. And whoever doubts that the choice of so many servants of Jesus is preceded by divine inspirations has but to observe the virtue which his judgment has displayed in the selection of these. O saint of old, if glory were to be acquired by adding ornaments to the sacredness of the Vatican, what would Your Holiness merit who, besides surrounding yourself with such worthy cardinals, and overcoming invincible avarice with your generous mind, have filled that same mind with the treasures which those interpreters of the word have preserved who, in the profundity of their senses, keep the secrets of God; whence it is the false doctrines of Luther shall be drowned in the froth of their own foam, for even while they bark, the fire of malignity boils up in their mouths. Let us, then, exult in Christ because our religion, thanks to His true vicar and your own kind and true example, continues to reprove his venerable princes. Your example restores its chastity, its simplicity and its humility. Your example clothes it with your own charity, your own justice and your own mercy. Your example teaches it your own truth, your own zeal and your own sincerity. She finds in you that order, those offices and those prayers which used 97to be her weapons when her servants found their riches in her poverty and, like all good pastors, guarded their flocks from the itch and from the bewitchment of heresies which, breathing poison and spitting madness, would have caused them to perish. They correct their flocks with the rod of faith delighting them with the sound of the gospel and covering them with the shadow of the name of Christ, taking away their thirst and their hunger at the fountain of his grace and in the meadows of his precepts; and as they do this, their faith throughout the entire world raises altars and offers sacrifices in accordance with the example which you have set the followers of that religion of which I speak. You teach them to purify their minds and to temper their wills and to quiet their spirits: so that the divine will, transformed in you, appears that of a cardinal. It works and executes in your stead all the things pertaining to one who, by such a path, has reached such a position. And since things are thus, the virtuously wretched, who on all sides have fallen a prey to their necessities, now look for relief and they hope, by means of your piety, to obtain sustenance from the best of pontiffs. And when they do obtain it, they will have reason to give breath to the trumpets of the Holy Scriptures, no longer, with the voice of despair, having to sound the horn to the defects of others. What miracles may we not hope for from that genius and that intellect, manifesting itself not in episcopacies, which others have given to persons deprived of good custom, of nobility and of doctrine, but providing an honest asylum and a sober convenience, by means of which God may be studied, and adored with studied labors. And what more pious office could you perform than that of moving His Holiness to offer his hand to the best and wisest, who are trampled under foot by malice and by ignorance? In the field, in the hospital, in the stalls, at the stirrup and at the shrine they are outdistanced by the debauchery of the unjust. And why not take the crosses and seals from the barbers and tailors and adorn the lettered 98ones? Why not give them to these? And yet, we wonder that others bite back. Whoever does so, do you cut out his tongue with courtesy and stop his mouth with charity, by taking from the infamous and giving to the famous. Take the example of Caesar, who saw the gifts that heaven had given me and, seeing at the same time that those gifts were going begging, consoled me. And His Majesty, who is, without any deception, a celestial man, a column of the holy laws, a paragon of clemency, the hero of Christ and the enemy of demerit, has done all this as an honor to my own free virtue, giving me good cause to write and speak well of him. What more? Our Redeemer entered into the heart of Saul in such a manner that Saul became the trumpet of His name; even as I shall become a trumpet to the ministers of his temple, being an imitator of august charity. All of which I do not believe and do not hope, because there is nothing to hope and nothing to believe.

From Venice, the 7th of February, 1537.

XXIX To SIGNOR VALERIO URBINO

He Blames Lorenzino for the Assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici.

Of what nature is that enmity which fortune bears the felicity of men, Your Lordship has had a chance to judge in the case of our duke, and you have also seen what happens to a man who is subjected to her caprices. There are two ends which a ruler may expect of her instability: high station and a precipitous fall, although, as the fall is greater than the climb, so the number of those who fall is greater than those who mount. And all this comes about because she, who is neither constant nor reasonable, is in continual conflict with constancy and reason; and so, any one who leans on her is ruined. What happiness would be his who rules, did not this fate always hold him by the hair? As to her origin, the Platonists and Aristotelians babble their own opinions, but I, 99in the science of my ignorance, am convinced that this fate is a humor of the stars, combined with the caprices of the heavens, and it seems to me that this wicked world is merely a ball with which they play, bouncing, now up, now down, in accordance with their suggestions. I confess that more evils come from our own faults than by reason of her, and I am certain that His Excellency might have been able to guard himself against her. He had too limitless a faith in himself, in his parentage and in the great wife whom he had secured. But what sort of humanity is this to which we belong who will permit one who strikes his own prince down to be praised? Is it possible that the words of Cicero have supplanted the example of God, who always sees to it that such a one imitates the end of Brutus and of Cassius? Oh! if only minds could be seen as plainly as works, how many judges would change their opinions, calling that “infamy” which now appears to every one to be glory; for ambition and the worst heat of envy soil their sword in the generosity of others’ blood, and these are the more audacious in their attempts, the more eager they are for position. But since others are not ashamed to follow ambitious and envious counsels, vileness has given the name of “glorious” to disgrace. Read well and see with what fine proems Cicero exalted Caesar as soon as he saw him at the summit of his greatness. I am sure he knew how to convert eloquence into adulation; and the discourses which he formerly pronounced on tyranny were but snares which, even as he breathed those speeches, he was holding over the heads of those who were to cut off his head for this. There is no doubt that one who became a Tiberius or a Caligula carved a statue to the one he had put under the ground. But for one who rules the people with an unheard of justice, his days should grow with his days. I speak the truth, and not out of hatred I bear the one who has taken away my benefactor. Certain it is one who was not ashamed to accept benefits from such a man, ought not to be ashamed to render 100him obedience, and if he is ashamed, let him eat his own bread or another's and then kill him, for that would be a more praiseworthy thing. Fine honor those persons acquire who attempt to cast down those who have raised them up! But since it is a custom common to the seed of the Medici to do good to those who do them evil, I, saying no more, kiss the hand of Your Most Illustrious Lordship.

From Venice, the 10th of February, 1537.

XXX To CARDINAL CARACCIOLO

In Which He Defends Himself against the Charge of Having Written against Charles V.

Justice, Monsignore, which does not wish to be held injustice, concedes to every malefactor the right to defend himself against the accusations which are heaped on his head, nor would he even then be sentenced by you if you had not first verified the crimes to which he had confessed; this procedure is observed by the authorities and the constables in every bailiwick. But my innocence, on the other hand, is condemned by the great majority of persons in very respectable places, even before I myself know what the thing is for which I am blamed. As witness to this, take the volume, not a mere letter, which others would like to make appear was written by me to the most illustrious Count Guido Rangone in prejudice to Caesar, whose praise can neither be increased nor diminished. And inasmuch as the author of that ribaldry has endeavored to color the face of his lies with the brush of my truths, without any further certification, it is sent to Don Lope, as a reproof to him for the offices which his Mercy has done me, just as though it were not the honest thing for one who pretends to have the honor of His Majesty at heart to do what he can to aid him. Patron of mine, if calumny did not find the ears of princes open to its feigned exclamations, the suspicion and ignorance which follow it would not be able to make you believe what 101is not so and what could not be so. I am convinced that at least the Cardinal Caracciolo, with his long experience, would have recognized the fact that it is envy that brings libel, if it had not been that fraud and intrigue kept him absorbed, and that as soon as he read the poisonous slanders he would have experienced from the hand of truth the lash of penitence. However, I have been more offended by the credence which the slender judgment of others has given him than by the attempt to break the bonds of that good will conceded to me by august kindness. A certain Fragnano relates to me that, although many foolish things come out in Milan under my name, practically every one knows that they are not mine; which goes to show that the people are better judges than the senators. I, when I launch this or that thunderbolt, go ahead and do it, without reflecting that, after the deed, the humility of penitence may absolve me from indignation or from peril. My nature demands the privilege of speaking fully and freely, nor is my mouth ever to be sewed up; and heaven, which made me like this, assures me at the same time of the fear of men. But let us turn to the count, who is not so far removed from the world that we may not enlighten him. If he should affirm that I have written him that which Christ himself cannot say I have written, but which it may be believed I have written, then who carried the letter? Who copied it? From where did it come? And where is it now? If he says no, you will be satisfied. I speak of this to you for the reason that you take precedence over all the rest, not because I think you believe that I am in the wrong. In which case, quiet yourself, for Your Lordship is not the person to accept vituperations composed in so vile a manner, nor did you ever see a letter from me which exceeded a folio in size. But suppose we let that go. If money well falsified and diamonds well counterfeited are discovered by the keeper of the mint and the jeweler, who can doubt that those who know will be able to say whether malignity has succeeded in imitating the pith of my pen or not? And, 102I may tell you, the count told his consort there was one in Carmigliola who had defamed Fregoso under my name; and in witness of this, there is a note from the hand of the countess to the ambassador Soria. And when the signor Luigi Gonzaga was asked about it, he, upon hearing of the affair, wrote to me: “I cannot believe that you would have used such terms toward my kinsman; and besides, it is not merely difficult, but next to impossible to imitate you.” So you see, the prudence of his accurate foresight did not flame up in anger against me, for where gratitude is concerned, I do not yield first place to any one; and if the glory of the great Charles could be made greater, I should be the one to increase it. Even the stars do not see the devotion I have to the merits of the divine emperor. And the memory of the eternal Antonio da Leva has left such roots in my heart that I hope I shall not die without having paid the debt I owe him. Read what I wrote to the two of them in Sivigliano, and then you may talk. Read my letter thanking His Majesty for the pension, and see in what honor I hold His Highness. But since reason sometimes does not understand, where the pertinacity of incredulity is minister to minds bearing the stamp of first impressions, the good Castaldo, cavalier without flaw, shall plead my cause. O Christ! I who, not to cast any shadow upon my service to His Highness, have not consented, either for promises or for gifts, to salute with the winds that blow toward France, must I be sworn on a Bible for a trifle with the others? But without further argument, upon seeing that their most serene lordships are touched in the matter, whoever affirms such a thing ought to be ashamed; for since they, by the unmeasured greatness of their free laws, have let me make a place for myself in life in this unique and nourishing city, I am thereby dedicated to the service of them all. And as the good folk know, I, for ten years, have always celebrated the day on which I was taken under the hem of Venetian clemency. But I have no desire, in justifying myself, to make such 103liberty my shield. I will come to you, if you wish me to do so; I will enter into prison and make my deposition to the Cesarean pleader, who shall have no cause to repent the fact that he has been my benefactor; and these tests to which I am willing to put myself shall drive away the clouds of malignity from the sun of my faith. And so, may you forget my contumacy, which I hope has been purged in the sincerity of my excuses. Sift the truth, the simple and innocent truth, and it will verify all that I say, and change your ill will to good, for it would be too insolent a temerity, if I were to be punished for the defects of others. I have not the type of mind which pays attention to whatever others may say or write, who do not perceive that I always proceed against the vicious with a sharp reprehension and not in cold malice; for a pure malice is the sustenance of those who, very wrongly, would load me with blame. Nor will it be too much for you to believe things to be as I swear to you they are.

From Venice, the 25th of March, 1537.

XXXI To SIGNOR GIAMBATTISTA CASTALDO

On the Same Subject.

Putting together, my brother, all the pains I have ever endured, I could not make them equal what I have suffered at Don Lope’s not being able to understand that the letters handed to him by the cardinal and written against the emperor and Antonio da Leva, whose great kindness to me has so usurped the affection of my soul, did not come from me; so that I actually appear ungrateful to you, my other benefactors. The one who gave credence to this, with two blows, has attempted to mar the face of my honor: one, by attempting to make me appear ungrateful for the gifts of His Majesty and Your Highness; the other, by conveying the impression that I am not what I am, but some sort of dullard, for that is what the composition of the letter which I have spoken of 104would indicate. Look at the copy written to his eminence, which I am sending you with this letter, and then compare the intellect of the one who, out of envy, has tried to counterfeit me. May God never come to my aid, if a stripling of fifteen, who had asked me for an amorous letter, which I caused to be composed by a youth who was rarely versed in doctrine and poetry, did not recognize the things as not being mine. It is the truth that courtezans have better insight than great lords. It will soon be known who is the author of such outrages, for treason and conspiracy cannot remain underground. And when the villain has been found who, by falsifying virtue, deserves a punishment other than does he who falsifies the coin of the mint, I only ask that he be left to my anger. For where my fame is concerned, I will not bear it, since a man who permits his honor to be taken, permits his life to be taken,22 and who does not resent such an affront as this is a beast in the form of a man. Nor have I anything else to say to Your Lordship.

From Venice, the 25th of March, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

22 Cf. Shakespeare’s “Who steals my purse,” etc.

XXXII To MESSER GIANNANTONIO DA FOLIGNO

In Praise of Himself.

My happiness, virtuous man, would be too great, if only every one who doubts that golden virtue which I have of God would but put it to the test; for I am certain that all then would employ the same office which you have employed in the letter which you have been pleased to send me. Hence, I bless the reason that led you in the past to deign to read my writings, since by that means I have acquired such a friend as you. Certainly, my compositions deserve not to be read on account of their low and little spirit, and not because they contain no malice. I laugh at the public which finds fault with them, because it is its custom to blame laudable things while praising the disgraceful ones, and it is also its 105nature to seek to make a hue and cry by every means in its power. You see, it is like this, I happen to touch one of the great ones and as I do so, this and that ruffianly courtier begins to whisper and, with his studied insults, baptizes me in his own manner, thinking that he is robbing me of favor. Some one else does it in order to appear to be one of us, and not because there is in him either goodness or good judgment; and so it is, the innumerable disciples of ignorance with sinister intent kick under heel the honors of others. I have written what I have written for the sake of virtue, whose glory had been captured by the darkness of the avarice of lords. And before I commenced to lacerate those lords, the virtuous were begging the honest commodities of life, and if any one retrieved himself from the vexations of necessity, he achieved it as a buffoon and not as a person of merit, whence it is, my pen, armed with its own terrors, has so affected the great ones that they, coming to their senses, have taken in the fine intellects with a forced courtesy more hateful than want. The good, then, ought to hold me dear, since with my blood I have always fought for virtue, and it is by me alone, in this our day, that virtue wears a brocaded vest, drinks from golden cups, is adorned with gems, has collars and money, rides in cavalcade with the queen and is served by the empress and revered as a goddess; and it would be impious not to say that I have restored it to its antique state. And since I am its redeemer, what are envy and the mob babbling about? My brother, I do not make this boast out of pride, but merely to reply to the one who may affirm that my gospels are no more than slander. My gifts come to me by the street which my own safe arms have made, making sport of intrigues and lordly ambuscades; and then they turn to the praise of God, as I turn myself, since it all has been wrought by His grace and not through my own genius. And this shall be my effort for the future, so to live that when I die, even those who in the past would have laughed at my death will weep for me. Let there be between us a 106contract of perpetual friendship, and let the punishment which, with so many warm words, you say you wish me to give you for your past incredulity — let that punishment be the bond of brotherhood which I here pledge you.

From Venice, the 3rd of April, 1537.

XXXIII To THE COUNT MANFREDO DI COLLALTO

In Which He Reminds him of the Promise of the Gift of a Kid.

Your promising me a kid, my good fellow, was the act of a lord, and your not having kept that promise is characteristic of a priest. I hope you will decide, having been a priest, to be a lord, the title which I must in any event give you when I write to you, whether the kid comes or not. As the morality of the philosophers continues to wash our lives with the waters of truth, it is always wiping out the stains stamped on our members by vice; and our infected clothes, locked in their trunks, always keep the disease of the one who wore them. And it is the very devil to touch so cursed a habit. I do not deny that you are good; but you would have been perfect, if you had not put on your back the domestic habit of Leo. Certainly, you might do worse than, not keeping your word with me, to give as an excuse, “I am a priest”; this, if one admitted it, would be excuse enough, for their truth is lies, their faith deceit and their friendship hatred. And blessed are you who stopped being a priest in time! And if the nobility of your blood and the magnanimity of your nature were any the less in you, woe to Your Lordship! for the lineage of Collalto, both by its antiquity and its virtue, is such that it would be able to make the best if a worse generation than the one I speak of, if a worse could be found. But begging you to take all I have said in good sport, I, with this, salute you.

From Venice, the 6th of April, 1537.

107

XXXIV To COSIMO DE’ MEDICI, DUKE OF FLORENCE

Counsels on the Mode of Governing.

The wretched end, my lord, of His Excellency, and the happy beginning which Your Highness has made have been to me like two thunderbolts which fall upon the shepherd at one time, one of which deprives him of his senses, while the other restores his senses to him. Hearing of his fate tore my heart, and learning of your success has ravished me; whence it is, I have discovered at one stroke the nature of grief and gladness. Surely, the death of no duke could have caused me more sorrow than did that of Alessandro, nor is there any duke living who could possibly have pleased me more than does Cosimo. For I am he who served that great father of yours living and buried him when he was dead. I am he who in Mantua caused him to be honored and wept by those who perhaps would not have honored or wept for him. I am he who took his praises out of the mouths of those who blamed him from envy. I am he who has placed in the hands of the incredulous the torches of his glory. I am he who loved and celebrated him more than all others in the degree to which I, better than others, knew him worthy of love and memory. I amused his labors, comforted his pains and tempered his anger. I to him was father, brother, friend and servant. And when God, to punish the errors of Italy with the scourge of the barbarians, took him away, my virtue kept his name company as my person had kept him company in life, and in my adoration, I have always said that the true honor of the most lofty house of Medici came from his arms and not from the mitres of the Popes. The fruit of his merits is that high station in which heaven perpetuated you on that day on which you were chosen, thanks to the providence of the stars and the good faith of friends. Only a few here and there did injury to their own power and their own will by not voting for you, for you have adorned presence and mind with such graces and virtues that, I hasten 108to tell you, they have few if any gifts to bring you. But as to your own future, you should endeavor to enlarge the confines of your State, and since you have learned neither to rule nor to live by chance, one may say that you have learned how to rule and how to live. By God, the name and soul of a man deserve to die who holds his appetites dearer than himself and for this cause puts his city and his people to great risk. But his death is the example which shall always be your life, because, under the fear of God and the shadow of Caesar, I am sure you will always guard that continence in which lies more faith and security than there is in armies; for she sleeps in her own bed, eats at her own table, walks in her own halls and, standing on her own honesty, does not betray secrets or favor or money or person to the poisonous darts of others, nor, as she lies alone at night in her bedroom, is her throat cut by that sword which the worst will of envy and ambition lend to the hand of deceit, bringing ruin on the one who was well seated.23 Make your home with those who wear their hearts on their foreheads,24 and let the valorous Signora Maria, your mother, stand near by to give you support and repose. Eat and drink in accordance with your own taste, and not that of buffoons and adulators. May the honor of the Vitellescan seed, valorous and sincere, always stand by your side. Put on the eyes of the good Ottaviano, and be always awake to all who would take your foot to snare it. Let the counsels of Cardinal Cibo be especially grateful to you, for there is in his clarity none of the designs of those who would counsel you to leave the city, for these are merely working for whatever their own liberty desires, and hope and fate open to them whatever paths promise to lead to ascendancy. For who does not want to be a lord deserves to be a slave, and it is better to be patron of Florence than to be good fellow to the world. It was cheapness and not sanity of mind that led Celestino to refuse the 109papacy. Since you have come to power without violence of any sort, you ought all the more to endeavor to strengthen yourself in your dominion. Who is offended, who is robbed, who is hunted down, who is vituperated, and who is threatened by you? It is the evil-minded who will not confess that God has placed you on high as the legitimate heir to that grandeur in which the son-in-law of Augustus lived and reigned. That ferocity with which your tremendous sire fought for you should make you feared, even as you are loved. And as your own great qualities grow with the years, you will be sought out by all who flee you; and then that clemency, which is your ornament, will have a chance to make itself known to those who have not willed to know it. In the meanwhile, I commend myself to you as your humble servant.

From Venice, the 5th of May, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

23 Che ben siede: cf. our “sitting pretty.”

24 Cicero again.

XXXV To MESSER PAOLO PIETRASANTA

He Philosophizes on the Desire to Learn.

My ignorance, wise man, vaunted by your learning, is like a vile man praised by a courageous one, who remains an object of scorn despite all the noise he makes to give the impression that he is what a lie has made him out to be. Your asking me whence comes the desire to learn, which leads the wise over all the seas and lands of the world, implies that I am able to give you the reason; and since I am not what I seem to be in this case, in attempting to give you the reason, I remain as foolish as the coward of whom I have spoken. Our souls, created among the intelligences of heaven, upon being infused into those bodies which their stars, by God’s power, have chosen, are no sooner locked in their prison of flesh than, through the life which lodges them, they give birth to spirits, and these spirits, on account of their origin, burn continually with a desire to understand those things which their Master, who endows the angels, has to teach them; and then, these spirits 110which I have told you, enamored of their own desire, find their greatest pleasure in attempting to discover the secrets of God and of nature. It was, I believe, just such a passion as this that moved Daedalus, Melampus, Pythagoras, Homer, Museus, Plato, Democritus, Apollo, Dionysus, Hercules and the other god-like ones. But it is to be noted that this tempered will to know is not to be perceived in all, although the soul may be of equal virtue in them all, and this comes from the mortal wall, which is more or less rugged. When souls (which are a spark of divine simplicity and pure goodness) enter the vases prescribed by their Creator, the spirits foretold discover outside a great desire to learn, and this desire is greater or less as the mansion which houses them is more or less transparent; and for this reason, the soul showed in Demosthenes effects other than in Thersites. You may laugh, if you like, at my rustic philosophy, and, indeed, I have written it to make you laugh, but it was the profound letter which, with your accustomed courtesy, you directed to me that started me off on these ravings, which are but the shadow of shadows. If my fate had willed that you should know me in person, as you display a desire to do, you would have learned to speak only the truth; and I should have been pleased, for you would not then have been praising me with fictions. I am not worthy enough for a man like you to put himself out to know me, but perhaps such a one may be permitted to entertain the remote thought. But all my concern is for Messer Giulio Cesare, my son no less than yours, who is all too dear to us. And he, in his affection, only spoke the truth when he told you how I had praised your compositions and in what reverence I held you; the rest are but flowers to adorn the conversational garland which you are pleased to pluck for me. But I am grateful to him above all for the fact that my name has been honored by the tongue and the pen of Pietrasanta, the happy interpreter of sacred writings. And hereafter, may Your Lordship make such disposition of me as of yourself, 111for I am become yours; and write to me, as I shall write to you, with the same affection with which I write to the emperor.

From Venice, the 11th of May, 1537.

XXXVI To MESSER GIANNANTONIO SERENA

Virtuous Counsels.

The rich and brazen audacity of the evil ones is the cause of that buzzing of tongues which others raise against you; fame also is the cause of that error into which those fall who, proud in their own faculties, hold that all they do and say is well done and well said. Is it possible that you would not want to know at least a particle of yourself, giving material to envy to proceed against you with calumny and with malediction? Regard a little the peril of honor and the damage of the soul. Look at God, who has established the institution of matrimony in order that the human species might multiply and one take another's place, so that each generation, being conscious of the gift of life from His goodness, may keep the seats of paradise filled with spirits. And nature has placed the desire of coitus in different sexes in order that, the limits of life being brief, we may be renewed in our sons; for this reason, the joining of the male and the female has been found to be nature, a providence which, by its unbroken succession, has preserved the race to our times. What injury could be worse and one bringing with it more cruelty than that which would take from one’s self and one’s wife the titles of father and mother; for these names are worthy of all veneration, and all honors are their due. It is a fine thing to follow the good way of life, adorning with one’s own modesty that virtue which is neighbor to God, observing natural decrees, copulating at the proper times, becoming fathers of a noble seed and confirming them in the orderings of that prudence which he who first created us gave, to the end that the consciousness of having done 112otherwise may have no cause to heap reproach upon us for our own sin. Turn, then, to the love of your companion, in whom shines the grace of color. Her tresses, falling over her shoulders, her temples and her neck, are as brilliant as hyacinths entwined with the subtlety of art, the skill of which, on the side, by her ears, and at the summit of her forehead, makes her as rich as are the bees of the meadow. And crystal is not so clear as is her inviolable chastity, a miraculous treasure in these shameless times. And so, you should lead a life full of rejoicing and in it bring up the heir to your patrimony. You are healthy, young, rich and most prudent; whence, if you but hold in reign your precipitous inclinations, life will be a great happiness for you. Free yourself of false friends and consort with the true, seek the intimacy of honorable persons and not of infamous ones, for the former give reputation and the latter take it away. Otherwise, your wealth, your reputation and your life will always be in great risk. I look upon you as a companion and a son, and age and duty inspire the affection with which I write to you. And I would rather have you goaded with reproofs than greased with adulations.

From Venice, the 12th of May, 1537.

XXXVII To MESSER FRANCESCO DA L’ ARME

Of Things Properly Literary.

I, courteous friend, who held that I had been excluded from your memory, was greatly rejoiced to hear that I am still alive to you and, thanks to you, still have a part in the life of others. You are, indeed, honored, since, while remembering old friends, you are constantly acquiring new ones, and in acquiring them you observe the conduct of a gentleman and satisfy the behests of your nature, which always finds pleasure in friendship. It is certain that no one can know what is gentleness or true familiarity who has not practiced it with you; and the most grateful amusement 113which eligible foreigners find in that city is the entertainment afforded by your pleasant manners. Since this is so, do not wonder if I am constantly jealous of losing you; I would rather be forgotten by a prince than by such a person as you. And in this, our Don Antonio concurs with me, in whose Croniche my name stands at the head of the table of contents, smiling out from that sonnet that killed Broccardo. But what would I have done to him with deeds, if I killed him with words? My cavalier Bucchi ought to make mention of this in his Annali, which you say he is doing, di Bologna. Your Lordship has taken a load off your own back, since no other than a Bolognese would be suited to write the deeds of this and that count. I am grieved, as I am at the life of one who does not deserve to live, by the fact that, having no new compositions, I am not able to appease the desire of prelates and nobles who would like them. Old age makes my genius grow lazy, and Love, which ought to keep it awake, puts it to sleep in my case. I used to turn out forty stanzas every morning; now I scarcely produce one. In seven mornings I composed the Psalms, in ten the Courtezan and the Marescalco, in forty-eight the two Dialogues, in thirty the Life of Christ. I suffered six months in the production of the Sirena. I swear to you, by that truth, which is my guide, that, beyond a few letters, I write nothing. For this may Monsignor di Parenza, to whom I owe much for the pleasure he takes in my stories, di Mairoica, di Santa Severina and their nephews pardon me; as soon as I produce something worthy of them, they shall have it. In the meanwhile, I kiss the hands of their most reverent lordships. Nor is it news to me that the archbishop Cornaro and the bishop of Vercelli hold the court which cardinals ought to keep, giving shelter to all sorts of virtuousi, because they are real persons and of illustrious origin. Commend me to the good count Corenelio Lambertini, whose peace has been perturbed by the sweet and puissant desire for glory of his young son, who is not suspicious enough of the faith which 114war keeps with the most valorous. Salute for me Messer Oppici Guidotti, from whose house poets go as sinners do from a church. Say to my good friend, Girolamo da Travigi, the painter, and to Giovanni, the sculptor, that I am utterly theirs. Finally, I beseech you, if my prayers are as powerful with you as your commandments are with me, offer my services to the signor Mario Bandini, who is elegance, courtesy and gentleness itself.

From Venice, the 15th of May, 1537.

XXVIII To MESSER AGOSTINO RICCHI

Striking a Balance.

I am glad, most learned son, that wretches blame me; for if they praised me, it would seem that I was like them. The envious, when they offend my virtue, think they are making me sad, when as a matter of fact, they delight me, because I know that I am beginning to become glorious when I am envied. I implore God that he who envies me may have eyes in all the places from which my happiness comes, so that he may see it bursting forth by a thousand paths. The ribald hold me a villain, because I am not a flatterer, and they call me a pauper to injure me, but they honor me by doing so, for he who is poor is good. I only desire what I need to keep from being odious, and not so little as to move others to have compassion on me; and I shall have it, in any manner. My hope promises me this, which is just, because it springs from some merit. But if the greatest faculty in the world is the ability to give to friends, who has more than I, who have given everything in order that I might not be like the princes, who are avaricious of gold and liberal with glory? I, to the shame of those who say I have nothing, may tell you that I have had ten thousand scudi from 1527 to the present day, not counting the cloth of gold and silk which has been worn on my own back and those of others; a pen and a little paper have drawn these out of the heart of avarice. I am, indeed, a 115king, because I know how to rule myself. In short, let others say of me what they will, I know how to conquer perversity with patience and with kindness, qualities which I employ in making myself praised. As you know, Ambrogio25 up to now has done marvels; indeed, for a mere lad, he is doing miraculously well, and there is an excess of judgment and style in those verses of his, which he always has in his bosom or up his sleeve, as if he were the ass of his own muses. Pretty soon, since hope is a habit that sits well on the back of everybody, he will be hoping to satisfy his desires with a woman so that he can make sport of Narcissus.

From Venice, the 10th of May, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

25 Ambrogio degli Eusebii, his secretary.

XXXIX To CAESAR

Praises.

Your Majesty, sovereign emperor, has such a destiny that, if the greatness of the heavens were only a little less, you would equal or come near equalling it; and the world which takes your measure regards as immeasurable the power of Charles. And yet, combining all that you have ever been and all that you have ever done, one does not arrive at what you are or what you do, when the mob reflects that you have taken the king26 and made the pope27 prisoner and hunted down the infidels of Hungary and, in conquering Africa, have liberated eighteen thousand Christians from their chains and have entered the heart of France with your army. The miracle with which you astonish and terrify the peoples is the universe itself, which bends itself almost wholly to rendering you impotent, and which only succeeds in making you omnipotent, as, in the preparations which you make, your tremendous power becomes apparent. Behold the millions of gold which you have taken from the viscera of Gaul, behold the throngs of asses and the infinite number of 116horses, behold the innumerable ships, and behold the Turk. But what is, and what is to be, the state of affairs? What are others doing and what are they going to do? But those who threaten the emperor, who all the while keeps his immobile back to them, are like the gigantic fools who pile mountains on mountains; they are like Nimrod who built the tower, presuming to think he could lift God from his throne, whose power, silent and self-keeping, looks down upon the temerity of pride and disperses it with those thunderbolts in which are concealed the claws of the eagle that Jove gave to Caesar. But the monsters who dared make war on God are less insolent than those chimaera-ridden ones who would combat Caesar; for the former, in what they do are repugnant merely to nature; while the latter are repugnant both to nature and to God. To nature, in that they would force her to do what she is not able; to God, by believing that, in doing wrong, they are not circumventing the watch which His goodness keeps over your goodness. I speak with the tongue of the just, who look to Christ as the one who arms the legions of angels; for you, who are the support of your faith, overcome all who, out of envy for your glory, would conquer you. In the meanwhile, the report which was given you of many things in Italy, upon your departure from Genoa, has proved false, and none have turned their backs on Your Majesty, while Florence, in hand with Fortune, does not repent having loved you. But if God and Fate are with Your Highness, who is not with you?

From Venice, the 20th of May, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

26 Francis I.

27 Clement VII.

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 116-148.

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THE LETTERS OF PIETRO ARETINO

Letters XL-LIX

XL To THE COUNTESS ARGENTINA RANGONA PALAVICINA

In Which He Thanks Her for Her Continuous Gifts.

I, Signora Contessa, happening last night to lift my eyes to the stars, found myself trying to count them, and I had to laugh at myself, because it seemed to me that I was trying to count, one by one, the presents which Your Most Illustrious 117Ladyship has made me since you were here with us. And as I was telling the joke to some gentlemen, along came your servant who brought me the snuff box with a medallion of gold and twenty-four tags, like whose which His Excellency, the count, your husband, brought me the last time he came back from France. And I, ogling it, said: “So this was lacking from all that infinite number!” So you see what a great thing it is you have done by making me this gift. How long is it since I had the two robes of silk of which you despoiled yourself the day you sent them to me? How long is it since I had the veils of gold and the rich sleeves and the most beautiful of bonnets? How long is it since you sent me the ten and ten and eight scudi? How long is it since you had the cask placed in my cellar? How long is it since you presented me with the handworked handkerchiefs? How long is it since you placed the turquoise on my finger? It is six months, rather not four. Surely, I shall drown in the deluge of your courtesy. But since I know that you would not change your consort for the emperor, I will not say it is a sin that you are not the wife of His Majesty. I believe that both you and he, in accumulating nothing, accumulate enough for yourselves; and so, you rival yourselves in giving even to him who does not ask of you. But all the lords and ladies would like to be like this and show to all fortunes the same indifference. For nearly ten years, you resided here with a throng of men and women living at your expense, and at Mestre, you had the upkeep of enough people and horses to have drained the sea of water, and not merely your purse of money. But it is true that God is the treasurer to large spenders, and it is even more clear that virtue and faith have gladly pushed the great Guido up to the heavens.

From Venice, the 22nd of May, 1537.

XLI To MESSER AMBROGIO DEGLI EUSEBII

In Which He Dissuades Him from Taking a Wife.

I had thought, my son, that I was bringing you up in 118poetical studies, and I find that I was supporting you in amorous employments, and when I thought I was listening to your verses I was hearing your sobs. But you would have made less of a mistake in acquiring a friend than in picking a wife. To tell you the truth, I have great compassion for you, because the man who is in love is a wretch, tormented by miserable calamities. But this comes from your not having resisted the first assaults of Love, as I warned you to do; if you had done so, you might have conquered that passion which, when its lustful desires have been satisfied, repents the pleasure it has received. When it comes to marrying, blessed are they who marry by word and refrain from marrying in fact! Do you know whom wives are good for? For those who want to become like Job, for by suffering their perfidy at home, a man is bound to suffer away from home and so become the monarch of patience. Granted that she is as beautiful as you say, you are assuring yourself of her at great peril; if she is ugly, you will become the slave of penitence. And the more you praise the sufficiency of her virtue, the more you will blame your own small judgment, for songs and letters are the keys that open the doors of their chastity. They do not regard matrimony as necessary and sacred, for the reason that their blessings are offspring, the sacraments and faith; but you will be offending the revered name of father, if you desire, by usurping it to become an irreverent son. But the worst of it is the inconvenience which she will give you and you her; for which reason, your free couch will become the servant of strife and the hospital of quarrels. The fact is, you show you are becoming an old man, since you do not always wish to appear a youth; so you had best leave the weight of a wife to Atlas’ shoulders. Leave their laments for the ears of tradesmen. Leave their caprices to the man who knows how to beat them and who can put up with them. Cling to the bough of honor, from which the man who gets into trouble over women hangs himself. Come and go from your house 119without saying “whom am I leaving her to and with whom shall I find her,” nor let jealousy make a meal of your teeth. Be able to appear in church or in the piazzo without fear of that whispering which always goes on behind the back of the husband of any woman. And if you wish an heir, get one with other women; and if the consciousness of adultery gives you remorse, do better still and legitimatize your offspring with your own kindness and their virtue, for every good and virtuous man ennobles his own birth and puts a stop to all talk about the infamy of his mother. And if continence rules your desires, I would laud your prudence and comfort you with Poetry, to whom you are under obligations since she it was who gave you a name before you were likely to be known. Love her and devote yourself to her; if you do not, your fame, which is beginning to spread its wings, will be betrayed by yourself, if you are not ashamed even to think of leaving eternal glory for a lascivious pleasure which lasts but a day.

From Venice, the first of June, 1537.

XLII To SIGNOR GIAMBATTISTA CASTALDO

In Which He Urges Him to Restore Her Son to Signora Flaminia.

The signora Flaminia, courteous cavalier, has sent me from Rome a second present, pleasing as the first; and he who accepts a gift from another is under obligations to that other, for gifts are the ambassadors of those who hope by means of them to gratify their desires. The short of what I have to tell you is that she, who knows by rumor how dear I am to you, has selected me to obtain from your hands her little son; and so you will pardon me if I, who do not know the causes of your separation, presume with temerity to intercede for her, for it is not right to ask friends for unjust things. Reason, I know, would dictate that, since you are possessed of every rare custom and virtue, I should urge you 120to keep the child rather than to give him up, for he can be as much better off with you as he is sure to be worse off with her. I am quite susceptible to the supplications of mothers and the sound of the word, because they live and die in the life and death of their children and suffer in their souls when the latter are far away; and so, I beseech you, whatever you would do in this case for any one who asks you, do for me, who in this am entreated by many whom I am glad to have command me. The poor mother would like with the bridle of matrimony to rein the license of an honesty that takes no more pleasure in the delights of the world, and it seems to me that her not having him near her forbids this. But if those voices which are the affections of the soul may penetrate to the ears of God, may mine, which are formed of affection itself, reach your ears; and then they who are pressing me in this matter will have to confess that I have done what I could to console her.

From Venice, the 2nd of June, 1537.

XLIII To MESSER FRANCESCO MARCOLINI

Of Certain First Fruits.

Surely, my good fellow, if I were in the habit of pecking at my brains as every pedant does, since the cognomen of “divine” has been tacked on the back of my name, I should believe, without doubt, that, as it was the ancient custom to offer to the gods the first fruits of earth and flock, I am, if not a half, at least a third god, in so constant a stream do your presents come, the first fruits of your hand in nature and in art. But knowing as I do that what little virtue I have merely irrigates your own divinity, in order not to become drunk with the latter, I place your gifts to the account of your being too human. You began with orange flowers to sharpen my appetite, pickling them as my maids do the caccialepri, pimpernels, dragons and a hundred other kinds of herbs, and these are offered to me in panniers and rush 121baskets so well woven that, in accepting the salad, it is difficult to return the baskets; and your lady, who I am sure, would not make so much fuss about this, if she saw what a good time my women have in taking them. I am sure I do not know where you collect all the varieties of flowers, of violets and pears which, when they do not come bursting out of the bottle, you send to me full-flowered and odorous. Here I have bunches of sweet violets before it is yet April; and here, my lap is full of roses when there is not one to be seen, by a miracle, anywhere. Scarcely do the cherries begin to put on red cheeks before you send me my fill of ripe ones. But where did I leave those strawberries, covered with there native odor of musk? And the cucumbers, which had barely begun to bud and which my Pierina and my Catrina leaped to see? Who would not drink from the brilliant new beakers? And who would not anoint his beard and wash his hands with the oil and soap which you so often give me> And who would not clean his teeth with those toothpicks of yours? I am willing to lay a wager with any one who says I was not the one to see the first figs this season, raised in your delightful garden. And so I was first with the musk-pears, melons, plums, grapes and fish. But where are the artichokes which you for so long have sent to my table? And where the gourds which I have eaten, fried in the platter, before I would have sworn they were in bloom? Of beans, I do not speak, except to remind you in case you have forgotten. And because in all the things you have given me I have glimpsed your heart, I keep those same gifts in my own heart. And it will not be long before I shall pay you as I am able for every tuft of violets, white, vermilion or yellow, with which you have delighted me.

From Venice, the 3rd of June, 1537.

XLIV To THE DUKE D’ ATRI

For Praising Frances I, He Wants a Fixed Stipend.

Il Comitolo, the Perugian, most illustrious prince, acting 122for his lordship, the most illustrious Count Guido, who is with His Majesty, King Francis, has consoled me by advising me of the words which, in my behalf, your Excellency has had with Monsignor Montmorency, the great maestro of France, in the presence of Luigi Alamanni, who is honored by the world and respected by me. All of which I knew before I was told, and I was certain of it before it even occurred to me to doubt it, for your kindness is sincere, and the love you bear me a candid one. Hence, the new hope I have, thanks to your benignity, goes on its own feet, for you have made His Majesty understand that I have been, and forever shall be, his servant, since he is the subject of all the homilies and histories that constitute my work. But the fact that I am not used to living on dreams and have always looked out for myself, together with the glory he has conferred on me, has made me esteemed and well taken care of. For three years I postponed putting on the chain that was to come, and now four years have passed in which there has not come to me so much as a greeting; and so, I have given my allegiance to one who gives without promising. I speak of the emperor, the servant of Christ and lord of fate. Take the case of the Cardinal di Lorena. Seeing in my heart the image of his king, he made me presents, and because the gifts he made me were not enough, he reassured me with hopes which, dissolving into French smoke, made me despair of French affection. But whenever he gives me an honest opportunity, I shall recognize the benefit; and if the great maestro will only do what he said he would, I shall exalt him with real honors. And to what person could Alamanni be of assistance, the assisting of whom would be of more assistance to him than would the assistance which he might give to me?28 But without further assistance, I am the humble servant of His Excellency, the lieutenant-general of His Majesty, and Your Lordship’s.

From Venice, the 8th of June, 1537.

FOOTNOTE

28 A good example of Aretino’s word play.

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XLV To MONSIGNOR GRAN MAESTRO

         THE DUKE OF MONTMORENCY

          On the Same Subject; Four Hundred Scudi a Year.

Your Excellency probably has forgotten the affection you showed to me in the promise which you gave me of the necklace and in the letter which you addressed to me with the necklace itself; but I have never ceased to remember the favor which you did by promising it to me nor the consolation you gave me in sending it. But if God had only granted that you should remember I am your servant, even as I am always mindful that you are my lord, many things that have been said would not have been said, and many that have not been said would have been said. But the motive of the chain, I know, was that I might be quiet forever, since as he saw it, by praising His Majesty,29 I was telling a lie. But, having no respect for short measure, I have adorned all my letters with His Majesty’s name. And when the four hundred crowns a year have been given me for my living, with the truth for which I am known I will speak of the fame of your king; for I am a captain myself, and my malice does not steal soldiers’ pay, cause peoples to revolt or betray forts; but with my inky cohorts, and with the truth painted on my banners, I acquire more glory for a prince I serve than armed men do. My pen pays its honors and blame in cash. I, in a morning, without other literary employment, indulge in the praise and vituperation of those, not whom I adore and hate, but who deserve to be adored and hated. And so, keep the word which you gave in the presence of many, who are now scattered all over Italy; and I shall be all that duty may desire. This comes from the grace which the heavens have given to one most Christian, to whom all show affection and whom all call upon and desire. But if he who, not to fall away from the French nature, never remembers his friends if not in their needs — if he is desired by all, what

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Black and white lithograph by the Marquis de Bayros, of three clothed women in the dark, with a bright sun shining on a rose branch behind.

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would he be if he were remembered for all time? In conclusion, I bow to Your Most Illustrious Excellency, in reminding you how Darius used to say that he would rather have one Zopyrus for an advocate than possess a thousand Babylons.

From Venice, the 8th of June, 1537.

FOOTNOTE

29 Charles V.

XLVI To SEBASTIANO, THE PAINTER, BROTHER OF PIOMBO

Of the Baptism of His Own Little Daugher, Adria.

Although, father, our fraternal affection needs no other chains to bind it, I have wished also to cincture it with those of a godfather, in order that your own benign and holy way of life might become the ornament of that friendship which virtue itself has established between us eternally. It has pleased God that the child should be a woman, although I, no different from the rest of fathers, had wished it might be a man child, as if it were not the truth that daughters, all suspicion of honor aside, which must be well looked to, were not the greater consolation. Look you: the boy, at twelve or thirteen years, commences to strain at the paternal bit and, bursting out of school and the bonds of obedience, makes those who conceived and bore him sorry for it. But of more importance are the mischief and threats of mischief with which every night and day they assail their fathers and mothers, whence come maledictions and the chastisements of the justice of God. But a daughter is the couch on which, in his graying years, the one who created her takes his repose; nor does an hour pass in which her parents do not rejoice in her lovableness, who solicitously cares for them in their needs. And so, I no sooner saw a child in my own image than, putting aside all displeasure that she was not something else, I was so overcome by the tenderness of nature that at the moment I experienced all the sweetness which comes of blood ties. The fear that she might die before many more days of life caused me to have her 126baptized at home; for which purpose, a gentleman in your stead held her in accordance with the Christian custom. I should not have acted so hastily, had I not feared from hour to hour that she would fly away to paradise. But Christ has preserved her to be the amusement of my last years and for a witness to that life which others gave to me and I to her; for all of which I give Him thanks, praying Him that I may live to see her married. In the meanwhile, I must consent to be her plaything, for we are the buffoons of our children. Their simplicity always tramples us under foot, pulls our beard, strikes us in the face, rumples our hair; for it is in such coin as this they sell the kisses and the embraces which bind us. There is no delight which could equal such a pleasure, if the fear of some misfortune to them did not constantly keep our minds perturbed. Every tear they shed, every cry they give, every sigh that comes from their mouths or their bosoms disturbs our very souls. There is not a leaf falls or a hair floats on the air that it does not seem to us a leaden weight which must fall on their heads to kill them; nor does nature break their slumber or dull their hunger without our trembling for their well-being. Yes, the sweet is strangely mixed with the bitter; and the more pleasing they are, the more acute is the jealous fear of losing them. God keep my little daughter, for she is of so gracious a disposition that, if I should lose her, I am sure I should die. Adria is her name, and she is well called that, since in the bosom of the waves by divine will she was born. And I glory in this, for this site is the garden of nature; and I, in the ten years I have lived here, have experienced more contentment than I ever should have known had I lived, despairingly, in Rome. And when fate permitted me to be in your company, I have been happy; for even though we are absent, I esteem it a great privilege to be your friend, fellow and brother.

From Venice, the 15th of June, 1537.

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XLVII To THE PRINCESS DI MOLFETTA

In Which He Promises Not to Speak Ill of the Ladies.

In order that Your Highness may not believe that I am one of those maestri of whom it is fitting never to speak the truth, I am writing to you, as I promised you when you were here, to assure you that I regarded it as a happiness to know you, both because of your greatness and because of the opinion which you had of me in the matter of the ladies. I, who am more theirs than are the priests or the devil’s friars, have always held them in reverence, but I have kept the thing to myself, for the reason that they have been courtesy itself in their restraint. And I deliberately refrained from praising them until one should have shown herself liberal toward me. But the divinity of the Siren was too much for my deliberation; and so, I was constrained to hymn them in the manner you know and, hymning them, to confess their merits and my own virtue, which attained the fruit it desired in drawing such stanzas from the chaste and pure love which I, paternally, bore them. But I am willing to pledge myself not to speak in the opposite manner, for you seem to be under the impression that I mishandle the ladies as I do the gentleman, whom I mistreat whenever, through the avarice of others, cricket-whims make a cage of my head, whereupon people begin to crush me with tribute. Surely, the vileness which would have lain in touching them has restrained my tongue and pen, for if this were not so, they would even now be paying me tribute as the princes do, for I would have uncovered all the altars of Naples and Milan and Mantua and Ferrara and of all Italy to find the foolish, the wise, the tradeswomen, the sibyls, the learned, those who work miracles, the ugly and some of the prodigies for the honor of the world. Oh, what a triumph would have been there! Oh, what a fine story could be made out of that! It is no little thing that I know their secrets as well as if I were their confessor. For some thought must be 128given to the subtlety of the devil and the instability of poets; because, whenever a fit of fury assails me, behold, Rome, Bologna and everything in ruins. But there is no danger for us, since God wills that whoever has any stain in himself should fight with his chameleon nature; and indeed, looking upon your face and hearing the name which the limpid Latin pen of Nicolò Franco had given to your marvelous beauty, the sight and sound made your beauty chaste, glorious and perfect, even as you yourself are, who, by the grace of heaven and through no human favor, have been joined in matrimony to that Ferrante whose virtue harbors the mind of a Caesar. I am sure he could not be the husband of a better wife, nor you the wife of a better husband. For which reason your own Highness and his are looked upon by me with the astonishment of those who made you what you are.

From Venice, the 17th of June, 1537.

XLVIII To MESSER FRANCESO MARCOLINI

Concerning a Volume of Letters.

With the same good will, my good fellow, with which I have given you my other works, I give you these few letters, which have been collected through the love that my young men have for the things I do. Let my reward be your appreciation of the gift, for I esteem it a greater glory to present them to others than to have composed them — fortuitously, as you know, and as for having them printed at one’s own cost and selling by one’s own solicitation the books drawn from one’s fancy, that appears to me to be a feeding upon one’s own members. And he who every evening goes to the shop to collect the sales of the day partakes of the nature of the pimp who, before he goes to bed, empties the purse of his woman. I hope, with the favor of God, that the courtesy of princes may pay me for the labor of writing and not a wretched purchaser, for I would rather endure discomfort than do wrong to virtue by reducing the liberal arts to 129mechanics. It is obvious that those who sell their manuscripts become the porters of their own infamy. Learn to be a merchant of the useful by following the trade of a bookseller and you renounce the name of poet. It is not pleasing to Christ that that which is the function of certain beasts should be the trade of my own generous nature. A fine thing it would be if I, who spend a small treasury every year, were to imitate the gambler who places a hundred ducats on a bet and then goes home and beats his wife for not filling the lamps with cheap oil. Let them be well printed and in genteel folios; I care for no other price. And so, from hand to hand, you others shall be the heirs to that which has issued from my genius.

From Venice, the 22nd of June, 1537.

XLX To MESSER PAOLO PIETRASANTA

Of His Own Ignorance.

If it would not be merely cutting off the heads of the hydra, I, brother, should be tempted to burn everything I have written, seeking to make myself remembered only in your letters, which I should keep, for whoever was to read those divinely intelligent words with which you are in the habit of addressing me and praising me, without reading any of my own works, would be convinced that I was another Plato. You are, surely, out of the ordinary run of lying philosophers, and you do not find it necessary to go around with elevated eyebrows and contemplative gestures. You do not babble of the grandeur of the stars nor seek to take the measure of the sun, nor do you swear that the aspects of the moon in its various phases are just what you say they are, and you do not obstinately affirm that the thunder, lightning, rain and winds, which are but the little differences which Mother Nature has with herself, must come from the causes you perceive. The reasons which you assign are not monstrous and confused. The altitude of the air and the profundity of the sea are not determined by 130Pietrasanta. He does not square the orbit of the earth with circles or with spheres; but, on the other hand, the intellect which God has given you penetrates the nature of that same deity, until you come to understand the essential unity of the individual Trinity; and as you consider and solve the reasons of souls and bodies, you make us understand the immortality of the former and the fragility of the latter. And the sun is not so clear to us as the Sacred Scriptures are to you; the spirit of the Hebraic meanings is so well understood by you, in the acuteness of your science, that we need no other interpreter to open for us the secret truths of eternal life. The practical quality of your virtue looks to effects and deeds, and in this you observe that golden mean which is the seat of the blessed. That virtue explains to us the difficulties which we encounter in our efforts to know the Supreme Force; and so near is the doctrine of your tongue to the truth that you seem to be showing us the truth even while you are seeking to find a means of making it clear to us; whence, I may say to you that, in considering the essence of the true God, you are tasting the fruit of the tree of perfect knowledge. But how much greater an obligation do you have toward heaven than do I! for I can only open my mouth and let fall, quite by chance, weak sayings and futile words, doing with my ink on paper what those persons do with chalk who take pleasure in defacing the white walls of hostelries.30 And here, I must confess that I have, in this, some little knowledge of myself. The truth is, I have repudiated all my past compositions, and I am just beginning to learn and to write, although I am not able to do this as I ought. But my excuse must be the unfriendly fortune which has forced me to gain my bread through the industry of my pen, since I am by nature not one who would deign to procure it in any other fashion. I conclude by acknowledging all that your own graces and those of every learned man 131deserve, for the knowledge of knowing nothing, which is in me, comes from the modesty of an occult virtue. And so, love me. From Venice, the 23rd of June, 1537.

FOOTNOTE

30 This is a rather startling bit of self-insight. There is in Aretino, as in George Grosz, no little of the street urchin, scrawling obscenities on a wall.

L To THE COUNT DI SAN SECONDO

The Torments of Love.

Go easy, signor, with your attempts to please me, for I would not have you so hound me with your abundance that, wishing to be a man and repay you and not being able to do so, I shall appear to you a beast. To me it is more than enough that, in writing to Signor Cosimo de’ Medici, among all the other things you had to do, you took care to remember me to him. But all else is idle talk, when one has on his back the devil of love, who, I may believe, since she does not spare my old age, does not spare your youth. What cruel nights, what fiery days, thanks to her ribaldries! I had cut down my diet in order to get thin (though I am sure it is not the food but the leisure of this city which has given me such a paunch and such an appetite); but it did not help any. I lost first one of my women and then another, until I became like a victim of plague or famine who is but the shadow of his former self. Truly, I have more pity for those who suffer from love than for those who die of hunger or who go to justice wrongly; for dying of hunger comes from idleness, and being unjustly punished is the result of an evil fate; but the cruelty which falls on the head of an innamorato is an assassination, slaying his faith, his solicitude and the service he should render himself. I have always found myself, and find myself still, and always shall find myself, thanks to God’s grace and my own, without money, on the verge of losing patrons, friends and relatives, in imminent danger of death, burdened with debt or facing a thousand other catastrophes; and my conclusion is that all these other pains are as sweet as sugar in comparison with 132the hammerings of jealousy, expectation, lies and deceits, which crucify the days and nights of one in love. Desire is poison at lunch and wormwood at dinner; your bed is a stone, friendship is hateful and your fancy is always fixed on one thing; until I am astonished that it is possible for the mind to be in so continuous a tempest without losing itself in the eternal battle of its thoughts, which make it pursue the loved object while it tears out its own heart. All this would be amusing enough, if there were in women some little recompense. But they, playing an amorous game of cards, discard, every time, their aces and their kings. But a certain thing which a Perugian said ought to be carved in letters of gold. He had come out of a love affair with a lady-friend with so bad a case of syphilis that he would have been the despair of the wood of India; he was covered with it, from head to foot, very bestially. It had embroidered his hands, enameled his face, bejeweled his neck and strung his throat with coins, so that he looked as though he were made of mosaic. And being in this sorry plight, he was seen by one of those . . . you understand; and after the usual marvelment and consolations, the fellow said: “Brother, it would have been a good thing for you, if you had learned my art!” “I wish to Christ I had!” replied the other, “since it was for this hide that I have sacrificed a hundred times to our Saint Arcolano; but because God was not pleased with my pledge, you see what happened to me.” And ending on this parable, I will commend myself to Your Lordship.

From Venice, the 24th of June, 1537.

LI To MESSER NICOLÒ FRANCO

Against Rhetoric.

Follow the path that nature shows you, if you wish your writings to stand out from the page on which they are written, and laugh at those who steal famished words, because there is a great difference between imitators and 133thieves, and it is the latter whom I damn. Gardeners scold those who trample the herbs to gather their condiments and not those who pluck them gracefully, and they make a sour face at those who, to get the fruit they want, break the branches and and not at those who pick two or three plums, scarcely moving the boughs. I tell you most assuredly that, with the exception of a few, all the others are bent on stealing and not on imitating. Tell me: is not the thief, who transforms the habit he has stolen so he can wear it without its being recognized by its owner, a man of more genius than the one who, being unable to conceal his theft, gets caught at it? You heard the other day, when Grazia read us the divine Sperone’s great dialogue, a remark from the eloquent mouth of my Fortunio to the effect that it sounded as though Plato, in certain places, had been the imitator; and he said this because the author had made his own the passages he had made use of. Look you: the nurse instructs the infant she nourishes, taking his feet and teaching him to walk, putting her own smile into his eyes, her own words upon his tongue, her own manners into his gestures until Nature, as he grows older, teaches him attitudes of his own. And he, little by little, having learned to eat, to walk and to talk; forms a series of new customs; and leaving the embrace of his nurse, he puts into operation his own native habits; and so it is with all of us; we retain only so much of our early instruction as birds do a knowledge of the mother and father from whom they fly away. This he must do who would amount to anything as a poet and, taking only a spiritual inspiration, he should emerge with a harmony formed by his own proper organs. For the ears of others are now satiated with “needs-be’s” and “otherwise’s,” and the sight of them in a book moves us to laughter in the same manner as would a cavalier who was to appear in the piazza all decked out in armor, with golden egrets and a trencher cap; we would say that such a man was mad or masquerading. And yet, in another age, this was the apparel of Duke Borso and of Bartolomeo 134Coglioni. Of what use are those pleasing colors which are employed to paint designless clusters of little boughs? Their glory lies in the enlarged use which Michelangelo makes of them, who so employs nature and art that it is hard to say who is the master and who is the disciple. Another would have him, since he is a good painter, counterfeit a piece of velvet or a belt-buckle! “The truth is in fools,” said Giovanni da Udine31 to some persons who were amazed at his miraculous grotesques in the loggia of Leo and the vineyard of Clement. And to tell you the truth, Petrarch and Boccaccio are imitated by those who would express their conceits with the same sweetness and light32 with which Petrarch and Boccaccio express theirs; you will not find the latter imitated by the man who would plunder them, not of their “wherefore’s” and their “whence’s,” their tricks and qualifications, but of the poetry that is in them. And when the devil blinds us to the point where we run away bodily with some one, forcing us to imitate Virgil, who stole from Homer, or Sanazaro, who cheated on Virgil, the sin is pardoned us. But the faecal blood of pedants who would poetize feeds on imitation, and while they cackle away in their worthless books, they transfigure the works they imitate into locutions, which they embroider with phthisical words, according to rote. O wandering tribe, I tell you, and I tell you again, that poetry is a whim of Nature in her lighter moods; it requires nothing but its own madness and lacking that, it becomes a soundless cymbal, a belfry without a bell. For which reason, he who would compose without taking beauty out of its swaddling clothes is nothing more than a cold potato. Any one who doubts may make the matter clearer to himself by means of the following analogy: the alchemists who, with all imaginable industry, employ the imagination of art for the satisfaction of their own patient avarice, never succeed in producing gold, but merely 135a good imitation; whereas nature, giving herself not the least trouble in the world, brings it forth fine and pure. Take a lesson from what I am going to tell you of that wise painter who, when asked whom he imitated, pointed with his finger to a crowd of men, inferring that he drew his models from life and truth, as I do when I speak and write. Nature herself, and Simplicity, her handmaid, give me what I put into my compositions, and my own fatherland unloosens the knots in my tongue when it tries, superstitiously, to twist itself into foreign chatterings. In short, anyone who soils paper can use “chente” and “scaltro” for “agente” and “paziente”. But do you look to the nerves and leave the skin to the tanners of literature, who stand there begging a penny’s worth of fame with the genius of a highwayman — not that of a learned man, such as you are. It is true that I imitate myself, since Nature as a companion is a large order and art is, of necessity, a clinging beetle. But I advise you to strive to become a sculptor of the senses, and not a miniaturist of vocabularies.

From Venice, the 25th of June, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

31 The painter.

32 con la dolcezza e con la leggiadria.

LII To SIGNOR GIROLAMO DA CORREGGIO

Fishes and Wine.

I have tried out the fish you sent me, along with those which I received from the Count Lodovico Rangone da Roccabianca, and both have the same delicate, juicy flavor. And you may believe me that, even if they were half spoiled and had lost their freshness, they were dearer to me than the presents of cash and goods which the princes give me. And as I shared with others the bergamot pears which the signora Veronica sent me, I have done the same with the fishes. It seemed to me, as I made a meal of them, that I was eating the apples which caused Adam, of blessed memory, to fall, and Adam would have been astonished to find himself in such a terrestrial paradise as this; for Corregio 136is the inn to all who would hoist a flank without paying the hostler. Surely, whoever did him wrong would be committing a sin, for he is the vagabonds’ garden of refuge, and if the world liked to wear bouquets, it would carry him in its hand as the prize gilly-flower. You well know our Messer Giambattista Strozzo, pater patriae, who would make a man with his belly full die of hunger, by sharpening the appetite with the praises which he gives to his own wines, breads, roasts, melons and all the luxuries of the palate. And he is so obstinate in his contentions, that if your mother had not sent me those casks of white and red wine, the impression would have gone abroad that I did not believe in the perfection of such a country as yours. The Count Claudio Rangone sent me some of his wine from Modena, and it was very gentle; but it did not have so clear a color or so biting a taste as yours. I am sure that, in Your Lordship’s land, Bacchus must long since have been canonized, and the aforesaid Strozzo still goes on trying to convince me that he is the lieutenant of Parnassus, but meanwhile, I am plucking the flowers of your own poetic divinities.

From Venice, the 29th of June, 1537.

LIII To THE MAGNIFICENT OTTAVIANO DE’ MEDICI

On the League Against the Turks.

Upon seeing, my lord, and having counted out to me by the gentle Messer Francesco Lione the fifty scudi which Duke Cosimo, by your leave, has been generous enough to present me, my conscience itself was ashamed and that is the reason why I have been so restrained, though I ought not to have doubted the liberality and the love of the son of such a father. It was the office of a prudently discreet man to wait his time to remind you of the old and new bonds of service; but since it is a common though vicious error, the adulations of hope and the stimulus of need call for pardon, and I am sure these spurs will win a pardon for me in this 137case. On the other hand, the courtesy which His Excellency has shown me is a good augury for the beginning of his rule, for none but the best princes and those who reign by the election of God and the counsels of the best men, pay tribute to me, overcoming, thus, hatred and pertinacity with clemency and kindness, like those of that great youth whose praise will always be the food of my labor. You may be assured that my work will have a bearing upon the name and rank of His Most Illustrious Lordship, as will be seen in the copious letters I have written to Caesar, a collection of which I propose to sent to the magnanimous Signora Maria, who is, perhaps, a bit thoughtful in all these tumults provoked by the Turks and the French, tumults which shatter the ears of the world, and which are like the winds and waves, which, raging about the reefs, drive all ships to port. For my part, I believe that God consents to this in order to glorify the power of the religious Venetians, for whose incredible preparations the bosom of all the seas is not large enough; and it is nothing short of a miracle, the way in which this city of Christ provides itself with money, not for war (for she is at war with none), but in order to guard herself against those who would declare war upon her,33 and this it is which accounts for her streets being filled with pomp and joy and senators. The other states raise their funds by impost, amid great confusion and the laments of their people; but here, there is as much rivalry in finding gold as there is in bartering dignities. For the prudence of the Emperor Charles may boast that it has been wise in knowing and cherishing this city. And it is generally conceded that St. Marks’ is the fatal comb which Fortune wears on her forehead, and from it hang victories and defeats.

From Venice, the first day of July, 1537.

FOOTNOTE

33 From which it may be seen, the doctrine of “preparedness” is at least as old as the sixteenth century.

138

LIV To CAESAR

Exhortations and Counsels.

There is no doubt that emperors and kings are elected of God34; and for this reason, they are sacred and adored, as figures drawn of that Image of which we are able to make only a conjecture; and from this source comes their faculty of listening to and consoling their subjects, with their royal grace and their benefits. He who ascends the throne violently through the force or the favor of others, either reigns with infamy or brings ruin and vituperation on himself; but those who receive their sceptre from the supernal will shall rule for all eternity. Did not your power, achieving the impossible, seat Alessandro against the will of fate? And he rules only so long as your fortune sustains him, and lacking your aid, he must fall. But even if the shadow of fate is against us, will it be easy to stop Duke Cosimo, when we have the consent of Christ and of Caesar? Who can deny that divine choice has placed him where his thoughts are fixed? For which reason, we may liken him to David, called from his flocks to a kingdom by the signs of God’s will. He, being a lamp of virtue and of goodness, sustained by a pilgrim spirit, will find his whole mind inflamed, his will warm, his heart ardent and his mind fervent in your service. You do not raise to greatness a corrupt person, who has need of a lordship and the high regard of others, but one from whom something may always be hoped, not feared, one who shall be a prince and not a tyrant, one who will know how to give to his subjects and not steal from them, one who will know how to confer honor upon them and not shame, one, in short, who will know how to caress and how to correct. For this the peoples, who by nature love quiet, will adore your modesty alone; and that force, which sometimes forces a prince to be other than good, will be so tempered with good sense that it will be held perfect in the execution of 139your procedures, and you shall surely be better known for the goodness of your mind than for the pomp of your dominion. Do not delay, then, in giving to one who has not delayed his gifts even to the barbarians, so that all the nations may be astonished by the magnificence of the holy emperor who, in making largess of what he received from the crown of Tunis, comes near clinging to God by the skirts since he who gives largely is very near to God.

But this would be all too little reward for the immense affection and the firm faith which have saved Florence for you, giving to you alone the State. It is a thing worthy of your mind, of your greatness, and of the merits of those who hold it a liberty to serve you to join him in matrimony with your own glorious daughter, who, by taking any other title, would be, perhaps, untrue to her fate, which has destined her to be the queen of our hearts and hopes, and whom we should very much like to have live under the just laws of the House of Medici, that house whose power is already known to Austria, which has been cast down by the arm of Augustus in his own blood. For no other reason did heaven permit the death of the former duke, than to make clear how you should be incarnated in Tuscan flesh, for otherwise, you would never believe, and others would never be able to show you, how dear you were and are to us. And so, with swift deliberation, give to your daughter a consort, to the city a patron and to your friends contentment. See the good Cosimo who, silent in his uprightness, is waiting expectantly to be consoled by that grace which you should scatter over him; for the good wish for it, the times demand it, and so it ought to be. Furthermore, if no one else merited so great a gift as this from so great a monarch, he would merit it from the fact that he does not come of an adulterous parentage, but one illustrious by the virtues of the father and the mother. His father, surely, was the terror of men, and his mother the astonishment of the ladies. Thus, in doing this, you accomplish many laudable effects. By doing 140so, you reward the efforts of his parents, elevate the purity of their offspring and avenge yourself and us against fate and envy; you avenge yourself by making him your son-in-law, in place of the one whom fate and envy have taken from you; and you avenge us by giving us a lord in place of the one whom they stole from us. You should take into consideration, above all, the fact that such a betrothal would restore the heart, refresh the mind and revive the voice of those who adore you; and, at the same time, would cut out the eyes, tear out the tongue and bind the arms of those who hate you; the nights do not flee so quickly as hope dries in the hand, and so, we have no recourse but your mercy; none in our armies. Any delay in this matter is a torment to Caesar’s servants and a joy to his adversaries. Bending then, on my knees in reverence to that Majesty, I ask your Majesty if it is honest that the most just Charles, by delaying, should make a feast for his enemies and bring woe to his friends.

From Venice, the 6th of July, 1537.

FOOTNOTE

34 And the “divine right of kings” is somewhat older than James I.

LV To MESSER GIOVANNI POLLASTRA

In Which He Refuses a Dedication.

The great good will which you have for me, my good fellow, sometimes causes the great love I bear you to be too sure of itself; and so, I become lazy, where I ought to be solicitous by visiting you with my letters at least twice a month. And I do this because the security which, for so many years, I have felt with regard to you promises me that, whether I write to you or not, I am always in your heart, neither more nor less than if I wrote every day; and so, from being your loving brother, by this I ought to become a hateful villain. But that such is not the case, I am assured by my friend, Messer Tarlato Vitali, whom, upon is leaving here, I commissioned to take to you my fraternal kisses; and since I know him to be a very courteous gentleman, I am sure he 141he has already done so. But do you really believe that I am as lacking in affection as I am in words? I swear to you, by that fervent and most tender love which I bear my little daughter, whom God has given me for a solace to my old age, that where your interest is concerned, spilling water is to me like spilling blood, and I hold you in my heart in the same place of pre-eminence which I reserve for my service to Caesar. I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or better than friendship. It is an honest union of eternal wills, and in virtuous and just men it has no end, even as it shall have no end with us, for as we go on loving each other, we keep it always laden with its own fruits. I am admonished, in every manner possible, by the reproof I feel in not having written you twice since I have been here; but something, I do not know what, in the memory I hold of you, even as I read your words, has refused to unloose my tongue, and only with labor has consented that I take my pen and tell you how in the work you have addressed to me appears the love you bear your country, the charity which you show a friend and your own innate greatness of soul. But it would be a great temerity in me to accept your dedication, sensing myself to be a person of no rank and a man of small merit. And so, I advise you to turn to the Marchese del Vasto,35 or to whomsoever may appear to you better fitted to receive the fruit of your labors; to me, it is enough to have the certainty of your good opinion, which, in the benignity of your judgment, has adjudged me worthy of being honored by the writings which come from your fertile genius. In place of this, do me the favor before you die of letting me see some of your verses. If you can do so without the inconvenience of coming here and returning to your home again, you ought to have some of your verse and prose printed. I tell you, this is an age in which the work of any one, no matter who 142he is, is not taken by the printers as a gift, and if you do not pay their terms, you can get no service on your own. And so, listen to me as though I were speaking in your own person, and for the sake of a little money, do not resist the temptation to have an impression made of those Trionfi, of the body of which I should like to see at least a member, as I have told you. Let me be your messenger in the matter, if you love me as I love you, and as I shall love you so long as I am able to love myself.

From Venice, the 7th of July, 1537.

FOOTNOTE

35 The pompous old marquis, to whom Aretino ended by dedicating his own Marfisa. See Introduction.

LVI To MESSER AGOSTINO RICCHI

Winter and Summer.

If science and learning were dearer than life, I, my son, should exhort you to the accustomed tasks; but, since living is of the greater moment, I beseech you to come here with us where, without disturbing your memory with the deviltries of Aristotle, you may study to be healthy while the dog days36 are on, which are very trying on the person and the patience. I, for my part, take more pleasure in seeing the snow falling from heaven that I do in feeling myself wounded by the gentle breezes. Winter impresses me as an abbot who, floating at his ease in the heavens, likes to eat, sleep and to do, with a little too much relish, that other thing. His case is like that of a rich and noble prostitute who, disgusted, throws herself down and, sprinkled with foul smells, does nothing but drink and drink some more. And all the fresh wines and gaily bedecked rooms, all the artificial fans and foods of June and July, are not worth a mouthful of that greasy bread which is eaten before the fire in December or January, while one drinks with it a few musty cups and, in stooping to turn the roast, detaches for himself a bit of salt fried pork, without any thought of mouth or fingers, though the latter are cooked in the course 143of the theft. At night, you enter where the warming pan has done advance service for you, and you take your companion in your arms, all cozily under the covers, and she warms you with her own temperamental heat; while the rain, the thunder and the fury of the north wind merely assure you an unbroken sleep till morning. But who could endure the bestial entertainment of the fleas, bedbugs, gnats and flies and all the other annoyances of the summer season? You lie on the sheets, naked as a new born babe, dependent for a fan upon the mocking services of a treacherous family servant, who leaves you planted37 there as soon as he thinks your eyes are closed; and you wake up in the middle of the finest sleep and turn over on your other side to seat some more; you take a drink, sigh and, turning over again, you long to flee from yourself and, if possible, to disappear from your own sight, so great is the importunity of the heat, which annihilates you in a universal perspiration. And if it were not that the memory of watermelons, those pimps of the palate, assailed you, which is the only thing that makes their summer temple desirable, you would flee the heat as knaves do the cold. There are those who like the season on account of the abundance of its fruits, lauding the cherries, the figs, the fishes and the eggs; as if the truffles and the olives of winter were not worth more than all those things. And there is quite a different sort of conversation around a fire than there is in the shadow of a beech tree,38 for in the latter place a thousand harlot appetites attack one. In such a case, there is a call for the song of birds, the murmur of waters, the sighing of zephyrs, the freshness of a lawn and similar conceits; but four dry logs have in them all the circumstance necessary to a conversation of four or five hours, with chestnuts on the plate and a jug of wine between the legs. Yes, let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius. But to come back to ourselves, I tell you, you ought to come 144straight off, for our Messer Nicolò Franco, a most learned and the best of youths, has found a little room outside in which he can sleep. I have nothing more to say to you, unless you choose to remember me to Signor Sperone and to Ferraguto.

From Venice, the 10th of July, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

36 rabbia del caldo.

37 Che ti pianto, etc.

38 Cf. Virgil [Eclogues I.]: “sub tegmine fagi.”

LVII To MESSER TARLATO VITALI

On Seing One’s Native Land Again.

If, my brother, a man of some merit, desiring to rid himself of all cares and to taste an interior contentment, were to go back to see his native land once every ten years, there is no doubt that, in the brief space of fifteen days, he would experience all that beatitude which souls feel when they return to heaven. For the love of relatives and the charity of friends takes you into the arms of good will with so much gentleness and joy that the spirit, drunk with such affections, sees nothing and tastes nothing except the well-being and the welcome which it receives from one and the other; and, finding nothing but courtesy and honor, a day seems to him an hour, as he delights in the streets which he has not seen for so long a time; it appears to him that he receives a heart-felt greeting from every citizen, and that every one, from the lowest to the highest, receives him as a companion or superior. For a smile which shows you the face of your own fatherland elevates you more than the ranks which others confer on you, and a “good-day” from an old neighbor is worth more than a reward from this prince, or from that, and the soul senses more joy in glimpsing the smoke from the paternal hearth than it takes in the flames kindled by the glory of its own virtues. But he who would not lose an iota of this felicity, does not burden others with his presence overmuch, giving them a chance to take his measure; but rather, by making a famine of himself upon his return, creates in those of quality and benignity, who hold him so 145dearly and who look upon him with so much good will, the desire of seeing more of him. Your gentleness would always find a kind and reverent reception from the aretini, and when you had stayed a century, it would seem, upon your departure, that you had been with us but a month. And if my people cannot be consoled with your presence, since you are not always able to put yourself out on account of us, may we at least see the proofs of your affection in those fresh wines and precious fruits, for I cannot compete with you in the delights in which that province of yours abounds. It is true, Messer Francesco Bacci was recently here, and we were able, in embracing him, to show the sort of brotherly love there is between us, a love which, it may be said, beginning in the cradle, has reached the height of perfection, nor is there any possibility of its ever being broken, even by death. And you said as much to him of me. To Eugenia, your daughter, I say the same, although I am sure she has forgotten me, as has her husband, although Madonna Tita, her mother, will swear that I am wrong in thinking such a thing. I would have you, then, remember me to them, as would the one who is more than a daughter to me and her sister, Lucretia, and Girolamo, their brother, who has promised to supply me with watermelons night and morning. I hope you keep well; as for me, I have had three most dangerous attacks of fever, from which I only escaped by the grace of God and not thanks to my having observed the doctor’s orders.

From Venice, the 13th of July, 1537.

LVIII To SIGNOR MARIO BANDINI

He Prophesies to Cardinal Piccolomini That He Will Become Pope.

I, Captain, would not excuse my not having replied at once to your letter, which was not less gracious than it was gentle, by the fact that I have been very busy or the fact 146that I have been ill, for I ought to put work aside and forget the fever in order to return the kindness of such a cavalier as you, showing you by my good faith that you are as near my heart as those who do not imitate you in virtue and gentleness are far from mind. If it were permitted to advise God and to give laws to heaven, I should say that God and heaven, for the common welfare, as soon as the pontiff’s seat is vacant by death, ought to take your uncle for the place, so that Rome once more might adorn itself with that joy, those pomps and that spirit of which ugliness of mind on the part of others has deprived it. Certain it is, fortune may make a prince of a plebeian, but over nature it has no jurisdiction. And so it is, he who is born without a generous zeal, the greater the altitude to which he is raised, the more he is abased; for blood that thinks it is made illustrious through the favor of fate, becomes obscure; becoming villainous, it is interred with its titles and cognomens. But are you reading what I write to you without taking from it an augury of your future felicity? I have said so many true things in my day, that I will say one more; and that is, that, by the virtue which he inherits from the two Pii, if Cardinal Piccolomini were to succeed them, it would be no miracle but something which had to happen. I was with the great Giovanni de’ Medici at Fano, when he swore to me that if Jesus ever did him a favor, it was in blessing him with me; and yet, I believe I was soon out of his fancy, for such a one as he does not remember even himself. But, on the other hand, I, who am become so much yours that I no longer appear to have a part in myself, after thanking you for the courtesy you have shown in writing me, would pray you not to disdain my services, which shall be prompt in pleasing you. And in case you write to the valorous Archbishop of Siena, your brother, not because I deserve it, but because you are kindness itself, remember me to him. But look you, even as I close this page, my dear and rare Varchi appears and, upon glimpsing the superscription, restrains the reproofs 147he was about to address to me, for he believed, as you yourself must have done, that I had forgotten my duty in not replying to your courteous Lordship.

From Venice, the 15th of July, 1537.

LIX To MESSER ANTONIO GALLO

In Which He Exhorts Him to Cultivate Poetry with Originality.

With that good face, my delicate youth, with which one plucks and tastes the first fruits of the year, I took and read your words, pleasing and savorous as the most pleasing and savorous apples that ever were tasted. And I have taken no less pleasure in your own writing than in the wonderment which you express at mine, according to what you tell me; for the deep and gentle love I bear you in my heart, the rare virtue of poetry that is in you, and your manners, which are so richly adorned, are the causes which impel me to praise you and to exhort you to continue your studies, since to tire himself in studies is the duty of him who, with glory, has begun to climb the ladder of fame. And so, flee laziness, which, while it produces an immediate delight, ends in the sorrow of repentance. And know that nature without exercise is a seed shut up in the pod, and art without practice is nothing. Be, then, assiduous in composition, if you would be the best of poets, and above all, see to it that you steal fine strokes and the spiritual acuteness from your own genius, for he is certainly mad who thinks he can make a name for himself through the labors of others. Strive to draw your conceits from your own thoughts, which are born in you out of memory, while you are engaged in raising yourself to the heights, with the fury of Apollo. Doing this, your judgment will find satisfaction in its own works, and you will be baptized as a son of the muses, and not as the offspring of literary thefts.

And now, speaking of something else, I will say that the 148signor Guidobaldo would not be the son of so great a father, if he were not constantly mindful of the services and the virtue of others, as he is mindful of myself and of Lione: of me, on account of the desire I always had to obey his wishes; of Lione, on account of the life-like medallion which the latter has made of him, and which is one of my own possessions. Wherefore, I pray God that our gratitude may be equal to his Excellency’s goodness. And when we can do no more, we will consecrate to him our good intentions, beseeching your gentle breeding to keep us in your honored graces, trusting that you will take comfort in regarding the person, aside from those accidents and disorders which are the pleasurable food of youth. Adieu.

From Venice, the 6th of August, 1537.

[Letters LX-LXXIX]

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 180-211.

[180]

THE LETTERS OF PIETRO ARETINO

Letters LXXX-XCIX

LXXX To MESSER DOMENICO BOLANI

Description of the House Which He Had Rented of Him.55

It would appear to me, honored gentleman, a sin of ingratitude, if I did not pay in praises the debt I owe to the divinity of the place in which your house is situated, where I dwell with all the pleasure that there is in life, for its site is the most proper, being neither too high up nor low down. I am as timorous about entering upon its merits as one is about speaking of those of the emperor. Certainly, he who built it picked out the best spot on the Grand Canal. And since it is the patriarch of streams and Venice the popess of cities, I can say with truth that I enjoy the finest street and the pleasantest view in the world. I never go to the window that I do not see a thousand persons and as many gondolas at the hour of market. The piazze to my right are the Beccarie and the Pescaria;56 as well as the Campo del Mancino, the Ponte and the Fondaco dei Tedeschi; and where these meet, there is the Rialto, crowded with men of business. Here, we have the grapes in barges, the game and pheasants in shops, the vegetables on the pavement. Nor do I long for meadow streams, when at dawn I wonder at the waters covered with every kind of thing in season. It is good sport to watch those who bring in the great stores of fruit and vegetables passing them out to those who carry them to their appointed places! All is bustle, except the spectacle of the twenty or 181twenty-five sail boats, filled with melons which, huddled together, make, as it were, an island in the middle of the multitude; but then comes the business of counting, sniffing and weighing them, to judge their perfection. Of the beautiful housewives, shining in silk and superbly resplendent in gold and jewels, not to appear to be indulging in an anticlimax, I refrain from speaking. But of one thing I shall speak, and that is of how I nearly cracked my jaws with laughter when the cries, hoots and uproar from the boats was drowned in that of grooms at seeing a bark-load of Germans, who had just come out of the tavern, capsized in the cold waters of the canal, a sight that the famous Giulio Camillo and I saw one day. He, by the way, used to take a delight in remarking to me that the entrance to my house from the land-side, being a dark one and with a beastly stair, was like the terrible name I had acquired by revealing the truth. And then, he would add that any one who came to know me would find in my pure, plain and natural friendship the same tranquil contentment that was felt on reaching the portico and coming out on the balconies above. But that nothing might be lacking to my visual delights, behold, on one side, I have the oranges that gild the base of the Palazzo dei Camerlinghi and, on the other side, the rio and the Ponte di San Giovan Grisostomo. Nor does the winter sun ever rise without entering my bed, my study, my kitchen, my other apartments and my drawingroom. But what I prize most is the nobility of my neighbors. I have opposite me the eloquent, magnificent and honored Maffio Lioni, whose supreme virtues have taught learning, science and good manners to the sublime intellect of Girolamo, Piero and Luigi, his wonderful sons. I have also His Serene Highness, my sacramental and loving godfather, and his son. I have the magnanimous Francesco Moccinico, who provides a constant and splendid board for cavaliers and gentleman. At the corner, I see the good Messer Giambattista Spinelli, under whose paternal roof dwell my friends, the Cavorlini (may God pardon fortune 182for the wrong done them by fate). Nor do I regard as the least of my good fortune the fact that I have the dear Signora Iacopa, to whom I am so used, for a neighbor. In short, if I could feed the touch and the other senses as I feed the sight, this house which I am praising would be to me a paradise, for I content my vision with all the amusement which the objects it loves can give. Nor am I at all put out by the great foreign masters of the earth who frequently enter my door, nor by the respect which elevates me to the skies, nor by the coming and going of the bucentaur,57 nor by the regattas and the feast days, which give the Canal a continuously triumphal appearance, all of which the view from my windows commands. And what of the lights, which at night are like twinkling stars, on the boats that bring us the necessities for our luncheons and our dinners? What of the music which by night ravishes my ears? It would be easier to express the profound judgment which you show in letters and in public office than to make an end of enumerating all the delights my eyes enjoy. And so, if there is any breath of genius in my written chatterings, it comes from the favor you have done me — not the air, not the shade, not the violets and the greenery, but the airy happiness I take in this mansion of yours, in which God grant I may spend, in health and vigor, the remainder of those years which a good man ought to live.

From Venice, the 27th of October, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

55 See Hutton’s chapter.

56 The meat and fish markets.

57 The state barge.

LXXXI To TRIBOLO, THE SCULPTOR

On the “St. Peter, Martyr” of Titian.

Messer Sebastiano, the architect, knowing the great delight I take and the small judgment I possess in sculpture, pleased me much by making me see, through his description, the facile manner in which the folds of the Virgin’s robe fall58 183in the work of genius which you dedicated to me. He described to me also how languidly the members of Christ droop, the dead Christ whom you, with a fine stroke of art, have placed in her lap; and he did it so vividly that I beheld the affliction of the mother and the misery of the son before I really saw them. As he told me of the wonderful work you had done, I thought of the author of that San Pietro Martire. You remember how astonished you and Benvenuto59 were upon looking at it. Closing, in the presence of such a work, your physical and mental eyes, you felt all the living terrors of death and all the true griefs of life in the forehead and the flesh of the one who had fallen to the ground, and you wondered at the cold and livid appearance of the nose and the bodily extremities; nor could you restrain an exclamation when, upon beholding the fleeing multitude, you perceived in their countenances a balance of vileness and fear. Truly, you pronounced a right judgment upon my great table when you told me it was not the most beautiful thing in Italy. What a marvelous group of cherubs in the air, amid the trees which shelter them with their trunks and leaves! What a wonderfully simple and natural landscape! What mossy stones that water bathes which issues here from the brush of the divine Titian! Who, in his benign modesty, salutes you most warmly, proffering himself and anything he has, swearing there is no equal to the affectionate interest he takes in your fame. Nor can I tell you how eagerly he awaits seeing the two figures which, by your own choice, you have decided to send me: a gift which, I assure you, shall not be passed over in silence nor with ingratitude.

From Venice, the 29th of October, 1530.

FOOTNOTES

58 It is interesting here to compare the things which the early Cubists [see Salmon] found, or thought they found, in El Greco. See also what Roger Fry says of El Greco [“Vision and Design”].

59 Cellini.

LXXXII To MESSER BERNARDO NAVAIERO

In Praise of Venice.

Your literate and laudable testimonial, excellent youth, 184together with that of the honored Messer Girolamo Quirini, is well adapted to make clear to others how, in the breasts of the chieftains who have been elected to admonish and to punish, there is no benevolent affection, either new or old, with which I have not been tenderly received and sheltered, as an act worthy of the deeds of the magnanimous Venetian nature. I, while the high favor of the most illustrious Pietro Zeno and the most excellent Marcantonio Veneiero was lifting me from the earth, took occasion to look up and saw at the top of the tribunal, all the sincere modesty which goes to enrich the gravity of justice; I saw also honor, glory, praise, power, presidency, reputation, eloquence, magistracy, clemency and felicity. Whereupon I, bowing my mind to such virtues, blessed in my heart the instant and the hour in which fate brought me here, that fate which, in return for my piety, removed me from the malignity of courts. For popes, emperors and kings, to those who serve them, are the source of calumnies and adulations, as well as of poverty and misery, whence it is, hope, when it grows a little larger, becomes at once the object of an envy grown more bitter, a hatred more perilous and an emulation more acute; a thing which has no place in the service of a republic; in which, while particular interests may puff the minds of a few, the eye of duty, which looks always to the public good, sees to it that, in whatever happens, malevolence is converted into love. But those peoples who trail out their years in the wake of princes become mad and devour, with a constant rancor, both themselves and others. And so, my situation here, in the bed of this lagoon, is my consolation. I am looked upon gently by the most esteemed and the wisest. I obtain the benignity of all pleasures and graces. And I enjoy, above all my other noble customs, your conversation, which to me is dearer than the intimacy of any lord whatsoever, since from your spirit come not only examples, judgments and doctrines, but honesty, good manners and gentility. And it seems to me, as I look upon you, that I am beholding the image of the 185Greek and Latin tongues and the very statue of goodness. And so, I pay you my respects and celebrate you.

From Venice, the 3rd of November, 1537.

LXXXIII To MESSER GIROLAMO SARRA

Of Various Kinds of Salad.

As soon, my brother, as the tributes of salad begin to fall off, giving rein to my fancy for divination, I set about astrologizing the reasons why you are withholding payment in foods from my appetite and taste. But if I had carried my thoughts on to the olive-oil press, I never would have suspected that you would deprive me of such provision, replacing it with citronella, which is as pleasing to your throat as it is displeasing to mine. And so it is, man says: “Whence come enmities?” They come from that herb, which you could not refrain from sending me nor I from throwing away. What the devil should be done with one of those who neither drink wine nor eat melons, when they take away from a good companion his drink-money,60 at the request of Monna Ranciata, whose overbearingness is to be seen in all the gardens? Surely, she must have bewitched you and left you with a sibyl in your arms, from whom you are taking orders. Alas! I suppose I shall have to accustom myself to doing without, and I hope to be able to do so, since I am used to being without a farthing, which is quite different from opening the mouth and sending down a good swig. And so, change your mind and send me the tribute which your own courtesy lays upon you, so that I may enjoy those fruits which you plant in the soft March earth for the pleasure of the merchant-porters. Ask the good Fortunio what pleasure I take, what praises I give and what a welcome I extend upon the receipt of a gift of salads, as well as to the servant who fetches them. I perceive in what manner you have tempered the bitterness of some herbs with the sweetness of 186others. It takes little learning to know how to mitigate the sharp and biting taste of certain leaves with the flavor, neither sharp nor bitter, of certain others, making of the whole a compound that is satisfying to the point of satiety. The blossoms scattered among the little greens of such fine appetizers tempt my nose to whiff them and my hand to pluck them. In short, if my servants knew how to make spices in the Genoese manner, I should leave for them the breast of wild chicken which, very often, for lunch and for dinner, to the glory of Cadoro, the unique Titian sends me; although, not without blame to me, who am a Tuscan, for not remembering it, I leave the preparation of it to the one who killed it. I do not know what pedant it was, making a face at one you sent me the other day, entered upon a eulogy of the lettuce and the endives, which were quite without odor; until Priapus, the god of gardeners, becoming angry with himself, debated whether he should not hunt them all down from behind, most bestially. For I prefer a handful, not of home-made salad, but of wild succory and a little catmint, to all the lettuces and endives that ever were. I am astonished that the poets do not become drunken in singing the virtues of the salad. It is a great wrong to the friars and nuns not to praise it, for they steal whole hours from their orisons, to spend it in cleaning the leaves of little stones, and they throw much time away as they sweat in gathering and curing those leaves. I believe the inventor must have been a Florentine — he could not have been anybody else — for the laying of the table, decorating it with roses, the washing of beakers, the putting of plums in ragoûts, the garnishing of cooked livers, the making of blood-puddings and the serving of fruit after meals all come from Florence. Their pigs’ brains, thirst-inciters, and diligentini, with their other thoughtful subtleties, cover all the points by means of which cookery may appeal to the jaded appetite. In conclusion, I will say that the citronella is only remembered by me with annoyance. And so, tomorrow will be as 187good a time as any to put me back in the good graces of your garden. And avoid the deadly rue; for when I come upon a salad that has been well rolled in a vinegar fit to grind stones, I rebel at the very smell of it.

From Venice, the 4th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

60 regaglie: cf. The French pourboire.

LXXXIV To THE MARCHESA DI PESCARA

Praises.

This century of ours, signora, which has nothing left to wonder at, such are the works it has produced through its genius, may still be astonished at those it has given birth to through the spirit. But in avoiding all comparisons which are better suited to the soul than to the intellect, it is difficult to make a beginning, when one opens his mouth or raises his eyebrows. Two things the world has not seen the like of: one, the invincible spirit of your consort; the other, your own high and invincible mind, whose kindness gives you the palm; for as he, with his force, won the battles of the people, so you, with such valor as that you possess, win the wars of the senses. And while the purity of those flames with which the angels glow lights your heart, you are vaunted by the true voice of a holy fame, for which reason heaven reserves for you other palms and other crowns than mortal ones. What an augury of happiness it was the day you were christened “Vittoria.” What fatality was in the name, since, conquering, as with arms, all the worldly vanities, you adorn yourself with the spoils and trophies acquired in the confiscations of a firm well-doing and a constant faith in the face of earthly deceits. You, not to lessen the rank of your great husband, have discovered the spiritual milita, whose cohorts come into camp under the ensigns of reason, which, for the honor of Jesus and in the service of the soul, triumphs over its adversaries in every campaign. As a demonstration, while he, in order to dominate the inexpugnable, was putting into operation what the school of Mars never knew, so you,

[188]

Black and white lithograph by the Marquis de Bayros, of a woman in a knee length black robe wearing a turban, or scarf wrapped tightly around her head. One arm is extended forward and the other is flexed by her head, as if she were dancing.

189

to subjugate the abyss, employ all that you have learned from the studies of Christ, holding at low rate those who are more interested in acquiring earthly than heavenly glory, and who display more heart in making themselves lords of the cities of the earth than of the kingdom of paradise, shedding with greater lealty their blood for men than they do their tears for God, repudiating, in their hope of praise and gain, the life that is in death, being afraid of the shadow which surrounds the service of our Redeemer. For the conquerors of any clime never wore a diadem as resplendent as that which gleams in the cap of the man who has learned to subdue himself, for all the difficulties of bravery and prudence lie in this, and not in the overthrow of empires. This being so, what chariot and what garland should your just goodness have, since it, always being conscious of the public good, never fleeing the assaults of error, but maintaining constantly a war with vice and peace with virtue, has made itself its own prisoner? O elected lady, you alone know how to live at the celestial board, making your food of those viands which are cooked with the fervent fires of charity, which in your firm breast finds the inn of all delights, chaste, sweet, gentle, clear, sacred and holy. And since your desire is none other than to hear the word of God, as enclosed in the bosom of the Scriptures, you make merely a change of lesson and, transforming the poetic books into prophetic volumes, you study Christ, Paul, Agostino, Girolano and the other pens of religion. Happy, then, in the memory which you leave with us here below, and which you store up for yourself in your eternal fatherland above, have compassion, being such as you are, on those who are otherwise; for you know (you who are so restrained with the manners of your father and adored with the graces of your mother) that all our little brief mortality is a thing we hold in common with the animals; whence it is, avoiding all gifts that depend on time and fortune, you procure for your constant soul eternal things, thus satisfying God, who always was, and yourself, 190who will be always. But terrestrial magnificences would yet be excellent, if only the princes who are monarchs of them would set before themselves a standard of high living such as that you have set yourself.

From Venice, the 5th of November, 1537.

LXXXV To MESSER ANTONIO BRUCCIOLI

Against the Ignorant Friars.

Why, my good fellow, do you pay any attention to the idle chatterings of the friars, since hatred is an essential of their nature, and all they know how to do is to bark and bite? You ought to know well enough that love never goes unaccompanied by jealousy or glory by envy. I do not deny that, in a few monasteries, there are fathers worthy of praise and rank; I believe in this, just as I believe in miracles; but by Christ, take away the few truly good, and you will see what sort it is who put on the habits, so called, of your saints. Scarcely does their arrogance scent accomplishment or learning on the part of others than, being ashamed that other should do what they by profession and by sacrament are obligated to do, they at once attempt to take vengeance for their own natural ignorance by taxing the life, name and works of the chaste interpreters of the Old and New Testaments. Growing old. In the footsteps of the maestri and the wiseacres, they lose all hope of being able, through their own industry or genius, to walk with new feet in the true paths of God’s Scriptures, and so, they annoy with a Lutheran calumny those who are most just and most Christian. Our defense is the credit which they have lost, in fact and as a result. The wrongful sway which they formerly exercised over our rightful merits has become the handmaid of him, who, with deeds and not with fictions, speaks well and writes better. Go on, then, driving them to despair with the volumes which your profound and sincere wisdom gives the world; for the Bibbia, the Salmi and the other immortal 191labors of Bruccioli are not food to the taste of such as they. What a benefit it would be to our souls and their lives, if, changing their nature and their literary style, they would only mount their pulpits as preachers and not as cavillers! For the good and simple know that the coming of the Son of God will make manifest to us that which is hidden in each and every prophecy. Hence, whoever believes in Jesus finds that such a belief has infused into his intellect the Virgin birth, the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead. Every impossible effect may easily be demonstrated by one who is not doubtful of his birth. For this reason, the reverend fathers have no business going about vociferating in their pulpits about the manner in which the divine Word was incarnated in Mary, nor how it is the spirit leaves our members cold, nor how the dust of flesh and bone, tossed to the winds or scattered on the sea, must be brought together again in order that we may be resurrected alive. Surely, such brazen arguments are a reproach to the silence of Christ, who simply gives us a sign, in order not to take away the premium which he puts on faith, which is a blessing to those who, believing, seek neither testimony nor pledge. We go to church clean of those scruples which the perverse find in religion, and, thinking we are going to hear a sermon, we bear a strident dispute, which has nothing whatever to do with the gospels or with our sins. As a result, even the barbarians look upon the whole thing as a fantasy. The root of the evil lies in the desire for transcendental knowledge on the part of those who would do themselves more honor by commending and bowing to you than in offending and injuring you; for you are a man without an equal in your knowledge of the Hebraic, Greek, Latin and Chaldean tongues, and so good at heart that you would rather teach those who reprehend your writings than revenge yourself on them. And so, you are bound to live happy and honored.

From Venice, the 7th of November, 1537.

192

LXXXVI To MASTER TITIAN

The “Annunciation.” 61

That was wise foresight on your part, my dear fellow, in deciding to send your picture of the Queen of Heaven to the empress of the earth. Nor could that high judgment from which you draw the marvels of your painting have found a loftier lodging place for the canvas in which you depict such an Annunciation. It is dazzling in the rays of gleaming light which issue from the rays of paradise, from whence come angels, gently wafted down in diverse attitudes over the gleaming, light and lively-hued clouds. The Holy Spirit, surrounded by the lamps of its own glory, makes us hear the beating of its wings, so life-like is the dove whose form it has taken. The heavenly arch which spans the air over the country revealed by the glow of dawn is truer than that which we actually see of an evening after a rain.62 But what am I to say of Gabriel, the divine messenger? He, filling everything with light and more refulgent than ever in the inn, is bowing so gently, with such a gesture of reverence, that he forces us to believe that he is actually appearing in the sight of Mary. He has a celestial majesty in his countenance, and his cheeks are trembling with the tender hue of milk and blood, which your coloring has very naturally counterfeited. His head is haloed with modesty, while gravity gently abases his eyes; his hair falls in tremulous ringlets. The fine robe of yellow cloth is not incompatible with the simplicity of his attire and conceals without hiding his nudity. Nor were wings ever to be seen before with such a fine variety of plumage. And the fragrant lily in his left hand shines with an unwonted candor. Above, his mouth is forming a salutation, expressed in the angelic notes, “Ave.” The Virgin is first adored and then consoled by the courier of God, and you have painted her so marvelously and in such a manner that all other lights are dazzled by the luminous reflections 193of her peace and piety. So that now, in the light of this new miracle, we are no longer able to praise as before that history which you painted in the Palazzo di San Marco, as an honor to our lords and an annoyance to those who, not being able to deny your genius, gave you the first place in painting and to me the first in evil-speaking, as if your works and mine were not visible throughout the world.

From Venice, the 9th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

61 A description, the only one we have, of the famous painting now lost to us.

62 Aretino, as has been said (see Introduction) was a realist in his art criticism.

LXXXVII To MESSER FORTUNIO

In Which He Exhorts His Friend to Free Himself of the Snares of Love.

Why, honored brother, do you seek to flee love by going to the country? Do you not know that what you need is a change of mind, and not of place? Desire, the image of the loved object, like a mirror of the heart, always stands before you with an image of the one for whom you sigh, burn and weep; and so, putting distance between you and her is merely making a martyr of yourself for her sake. The bird whose wing has caught fire cannot put out the flame, but only kindles it the more, by flying; and when the mind, with an arrow in its side, takes flight, it is simply speeding its own end. Hence, betaking yourself here and there will only be the death of you. Moreover, think how shameful it is to commit one’s self to such an experiment when one knows, one can with difficulty stay away. In case you wish to forget the affection you bear another, the best thing is to root it out with love of the soul, which is a subject worthy of the dignity it lends us.63 In loving the body, you have forgotten how praiseworthy is constancy, the principal virtue in a lover. The lady knows that you repent loving her; and so, resolve to break the yoke of servitude with the free hand of prudence, being unwilling to permit the gifts of friendship, conferred upon you by the stars, to be rendered sterile by 194venereal pains. What more can the skies give you than they have given you already? You have a majestic presence, gentle manners, ability in action, a graceful bearing, good nature, a happy genius, praise for your works and a glorious name. So true is this, that many persons often blame the planets for the poverty of their intellects and envy your wealth of spirit. Therefore, compose your reason, which has been upset through the wrong done your vanity by the gentle love god. Turn your thoughts to the exercise of science, so that our own times and centuries to come may not have cause to curse the inactivity which, with idle flattery, keeps you marking time, to the delight of death, who always tries to put fancy to sleep because those who give praise do not place the seat of immortality in her dominion. Of what use to us is that familiarity which you have with the learning of all tongues, if your industry stands idle and time is wronged by the silence of your pen? Although I am the greatest loser of all, since I learn from you what I do not know and what no other can teach me. But if you are not moved by considerations of your own honor and the common profit, then I trust you will be moved by the debt you have always felt you owed to Your Lordship’s rank, being not unmindful of the fact that we are of the same native land; as a sign of which, witness the bonds of benevolence which of old have bound aretine minds and the hearts of Viterbum. For you in Arezzo and I in Viterbum are in a position to enjoy those magisterial privileges which the statutes in either city give us. But this is little in comparison with the place which friendship holds with you, for your kindness joins me to you in an affection which can never be broken. Finally, I would conjure you, by the dear gentleness and the charity that is in you, to make your peace with your books, which, now that you have cast them aside, you seem to hate; for Italy well knows that you not only write books worth reading but speak, always, things worth writing.

From Venice, the 15th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

63 “Sublimation”!

195

LXXXVIII To MESSER BATTISTA STROZZI

In Which He Dissuades His Friend from Going to War.

I do not know what well known man it was who swore to me recently that some whim had seized you again for some business or other. Stay at Coreggio, my sire; stay with us; or, al corpo di me, you’ll be hunting me up to write your epitaph. I had thought that the cacaruola of Montemurlo would have made you wise, but you are worse than ever. And the reason for this is the Ciceronian judgment in the treatise, Del tiranno, which is the a-b-c of your propositions. I tell you, you would do better to make it your business to confabulate with your lyre at the fireside of our patroness, Signor Veronica, improvising a couple of stanzas in heroic fashion and leaving the weather-veering to the weather-cocks. I think of how I found you at Prato, buried in that vat of straw (from which you cried out to the cavalryman, who, not knowing you were with us, wished to take a couple of mouthfuls: “I surrender”); and I wonder that you did not make a vow to all the Virgins in the world to say nothing more about liberty or pay. But alas! madness and the devil tempt you and drag you away; go, then, but take it easy behind the baggage trains, for in a “Salvum me fac” lies the safety of nos otros, and not in getting into the rout, receiving half a dozen wounds and, in addition, being looked upon as a beast. You know that in the house of the Count Guido Rangone, I counseled you not to be stubborn in the matter, endeavoring to make you feel that killing or crippling others would not be to your credit, since you are not armorum; follow my advice, and you will not have to give an account to the mourners; for if Your Lordship is killed, every one will say: “Served him right!” And so, when you return to the danger-zone, using a couple of nails as a spur to your steed, imitate the fellow who, on account of the movement of his body, kept his heels tied with a pair of shoe-strings. Thus, staying with the rear-guard and hurling defiance, you will 196make the crowd believe that it is woe to the enemy if your pony does not shed its shoes! In case the battle is won, spur forward and mingle with the victors and, cocking your ears to the cries of “Viva! Viva!” enter the conquered land with the first, and with the face, not merely of a captain, but of a very giant. If worst comes to worst, lose no time in getting out, take to your legs, fly away, for it is better for your hide that they should say: “What coward is fleeing there?” than “What corpse is lying here?”64 Glory is good enough in its place; but when we are dead, old lady Fame can sound the bagpipes and play the Pavan all she chooses, but we will not be there to hear them; we shall be crowned with laurel and mingling with the dust of Cyprus. And if you do not take my word for it, take the assurance of Messer Lionardo Bartolino, that war is something more than talk. He leaves it to those who are masters of the art, laughing at the ones who are willing to lose their hair in hot lye. I, for my part, never heard of a brain that was more apt at sifting brains than his; nor do I know a more liberal or a more discreet friend or a person less envious of the good of others; for which reason, I love him, holding it a very graceful thing, his having borne witness to my goodness in the same manner in which I shall testify to your wisdom, when you become content to bring up the military rear and are satisfied with the name of poet, leaving the title of Rodomonte to the bolt-eaters and pike-swallowers. And with this advice, bene valete.

From Venice, the 16th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

64 “Better be a live coward than a dead hero.”

LXXXIX To MESSER IACOPO SANSOVINO

In Which He Dissuades His Friend from Leaving Venice.

There is no doubt that the execution of those works which come from your high genius provide a complement to the pomp of this city, which we, thanks to its goodness and liberality, have chosen for a fatherland; and it has proved to 197be our great good fortune, since here the desirable foreigner is not merely the equal of the ordinary citizen; he is looked upon also as a gentleman. Look what good has come out of the sack of Rome,65 since out of it, by God’s favor, we have your sculpture and your architecture. It is no news to me that the magnanimous Giovanni Gaddi, an apostolic churchman, together with the cardinals and the popes, are tormenting you with requests in their letters to return to the court, that they may again have you for ornament. To me your judgment would appear very strange, if you were to seek to flee the nest of safety for the perch of danger, leaving the Venetian senators for the courtezan-prelates. But they must be forgiven their eagerness in this matter, for you are, indeed, very apt at restoring temples, statues and palaces. And in former times, they never had seen the church of the Florentines, which you erected upon the Tiber to the astonishment of Raffaello da Urbino, of Antonio da Sangallo and of Baldassare da Siena; nor do they ever turn to your work at San Marcello or to your marble figures or the sepulchres of Aragona, Santa Croce and Aginense (the very inception of which would be beyond most) without sighing for the absence of Sansovino; and in the meanwhile, Florence grieves even as she revels in the spirit of Bacchus which you have given to the gardens of Bartolini, as in all the other marvels which you have sculptured and erected. But if they must do without you, it is because your wise virtues have found a good place in which to set up their tabernacle. A salute from these noble sleeves is worth more than a present from those ignoble mitres. If any one who wishes to see in what respect this republic holds the virtuous, let him look upon the house in which you dwell, as in the worthy prison of your art, and where you every day produce marvels from your hands and from your intellect. Who would not praise the perpetual defenses with which you have sustained the church of St. Mark? Who is not astonished at the Corinthian workmanship 198of the Misericordia? Who does not stand lost in thought before the rustic and Doric architecture of the Zecca? Who is not dumbfounded upon viewing the Doric carving, which has been begun opposite the signorial palace, with, above it, the Ionic composition with the needed ornaments? What a fine sight the edifice will be, with its marble and precious stones, rich in great columns, which must be erected to go with the other! It will have, in composite form, the beauties of all architectures and will be a fitting loggia for the promenades of such nobles as these. What shall I say of the Cornari? or la Vigna? or la Nostra Donna de l’ arsenale? or that wonderful Mother of Christ, extending the protecting crown to this unique fatherland? A history which you have made us see in bronze, with wonderful figures, in the pergolo of your dwelling; for which you merit the rewards and the honors conferred upon you by the magnificence of the most serene-minded ones who devotedly look upon your work. And so, may God grant our days be many, that you may keep on serving them and I praising you.

From Venice, the 21st of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

65 Described in the Ragionamenti.

XC To THE MAGNIFICENT MESSER GIROLAMO QUIRINI

In Which He Excuses Himself for an Outburst of Wrath.

Sudden wrath, magnificent one, is very familiar to the aretine tribe; nor does this appear to me a blameworthy thing in such natures as these, for anger represents a certain power, when a great mind, prevented from executing its own generous desires, is moved by it. For this reason, I, the other evening, as you know, being a prey to the impetuosity of the moment, spoke disagreeably, my face being kindled with flames to the disdain of just cause; in which I was like a lamp which, from an abundance of oil, shoots forth sparks without giving light. Truly, angry men are blind and foolish, for reason at such a time takes flight and, in her absence, 199wrath plunders all the riches of the intellect, while the judgment remains the prisoner of its own pride. However, do not believe that, merely because I was so possessed of bile, there was in me any evil desire of revenge. For the case which wrath made out in my heart appeared to me so infamous a one that I should have looked upon it as a disgrace not to have become angry. But the ability to defend one’s self against the assaults of lust and anger is one which few or none of us possess; and so, either of these two passions is deserving of pardon.

From Venice, the 21st of November, 1537.

XCI To THE MAGNIFICENT MESSER GIOVANNI BOLANI

A Caricature.

I hear, signor, that Messer Pietro Piccardo is at Padua and with a paucity of thoughts in his head that would be a disgrace to a young wind-hover. It is a good thing the surcharge of years gives him not a pain in the world! And yet Fabrizio da Parma and the Pope, who are the two oldest whores66 in Rome, swear that they knew him when he had a beard two fingers long. This, whoever, does not keep him from putting on the armor of love and neighing for the fray. I nearly burst my jaws with laughing when I saw him with a crowd of women behind a shop. He, every chance he had, would come out with an “I kiss your hand” or “Your Ladyships” in a manner that would have outdone a Spaniard. Of his bowings and scrapings I do not speak, for it is impossible to find words spicy enough to express them. He would lay out before his friends certain little enameled rings, certain little baskets of silver-thread and certain collars and trifles, accompanied by certain crude jests of his own and very solemn ceremonies. And when he had done displaying these modern relics, he would make a shovel of some kind of cornucopia he had; whereupon Monsignor Lippomano 200would remark to him: “Put them away, for you, domine, are the finest antique I ever saw.” . . . Certainly, our signor ought to put him up in marble or bronze over the door of all the wine-vats, with a Bible at his feet which should contain the names of all the pontiffs and cardinals he has known. I could spend whole days in hearing him tell how San Giorgio won sixty-thousand ducats from the Signor Franceschetto, the brother of Innocent, and how with these winnings was built the palazzo in the Campo di Fiori, coming then to the flasks with which Valentino poisoned himself and his father, thinking that he was brewing it for their reverences. He remembers the blow which Julius on the bridge gave to Alessandro in minoribus. One night, he was routed from his bed at five o’clock in the morning by an uproar in the corridor outside, and going out, he ran after some one who was going up and down singing “Oh, my hard, blind fate” and thinking the fellow was burlesquing the bad news which His Holiness had just received from the field, and not listening to Accorsio,67 who kept saying to him all the while “Holy father, go to bed,” he broke the head of the steward, an old man of sixty years, who had heard the noise and come running, in the belief that the steward was the musician. He had been present at all the schisms, all the jubilees and all the councils. He knew all the whorishness. He saw Iacobaccio da Melia go mad. He knows where the mange comes from and all the other ribaldries of the court. And so, I judge, he would as soon sell himself for a chronicle as for a statue. In short, he is virtue, friendship and pleasure itself to all men. Nor did I change my opinion when I heard him in conclave with my friend, Ferraguto, who nearly split as he heard how, when the old fool threw a pail of water on Ziotto, the latter tore away one whole side of his face, leaving the skin hanging in a thousand pieces; but his anger was gone a month before his hair had grown back. The conclusion of the whole matter is, I should like to be living with him and with your own 201magnificent and gentle self, so that we might topple backward in the laugher we should have in conversation.68 But since, on account of the public business which occupies you, I cannot always have you with me, why not come here sometimes, knowing that honorable recreations merely serve to hearten the leisure of the good? But whether you come or not, I am indebted to that affection which, by nature, by custom and your own nobility, you entertain for me and for my writings.

From Venice, the 22nd of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

66 i piu vecchi cortigiani di Roma.

67 The papal favorite.

68 Cf. The manner of Aretino’s death. See Introduction.

XCII To MESSER LUIGI ANICHINI

Against Love.

I thought yesterday, when I saw you running like a courier, that you must be bringing some great news to the Rialto. But I found you merely had accompanied the Signora Viena to church for the christening of a baby. O my brother, this Love is an evil beast, and the one who tags its behind can neither compose verses nor carve gems. The little thief, in my opinion, is nothing more than untempered desire, nourished by our own fanciful thoughts, and when the pleasure it produces lays hold upon the heart, the spirit, the soul and the senses are all converted into one affection. And for this reason, the man who is in love is like one of those frantic bulls, goaded by the “gadfly,” which in my country is the name given to the bites of ticks, flies and wasps on the flanks of horses and she-asses. That is what Love does to sculptors and poets. The chisel cannot carve nor the pen write when we are eaten up by a cancer. But you are young and fitted to endure any evil. Sansovino and I, on the other hand — old men, halleluiah — deny the “Omnia vincit” when we see the deadly swindles it perpetrates upon us, by swearing to us that the hoe and spade will relieve our heat. And so, knowing you have a good 201recipe for dying beards black, me vobis commendo; but see to it you don’t make mine turquoise, for then, by God, I should be like those two gentlemen who, in such a case, had to stay shut up in the house for a whole year.

From Venice, the 23rd of November, 1537.

XCIII To MESSER GIOVANBATTISTA DRAGONZINO

Poetry Gives Nothing but Immortality.

The sonnet, good man, which, with your accustomed candor and charity of mind, you have drawn from your genius in praise of me has been read by me with the greatest pleasure and laid away with care, for my heart appreciates the good will you showed in desiring to honor me, as well as the good quality of the verses with which you have honored me. I am very sorry that I am not a master of physical force, instead of being merely a man of rank, for this prevents me from rendering you payment in anything but hopeful words. The Muses have need of money, and not of lean thanks and fat offers. Surely, if the poor dames had crucified Christ, they would not be more persecuted by poverty. My friend, Messer Ambrogio da Milano, when he saw a fellow with a worn-out hood, pointed his finger at him and said: “He ought to be a poet.” But we are here, thank God, and we ought not let the cruelty of fate drive us to despair, since it is a find thing to put one’s name on sale at all the fairs, along with hearing one’s self sung in the bank, causing Death to give up hope by confessing that poets are not flesh for her teeth; though they make a good meal, hot or cold. By God, that murderous necessity they feel is like the nature of princes, since it takes pleasure in seeing them suffer in the frying-pan of discomfort, giving them for sustenance the excrements of glory, when a “Here lies so and so” makes the crowd come running to their sepulchre. Our only hope is to make merry in the other world, being content in this one with a quantum currit. And so, whoever likes to go barefoot 203and bare of back, let him transform himself from a man into a chameleon and become a maker of rhymes. But to stop gossiping, I am at your service, as I always have been and shall be always.

From Venice, the 24th of November, 1537.

XCIV To MESSER GIANFRANCESCO POCOPANNO

On the Virtues and Vices of His Century.

Your dear and courteous nephew, together with your letter, gave me the shears, which were so brand-new that they made even me leap for joy, although I am but a man and shall not have to use them, to say nothing of Pierina, who is a woman and needs them in her business. Finally, Brescia produced goffi and arabesques and other works, armor and gilded artifices and damaskins, perfected in design and with various arrangements of leaves, such as only come from overseas. I cannot help believing that the blood of brave ancients would curdle in beholding our Master Arquebuse and Don Cannon, for these would seem to them too bestial in aspect when compared with the bows and arrows with which Mars used to embroider his cuirasses. Surely, if our age were as good as it is fine to look at, we would not regard with such envy the excellences of the past nor be so doubtful as to future inventions. We see all the arts brought to a miraculous climax and everything made great. For example, these scissors you sent me are a great trophy. Another commenced to change his tune, as soon as he saw the clothes of Leo and Capella, worked in silk and gold after the designs and colors of Raphael. They no longer use little flowers in damasks or ray-work; the verdure of the espaliers is visible from afar. Habits are long and wide. One no longer suffers the torment which shoes used to give. Everything is richly cut. Even to handwriting, as a sample of which, take that of Messer Francesco Alunno, which makes print look as though it had been done by hand and work done with the 204pen as if it were print. Look where Michelangelo has placed the art of painting with his astounding figures, depicted with a majesty of judgment and not with the mechanics of art. And you, too, make of man a natural prodigy, adding tone and sound to sound and tone in poetry, resuscitating style, which had died, with the spiritedness of your subjects. For there is no food more satiating than milk and honey; and just as such foods produce disgust for the palate, so perfumed and gallant words make our ears belch. But let this be said with the permission of him who thinks otherwise. And to Your Lordship I commend me.

From Venice, the 24th of November, 1537.

XCV To MESSER FRANCESCO BACCI

Of Rome and Venice.

If I, brother, with regard to your coming had believed what your letters promised and what the words of Messer Tarlato confirmed to me, I should have been angry with myself for my own simple-mindedness and with you for not coming; but knowing as I do what an effort it is for you to put foot out of Arezzo, when I received your last, I believed it, but as one does who, when his sleep is disturbed, gives denial or consent with a nod of his head. I wish, for the sake of friendship and for love of me, you would come here just once, in fact as you have so often in intent. You may believe me that those who have not seen Rome and Venice have missed the objects of all wonderment, although in a different manner in the two cases; for in one you will find the insolence of fortune, and in the other the gravity of a monarchy. It is a strange thing to view the confusion of that court, and a beautiful spectacle to contemplate the union of this republic. You may even, in a manner of speaking, let your imagination go as far as paradise, but you would never be able to picture in your mind the evasions of the one nor the calm ways of the other, for the two are one immense 205structure of labor and of quiet. I do not know what Mantuan it was, wishing to demonstrate how this city stands in the sea, filled a basin of water with half-shells of walnuts and said: “There it is!” While, on the other hand, a preacher, not caring to tire himself in describing the court, showed his flock a picture of the inferno. You certainly should hesitate about visiting it, then, if you wish other lands to give you hospital. I had to laugh at a Florentine, who, seeing in a richly fitted gondola a most beautiful housewife, was astonished at the crimson, jewels and gold with which she was bedecked and exclaimed, “Why, we are a mountain of rags!” Nor was he so far wrong, for here, the wives of bakers and tailors go dressed in more pomp than do gentlewomen in other hands. And what sights we have here and what food to eat! Great ignorance was that which first located Venus and Cupid in the island of Cyprus; she reigns here with all her troop of little sons. And I know I am only speaking the truth when I say that God here is in a good humor eleven months of the year; for here, there is never a headache nor a suspicion of death, and liberty goes with flying colors, without ever meeting any one who says to her, “Get down where you belong!” And so, when you come, make up your mind to come here, for I should like to make you confess that Pope Clement, who with us was of minor rank, was wrong when he refused to pardon some one who had stolen something there to spend here. Think, moreover, what standing you will have in being a friend of mine, who in less than eleven years have received and thrown away ten thousand scudi, acquired through my own virtue.

From Venice, the 25th of November, 1537.

XCVI To THE CAPTAIN VINCENZIO BOVETTO

In Which He Congratulates Him on His Progress in the Army.

I, who have followed from time to time the achievements 206of your youth in Africa, in France and wherever there has been a war, have praised and thanked the choice and military judgment of the great Giovanni de’ Medici, when, with a true insight into your character, he decided to make you a soldier; which pleases me as much now as it displeased me then. You well know with how much care and how much affection I have reared you, making no difference between a father’s love and that I showed you, recognizing you as my own son; and the affection of my heart grew with your own virtues. Surely it was from me you learned kindness, generosity and animosity; and for this reason it is, you are loved, praised and feared. I weep when I remember the gentle Signora Lucrezia da Correggio and the courteous Signor Manfredo, her consort, whose natural modesty and good manner you are heir to. But I cannot quite comprehend it, when I hear of your deeds of arms and the high reputation they have brought you; I hope to see you one day in the rank which I desire for you. Go on, then, serving our magnanimous Signor Ippolito, who wisely proceeds outside the common path; for he who follows the trail of others leaves on the earth no footprints that may be called his own; and he who would amount to something in such a profession has the right even to do evil.69 All princes are creatures of violence, and without that violence on their part, the ferocity of soldiers would become brotherly love. For no virtue does the army have a higher regard, nor is there one more convenient in serving its dignity, since by maturing the hatreds that motivate it, it achieves glory. And so, may His Lordship, to whom I pray you to remember me, imitate the tremendous example of him of terrible memory,70 so that fortune, who is the principal support in all enterprises, may favor his valor and discover your own.

From Venice, the 25th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

69 How new is Nietzsche?

70 Giovanni.

207

XCVII To MESSER PAOLO DA ROMA

In Praise of Medical Science and His Charity.

When I heard, my brother, that you had journeyed all the way to Rome, I was beside myself with thinking that the devil had tempted you from your quiet state. And then, when I was told that you had decided to remain there, I lost all the respect I had had for your counsels and your experience and said: “Can it be that when the senate of his own country has placed a man, on account of his merits, in the catalogue of its illustrious citizens — can it be that a person of so much worth, and who is so necessary to his countrymen, should place himself and his faculties in constant peril, a peril that we always knew, and you always will know, thanks to the malice of all concerned? But now that I know from your own hand, that you are back in Bologna and anxious to return, my mind is revived at the thought of seeing once again the man to whom God gave my own life and that of Lionardo, and also at the thought of the welfare of this illustrious city, which embraces no less the kindness with which you are filled than the virtue of which you are the summit. Putting aside incantated water, the canonical procedure, what do you not do in the case of a mortal wound! Safe and gentle is your surgery, which you practice out of charity and not out of avarice. The world is quite right in exalting you, since you alone, in attempting to save the lives of others, transform yourself, through affection, science and your artful practice, into the remedy which you place upon their wounds; and thus, curing others, do you procure health for yourself. For which reason, God gives you a green old age, consoles your mind and multiplies your riches; by which means you are enabled to ennoble with honored gifts your many nephews, whom, with paternal love, in place of the sons that you have not, and to the great delight of your good and valorous wife, you are every day marrying 208off, for which act of piety, Christ shall double your years and your contentment of mind and body.

From Venice, the 25th of November, 1537.

XCVIII To MESSER PIETRO PICCARDO

Bantering.

I had thought, you old gossip! That you were still babbling away at Rome, and here you are sanctifying the benefice of my friend, the Monsignor Zicotto, arch-pope of Coranto; and what upsets me still more is to hear that you are conducting yourself like a brace of pontiffs, giving jubilees, intimidating councils and canonizing saints. They tell me that you are crucifying bandits, absolving vows and hurling excommunications right bestially; and I congratulate myself on the fact that you are bringing the clergy under a new monarchy, castrating and uprooting the sects of the hypocrites and consoling with regressions, reservations and hopes the vagabond herd: hence, it cannot be that the priest, Ianni, has not already unloosed upon you a pack of ambassadors; and perhaps even the Turk, in whose dominion the aforesaid diocese is situated, will come to terms with you. And so, keep your bridle well in hand, and see to it that the “sol, fa, me, re” of the quondam Armellino pulverizes your tympanum. In the meanwhile, Your Most Reverend Lordship, who is a trifle asthmatic, might do well to barter his goods at some of the fairs, confirming, blessing eggs and confessing the countrymen, in which there is no danger. But are you not ashamed to make sport of Verona, Chieti and all the abstinence there is in the world? I have a high regard for your thoughts, which surge up like a piece of camel’s hair cloth. The man who does not envy you is the town idiot,71 for you have a kindness that is so attractive and a grace that is so penetrating that it is all the good folk can do to keep from running after you. All houses are open to you, 209and from all the piazze you are called; it is “Zicotto” on this side and “Piccardo” on that. And so, move your bowels with the full moon and not merely every ten days, putting a stop to the “Spain will urinate and France will defecate” contests. You need not give a pistachio either to know why summer has long days and winter short ones, making a bid for the enmity of neither hot nor cold, holding as bestialities all syllogisms and all aphorisms, so that it is of no difference to you whether it is cloudy or fair, as you rejoice in snow and rain alike, with your breeches down. And do not break your head in endeavoring to ascertain whether the fire which lightning-bugs carry in their tails is an elemental substance or not, or whether the cicadae sing with their bodies or with their wings. You are thus in a position to laugh at the big blockheads who affirm that a certain river is a foot wider than Ptolemy estimated it and that the Nile has not so many horns, making sport of certain astrologers who would like to make out that the spot on the face of the moon is a ringworm and not the edge of a yellow boil, giving as much faith to prognosticians as Guarico does, now that he has no need of such quackeries. Saying nothing and doing nothing which you ought not to do and ought not to say, you render immortal graces to the one who put the tail on the breviary; and so, go on saying your offices from horseback and away with melancholy.

From Venice, the 26th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

71 pazzo publico.

XCIX To MESSER GIOVANNI AGNELLO

Against the Life of Courts, in Praise of Venice.

The signor Benedetto, the ducal orator and your brother, asked me yesterday how I was and what I was doing, saying he wished to advise you, since, from love or me, you desired to know. And so, I will tell you that I am fine and am doing very well. And not only I, who am likely to be well off where another would not be and to do well when another 210would not; but any poltroon would be well and do well away from the pope and the emperor, in this city and removed from courts. I was never in paradise, that I know; for I am not able to imagine how its beatitudes are composed. I know that to die of hunger is to cheat the world by evading its little hells. Courts, ah? Courts, eh? It seems to me better to be a boatman here than a chamberlain there. Hopes there, favors here, greatness afterward. Behold yourself there, a poor servant, on foot; see yourself martyred by the cold and devoured by the heat: where is the fire to warm yourself by? Where is the water with which to refresh yourself? and if you fall ill, what room, what stable, what hospital will take you in? Behold there the rain, the snow, the mud which kill you when you ride with your patron or in his train. Where are your fresh clothes to put on? Where a good face to put on for all this? What a cruel sight it is to see mere children growing a bear[d?] before their time and the white hairs of youth consumed at the tables, the portieres and the privies. “Take the rest of it,” said a good and learned man, who had been hunted to the gallows because he would not commit a piece of pimpery. Courts, eh? Courts, ah? It is better for us to live on bread and capers than on the smoke from fine viands on plates of silver. Nor is there anything to compare with the pleasure which you get from a walnut or a chestnut, either before or after a meal. And just as there is no suffering like that of the courtier who is tired and has no place to sit down, who is hungry and has nothing to eat, and who is sleepy and yet must keep awake; so there is no consolation equal to my own, who sit down whenever I am fatigued, eat when I am hungry and sleep when I am sleepy, and all the hours are the hours of my own will. What shall we say of the craven state of those who think that being able to stumble into a bit of straw is ample compensation for any servitude or any fidelity? For my part, I am satisfied with my want, since I am not obliged 211to take off my hat to Duranti nor to Ambrogio.72 Think it over, and see if you do not agree that I am well off and doing well. But my pleasure would be immensely increased, if Your Lordship would make constant use of this house, for I cannot think of a habit that would content me more; and, when we are talking or dining together with Titan, I would not say “your reverence” to the whole college, much less to Chieti. The days seem to me years since Your Excellency has been keeping himself with Caesar’s Majesty in Spain. I like lordly philosophers and those of a nobler manner, such as you are and such as was the good Gianiacopo Bardellone, and not those who, like ragamuffins, are all the time busy concealing their rags. And so, I commend me to you with the reverence of a younger brother.

From Venice, the 26th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

72 Papal favorites.

[Letters C-CXVII]

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 211-244.

[211]

THE LETTERS OF PIETRO ARETINO

Letters C-CXVII

C To THE LITTLE MONSIGNOR POMPONIO

In Which He Exhorts Him to Return to Venice.

Titian, your father, has conveyed the salutations you sent me, and I was scarcely less delighted with them than with two wild chickens, which I took the liberty of presenting to myself, being commissioned by him to present them in his name to a lord. And, since you perceive my liberality, I pay you back “mille millanta, che tutta notte canta” requesting that you give the leanest ones to your good little brother, Orazio, since he has forgotten to tell me what his fancy is about spending, as soon as he can, this world and the other; for your thrift is enough for one who gets the goods,73 since, being a priest, we must believe that you cannot depart from the custom of Melchisedek. Health, then, shall be the gift I wish you. It is time now to get back to work, for the villa, it seems to me, is not keeping school; after it, the city is a winter cloak. Come, then, straightaway, so that, with your thirteen years and your Hebrew, Greek and Latin 212we can drive all the doctors on the map to despair, just as the fine things your father does routs all the painters of Italy. I am telling you the truth. Keep warm and a good appetite.

From Venice, the 26th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

73 guadagna la robba.

CI To MESSER FRANCESCO ALUNNO74

Of the Crowd of People Surrounding Him.

To the prayers, my brother, with which others work upon me I add my own and, binding them all together, send them to you for your inspection, begging that you will let me have a sample of anything you may produce in the way of lettering. While you may reply that I, in my request, am looking for the fair of Ricanati, I know that you have a sufficient store to draw upon, and the tongues of the Tower of Babel were not so numerous as are the various manners in which, with your diligent and patient genius, you compose and draw your characters, your pen all the while painting the small details and sculpturing the great ones. The great Emperor, in Bologna, spent an entire day in contemplating the greatness of your art, marveling at seeing written, without abbreviation, the Credo and the “In principio” in the space of a denary, laughing at Sire Pliny, who speaks of a certain Iliad of Homer as being contained in a nutshell. Pope Clement also was astonished when you unfolded for him your cartoons, whereupon Iacopo Salviati, eyeing some of your majescules, ornamented with leaf-work, exclaimed: “Holy Father, look at those crests!” I prefer above all others, that style of letter which is round and antique, of which the honor of the world, His Caesarean Majesty, is so fond; and I am seeking an example of this sort for one of those lords who give me a constant headache with their visits, until my stairs are worn out with the tramping of their feet, even as the pavement of Campidoglio is with the wheels of 213triumphal chariots. Nor do I believe that Rome, in a manner of speaking, ever saw so great an admixture of the nations as is to be met with in my house. To me come Turks, Jews, Indians, French, Germans and Spaniards; and then, think of what our own Italians do to me. Of the smaller fry I do not speak, but I tell you, it would be an easier thing to break your devotion to the emperor than to find me for a moment alone, and without a throng of scholars, friars and priests about me. From which, it would appear, I have become the oracle of truth, since every one comes to tell me the wrong that has been done to him by this prince and that prelate; and so I am the secretary to the world, and it is as such that they address me in superscriptions. And now, I am still waiting for the dial-plates, as well as the pearls, which I have asked of you, but which I fear I am not to have, not because you are not courtesy itself, but because, in addition to the fame which comes with the profession in which you stand unique, you wish also, while making yourself honored with your design, the glory of poetry, laying down new rules for locutions and giving no heed to the throngs who storm your imagination merely for a glimpse of your handiwork, while those who would like to imitate you rob you with their eyes. So please lay aside one of the two virtues given you from above and serve me, who am always at your service.

From Venice, the 27th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

74 The calligrapher.

CII To MESSER AMBROGIO EUSEBIO

In Which He Advises Him Against the Army.

I, you big madman, was forced the other day to put out of your head, with threats of excommunication, the fancy of taking a wife; and now, I have to set to work to disabuse you of the whim of going to camp. It is gospel truth that bread and soldiers are not worth much in the end; although you might reply, “What are you going to do in time of famine or 214time of war?” It seems to me you are mad even to think of going, and madder still to adhere to the purpose; for the art of war is like the art of the courtezan — indeed, they might be called sisters, since both are the slaves of desperation and the step-daughters of that swinish fortune which never tires of crucifying us at every turn. Certainly, the court and the field may be embraced together, since in the one you will find want, envy, old age and the hospital, while in the other you have only to gain wounds, prison and fame. I am aware of all that fine talk which goes on about the table, when they begin to lay plans for going to Rome. Some one of an ambitious turn of mind leans back at the end of the meal and remarks: “I’d like to put on the habit, take horse and service and go with the Pope, or with the Reverend So-and-So. I am a good musician, I am not unlettered and I delight in — and he goes on talking. I like such crazy dreaming, because a man in such thoughts appears to himself a very Trojan; but I very much disapprove of putting those thoughts into action, for if you do, in two months you will be eating your own clothes, your servant and your pony, having made an enemy of your patron and of paradise, in case you go there. That martial and fulminating manner you should regard as a bizarre and bestial gesture, that bragging of what you did and said to the French, as, giving yourself a thousand followers and two hundred helmets, you proceed to take castles, burn villages, plunder peoples and seize treasures; and if you merely wish to cut a couple of capers on your charger in front of your lady love, with your head all decked out in feathers, stay at home; you can do is just as well here! For a gaudeamus in front of a hen-roost, you go without bread for supper for a week, and for a bundle of rags, which is your booty, and a prison, which is yours whenever God wills it, you have as recompense the right to come home with a staff in your hand and to sell everything you have, even to your vineyard, in order to keep put of the domo Petri. When you tell me of the aglets, the medallions and the collars of those whom you have seen return, for example, from the Piedmont, I reply that if you had seen those who have come here and stayed with us without a picciolo, you would feel compassion for them, as one feels pity for those poor wretches who are subject to the knaveries of the court. And so, changing the argument, since you are better fitted to making a sonnet than to raising a levy, you would do well to go on having a good time at my expense; for those who get a nibble at the big tickets in a lottery are very few. Finally, the pay which a soldier gets goes as it comes,75 as with gamblers and churchmen. I have seen the nephews of cardinals reduce to nothing the benefices left to them and die of their necessities; and I, whom you see, have held the pay of fellow soldiers, and woe to them if I had not done so! Buckle this to you, and then go dress yourself in armor. The signor Giovanni de’ Medici said on one such occasion: “They prattle about my being a valiant man, and yet, I have never been able to achieve fame.”

From Venice, the 28th of November, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

75 “Come easy, go easy.”

CIII To MESSER LODOVICO FOGLIANO

In Which He Praises a Plain Style.

I would to God, dear brother, that the masticated prose which many employ were as pure and common as are the words which, when you speak, you draw from familiar usage. For the ruggedness of the compositions of others does not induce, at first glance, any desire to read them. I am aware that my judgment has nothing to do with the good will I feel for you; and so, believe me when I swear to you, on the sacrament of friendship, that, if you were to commence to translate into our vulgate the Greek of Aristotle, you would be the means of humanizing a sufficient number of persons who, not understanding any other tongue are unable to exhibit the benefits conferred upon them by nature. Certain it is, you are fitted to enlighten their darkness with the plainness 216of your diction, making gently apparent the sense of things confused in the clouds of matter. It is a good thing, in the formation of a vocabulary, to pay some attention to the sound, and not to fall into the use of “altresi” and “chenti,” when “ancora and “quanti” are quite as pleasing. What have we to do with words which have been used in the past, but which are no longer in use? Surely, any one now who saw a cavalier in armor would think he was either mad or masquerading. It seems to me, I see Sire Apollo with his stockings in the belfry when I come upon “uopo” at the top of some canzone or other. To those pedagogues who assert that all the better writers never lift their pens from the Latin of Cicero, I reply that every man of good genius, writing familiarly, almost never employs the Tuscan of Boccaccio. Go on, then, with that honorable translation, for it will be an enrichment to pleasant intellects. In the meanwhile, you behold me the prey to your bounty, with all respect to that science of which you are the repository.

From Venice, the 30th of November, 1537.

CIV To MESSER LIONARDO PARPAGLIONI

Definitions.

I, generous son, have looked at the verses which the gracious Messer Giuffre Cinami personally fetched me, and they appear to me of too great a style and invention to have come from a youth like you; I have for them more respect than you yourself profess. And since, in the letter which accompanied them, you say you have been requested to ask me what fame and ambition are, I, my son, will reply that I am not the dragoman of philosophy nor Aristotle’s secretary; and so, I will simply say that, to me, fame is the stepmother of death and ambition the excrement of glory. I hope you are well.

From Venice, the 2nd of December, 1537.

217

CV To MESSER GIOVAN MANENTI

Against the Game of Lotto.

Feeling, my good fellow, the blasphemies of sixty-thousand on my shoulders — sixty-thousand persons with their bowels beaten out, crucified and chopped to mince-meat by the expectations of the game of lotto, I put up in your behalf a strong talk76 to quiet those stubborn-headed ones who would have made you out to be the author of the game. I assure you, I put up a better defense for you against the storming of these swine77 than you would have had from a basket of scimitars. For this novelty, in truth, is the invention of ill-fated asses and hopeful cows;78 they take pleasure in providing a thousand forks for a man to hang himself on. Those ribald sisters, Fate and Hope, are like a pair of gypsy wenches who, at the fair of Foligno or that of Lanciano,79 make a fool of this knave or that. Hope takes the clowns by the hand, while Fate, pretending to be a party to the joke, keeps them at bay. In the meanwhile, the purse remains as empty as a pricked bladder. Hope, eh? Fate, ah? If in the house of Satan one did not have to associate with such bitches as these, one would not mind going there. The false and lying ones, when they have assassinated a good man, go into ecstasies, like villagers in eating oiled bread. To tell you the truth, I should like to know: is this lotto male or female? For my part, I believe it is an hermaphrodite, since it has the names, “lotto” and “ventura.”80 And it must be the best stuff in Italy81, since it gives a knockout82 to a world 218of people at one blow, mixing even with the whores, dragging along at its tail the populace and the arts. As soon as “he” appears in the piazza, behold, all the twelve thousand chosen ones come trotting: Noah’s ark, the temple of Solomon, the synagogues, the mosques, the cohorts of the priests, the hierarchies of friars, with all the sinners and half-desperate wretches. And then, the big fox stands there like one who has taken a basket of snails into the light and is beside himself with astonishment at seeing them put out their horns. I tell you, the niggard will bring forth his cups, his rings, his collars and his denarii; and then, the fellow kids the crowd83 of aimless ones who have gathered to see the show. He bursts into a guffaw when this one or that, giving him the eye, fetches a couple of sighs and says to himself: “Who knows? And why not?” Some other stretches out his hand and takes the jewel or chain which he happens to fancy and places it on his finger or at his throat; others paw over the beakers and basins. This one displays a contempt for his ducats, this one for his possessions, and this other for his houses; and in all this madness, swarms of persons are to be seen, trampling and suffocating one another in the crush to place their bets. And such language! The ugliest, most traitorous, silliest, spiciest, dirtiest and most diabolic of any in the world!84 Words from the Psalms, the Gospels, the Epistles and the Calendar, half verses and whole verses. But these are merely gallantries to such as these. The cruel thing is to see the poor wretches so drunken with them. Here is one taking the bed from under him and selling it for a couple of policies. A widow is saying to a little priest, all wrapped up in his hospital blouse: “Take this chaplet, and say for me the masses of Saint Gregory for the good of my soul.” “Masses, eh?” responds the sire. “There won’t be any too many of them, for I’ll soon be defecating on the red 219candles.” And taking two strides toward the church with the step of a canon, he explains to the good lady that the three lire which he has on the lotto will be enough to take care of him. A countryman coming upon the scene and learning that six marcelli are enough to win the lottery, sells his winter’s coat and buys a ticket as though he had won it already. He’s not going to touch the spade any more, if Christ himself turns gardener.85 One of them who stood by my side for some time, all puffed up because he had won three tickets, upon hearing me curse because I did not have the means, said to me: “Don’t worry boss; I’ll stand by you”86 How many house-wives throw away their allowances here? How many concubines all they have gained from the tread-mill of their trade? How many grooms pledge their feast-day socks for this?87 Every one who is trying to get rich here would be happy, if no one ever won anything; for the winnings are every one’s when they go to no one. The air at such a time is finer than that of Arabia Felice, so many gardens are planted here by hope and fate. It would be a comedy that would make a weeping man burst into laughter, if one could make a book of the thoughts that are fixed on those six thousand sequins in the lottery. This one is dreaming of houses, this one of embroidered clothes, this one of putting money in the bank, this one of marrying off his sisters, this one of investing in farms. The servant I have spoken of writes to his father of a palace with a garden which he is sure of getting with his winnings and tells the old man he need not speak of a hundred more or less. But it is all a joke. See how they do away with the good chances and keep the bad ones. “Go hang yourself!”88 exclaims one who had sold the winning ticket, retaining the 220“alba ligustra cadunt,”89 as the pedant says. But how do they feel when it is all over? Watch them throng about the box, which is upon high and so well fitted out that it would seem Messer Lotto had taken a wife or Mistress Chance had married. Now the lad has his hand in the urn filled with tickets, and hearts are beating and everybody stops breathing while eyes and ears are fixed on the fellow who, in a gross and laughing voice, first reads and then sings out: “White!” And a gift is not so soon gone as fall the babble and the faces of those thousands, and when the big hope-killer takes his departure with a “leva eius,” he leaves the crowd as a coward who has surrendered on the field is left. Whoever has witnessed the breaking up of these disappointed mobs, knows what the household of Pope Leo is like, when, after the exequies, they return weeping to consume their forty-days handout.90 Certainly, he is wise who, amid all these madnesses, can say that he has played, locked up and consumed his last ticket in this fine device. But those who blame fortune for their ruin in this path, as if their very lives had been stolen, so breathe maledictions upon Your Lordship’s head that, if it were not for your friends’ defending you from their fury, as I have done, you would be worse off than those who, when the votes are counted, fall into despair because their name is not among the lucky ones.

From Venice, the 3rd of December, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

76 sciorinai . . . una strenua diceria. This letter, giving so vivid a picture of manners, is extremely colloquial — so colloquial that translation is almost impossible at times, and a literal translation frequently is out of the question — and I have, accordingly, endeavored to preserve this colloquial quality by seeking, where such search would not be far-fetched, the contemporary Americanism.

77 cancari.

78 de la sorte asina e de la speranza vacca.

79 Popular fairs of the cinquecento.

80 One masculine, the other feminine in grammatic gender.

81 la miglior robba d’Italia.

82 da martello.

83 soia le turbe.

84 This was the milieu which Aretino loved to depcit and the language he loved to employ, e. g., in his Ragionamenti.

85 Exceedingly idiomatic: non averia tocco la zappa, che tenne in man Cristo, transformato in ortolano.

86 “Non vi disperate, padrone, che non son per mancarvi.”

87 impegnano le calze dal di de le feste per cio: cf. our “bet your Sunday socks.”

88 Literally: Va’ e non t’impicca.

89 “The white privets fall”: Virgil, Eclogues, II., 18.

90 le regaglie dei quaranta giorni.

CVI To THE CAPTAIN FALOPPIA

Of a Stable-Boy Who Plays the Poet.

Since all the poets of the Round Table91 take advantage of you, teasing your brains with their cobbler’s chatterings, I shall take refuge in that same patience of yours by sending you one in praise of that strenuous man, Lord Malatesta, a mortal philosopher, although one ought to be happy to 221escape his verses, which have neither feet to run with nor a behind to sit on. He makes them of half syllables or of fifteen and a third, employing the rules of Fra Giannino, who measures his with a pair of compasses. And now, surely, we have seen everything there is to be seen, when even the maestri of the stables begin poetizing; and Petrarch is but a graceless wretch, since he could not make such lined and relined verses, in the manner of the stable-boys. What kind of expression is ‘rumica e buffa cornacchia,” which he uses under the beard of the Tuscan tongue? I never thought to laugh so much as I did yesterday. I said to him: “How goes it with Your Highness, arcifanfana92 of Immortality?” “Fine,” he replied, “since, thanks to God, I’ve been able to fart twice on Parnassus, as well as any other.” A saying worthy of Cino da Pistoia, not to say of Dante. And so, you may show my sonnet to the most illustrious Signor, Count Guido, and may His Excellency provide the chains for it, as it is certainly unshackled enough.

From Venice, the 15th of December, 1537.

The Sonnet93 I’m astonished, Malatesta, the laurel tree

Isn’t crazy about94 giving you a crown;

All the old blades and old loves in the town

Should split their breeches95 over your poetry.

A million wrongs men do you, I can see,

By not hymning your fair name, and doing it brown.96

Apollo himself isn’t worthy to let down

Your socks, nor all his tribe to wipe your lee.

By God! I cannot think how you can write

Such verses as you do out of your head.

And dress them up till they’re so brave and bright.

222 Monsieur the cook, you may be comforted,

Is your very slave, and I doubt not but he might

Even urinate upon you, when you’re dead.

FOOTNOTES

91 la Tavola ritonda.

92 great swaggerer, great boaster.

93 Doggerel, of course. I have preserved the doggerel character.

94 faccin le pazzie per coronarvi.

95 sbraghino.

96 frastagliare.

CVII To MONSIGNOR BIAGIO IULEO

Caricature.

I more than congratulate myself, Sire Pecora,97 that you have been published as the chaplain of the muses. But watch out for your tail, for Sire Apollo is a hard lad, and when he gets jealous, is just as likely to give you a good wallop on the behind with the bow to his lyre as he is to spit on the ground. For this reason, it would be a good thing to get yourself castrated, and I beg you to do so; and then, Sire Phoebus, old hatchet-face, will give you a present on Easter and Christmas and, more than likely, all the old blades, worn-out currycombs and other asses of their kind. But that’s enough: I know what they say about that bald head of yours, “quoniam frigent in veste camoenae,” and in memory of it I kiss your hand with the following sonnet:

Iuelo, immaculate and strenuous sire,

My detonating, titubating friend,

May Apollo bind you to his chariot-end

And Orpheus teach you to cook nuts in the fire.

Of hearing the Te Deum we may tire,

But not of your majestic verse; you bend

The sword of poetry and straightway send

Old Petrarch back to polish up his — lyre.

This asinine and silly century

Should carve you up in wood and caviare,

To the praise and glory of high poesy.

If marble weren’t so dear, I should take care

To embalm you with a perfumed eulogy

In a temple fit for Heaven’s only Heir.

FOOTNOTES

97 pecora: ewe-sheep.

223

CVIII To SIGNOR DOMENICO GAZTELU

In Which He Bemoans His Friend’s Absence.

I recall how, when you were here, you used to knock at my door, and I was like a baby who knows its father is bringing apples and comfits. I had grown so used to seeing you constantly at the door that, now I know you are gone, I am sad whenever any one else comes to the house. Your virtue and courtesy have so made me yours that I am no longer myself, except when you give me a sight of you. Nor shall my heart ever forget the contentment of soul I felt that evening when you brought me word of Caesar’s gift; the happiness which you felt upon that occasion equaled and even surpassed my own joy. That is the way good friends ought to be. But rest assured, I shall pay this debt in eternal coin. Do not forget to remember me to Messer Aniballe Palmegiani da Forli, to Messer Marcantonio Patanella and to all the other gentlemen of the court.

From Venice, the 5th of December, 1537.

CIX To SIGNOR GIANIACOPO LIONARDI

A Dream.

Although the ambassador of a Duke d’Urbino, who is always wide awake, has nothing to do with dreams, I am going to give you one which is so enormous it would prove too much even for a Daniel.

Tonight, not from superfluity of food or melancholy, but simply from my accustomed thoughtlessness, I was sleeping the best sleep ever, when there suddenly appeared to me a gentle dream-creature. I said to him: “What is it, Sire Girandolone?”98 “The mountain of Parnassus, which you see there,” he replied. And then, I found myself at its foot, and looking up, I was like one of those who contemplate the difficulties of San Leo. But it was a devil of a story getting over it; the easy thing was to do down it. From the sides of the mountain, where St. Francis had his stigmata, rose 224masses of earth and stone, intermingled with uprooted trees; but from above were falling heaps of men, so horrible that it was a cruel and inhuman sport to see them grasping at this or that trunk, sweating blood all the while. Some, who appeared to be like those who scale a garden wall to write their names with carbon on the top, would fall to the ground with a sickening thud;99 others, half way up, would stop without being able to go further. Some would seize the leg of the one above; others would go mad and bite those who drew near them. Still others, when they perceived they were but a little way from the top, would come tumbling down, like one of those who, when they reach out their hand for the capon, seeing the rope under their feet, slide down the greased pole,100 at which sport the populace fills the air with hoots and shouts. Still others, on striking their heads against the buttocks of the pharisees above, would experience the same madness that moves those who kill cats. And the cause of all this was a garland, similar to the hoop of a hostelry. These madmen with the slackening arms were breaking their necks in a lake of ink blacker than a printer’s river; and there was no sport that equaled such a spectacle as this. He who did not know how to swim drowned; and he who swam came to the other bank with a more horrifying aspect than any Dante ever saw, even in the intercourse of little souls, which he places in the pitch of the inferno.

I fixed my eyes on all the faces; but the masks of various colors did not permit me to recognize any of them; the disgraceful cries they made, yes. Some were lamenting the criticism which their translations, some that which their romances and other works had encountered. I, who could not help laughing, said to them: “You, who are learned, ought to note and follow the example of Caesar, when he saved his Commentaries; you ought to thank fate for bringing you out alive; for it is certain that commentators and 225translators are less than those who plaster walls, chalk tables, or grind colors for a Giulio Romano or some other famous painter.” This was the way I spoke to them. And, even as I perceived that my own clothes had been soiled by contact with such as these, I discerned my fine Franco101 coming up the very path which I myself had made over the back of the mountain, and it was not without pleasure and wonderment that I beheld him in this by-way. And it appeared to me also that Ambrogio102 my own creation, was clinging close to my heels, hastening his steps.

And then, behold me in an inn, set down by the wayside to ensnare the assassins of poetry. As I entered, I could not resist exclaiming: “He who has not been in a tavern does not know what a paradise it is,” as Cappa says. Repressing my appetite in my stomach, I thought of turning tail and running.103 At this, behold, there appeared to me one Marfisa,104 clad in helmet, breastplate and sword. To discern this sight, to say to myself, “Be brave,” and to feel myself snatched upward was but the work of a moment. I, who was in a bad way and could only console myself with repeating, “I’m dreaming,” became discouraged when I reflected, “I was dreaming, at least!” But all this, I assure you, my brother, happened of itself.

Maestro Apollo, before whom I was brought, I cannot tell you how, had one of my heads on a medallion; and suddenly, espying me, he opened his arms and gave me a kiss on the middle of the lips, so sweet that some one, I do not know who, cried out: “Sassata!” Oh, he was the fine lad!105 Oh, he was fine! Surely, if Rome had been lying there asleep instead of me, she would have wished never to awake. And would you believe there was a pan of ox-herbs there, long and tender? He had two smiling eyes, a happy face, an airy

[226]

Black and white lithograph by the Marquis de Bayros, of a seated woman in robes before a lighted ornate screen, with a halo, and a man in the shadows to the side, owering against a wall.

227

forehead, a wide chest, two fine legs, and two of the finest pairs of feet and hands you ever saw; on the whole (to speak a little flowerily), he looked like a composition of breathing ivory, over which nature had scattered all the roses from Aurora’s cheeks. The short of it is, this acme of loveliness made me take my place among the muses. And as I sat there among them, it seemed to me I was in my own house, as I looked upon a certain figure of Time and another mask of Comedy. As I contemplated the cymbals, the bagpipes and the other instruments with which they passed the time, look you, the good Febo divulged, to the tune of Salamone, two stanzas of the Sirena, the sound of which made me weep not from the sweetness of the rhyme, but for the ignorant nature of the subject. Fame, moreover, kept up a constant chatter, and this spoiled the song. She, as soon as she knew me, began to deck herself in my honors, in a manner which I recommend to the ears of all the poor ladies who, when they hear it, will burst with envy. And then her prattle, which was of the sine fine dicentes order, changed, and she recited the praises of God as composed by the divine Pescara, with a few things of the learned Gambara, which, I would have you know, made the ladies leap for joy, for, being women, they took pleasure in such things as these.

After this, my lady Minerva, perceiving that I was a man of merit, took my hand and said, blushing and wise: “Let us walk a little way alone.” — And so, we came to the stall of Pegasus, who was being curried by Quinto Gruaro, while Father Biagio was filling his hay trough. He was a fine animal and one suited to bearing on his crupper the reverend testicles of those who, to leave a name for themselves, perform a thousand madnesses. And while I was wondering at the manners and wings of the beast, he consumed as much bewitched water as two Frenchmen with a cold chill would have drunk, if it had been wine. In color and in taste, it was like that of the Tre Fontane.

228 After we had soaked our beaks a while, we came to a little study, filled with pens, inkstands and paper; and without my asking, the armed lady said to me: “This is the place in which shall be written the deeds which your Duke d’Urbino must do against the enemies of Christ.” And I to her: “It could not be for anything else.” Having seen the writing room, I beheld a secret garden, full of palms and of laurels as green as possible; and divining that they were reserved for crowns of triumph, I, as she opened her mouth to speak, said: “I know what you wish to say.” And then, I perceived marbles, which I knew were being worked for the arches and statues of Francesco Mario and his son.

And then, I was with him in the church of Eternity, made, it seemed to me, of a Doric composition, signifying by its solidity his own eternal nature. I scarcely had entered, when I met my two brothers, Sansovino and Titian. The one was working over the bronze door of the temple, where were carved the four thousand followers and eight hundred horse with which His Excellency traversed Italy when he brought the plague to Leo. And when I asked him why he was leaving a certain space vacant, his reply was: “So that I can carve there what Paolo is going to do.” The other was placing over the great altar a tablet which depicted in most vivid form the victories of our emperor.

Having seen everything, they permitted me to go to the gate of the principal garden, and there I saw, approaching me, a number of youths, Lorenzo Veniero106 and Domenico, Girolamo Lioni, Francesco Badovaro and Federico, who, with fingers on their mouths, made me a sign that I should walk gently; and among them was the gentle Francesco Querino. Meanwhile, the scent of lilies, hyacinths and roses filled my nostrils with comfort;107 whereupon I, drawing near my friends, beheld upon a throne of myrtles the great Bembo.108 229His face shown with a light not seen any more.109 Seated on high, with a diadem of glory on his head, he had about him a coronal of sacred spirits. There was Iovio, Trifon, Gabriello, Molza, Nicolò Tiepolo, Girolamo Querino, Alemanno, Tasso, Sperone, Fortunio, Guidiccione, Varchi, Vittor Fausto, Contarin Pier Francesco, Trissino, Capello, Molino, Fracastoro, Bevazzano, Navaier Bernardo, Dolce, Fausto da Longiano and Maffio. And I saw there, also, Your Lordship, with every other person of name, without giving heed to the manner in which I seat my guests, as I mention them in this case. I might tell you that this chorus of excelling genius stood attentive to the Istoria Veneziana, the words of which fell from the tongue of the man above with the same gravity with which a cloud climbs the sky. But since one had here to hold even his breathing in leash, and since I was not used to remaining quiet for so long, giving one glance at the resplendent clouds, which distilled a sugared blush on the open mouths of the listeners, wondering at the attention which birds, winds, air and foliage gave, none of them moving a bit, while even the odor of the violets was a respectful one and the flowers neglected to rain down for fear of breaking the spell of ears — with all this, I said to myself, very softly: “Valete et plaudite.”

But then I came to a kitchen, and near it I beheld I cannot tell you what skeleton throng, with the faces one sees in visions; and as I looked upon them, I perceived that their prosopopoeia lay in the fact that I was still very much in the flesh. Being more interested in looking upon the victuals than in contemplating these, I, with a fraternal presumption, saluted the cook, who was on the verge of despair because I had interrupted a capitolo of Sbernia or of Sire Mauro, whichever it was, which he was singing to the tune of a turning skillet. The fellow was roasting a phoenix over a fire of incense and aloes. You may be assured, I did not invite myself to a mouthful. As I stood there considering with my 230palate’s best judgment the sweetness, sustenance and savour of it, I was like my knave drinking a julep, standing there with arms extended and spread out like a priest whose privates itch. At this, I perceived Apollo, who said to me: “Eat, so that those carrion there, who have consumed all my cabbages, herbs and salads, may know a greater hunger.” I, who was not able to say him nay, thanks to a beaker of the wine of God which I had just swilled down, thanked him with a nod. But as I changed place, I found myself in a prison paced by a folk clad in worse harness than the he-courtezan’s110 of today; and hearing that they had stolen, upon every occasion, pearls, gold, rubies, purple cloth, sapphires, amber and coral, I remarked: “These are poorly clothed, indeed, seeing they have committed such great thefts.” I saw also certain others who, upon making restitution to one another, were going out with slates as white111 as if they had just come from the Maker.

The conclusion of the dream was, I found myself in a market-place, as it seemed to me, where starlings, magpies, crows and parrots were imitating the geese on the eve of All Saints. With these birds, which I am telling you of, were certain togaed, wise-bearded and hopeless pedagogues, whose only occupation was to teach them to chatter by the points of the moon. Oh, what sport you would have had with one jackdaw, who was specifying “unquanco,” “uopo,” “scaltro,” “snello,” “sovente,” “quinci e quindi,” “restio,”112 You would have burst your jaws at seeing Apollo, flaming with anger, make a blockhead leap who could not succeed in making a nightingale say “gnaffe!”113 whereupon, he broke the bottom of his cithara over the fellow’s hole, while Fame broke the handles of her trumpet. I know you will understand the reason for their penitence. It is the truth I am telling you, that it ended with my being given a basket 231of laurel with which to wreathe myself. Whereupon, I said to them: “If I had the head of an elephant, I should not have the heart to wear it.” “Why not?” said my friend. “This bit of rue is given you for your acute and whorish dialogues, this nettle for your pungent priestly sonnets, this bouquet of a thousand devices for your pleasing comedies; this one of thorns for your Christian books, this cypress for the immortality that is your’s from your laudatory works,114 this olive for the peace you have made with princes, this laurel for your military and amorous stanzas, and this oak for the bestiality of your mind, which has vanquished avarice.” And I to him: “Look you, I take them and give them back to you; for if tomorrow I were to be seen with such fripperies in my cap, I should be canonized as a madman. The laurels of poets and the spurs of cavalrymen have played the devil with Reputation’s purse. And so, I beg you, rather, to give me a privilegio, by means of which I shall be able to sell or pawn those virtues which the heavens have given me in passing; for thereby I not only shall have quite a few denarii without labor, but I shall not have to listen to my name being taken in vain in all the libraries, by the pedants with their fine points. Reserve for me, therefore, enough genius to excuse you for being a stable boy to these dames —” At least, I was about to say this. But the noise which was made, thanks to Monna Thalia, when, she, in a manner to make you split, had so tangled up the wings of Fate that the latter looked like a thrush in the birdlime — the uproar woke me up.

From Venice, the 6th of December, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

98 girandolone: roamer.

99 Exactly: matte piattonate.

100 legno insaponato: the sport appears to be an old one.

101 Nicolo, his secretary and, later, betrayer: see Introduction.

102 His secretary: see Introduction.

103 alzare il fianco per una volta.

104 Aretino’s epic: see Introduction.

105 Oh, egli e il bel fanciullone! Cf. The stage Hibernianism, “broth of a boy.”

106 His secretary: see the story of the Puttana errante, Introduction.

107 Aretino like Baudelaire, appears to have been particularly sensitive to odors.

108 The pedant: see Introduction.

109 luce non piu veduta: cf. The “light that never was.”

110 Or courtiers: cortegiani.

111 carete bianche: cf. carte blanche.

112 Aretino’s pet aversions in diction, which he lists over and over again.

113 In truth, by my troth.

114 Which Aretino himself would seem to have fancied above all.

CX To MADONNA MADDALENA BARTOLINA

Olives.

If the olives which you sent me had not been good, you would not have had two vases from me to fill with more. I 232swear to you, I never have tasted better or finer. Even Tuscany, mistress of the gentle art, has to bow to the manner in which yours are dressed. Those of Spain are haughty and large; those of Bologna, like those of Spain, not being split, retain something of the bitter flavor they get from the tree; those of Apulia might be called “spit-breads,” from being so dwarfed. Hence, the balance of praise must remain on your side. And so, I am going to ask you if we may have a few more, since the two baskets we had barely touched the palates of my friends.

Messer Polo, your son and mine, is playing the gentleman and only lives when he is with Madonna Pierina,115, his wife and your daughter-in-law. Nor would you recognize the latter, so greatly has she grown in beauty and manners, which makes her much esteemed. You should be glad that, thanks to God, she is a vessel of gold, holding all the virtues which are to be desired in a young girl. If you could see the timorous prudence she exhibits in her relations to her husband, you would love her. And what touches my heart is the mother, who is beside herself with contentment. I, as you have asked me, have not consented that she should quarrel with her son-in-law; instead, the good lad has shared his own with her; and when her days are ended, all shall be theirs. Finally, greet in my name my daughter’s kinswomen, and tell them I shall soon see to it that their brother comes to visit them. Remember me to Messer Vincenzio.

From Venice, the 10th of December, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

115 Pierina Riccia: see Introduction and preceding letters.

CXI To DON AMBROGIO, MONK

In Which He Praises the Benedictines.

If the valiant man, father, to whom you consigned the letter which was brought to me had not delivered it through another, I should have been able to offer him my assistance whenever it was needed. But since I did not see him, I will 233tell you that any labor will be sport to me, if I can only give pleasure to you and to your friends. To those persons who love me I am bound, and these may dispose of me as they will, as may always Your Reverence, whose kind breast was opened to me the first day you saw me; and the reason of this was, there reigned in your mind no trace of the friar, so well did you have it under control. For in the religion which you follow and observe, there is no niggardliness; Saint Benedict was a personage different from all the others in the calendar; and as he foresaw the scandal which would arise in the thoughts of others who were consumed by want, he threw open the door of commerce to his sons, in order that they might, with nothing to hinder, turn back to their offices and their orisons. I know with what a brave fantasy I set myself to write when the manna of liberality is raining down upon me! I know also in what a devil of a whirl my brain is when I lack omnia bona. At this point, I want to tell you of a wooden-shoe father, who was standing on the bank of a deep river that would have come above his cincture, waiting for some one, for the love of God, to take him across. And he would have stood there the rest of his days, had he not fallen in with a pair of religious of your order, whose rumps were most mundanely fortified with a brace of stallions. No sooner did the poor wretch catch sight of them than he began twisting his neck in a gesture of hypocrisy and begged from them, in the name of charity, the crupper of one of those bays. Leaping into the torrent and tucking up the ends of his monk’s cloak, he held on to the saddle for dear life; but he was scarcely across before the demon tempted him. He thought of his wooden shoes, and then the devil put a fancy into his head, and he thought how fine it would be to be carried always; he had a vision of himself never getting off, and when they said to him: “Come down now” and urged him with words and elbow-digs to do so, he replied: “This beast is as much mine as any body’s else, for I have decided to become a member of your order.” 234Nor were they able to make him dismount. And when they came to the monastery, he put on a black habit, saying: “Take your gray, St. Francis, for those, too, who are rich, and who do not bore holes through their hands, go to heaven.” It is foolish to believe that nature does not resent the injuries which she receives from heat and cold. It is suicidal not to take water for one’s thirst and bread for one’s hunger; shivering or perspiring limbs must be refreshed with fire and wind; otherwise, one falls and is no longer able to keep his heart fixed on God. Any one who would bear so unbearable a thing is nothing more than an “anima mea Dominum.” But after all this gossip, when you write to the learned, best and most reverend Don Onorato Fassitello, that luminare maius, do not forget to commend me to his most egregious person.

From Venice, the 11th of December, 1537.

CXII To SISTER GIROLAMA TIEPOLA

In Which He Praises the Life of the Cloister.

It was sweet and dear, reverend mother, to hear from Madonna Francesca Serlia, my godmother and sister, of the desire you, in your goodness, have to hear my words, since it is not permitted you to see me. A thing which at once pleases and displeases me. It pleases me, because imagination cannot take away what absence deprives me of; and I am displeased because I am not permitted a sight of that venerable lady who has learned how to despise and world and to overcome fortune. The loss of husband, son and title have been recompensed to you, thanks to the manner in which you bear so great a loss — a recompense which no emperor would be able to give you; for that circle with which you enclose your sacred person is more spacious than the fields of the moon. If it appears little at times, it is still the model of that paradise which you have learned to achieve, the walls of which are not to be assaulted by peoples or by arms. 235In it, there is nothing that has to do with poison or with treason; in it, tyranny gives no commands, for the reason that old age and death do not discommode or grieve you, nor deprive you of your strength; here, indeed, time and death mean nothing. Happy you, who have learned at once to procure quiet of body and well-being of soul! With us rule those who have learned how to bear suspicions, cares, wars and cruelty; but the one who would rejoice in security, liberty, peace and piety takes himself from us. The drawingroom of the worldly is an image of the abyss, and while you feel not the least pain, we never know an hour’s repose. Far removed from your cell are all deceits, envy does not lacerate you, sins do not tempt you, desires do not inflame you and avarice does not torment you. The hours which you steal from sleep, the food which you deny your hunger and the pleasures of which you deprive your will, being of your own choice, adorn, feed and comfort you. Nature is satisfied with very little; herbs and water are enough to sustain it. She is not to blame for the desires of the throat; pheasants and peacocks are the pomps of the palate. He is better off who is content with homely foods than the one who fills himself with varied viands, for sumptuous lunches and magnificent dinners are the parents of disease. And so, do you remain in your nun’s robes, and a single habit shall cover you, who once went clad in purple and fine gold. The brides of Christ have no need of pearls or rings. They find with their eternal Lover neither sighs nor jealousy nor infamy. The songs of the offices are their only delight, and the sound of the psalm-raising organ. To your ears comes no report of the doings of others nor the cries which they send up in their ruin. You see nothing of blood, fire, rape and adultery; and so, do you pray God that he may not correct us with his wrath nor chastise us in his fury. Woe to us, if your tears and your prayers did not possess the efficacy conferred upon them by Jesus! Look you, infidel flights and Christian concords come, [236]237alike, from the merits of your sincere mind; and heaven shall deny you none of those graces which your heart knows so well how to say. I never enter the churches conducted through the diligence of the godmothers of the Virgin Mary that I am not aware of the sweetness and fragrance which breathes from their chaste sanctity. Regard yourself, then, as in the number of the blessed, since, satiated with the miseries which, in the guise of rank and honor, are presented to us, you have elected a secure mansion and a laudable life. And so, by that faith and hope which I have in the fervor of your vows and the merit of those works with which you please and serve God, I beseech you to obtain for holiness and length of days for that life which Jesus has given me.

From Venice, the 13th of December, 1537.

CXIII To THE SIGNORA ANGELA ZAFFETTA

In Which He Lauds His Courtezan.

Since Fame, putting on her armor, has gone trumpeting throughout Italy the report that Love, in the person of you, has done me wrong, I may say, I have always regarded it as a great favor that your manners were so far removed from any kind of fraud. Indeed, I give you the palm, among all those that ever were, for knowing how to put upon the face of lasciviousness the mask of decency; and hence it is, by your wisdom and discretion, you have procured money and praise. You do not exercise the quality of astuteness, which is the very soul of a courtezan, in order to work treason, but rather with such a dexterity that he who spends with you swears he is the gainer. The manner in which you establish new friendships is indescribable, as is the manner in which you draw into the house those who are doubtful, hesitating between a yes and a no. It is difficult to imagine the care you employ in retaining those who have become yours. You dispense so well your kisses, hand-squeezes, smiles and bed-fellowships 238that a quarrel or brawl or any complaint whatsoever was never heard of. Your outbursts of anger are suited to the occasion nor are you anxious to be called “the mistress of all praise,” having a contempt for those who study the artifices of Nanna and of Pippa.116 You are not suspicious where there is no cause for it, converting every thought into a jealous one. You do not draw from your bag woes and consolations, nor, feigning love, do you die and come to life again when it pleases you. You do not hold to the flanks of the credulous the spurs of a servant-maid, swearing to them that you do not drink, eat or sleep on account of them, affirming that you came near hanging yourself because your lover has visited another. You are not of those who always keep their tears on tap and, while they weep, mingle with their tears certain sighs and a few sobs, a little too nimbly drawn from their hearts, furtively scratching their heads and biting their fingers with an “Ei si sia,” in a hoarse and mincing voice; nor are you industrious about retaining the one who would leave, forcing him to go who wants to stay. There are in your mind, no such deceits. Your womanly intuition117 clings to reality, nor are feminine gossipings to your taste, nor do you collect about you a throng of vain wenches and idle boasters. Your decent habits rejoice in a genteel beauty, which makes you shine most rarely; firm are the hopes of that way of life in which you triumph over the things you must do. Lying, envy and slander, the fifth part of a courtezan, do not keep your mind and tongue in constant motion. You caress virtue and honor the virtuous; and in this, you are far from the nature and custom of those you are pleasing. And while I am, of a truth, devoted to Your Ladyship, it seems to me Your Ladyship is worthy of such devotion.

From Venice, the 15th of December, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

116 Of the Ragionamenti.

117 saper donnesco.

239

CXIV To MESSER DIONIGI CAPPUCCI

Against the Doctors.

Give yourself no worry, most excellent genius, over the persecutions of the doctors, who would have you walk in line with their canonical procedure; for the benefit of him who would know what you are, let it be said that you employ syrups in place of medicines (may God forgive the man who invented the latter). I would compare medicines to the fury of a violent river, which takes with it in its course fields, stones and trunks of trees. I will tell you, their ribald mixtures take whole months and years from our viscera, leaving us a dried-up life. If it were not for the respect I have for Their Excellencies, I should baptize the doctors as the “alchemists of the human body,” since the presumption with which they are drunken brings an ounce of health for every two lives they take; and the laws support them for it, and they are not punished but paid for their homicides. In great travail, the valiant fellows enter and question the patient as to whether he is doing well. “Yes, sir.” For the whole art of Galeno lies in an injection of mallows. What a pity it is to see a poor wretch stretched out there and emaciated from the diet which they have given him, understanding, as they do, neither the nature of the malady nor the strength of the patient’s constitution; for which reason, the big blockheads go on prescribing distillations, sedatives, the candle and the grave. How cruel are the colleges, disputing at the expense of the one who puts faith in them! Wise peasants who, without resorting to such treacherous measures, treat one another in an honest fashion! How many, while they are dying, are reassured with a coram vobis; and how many, given up for dead, leap out of bed the very next evening! And all this comes from the doctors’ having no judgment whatever as to inequalities of condition among the infirm. Do they not, in their avarice, prolong a little fever for a whole month? They probably would have gone more 240than once to take the pulse of St. Francis, if the latter, who never had a denarius, had paid them. All this is said, saving the peace of the truly expert, learned and good Iacopo Buonacosa of Ferrara, a splendid physicist, and others like him. And now, turning to you, I exhort Your Lordship to persevered in the incorruptible distillations with which Your Lordship’s great father resuscitated the peoples, to the highest glory of the city of Castello.

From Venice, the 15th of December, 1537.

Cxv To MESSER GIANFRANCESCO POCOPANNO

Verses and Pears.

The fruits of your genius and of your garden have been such sweet food to my intellect and to my palate that I never have experienced the like before. Surely, the sonnet is sweet, but the pears (saving the grace of the bergamots) excell all others in sweetness and juice. It has been some days since I received a gift so gracious or one that gave me more delight; and so, in memory of the tree that grew them and of you who sent them to me, I will say that if the rich Brescia had nothing else that was fine or gentle, these would still give it a famous name.

From Venice, the 15th of December, 1537.

CXVI To FAUSTO LONGIANO

Against Pedantry.

I have learned, my brother, from the letter which you sent me, what criticism is and what I have been able to accomplish in the works I have produced. How is it possible your intellect, inspecting so minutely the labors of others, knows and sees so much? Any ancient or modern author that I know would go to heaven from pride or to the abyss from shame at hearing himself praised or blamed by your insight, which is so much sharper than that of science. Nothing, it appears to me, is of greater value in a man than the power of 241judgment; and the man who has it may be compared to a chest filled with books, for he is the son of nature and the father of art. Not by any fault of it, but by the presumption of others are they led astray who trust in it, for we are often vituperated by the opinion which stubbornness passes on our work. Happy is he who considers the merits of a writer with the wisdom of a friend! But I laugh at those pedants who believe that learning consists of Greek and Latin, affirming that he who does not understand these languages has no business to open his mouth, making all reputation rest upon the “in bus” and “in bas” of grammar. It is judgment I am speaking of; for other things are good for seeing the genius of others, by which your own may be awakened and corrected. Take the case of one who knows as much as it is desirable to know in sculpture and in painting; nevertheless, the marble Nostra Donna de la Febbre is sufficiently younger than her son, and the figures in their flight do not give the impression of flying. We must take into consideration what the maestro who made the Laocoon118 did, if we wish to know what judgment is. Behold those two serpents, which, in assailing three persons, have in their likeness all there is of fear, grief and death. The young lad, girdled round his bust and extremities, is filled with terror; the old man, bitten by their teeth, wails; and the infant, poisoned by their fangs, dies. The artist deserves more praise for having been able to express the effects of such passions as these, making fear the first motive, suffering the second and death the third, than those who would have occupied themselves with the style in which they would have depicted the bodily members. How many volumes do we see without any organization and without any decorative effect,119 and yet, their authors are supposed to be learned men? The short of it is, he who does not pass judgment, has none too much authority with Fame, but he whose capacity renders him 242worthy shares all her honors. This is seen in the case of the great Duke d’Urbino, who by administering with discretion and counsel all the circumstances of his own life, has been made administration-secretary of the army; and for this reason is conceded to him, not otherwise than to you, all due respect for whatever he may think or write, and his poems are acknowledged to be neither greater nor less than those which are the product of your care and labor. For which reason I, when I hear him exalting my own works, congratulate myself in the manner of a man who, beholding the riches of his inheritance, finds them so much more than he had thought. It is not out of ignorance that I have declined to follow in the footsteps of Petrarch and Boccaccio, for I know what they are, but I have not wished to lose time, patience and good name in this effort to transform myself into them, since this is not possible. Better is bread eaten in one’s own house than that accompanied by fine viands at the table of another. I walk with tranquil step the garden of the muses, nor does there ever fall from me any word that I have learned from any stinkpot of old. I wear the face of genius unveiled, and, not knowing an h, I still can give lessons to those who know their l’s and m’s; and so, they ought now to keep still who do not believe there is a better school under heaven than the Dottrinale novellis. Imitate here, imitate there; all is trifling, it might be said, including the compositions of the majority of writers; and hence it is, readers have become like the enemies of abstinence who tack on a vigilia to the skirts of Venus and the Sabath. — “Bring us something besides salad,” cry those who have achieved fame. What do you think of those who believe they can come down per omnia saecula with their capitoli of the Cardi, the Orinali and the Primiere, not perceiving the fact that such babblings as these give birth to a name that dies the day it is born? In another fashion, after the Lodi de la mosca, did Luciano compose. Georgio of Vicenza, who reduced the clock to the size of the great Turk’s ring, need not 243sweat so industriously over the ship which sails above the table or the figure which dances through the room, for these are good only to move the laughter of foolish young women. The thing to do is, as I have done, to reduce to half a folio the extent of history and the tedium of orations, the effect of which may be viewed in my letters, and I shall keep on doing this in all the things that come from my pen. I hope also to be able to let you see comedies relieved of the expense of scene and the tedium of interlocutors; as it is, one needs only to divide the five acts in the manner of the sermon. In conclusion, I, who know so little, offer myself to you, who know everything.

From Venice, the 17th of December, 1537.

FOOTNOTES

118 The Laocoon appears to tempt the critic: e. g., Lessing.

119 senza disposizione e senza decoro: sounds like the terms of modern painting criticism.

XCVII To THE MAGNIFICENT MESSER PIETRO TRIVISANO DAI CROCICCHIERI

The Pessimist.

As soon as I saw you at the bedside of the Signor Don Lope Soria, whence her Excellency, the Duchess d’Urbino, had just departed, having paid a visit to the sick man, I felt overcome by the remembrance of Messer Ferrier Beltrami, and it seemed to me that, without his presence, the day was without sunlight. How many times, seeing you together in church, at confession, on the river and at home, I have said to myself: “Behold the witness of perfect friendship and the example of honest pleasures!” But since God, who gave him to you, has taken him away, I counsel you, you seek to console yourself. Moreover, we ought not to be sad, if others precede us in the path which all must tread. The world is a room, rented to us at the good pleasure of Christ and nature; and he who stays the shorter time here lives the longer there; for death is but life, issuing with a freed spirit from that prison in which all the pains that could be imagined have kept it locked. Look at the scene: In the city, envy, injustice and ambition traffic; in the country, civil customs 244are transformed into those of wild beasts; sons give us the care of enriching and the fear of losing them; seeing ourselves without them, we long to have them; peace gives birth to lust, and wars sow blood; the ruler is the prey to suspicions, and the servant is the subject of despair; poverty is fled, and riches are stolen by every one; youth is given to impetuosity and to fury and old age to ills and procrastinations. And so the best thing for a man to do is to be born and, being born, to die at once.

From Venice, the 18th of December, 1537.

[245] THE SON

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 245-268.

249 To Ben Hecht, Rabelais and Others

To render Aretino’s Sonneti lussuriosi into English (or, for that matter, into almost any other language) with anything approaching literalness would be to achieve a work of unredeemed pornography; and while pornography undoubtedly has its value in this republic, it is not the end sought here, which is to gve as accurate as possible an idea of Aretino’s work. Such a procedure on the part of the translator would, accordingly, be an unfaithfulness to his author; it would be, as translators too often do, to betray the latter by a false faithfulness. For the Italian, in portraying the nuances and delicate shadings of debauchery, possesses certain advantages which are not to be found outside the Latin dialects. Take the Seven Freudian Sins and set them to music and the effect is rather different from that attained by our harsh nordic gutturals. Even the Germans, whom we may sometimes take to have been the inventors of sensual expression in paint and words, have found this to be true. Upon reading over my own version, I am convinced it is nearer the spirit of the original than any of the alleged literal renderings I have seen. In view of the invincible pruderies (“reticences” is the college professor’s word) of our English speech, it is as faithful as it feasibly could be. Incidentally, it is better poetry.

S. P.

[250] [blank] 251 Prefatory Garland

Reader, I bring you here a perfumed song,

And yet, you’ll find, no sentimental ditties;

The songs I sing are of the little pretties,

And not for saints — if you think that, you’re wrong!

Sunrises are all right — where they belong!

I sing the ones that rise in hardened cities.

Of facades front and rear and — a thousand pities!

If we mix metaphors where truth’s too strong.

Our city, you’ll perceive, is all aflame;

But, strange to say, the elevations stand:

What’s architecture in a case like this?

And, street or alley, what is in a name?

Look at this pillar rising with a grand

And overawing gesture: let us kiss!

252 I

Of Sylvan Tourneys

At sylvan tourneys let us joust, dear one,

As Adam did, and Eve, in Eden’s shade;

And if I break a lance, don’t be afraid:

That is the sequel to our rustic fun.

Speaking of Adam, it is sad that he has run

His last brave course and no more bends a blade;

Sad, too, that in that dull and heavenly glade

One cannot do as one on earth has done!

I know, they blame the apple: that’s not true;

Look at the birds and beasts, and you will see

That we on earth do merely what we must.

But this is not a time for jest; do you

Not feel the wave that’s swelling up in me?

Then, come! Take arms! against a sea of — Lust!

253 II

Of Fireside Sports

And now, of feasts and fireside sports we’ll sing,

And I will teach you a new game to play;

But you must come around the other way,

Though not too fast! — tap gently: that’s the thing.

Oh, it’s a very merry prank to bring

A guest ’round by the rear! Then, let him stay —

From deepest midnight till the dawn’s first ray —

Let’s hurl a spear and stop this chattering!

And now, we enter a moist woodland dell,

Whose scenery would leave me breathless quite,

If I had any breath from that last kiss!

Is this not better than the tales they tell

Around the fire upon a winter night?

My tale, too, has a point you cannot miss.

254 III

He Struts the Field

A knight, it seems to me, may be right proud

That kings and emperors do not possess

A pike or shaft of greater comeliness,

Or one with greater deadliness endowed.

I know that, till they wrap me in my shroud,

I’ll tourney with my lady and her dress;

I cast no puny dart, as you may guess,

For darts like those are by decorum cowed.

And you, my lady, like them quite as little —

Indeed, I know the counter-move you’d make,

If I were such a craven cannoneer.

But the arms I wield are neither small nor brittle;

And so, they may assail the front, or take

— Let’s say, their choice, though that’s too mild, I fear.

255 IV

Light Arms Practice

Then, light arms practice, dear! Yet not so light!

You must learn to hold a broadsword in your hand —

I need not tell you more; you’ll understand:

We’ll leave the rest to instinct and the night.

But there’s one lesson which you must not slight,

To be a member of our valiant band:

A lesson that is known throughout the land,

And one that even horses can recite.

I’ll help you learn it, though I know it’s hard,

And, dear, you must not let it slip away,

For you’re a backward pupil if you do!

To lances, then! For I would not retard

Your progress or the pleasure of the fray:

The Queen of France tonight might envy you.

256 V

Military Executions

And next come breast-works; I must teach you how

To dig a trench — I’ll dig one for you, see?

Now, don’t you think that’s very kind of me?

That rampart, look! A beauty, you’ll allow.

But there are other tactics wait you now:

Tactics, dear one, you might learn from the bee;

The queen of the hive might teach you a strategy

That you will master very soon, I vow!

Oh, why does Nature love variety?

Why am I not all this, and you all that?

Then, this and that — well, that would be good sense.

But viewing Nature’s contrariety,

We must make the very best of it — have at!

And this must be a swordsman’s recompense.

257 VI

Ground Arms!

The weary warrior now grounds his arms,

And if his method is not orthodox,

Call him a lunatic or cunning fox:

My helmet’s found where there are most alarms.

In this bombardment, you will encounter charms

Which will remind you of the barnyard cocks

And other beasts; and if you find it shocks

Your modesty, learn rapture from the farms!

Do you not feel my gentle gunnery,

Which peppers from the rear with such fine aim

A duchess might be proud to be the mark?

Then, come my dear; this is no nunnery.

Let’s play our pleasant little soldier’s game:

With weapons such as these, war’s but a lark.

258 VII

Stragglers

My fingers are but stragglers at the rear,

Who go a-foraging for what they find;

And they are not ashamed to lag behind,

Since there’s no foe in front they need to fear.

They’ve wandered through a tufted valley near.

And you yourself have said they were most kind,

And so, I know, my lady will not mind

If they see other booty, nor think it queer.

And yet, it may be, you prefer the Lance;

Then, let your stragglers reconnoiter, sweet,

And guide him like a blind man to safe cover.

He is no coward, since he takes a chance.

Though he, my dear, has neither eyes nor feet;

For a soldier always makes a perfect lover!

259 VIII

The Poacher

The subject is a full one I would broach,

And very delicate, as you will see;

For I must reprimand your cruelty

In holding that there is but one approach.

Why do you never let me, then, encroach

Upon those fair preserves, that greenery

Which lies behind the hill; this scenery

Grows too well known: then, dearest, let me poach!

The poacher, after all, ’s a pleasant fellow,

And when you’ve seen him draw his bow and quiver,

You’ll know that he ’s right clever with the dart.

His manners, it is true, are old and mellow,

But still, they needn’t make our morals shiver

Since archery’s a very ancient art.

260 IX

Fortune of War

Quarter, my dear! You have me on my back,

And if there must be slaughter, let me slay;

You’ll like it just as well, I think, that way.

You are a prisoner, but you shall not lack

The amenities of war, though I hew and thwack

Right valiantly. Some men there are who may

Prefer to feast and drink, but I must say

That I prefer the battle and the snack.

To the field, then! I’m neighing for the fray,

My monstrous dart, my polished lance in place,

With my two henchmen bringing up the rear.

Then, do your duty on this glorious day,

And win your spurs, for you shall have to face

Quite soon again this doughty cavalier.

261 X

The Secret Sin

There is, they say, a certain occult sin

That dwells in monasteries, where one brother

Doth sometimes turn for comfort to another:

’Tis a peccadillo that they revel in.

Then, pardon me, if my excuse is thin.

My lance is not — indeed, there is no other

Can cut so wide a swath and so can smother

An enemy in carnage. If you would win

The day with me — but I must not forget,

You are the victor, and the spoils are yours:

Do with me as you will, and with my sword,

That gallant shaft which even now I whet —

But what is this? You’ve stolen all my stores!

What matter? Drop compunction by the board.

262 XI

Narcissus

Narcissus was a very silly boy:

He looked into a pool and fell in love

With his own image; I am not above

Narcissus’ folly, as my glances toy

With what my lips would like well to enjoy:

Before the lancers come, with thrust and shove

Of amorous war, I, like a billing dove,

Survey the scene of bellicose employ.

For this is what I live for, if you’d know —

Dearest, the mystery is solved at last;

I’ll whisper it, before I turn to dust.

Lie still and listen till your blood runs slow,

Till flowers are withered, ecstasy is past;

And then, too late! you’ll know the answer: Lust.

263 XII

The Last Feast

They tell a sorry tale of old man Mars —

You know the chap, the blunderer of battle —

And lady Venus, comeliest of cattle,

And a certain night they spent beneath the stars.

But there are gods, it seems, have better spars,

Like Hercules, of whom the poets prattle:

Hand me my club, and stop this tittle-tattle;

Leave goddesses to those old Grecians’ jars!

Though you’re a goddess in my sight, dear one;

A marble goddess, too, in certain parts.

Bring music, then! We will be gay tonight.

God give me this one feast; when it is done,

Death, I am yours! Meanwhile, young Cupid’s darts

Flash home in an unmythologic light.

264 XIII

Stage Directions

Must I, then, be specific? Dear, I blush!

This is a theatre where every cue

Must be observed. I’ll teach them all to you.

Now, when you see me enter thus — but hush!

My role’s a rigid one; you see me flush —

And must I tell you what you are to do?

How you should turn your back when I pursue?

The part I play, you’ll see, is very lush.

While you may play the queen, but play it well:

A queen, you know, has certain royal duties,

And must be generous when closely pressed.

When you, my Queen, feel insurrections swell,

Marshal to meet them all your regal beauties,

And clutch at anything till you’re redressed!

265 XIV

To Beatrice From Hell

’Tis an old torture that you put me to

Tonight, beloved, though, I know, they say

That in the fashions of an elder day

Lies, sometimes, novelty — or seeming-new.

I’m sure, my dear, I don’t know what to do.

The fires of an inferno lap and play

About me; I cannot forget, this way,

A sweeter torture I have taught to you!

Thus, Beatrice, I can but kneel and pray

That you’ll forgive me for my lack of ease;

My eyes and thoughts are on forbidden fruit.

But, in my punishment, I will be gay

And, even in hell’s fires, seek to please,

While dreaming of another, fairer loot!

[266]

Black and white lithograph by the Marquis de Bayros, of nude woman seated on a rock and leaning over towards a youth holdng his hands clasped up towards her face. there are goates and rabbits in the foreground and poplar like trees in the background.

267 XV

Plain Song

I am a glutton for the thing called love,

A bigger glutton than the ones who sit

All day at table, as the full hours flit,

And hold they’re happier than the gods above.

They swill down wine, while I, my turtle-dove,

Choose milk and find I am content with it —

Turn on the spigot! let us draw a bit:

Yes, I’m a very glutton, dear, for love.

And what, in truth, is more divine than — Lust?

To Lust and Love we’ll raise a litany

And do a little genuflection, too;

Since when all’s said, we do but what we must,

Like any abbess in her priory,

For an abbess, dear, is just like me and you.

[268] [blank] [The Serious Sonnets]

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 269-278.

[269]

SERIOUS SONNETS

[270] [blank] 271 In Questa Chiara Sacrosanta Notte

On that clear, calm and more than holy night,

Followed by Friday, Venus’ own day,

On which all faithful, pious creatures pray,

With3 broken tears, Nature, for boon or blight,

Brought spirit and my members to the light,

From the dark maternal grotto where they lay;

And the fates that watched were good to me, I’ll say,

Since I’ve willed to endure them, bad or bright.

As Jesus suffered for the good of men,

So I, on coming from my mother’s womb,

Being liberated from my prison pen,

Came forth into the world, wailing His doom.

Christ died for me upon the cross again,

And I was born in Christ as from a tomb.

272 Mentre Voi Titian, Voi Sansovino

While you, my Titian, Sansovino, you

On canvas and in marble immortalize

An art resplendent as the splendid skies,

The goal of pilgrim spirits, I, with true

And heart-felt zeal, reverently pursue

The task of one who upon paper tries

To paint and carve Lucretia’s grace and size,

The native and divine gifts are her due.

And yet, I know my style’s not able quite

To capture form and color that lie within,

As yours gives color, form to the things of sight;

But if, from my own ink, I could but win

Your mind and valor, then, indeed, I might

Erect a shrine for the world to worship in.

273 Togli il Lauro Per Te Cesare e Omero

Caesar and Homer, I have stolen your bays!

Though not a poet or an emperor;

My style has been my star, in a manner, for

I speak the truth, don’t deal in lying praise.

I am Aretino, censor of the ways

Of the lofty world, prophet-ambassador

Of truth and smiling virtue — if you’d hear more,

Here’s Titian’s masterpiece; you’ve but to gaze.

And if you find the face he’s made strikes fear,

Then close your eyes, and they’ll not be offended;

For though I’m but in paint, I see and hear.

My worship, Lord Gonzaga, is extended

To Signor Giovanni, whom I hold dear,

The three of us being by our merits blended.

274 L’Eterno Sonno in un Bel Marmo Puro

Sleep, Ariosto! in a fine marble pure

The eternal sleep, and may your great name wake

At burst of day in that fair clime and take

Its ease there as you watch, glad and secure.

But for the gifts of the sky, he would assure

Us, he does not care; he stands with wonder-ache

Beneath the stars, when a sad and solemn quake

Of sound assails him with its tender lure.

As Phoebus’ sisters, in their sorrow, add

Words to their tears: “O blessed spirit bright.

With a brightness sun at midday never had,

We bring you our widowed wonder; you see us clad

In robes of grief, while flowers shed their light

Above your tomb, and song is bowed and sad.”

275 Sett’ Anni Traditori Ho Via Gettati

Seven traitor years I now have thrown away,

With Leo four, and three more with my sire,

Pope Clement; I have won the people’s ire,

More through their own sins than through my own; my pay

Has not been two whole ducats; one might say,

Gian Manente’s the better; if you but fire

Your mind with filthy things, look in the mire,

Then you have every hope of the papal bay.

And if there were no other wounds to feel,

Warding the honor of some patron friend,

Five or six times a day I’d take the steel;

For benefits, offices and pensions tend

But to make the holy fathers a pleasant meal

Of bastard scoundrels — two mouthfuls — that’s their end.

    While the good, faithful servitors who bend

    Their energies to serve are left to die

    Of hunger, for their sin against the Most High.

[276] [blank] [277] APPENDIX

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 279-289.

[279]

APPENDIX I

CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Eugenio Camerini, mid-nineteenth century Italian critic, published in 1869, in the Rivista critica, of which he was an editor at Milan, an article on “The Correspondents of Aretino” (I correspondenti dell’ Aretino). Part of this material is reproduced in the Prefazione to his edition of the Commedie (Casa Editrice Sonzogno, Milan). His preface to the comedies begins with a section on the “Life and Customs” (Vita e Costumi) of Aretino:

Pietro Aretino, the bastard son of one Luigi Bacci of Aretino and one Tita, was, as it were, consecrated to impure loves from his mother’s womb, and to this consecration he was faithful all his life. Born in 1492, he died at about the age of sixty-five, in 1557.

Margutte died from laughter at seeing a female monkey trying the tricks which Morgante had endeavored to conceal from her. Of Aretino, it is said that he died in a fit of laughter at hearing his sisters tell of the experiments in lust which they had made in a bordello of Arezzo, experiments of which Giulio Romano had not dreamed in those designs which Aretino illustrated with his pen and Marco Aurelio Raimondi with his burin.

I do not know, I am sure, how Catholic writers feel when they recall Aretino’s words after he had received extreme unction:

Be sure the rats don’t get me, now that I’m all greased up.

I am not certain about this. What I am certain of is that his procuress, Monna Alvigia, represented well enough his double character, when she inserted into the versicles of the pater noster lustful references. It was common in the Risorgimento, this mingling of devotion and carnality, of scepticism and superstition, but in none other was it carried to such a degree as in Aretino; and in his letters, if we turn the pages, we find the solution of a number of theological doubts . . .

Diogenes told Alexander to get out of his light; Aretino abandoned a position at the right hand of Charles V. because he did not want to go to Germany. Venice was his rock, and from there he spread his nets for the great ones of the earth.

280 He visited the poor and the studios of great artists; through his generosity, he had his roots in the hovel, as he likewise sunk them, through his importunacies, deep into courts.

Berni compared him to dogs, —

Which, if you beat them, as you may know,

Jump better than ever where their masters go.

He was as rich in blows and dagger thrusts as he was in gifts. His body, said Boccalini, looked like a ship’s chart . . . and I once knew the editor of a theatrical journal who would show the marks of blows he had received from his beloved choristers with the same pride with which a Roman legionary would have displayed his wounds.

On all sides . . . he felt the gnawings of appetite; he rejoiced in it, with his friends and mistresses; he praised gifts and givers, but if the present was not to his taste, he would speed back a letter of reproof.

With one hand he took, and with the other he gave; he was a born philanthropist. But he was a man, not a chest of gold; and so he sometimes found himself in straits. When he wished to make a dot for his loved Adria, he had to appeal to the princes and their secretaries to make up the sum he needed. We have a number of letters of his in which he replies sharply to those who counsel him to be a better manager. He was the vase of the Danaids.

He knew that he was ignorant and willingly admitted it, but he was unable to stand by when others called him an idiot, maintaining that the fruits of his genius, which had the savor of certain wild plants, were worth more than all those which others had transplanted, with great sweat, from the Greek and Latin gardens.

Hyperbole, a simple rhetorical figure, made his fortune. But just as, even in the most hyperbolical praise, there is always some substance, so in the one who employs such praise there is always a rock-bottom of truth. And so he, with the strangest metaphors in the world, goes on exaggerating his ideas and the merits of others, and with the newness of his verbal coin, he makes an effect which a soft and simple speaker never could hope to obtain.

It is notable that the influence of Aretino carried over into the sixteenth century. When the other great writers of the cinquecento were being forgotten, his works were being travestied, disguised and read, sotto mano, on account of the attraction exercised by their obscenity, as well as because of their vivacious and original force.

Here, we find again the persistence of the Aretino legend, traced by the pseudo-Berni. Pietro is the bastard of Luigi 281Bacci and Tita. The latter, it is true, is not here referred to as a prostitute, but it is the same Tita. The “consigned from his mother’s womb to impure loves” is like the “because he was vile and a poltroon” of De Sanctis; it is another mark of that moralistic claw of which Aretino, for four centuries, has been the victim. The story, in the second paragraph, of Aretino’s death is to be noted. That, of course, and the son-of-a-prostitute angle constitute the punch of the tale. Nor is the “mixture of devotion and carnality,” one fancies, limited to the “Risorgimento;” the Messers. Krafft-Ebing, Havelock Ellis and others have observed it since. Berni crops out in the bit of doggerel about the dogs. As to the “gnawings of appetite,” that, as De Sanctis saw, admits of a slightly larger interpretation: “What they (Machiavelli and Guicciardini) thought, Pietro was.” There is something spiritual in Aretino’s disdain of money; as Hutton and other have pointed out, he preyed on the powerful. “Ignorance,” in Aretino’s mouth, is merely a word used to confuse the pedants; it is a boast.

As to “Hyperbole,” Hutton (op. cit., pp. 265ff.) lifts a number of allusions from Gabriel Harvey’s Marginalia (Edited by G. C. Moore Smith, Shakespeare Head Press, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1913). Harvey refers to the Italian as “Unico Aretino.”

Unico Aretino in Italian, singular for rare and hyperbolical amplifications. He is a simple Orator, that cannot mount as high as the quality or quantity of his matter requireth. Vaine and phantasticale Amplifications argue an idle or mad-conceited brain: but when the very Majesty or dignity of the matter itself will indeed bare out a stately and haughty style; there is no such trial of a gallant Discourse and no right Orator.

Notating “I would . . . find some supernatural cause whereby my pen might walk in the superlative degree,” Harvey writes:

In hoc gener Lucianus excellebat: et post eum plerique Itali: maxime Poetae Aretinus voluit albis equis praecurrere et esse Unicus in suo quodam hyperbolico genere . . .

282 Unicus Aretinus erat scriptoris hyperbole, et actoris paradoxum. Illius affectatissima foelicitas fuit, omnia scriptitare hyperbolice, singula actitare ex inopinato. Qui velit Unicum vincere, eum oportet esse miraculum eloquentiae, oraculum prudentiae, Solem Industriae.

Yet, Harvey admits that “Aretino’s glory” was “to be himself.”

Camerini then goes on to present extracts from the Aretine correspondence. These extracts are particularly valuable for the light they throw on the relations between Aretino and Giovanni delle bande nere. They may be taken as refuting De Sanctis’ implicaton, which I have previously annotated: “What grieved him (Giovanni) was the sight of a poltroon.”

“The affection,” writes Camerini, “which Aretino bore toward the great Giovanni de’ Medici, the creator, under the name of the Bande Nere, of the only effective military force at the time of our national shame, is well known. Giovanni de’ Medici on the other hand, loved him well enough.”

A letter of Giovanni’s is then quoted, in which the great captain says; “I will give you this praise, that while all others may bore me at times, you never have done so as yet.” In another letter, written from Pavia, Giovanni says, there is “no living without Aretino.”

A letter of the widow, Maria de’ Medici, is given, in which she writes to Aretino with the warmest and most intimate affection of her late husband and their young son. Cosimo de’ Medici, the son, when he becomes Duke of Florence, also writes to Pietro concerning the friendship between Aretino and Giovanni.

“I could never bear,” he says, “that you should live in misery.”

There is also a correspondence between Cosimo and Aretino over the dowry to be paid to Adria, the latter’s 283daughter, or rather, to her husband. The Duke is frank but friendly:

“It is not because we doubted your daughter was to be married that we deferred the payment of what we had promised for her dot; but in order that the money may reach its proper destination, we would suggest that you send her consort with the license to get it. It will be paid at once, and you will be better off; since it is better for him to use it to pay his debts than for it to fall into your hands which through their natural liberality, which is not a vice, might convert it to some other use.”

Camerini himself, speaking of the relations between the writer and the captain, remarks that “It is impossible not to sense here the accents of a true affection.” All this, it seems to me, should tend to dispose rather effectually of at least one of the numerous back-thrusts which Pietro has received at the hands of the moralists.

Aretino’s boast (see De Sanctis’ essay) about the ponies, the vases, the women and the street named after him is borne out in almost the identical words that Pietro employs, by Doni in one of the latter’s letters to the “Scourge.”

I am at Mantua, and here I have seen a kind of pony out of your very fine nag, and upon asking what it was, I was told it was the Aretine. I go to Murano, and there they show me some very find crystal vases, a new sort of glass work, and they are called Aretini. The street where you have lived for twenty-two years has acquired you for patron, to such an extent that one says to those who live there — Where do you live? In Aretino’s house, in Aretino’s lane, on Aretino’s bank . . . Many beautiful women, who inspire much jealousy,bear your mark: this one is your procuress, this one something else, and many of them are known simply as Aretino’s sweeties. And then, there’s a third class, your housekeepers, and I am now the master. By my faith, if one night I didn’t come on one of them who, when I asked her what her name was, replied, “I have no other name than ‘the Aretina.’ ” I laughed then, and I’m laughing yet. I told her, “Since you’re an Aretina and I’m an Aretino, we must be one and the same thing . . .”

I must also give you a list, which I have compiled (as a remembrance), of the different manners in which I have seen you portrayed: in marble, in natural bas-relief; in cameo; in miniature; 284and in medallions of gold, silver, copper, brass, lead and wax. As well as a picture from the hand of the aedmirable Titian, one by Fra Bastiano dal Piombo, and portraits by other valiant painters in more than thirty different places. Finally, I have seen you stamped on combs, in brass . . .

If Aretino exercised a considerable influence over the French literature that was to come after him — Rabelais, Moliere and others — it is not surprising; for he was known all over the world of his day, which was the world of the Emperor Charles V. From Giuseppe Horologgi, writing from Rouen, we learn that Aretino was a household author in France:

I swear to your lordship that I do not go into a place where I do not find some of your works on the table, and I do not speak with a man who knows that I am an Italian without his asking after the divine Aretino; and if your lordship does not believe me, I can show you the life of the Virgin Mary, that of Saint Catherine, the Humanity of Christ and the Psalms and Genesis translated into this language, and they are read with more satisfactions than I could tell you.

The Prior of Montrottier also writes to him, flatteringly, from Lyons.

As for his influence in Germany, we may hear Johannes Herold, writing from Basle, September 1, 1548:

A short time ago, I read your letters, printed by Marcolino in the year XXXVIII., and in swallowing the Genesis of Messer Pietro Aretino, I became a beggar, thanks to the altitude of your genius, which fitted my wings to fly upward, and the weight of my ignorance, which held me down . . . You are, then, an imitator of Circe in that, while rendering me a man with your presents, you make me a monster through the beverage of your sweet writings. Following out the comparison, I shall make of my German countrymen, through the subtlety of your works, semi-Italians out of barbarians, even as Pietro Aretino, with his immortal glory, has made a semi-barbarian of me, speaking the vision of Noah in the German language.

Aretino’s boast about being known in Persia and the Indies (see the letter quoted in De Sanctis’ study) also was 285true. One of his secretaries, whom he had discharged for theft and unfaithfulness, Ambrogio degli Eusebii, had carried his master’s name to the Rio de la Plata. And the celebrated casa Aretina on the Grand Canal, as De Sanctis remarks, was thronged with artists, beautiful women and others. Alessandro Andrea of Naples tells us this, in a letter which he wrote seeking audience with Aretino:

From you come continually, in addition to our own Italians, Turks, Jews, Indians, French, Germans and Spaniards; nor are you ever to be seen an instant without a throng of soldiers, scholars, priests and friars, who recount to you the wrong done by this prince and that prelate; so that you really ought to be addressed by the title of secretary to the world.

“Secretary to the world.” It was far from being a bad title for Aretino!

De Sanctis refers in passing to the friendship between Aretino and the corsair, Barbarossa. This is a highly picturesque sidelight on the man. Barbarossa’s letter is worth quoting:

To the first of Christian writers, Pietro Aretino . . . Ariadin Bassa Barbarossa, general on the seas and of the armies of their Imperial Lordships, the Sultan Salim and the King of England, salutes you, Aretino Pietro, the Magnificent and circumspect. I would tell you that I have received your head in silver, along with the letter which you wrote me. Surely, you have the head of a captain, rather than of a writer. I have heard the fame of your name throughout the world and have asked after you a number of times of some of my Genoan and Roman slaves, who know you by sight; and I have been pleased with the report of your virtue, to which I feel indebted fro the praise you have given me, as well as for the faith you have put in my valor, which makes me dear to the Turks as to the French. I should like to see one of those images which are in the likeness of my face, and which are common throughout Italy. I have instructed Bailo of Venice to tell you that you should excuse me if I have not yet rewarded you, for the great Signore commands me to be about his business in distant parts, but when I come back, I shall not be found lacking in courtesy, I promise you. Written at Constantinople in the middle of the month of Ramesan in the year 949 of our great prophet Maumeth. (Translated from the Turkish into the Italian language.)

286 Aretino, evidently, was animated by the desire of getting something out of Barbarossa, but the latter was quite as wily as he. It took, though, some little courage to praise a man like Barbarossa, publicly. The latter’s remark about the character of Pietro’s head is to be noted. It is a point, possibly, which has not been sufficiently stressed in Aretino’s case: he was really a pirate of the high seas of literature, and there was no little of the soldier in his makeup; it may be this, as has been remarked elsewhere, that accounts for his friendship with the leader of the Bande nere: he may have been vile, upon more than one occasion, but he was not a poltroon.

Speaking of this aspect of Aretino, Camerini says:

From the life of the camp, Aretino drew in part that verbal license which he displayed in the matter of religion and the religious, and also with regard to men of state, a license which was as great in those days as civil oppression was intense; and this attitude of the cut-throat, if it failed to inspire fear, resolved itself into fear.

Personally, however, I should be inclined to doubt if Aretino ever really knew fear; it would not appear to have been a part of his nature.

If Aretino has been the object of almost universal detraction on the part of posterity, he was, only too frequently, overpraised by contemporaries, who feared him, sought his favor or who, in some cases, did, quite sincerely, overestimate him. His religious writings, in particular, drew a saccharine praise, which is the only kind of praise most religious writings deserve. Coriolano, bearing the formidable titles of cavalier di San Pietro and Hierosolomitano di Roma, on January 6, 1551, gives Aretino the title of “light of the most holy and omnipotent scriptures” and adds that “You have always been known to be as a trumpet of faith against the heretics.” But probably, Bartolamio Egnatio da Fossambrone gets the medal for adulation: “I should call you the 287little son of God . . . since God is the highest truth in heaven, and you are truth on earth.”

It was, always, Pietro’s highest boast that “I speak the truth.” He endeavored to speak the truth in art, as he did in life, and on this side of his character, the side that has to do with his artistic importance, his contemporaries, some of them, really began to lay hold of the man. Pietro Spino da Bergamo called him “the little son of truth and the disciple of nature,” and Antonio Cerruti of Milan, writing on the seventh of June, 1550, addresses him as “Your Lordship, in whom intellect is married to nature.”

Nowhere does this tendency to a modern realism come out more clearly, perhaps, than in the Ragionamenti but it also shows in the letters.

The truth is, there was in Aretino, as a writer, what Camerini calls “a double aspect.” Perhaps, we had better say, there were two men, two writers: one, the “literary mendicant;” the other, “the independent writer,” who anticipated modern frankness, “a frankness that was slow in coming, even in a free country like England.” And so, Aretino, for the most part, was content to go on with his game of literary brigand. His success here is indicated by Ariosto’s tribute, for Ariosto was the big man of his day. This is borne out by Battista Tornielli, who writes to Aretino:

Your pen may truly say that it has triumphed over practically all the princes of the world, since practically all of them are your tributaries and, as it were, your feudal subjects. You ought . . . to take yourself all those titles which the ancient Roman emperors were in the habit of assuming according to the geographic situation of their subjects.

Gianiacopo, the ambassador of Urbino, remarked that “Aretino is more necessary to human life than all the preachings;” and Jacopo Gaddi, commentating Pietro’s title of “il divino,” wrote:

288 Cum vero sibi arrogaverit aliorum consensu divinitatem, nescio, si forte Dei munus exercuisse dicendus sit, cum summa capita velut celsissimos montes fulminaverit, lingua corrigens et mulctans quae ab aliis castigari nequeunt.

Aretino himself was conscious of all this. He writes to Ersilia del Monte, parent of Pope Julius III.:

All this is show by the fact that I am known to the Persians, to the Indians and to the world . . . what more? The princes of the tributary peoples, constantly and everywhere, look upon me as their slave and their scourge.

All this hardly could fail to attract Charles V., the tactical superman of his age. It was not merely Charles’ munificence; Aretino really was, personally, more drawn to Charles than to Francis I., who was not only stingy, but appears to have been lacking in imagination. On this point, Camerini says:

By his very prophetic quality, he was bound to please Charles V., the renovator of Europe, as much by his resistances as by his concessions in the matter of religion, as well as by his revolutionary spirit in the matter of ancient adjustments and political equilibrium. And Aretino felt himself attracted to Charles, rather than to Francis, not so much because the former was potent and great (and it does Aretino no little honor to have perceived . . . the capacity of Charles), as because in the one he saw movement, in the other historic reminiscence. Charles V. was also pleased to perceive in the letters of Aretino something of the color of Titian, and the effulgence of the former’s phrases did not appear morbid to a Spanish flamingo.

We have seen that Aretino was almost a library-table author in the France of his day, and well known also in Germany. Montaigne, however, and later, Bayle, found fault with his style. The former referred to it as “Une façon de parler bouffie et bouillonnée de poinctes ingenieuses à la verité, mais recherchées de loing et fantastiques.” He conceded Aretino, nevertheless, a certain eloquence. Bayle had this to say:

Ce poète si satirique prodiguait les louanges avec les derniers excès. Nous trouvons les hyperboles les plus pompeuses et les flatteries les plus rampantes dans les lettres qu’il écrivait aux rois et 289aux princes, aux généraux d’armée, aux cardinaux, et aux autres grands du monde. Tant s’en faut que l’on voie là les airs d’un auteur qui se fait craindre ou qui exige des rançons, que l’on y voit toute la bassesse d’un auteur qui demande très-humblement un morceau de pain. Il se sert d’expressions touchantes pour représenter sa pauvreté; il recourt même au langage de Canaan, je veux dire aux phrases dévotes, qui peuvent le mieux exciter la compassion, et animer à la charité les personnes qui attendent de Dieu la récompense de leur bonnes oeuvres.

In any event, Camerini finds, Aretino was “the precursor of the sixteenth century” and had “a just conception of art” (De Sanctis, Hutton and others agree on this). “In a century of imitation,” writes Camerini, “he aspired to be original.” Surely, that is something! Sometimes, it is true, in his effort to be new, he merely fell into the bizarre.

But more than in his semi-official style, the genius of Aretino is to be recognized in those places in which passion enters the picture, as the flamingoes of his domestic life do in certain paintings; and then, we have a mixture of lasciviousness and virtue, of the insolences of lust and the niceties of good taste.

The Aretino that we have here — the Aretino who wrote that marvelously sensuous and marvelously plastic letter to Titian — together with the Aretino who wrote his Nanna into the dialect of his people and his age, and whose desire it was, always, to be true to nature — this is the Aretino who is to be rescued from the obloquy and oblivion of a moralistic world and given the place that is his due, as the first great realist of the Renaissance and the first modern critic of art.

[Appendix II]

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 290-292.

[290]

APPENDIX II

AN ANONYMOUS ESTIMATE OF ARETINO

In the Giulio Bertoni edition of the Ragnionament (Parma, 1923), “Classici dell’ Amore”), there is an anonymous Introduzione that impresses me as worth reproducing. I give it below:

Of Pietro Aretino, it has been said that he was the representative of the most visible side of Italian life in the cinquecento. In truth, he was the most significant type, and one endowed with a degree of genius, of the moral baseness of that age. The son of a cobbler of Arezzo, he succeeded, with his native impudence, in rising, if not to the pedestal of glory, at least to that of fame. Scholastically, Aretino is to be classified among those versatile writers who are occupied with diverse literary forms, from letter writing to comedy, and so are called polygraphists. A personality purely artistic these writers never possess.

They treat of everything, but, principally, of what has reference to private life, mediocre and little things, in opposition to which the Aristotelians rear the classic concept. The fame of Aretino comes, indubitably, not so much from the spirit of the time as from that fact that he had forged from his pen a tremendous weapon of derision and satire and so struck all with admiration. Especially against the powerful and the high prelates did Aretino direct his injurious, and often merited, darts. But it is not for this reason to be believed that his cutting vivacity as a flaying polemic had any noble end, animated, as it was, by an inexpressive exuberance that frequently became vulgarity. Aretino was bent upon lucre, which he — euphemistically — called “the moving power of my ink.” He adulated the powerful, making them pay profusely, and at times he would not keep still about their faults, even when he had received the highest sums. An inspired letter writer has said that Aretino had for successors in the art of blackmail “certain journalists.” And indeed, the system by which Aretino organized those speculations which procured him the money to live surrounded by a court of vicious men and women does anticipate that of certain libellists of our time. Typical and to the point were the Giudizii, which were no more than an almanac; in which, with the contempt 291of the most immaculate moral paladin, Aretino denudates the vices and the obscenities of the patrician world. And then, there were gifts, sums and favors which were made to the impudent writer because his “company” had ceased. Aretino knew profoundly the vices of the society of his time and the cowardice of others, and so, he drew down a profit for his own audacity.

The phenomenon of the predominance of this uncultivated man over his powerful contemporaries is not otherwise to be explained. The fluent ability of his pen — Aretino had a style puffed, awkward but sufficiently expressive — and the audacity of the man in his character of filibuster permitted him to live as a prince on the tribute which his vassals paid him as his right. The power of Aretino was so great, so great the terror which was felt of him, that he could even dream of obtaining a cardinal’s hat, and, to the end, he wrote religious works. Changeful by temperament, Aretino was, some would tell us, always sincere, as much so in his invectives as in his eulogies, in his hates as in his amends. This hypothesis, which sees men as the offspring of their age and of the society in which they live, from which they have inherited in the most visible manner their vices and their virtues, strikes us as being excessively benevolent. Otherwise, those biographers of Aretino are rare who do not constantly speak of their subject in the language of reprobation.

Among the typical works of Aretino are the Pasqunades on the occasion of the election to the papacy of Adrian VI., the pontiff who reacted against the licentious and worldly life of the court of Leo X. Through some of his attacks, Pietro Aretino ran more than one risk, and one time he even received a dagger thrust. At Venice, whither he had repaired, he lived surrounded with the halo of “scourge of princes.”

We have already said that, in literature, he belongs to the rebels against the Aristotelian rules. Aretino had, in fact, much genius and little culture. But of these qualities he was fully conscious, to such a degree that he defended rigorously the law of pure genius and set up against classicism the imitation of nature.

And yet, his writings, in a style that is often awkward, give the effect of great haste, and it cannot be denied that there is lacking in them the free and true effect of life. From his pen are known his letters, which are superabundant, his comedies and also a tragedy, the Orazia, which draws its motive from the episode, known in Roman history, of the Orazi and the Curiazi. His best things, those which truly attain a perfected artistic form, are 292represented by the Ragionamenti and by those celebrated Sonnetti lussuriosi commentating certain precious designs by Romano.

[Appendix III]

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 292-297.

[292]

APPENDIX III

ARETINO AND MICHELANGELO

In his book on Michelangelo, quoted in the Introduction to this edition, Merejkowski has the following account of the relations between Buonarrotti and Aretino:

At this epoch, there lived in Venice, Pietro Aretino, the celebrated writer. He was the son of a prostitute of Arezzo, whom he had quitted in his childhood after having robbed her. Monk, vagabond, and valet by turn, he had known misery, cold, and the blows of innumerable misfortunes, but, thanks to his pen and, according to his own expression “the sweat of his ink,” he had acquired fame and riches.

By means of calumnies and flatteries, by the threat of Pasquinades and the promise of panegyrics, he obtained from the powerful money and honors. Many Italian princes and even the Emperor himself paid Aretino an annual tribute. The Most Christian King of France had sent him a golden chain with an exergue in the form of serpents’ tongues, emblem of his satiric and venomous traits. In his honor, a medal had been struck, bearing on the obverse side the effigy of the poet crowned with laurel, with this inscription: Divus petrus aretinus, flagellum principium. (“The divine Pietro Aretino, the scourge of princes.”) And on the opposite side, one read: Veritas odium parit.” (“The truth engenders hatred.”)

His libels, the most perfidious and the most insolent, directed against those monarchs who were slow in sending him gifts, were signed: “Divina gratia homo liber.” (“By the grace of God a free man.”)

293 He composed, readily and promptly, whatever was commanded of him on whatever subject. He had been charged by Vittoria Colonna to write pious meditations and a Life of the Saints; on the order of Marcantonio, the pupil of Raphael, he wrote sonnets for the engravers’ designs which were so licentious that the Pope, despite the intervention of numerous cardinals, had the painter thrown into prison. In his superb palace on the Grand Canal — the celebrated Casa Bolani — Aretino lived in a royal fastness, surrounded by objects of art and by a harem of pretty women which was constantly renewed.

Titian flattered him, painted his portrait, and presented him with his works. From all corners of Italy, pictures, designs, bas-reliefs, medallions, bronzes, antique marbles, majolica plates, cameos and precious vases flowed to him in a constant stream. When his palace became crowded to the point where there was no room for more, he would share his artistic loot with the lords and princes who had merited his good graces. As he himself said, “The poet distributed to kings the crumbs of his table.”

From vanity as much as from love of the beautiful, Aretino for some time had deplored the fact that he had in his museum not a single work of Michelangelo. Employing as intermediaries his friends, Benvenuto Cellini and Biogo Vasari, he, on a number of occasions, had given Michelangelo to understand that his turn had come, but the latter did not deign to respond. Then the writer resolved to hurl the gauntlet himself. In 1537, he addressed to Buonarotti one of his celebrated letters, thousands of copies of which were spread over Italy.

He began by praising the great artist; then he explained to him what were the qualities in his talent, which he, Aretino, prized the most. The essential passage of the letter commenced with this apostrophe:

“And so I, whose praise or criticism is so powerful that the glory or dishonor of men depends on me alone, but who am, nevertheless of little worth and in myself nothing, I salute 294Your Grace, a thing which I should not have dared to do if my name had not acquired some renown, due to the respect which it inspires in the greatest princes of our century. But in the presence of Michelangelo, there is nothing to do but to admire. There are in the world many kings; there is but a single Michelangelo; and he by his glory has eclipsed Phidias, Appele, and Vitruvius.”

The letter continued in this tone until it came to the question of the Last Judgment. Here Aretino gave advice to the artist and attempted to teach him how he ought to paint. He concluded by making renewed offers of service, proposing to glorify Michelangelo’s name.

Buonarrotti replied to him with a word that was polished and laconic, in which irony could be perceived, hidden under excessive compliments.

Aretino preferred not to remark the irony, and, in a new letter, solicited a souvenir, even if it was but a little drawing, one of those which the artist was in the habit of tossing into the fire.

Michelangelo did not reply, and for five years Aretino left him in peace.

In 1544, Aretino let Buonarrotti know that the Emperor Charles V had just accorded him — an unheard of honor — permission to ride on horseback by his side. Cellini had written him that Michelangelo felt kindly towards him, which was, above all things, precious to the poet. He loved and admired Michelangelo. He had wept from emotion at contemplating a copy of the Last Judgment. His friend, Titian, also admired Buonarrotti, and praised him with enthusiasm.

Michelangelo persisted in his silence. Two months later the poet, through friends at Rome, reminded him that he was still waiting for a design. No response. He waited another year and then addressed a new reminder. Finally he received from Rome, in the guise of drawings, a few miserable scraps of paper in which was to be seen a mockery rather than a picture. 295He wrote to Michelangelo that he was not satisfied and that he was waiting for something better. Again the silence endured for a number of months.

By this time, the patience of Aretino was at an end. He sent to Cellini a threatening letter. Had Buonarrotti no shame? He must declare openly whether or not he had any intention of keeping his promise. Aretino demanded explanations, without which his love was to be transformed into hate.

Menace had as little effect as flattery. At this moment, Titian, who happened to be in Rome, profited by the circumstance to slander Michelangelo to Aretino, Titian’s protector, and this resulted in a definite break.

In November, 1545, Buonarrotti received from Venice the following letter: “Messer, now that I have seen copies of the Last Judgment, I recognize in the conception and execution the celebrated charm of Rafael. But, inasmuch as I am a Christian who has received holy baptism, I am ashamed of the unbridled liberty which you have taken with what ought to be the supreme end of virtue and the Christian faith. This Michelangelo, so great in his glory, this Michelangelo who astonishes all the world, has shown to men that he is as far removed from piety as he is near to perfection in his art. How can it be that an artist, who considers himself as a god and who, for that reason, has broken almost all bonds between himself and common mortals, should have profaned by such a work the temple of the All-Powerful God, the first altar of the world, the first chapel of the universe, where the greatest cardinals and the Vicar of Christ himself communicate in the divine and terrible mysteries of the Body and Blood of Our Lord?

“If it were not that it seems almost criminal to compare such things, I should permit myself to remind you that, in my frivolous dialogues on the life of courtezans, I have endeavored to veil with delicate and noble words the indecency of the subject. You, on the contrary, treating of things so high, deprive the angles of their celestial glory and the saints of their terrestrial modesty. But pagans themselves covered Diana with veils, 296and when they represented Venus nude, they were careful that the chaste gesture of her hand should replace her vestment. And yet you, a Christian, have arrived at such a degree of impiety that you dare, in the chapel of the Pope, to offend the modesty of martyrs and of virgins. Of a truth, it would have been better for you to deny Christ altogether than, believing in him, to turn into derision the faith of your brothers. Be assured that Heaven will not permit the criminal audacity of your art to remain unpunished. The more astonishing this picture is, the more surely will it be the tomb of your glory!”

Then Aretino passed to his personal griefs, reminded the artist that he had not kept his promise and that he had not sent the design.

“However, if the mountains of gold which you have received from Julius II have not been able to incite you to fulfill your duty by completing the promised mausoleum, what may a man like me hope? In putting into your own pocket the money of another and in being false to your word, you have done what you should not have done, and that is called theft!”

In conclusion, he counselled the Pope to destroy the Last Judgment, displaying the same pious fervor that Pope Gregory did when he caused the pagan statues to be destroyed no matter how beautiful they were.

“If you had followed my advice,” he added, addressing Buonarrotti, “if you had listened to the directions which I gave you in that letter which today is known by all the universe, and in which I explain in detail and according to science the ordering of Heaven, earth, and hell, nature would not now have to blush at having given so much genius to a man like you. On the other hand, my letter would have been a defense of your work against all the hatreds and all the jealousies throughout eternity. Your servant, ARETINO.”

This epistle was recopied by a strange hand, in order that Michelangelo might not doubt that it had been made public and scattered throughout the entire world. But at the end there were these lines from the hand of Aretino himself:

297 “Now that I have in part recovered from the fury I felt at the grossness of your conduct in responding to my kind advances, and now that you, I am led to hope, know well enough that, if you are divine —divino — I, on my side, am not made of water — this being so, destroy this missive, as I am ready to do myself, and realize that, in any case, my letters deserve a reply, even if you were an Emperor or a King.”

[To Appendix IV]

From The Works of Aretino, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes; Pascal Covici: Chicago; 1926; Volume II., pp. 297-302.

[297]

APPENDIX IV

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ARETINO LITERATURE

The Aretino bibliography is an extensive one, particularly in Italian, and there is also a growing Aretine literature in German. Works in French and English are, it will be noted, few. The following list makes no pretence to exhaustiveness. It does not, for one thing, include the periodical literature, which is especially extensive in German. At present, it would be impossible to compile a bibliography that would be absolutely exhaustive.

OPERE

Opere di Pietro Aretino; ordinate ed annotate per Massimo Fabi, precedute da un discorso intorno alla vita dell’ autore ed al suo secolo. 2. ed. Milano, C. Brigola, 1881. 381 pages.

I RAGIONAMENTI

Ragionamento della Nanna e della Antonia, fatto in Roma sotto una ficaia, composto dal divino Aretino per suo Capricio a correttione de i tre stati delle donne. Egli si e datto alle stampe di queste mese di aprile MDXXXIII nella inclyta citta di Parigi (Venezia).

Dialogo di Messer Pietro Aretino nel quale la Nanna, il primo giorno, insegna a la Pippa, sua figliola a esser puttana; nel secondo gli conta i tradimenti che fanno gli huomini a le meschine che gli credono: nel terzo la Nanna et la Pippa, sedendo nel orto, ascoltano la Comare et la Balia che ragionano de la ruffianaria. (Turin [Venezia], 1536.)

298 La Prima (Seconda) parte de Ragionamenti cognominato il Flagello de Prencipi, il Veritiere e il Diuino, Divisa in tre Giornate; Doppo lequali habbiamo aggiunte il piaceuol ragionamento del Zoppino, composto da questo medesimo autore per suo piacere. — Comment di Ser Agresto da Ficarvolo, sopra la prima Ficata del Padre Siceo. Con la diceria de Nasi. Bengodi, 1584. (This was printed by John Wolfe in London.)

Ragionamento nel quale P. Aretino figura quattro suoi amici che favellano de la corti del mondo e di quella del cielo. (Nova [Venezia], 1538.) Dialogo nel quale si parla del gioco, con moralità piacevole. (Vinegia per Giovanni, 1534.)

Capricciosi et piacevoli ragionamenti. Nuova ed. Cosmpoli, Elzevir., 1660. S.

. . . I ragionamenti . . . Firenze Libreria Dante, 1892-93. 2v in 1. “Edizione di soli cento esemplari per ordine numerati. n. 93” (pt. 2. n. 30). “Per la presente edizione seguiamo fedelmente l’edizione senza luogo, dell anno MDLXXXIV.”

I ragionamenti di M. Pietro Aretino. Roma, Frank & Cia., 1911. (1914).

I ragionamenti di Pietro Aretino. Lanciano, Carabba (1914). 2v. (Half-title: Scrittori italiani e stranieri novelle). “Introduzione” signed: D. Carraroli.

Ragionamente de la corti, di Pietro Arteino. Lanciano, Carabba (1914). 138 p. (Half-title: Scrittori italiani e stranieri, Belle lettere). “Introduzione” signed: Guido Battelli.

COMMEDIE

Il Marescalco (Venice, Vitali, 1533) (F. Marcolini, 1536).

Il Filosofo (Venice, Vitali, 1533).

La Cortigiana (Venice, Marcolini, 1534).

Lo Ipocrito (Venice, Bendoni, 1540) (F. Marcolini, 1542).

La Talanta (Venice, Marcolini, 1542).

Quattro Commedie (Il Marescalco, La Cortigiana, La Talanta and Lo Ipocrito: Venice, Marcolini, 1542).

L’Horatia di M. Pietro Aretino. Con Priuilegio. In Vinegia Appresso Gabriel Giolito de Ferrarri, 1546, 1549.

Quattro commedie del divino Pietro Aretino. Cioe Il marescalco; La 299cortigiana; La talanta; l’hipocrito, novellamente ritornate per mezzo della stampa, a luce, a richiesta de conoscitori del lor valore. (Venezia?) 1588.

Commedie di Pietro Aretino, nuovamente riv. e. cor., aggiuntavi l’Orazia, tragedia del medesimo autore. 3. ed. stereotipa. Milano, E. Gonzongno, 1888, 431 p. Contents. — Il marescalco — La cortigiana — Lo ipocrito — La Talanta — Il filosofo — La Orazia.

Teatro. Lanciano (1914) 2 v. (Scrittori italiani e stranieri) Introd. Signed Nunzio Maccarrone. Contents: v. 1. Il Marescalco. La cortigiana. Lo ipocrito. v. 2. La Talanta. Il filosofo. La Orazia.

Il Marescalco. (In Fleischer, E. G., ed. Teatro classico italiano antico e moderno, no. 8, pp. 171-195.)

La Ninnetta, comedia & inuentione del Sig. Cesare Caporali. Novemente data in Ivec da Francesco Bvonafede . . . Venetia, Aprresso G. B. Collosini, 1604.

LETTERE

Del primo (-sesto) libro de la lettere. Parigi, appresso Matteo il Maestro, 1609, 1608-09. 6 vol. Vigns.

L’Aretino; ovvero, Dialogo della pittura di Lodovico Dolce con l’aggiunta delle lettere del Tiziano a vari e dell’ Arentino a lui. Milano, G. Daelli e comp., 1863. 117 p.

Il primo libro delle lettere di Pietro Aretino, Milano, G. Daelli e c., 1864. 430 p. (Biblioteca rara, pub. Da G. Daelli, vol LI.)

Lettere scelte di Pietro Aretino, a cura di Guido Battelli, Lanciano, R. Carabba, 1913. 136 p. Scrittori nostri (36).

Il primo libro delle lettere, a cura di Fausto Nicolini, G. Laterza e figli, Bari, 1913.

Il secondo libro delle lettere, a cura di Fausto Nicolini, Bari, 1916. (This “splendid new edition,” as Hutton calls it, is as yet incomplete.)

PROSE SACRE

Gli Sette salmi di penitentia (Venice, 1534) (Marcolini, 1536).

Il Genesi (Marcolini, 1538).

La Vita di Maria Vergine (Venice, 1539) (ristampata, 1545) (Aldus, 1552).

La Vita di Catherina Vergine (Venice, 1539) (Marcolini, 1540).

300 La Vita di San Tomaso Signor d’Aquino (Gio. De Furri, 1543).

Prose sacre. Lanciano (1914) 175 pp. (Scrittori italiani e stranieri). Introd. di E. Allodoli. Contents: Da il Genesi. Da L’umanita del Figliuol di Dio. Dalla Vita di Maria Vergine. Dalla Vita di santa Caterina. Dalla Vita di s. Tomaso d’Aquino. Dai sette Salmi.

MISCELLANEOUS

Rimi diversi di molti Eccellentiss. Autori (Venice, 1545, et seq.).

Opusculi, Florence, 1642.

Le Carte parlanti, Venice, 1650.

Opere burlesche, Florence, 1723.

L’Orlandino; canti due. (Edited by Gaetano Romagnoli. Bologna, 1868. pp. 31. (Scelta di curiosita letterarie, 95.)

Novella di M. Pietro Aretino. (In Papanti, Giovanni. G. B. Passano e i suoi novellieri italiani. Livorno, 1878.)

Un pronostico satirico (MDXXXIII); edito ed illustrado da Alessandro Luzio. Bergamo, 1900. xli, 163 p. (Biblioteca storica delle letteratura italiana; ed. By Francesco Novati. v. 6).

Le carte parlanti di Pietro Aretino. Lanciano, Carabba (1914). 208 p. (Added t.-p.: Scrittori italaiani e stranieri. Belle Lettere). Preface signed: F. Campi, Introduction by E. A. Allodoli.

V. Rossi: Pasquinate di P. A. ed anonime (Palermo, Turin, 1891).

WORKS ON ARETINO

Mazzuchelli: Vita di Pietro Aretino (Padua), 1741; second edition, Brescia, 1763.

Vita di Pietro Aretino, formerly attributed to Berni, Ed. Milano, Daelli, in Bib. Rara (1864) (the “pseudo-Berni”).

A. Luzio: Pietro Aretino nei primi suoi anni a Venezia, Torino, 1888.

Rime di Nicolo Franco contro Pietro Aretino, Lanciano, Carabba (1916).

Diodoro Grasso: L’Aretino e le sue commedie. Una pagina della vita morale del cinquecento. (Palmero, A. Reber, 1900).

Schultheiss, A. Pietro Aretino als stammvater des modernne litteratenthums. Eine charakterstudie aus der italienischen renaissance. 1890. (Sammlung gemeinverständlicher wissenschaftlicher vorträge, neue folge. 5te. serie. hft. 114.)

301 Gerber, Adolf Pietro Aretino faksimiles, von Adolf Gerber seineam früheren kollegen Hans Schmidt-Wartenberg . . . gewidmet. (Gotha, Druck von F. A. Perthes) 1915. front., plates, ports. facsim.

Chasles, Philaréte i.e. Victor Euphémion Philaréte, 1798-1873. Etudes sur W. Shakspeare, Marie Stuart et l’Aretin; le drame, les moeurs et la religion au XVIc siècle . . . Paris, Amyot (1852). 523 p.

Gauthiez: L’Aretin, Paris, 1895.

Kinck, Hans Ernst, 1865:

. . . En penneknegt. Kristiania, H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard) 1911. 94 p.

Pietro Aretino, the Scourge of Princes, by Edward Hutton, with a portrait after Titian, Constable and Company, London, 1922 (American edition by Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1923).

WORKS CONTAINING EXTENDED REFERENCES TO ARETINO

Girolamo Muzio: Lettere Catholice, Venice, 1571.

G. Rossi: Vita di Giovanni de’ Medici, Milan, 1833.

A. Luzio: Pietro Aretino e Pasquino, in Nuova Antologia, Ser. III., Vol. XXVII., 1890.

Vasari: Vite, ed. Milanesi, Florence, 1906.

Trucchi: Poesie Italiane, Prato, 1847.

A. Luzio: La Famiglia di Pietro Aretino, in Giornale Storia della Lett. Ital., IV., 1884.

D’Ancona: La Poesia pop. it., Livorno, 1906.

F. De Sanctis: Storia delle Lett. Ital., Milan, Treves.

Baschet: Doc, inediti su Pietro Aretino, in Arch. Stor. Ital., Ser. III., Vol. III., pt. 2, p. 110.

V. Rossi: Un Elefante famoso, in Intermezzo I., pp. 28-30.

A. Graf: Un processo a Pietro Aretino, in Attraverso il cinquecento, pp. 89-167.

Schultheiss, Albert: Pietro Aretino eine literar-historiche studie pp. 660-671 of Illustrierte Deutsche Monatshefte. (The copy of this which I find in the University of Chicago library has been torn from the magazine; so I am unable to fix the date.)

Renascence portraits, by Paul Van Dyke. N. Y., C. Scribner’s Sons, 1905.

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TRANSLATIONS

Euvres choisies de P. Aretin, tr. de l’italien, pour la premiere fois, avec des notes par P. L. Jacob, bibliophile (pseud.) et precedees de la vie abregee de l’auteur, par Dujardin, d’apres Mazzuchelli. Paris, C. Gosselin, 1845. (Contents: Vie de Pierre Aretin. Le philosophe. La courtisane. La Talanta.)

Oeuvres choisies, Paris, 1845.

L’Oeuvre, ed Guillaume Apollinaire, Paris, 1909-10.

(The Ragionamenti have been done into French under the title of L’Acadamie des Dames. There is also a French translation of the Sonetti lussuriosi, which I have been unable to run down.

Coloquio de las damas; en el cual se descubren las falsedades, etc., de que usan las mujeres enamoradas para enganar a los hombres que de ellas se enamoran. Agora nuevamente traducido de la lengua toscana en castellano, por Fernan Xvarez. (Seville?) 1607. (Reprinted, Madrid, 1900.) (Coleccion de libros picarescos. 2.)

La cortesana; original comedia en cinco actos. Escrita en Venecia el ano 1534, traducida por primera vez al castellano por J. M. Llanas Aguilaniedo. (Madrid, 1900) (Coleccion de libros picarescos, 2, ii.)

Italienischer Hurenspiegel (Ragionemanti), Verlag Die Schmiede, Berlin, 1925. (In the same volume with Ferrante Pallavicino’s Der Gepluenderte Postreuter.)

The Ragionamenti or Dialogues of the Divine Pietro Aretino literally translated into English, 6 volumes, with Introduction and Portrait, Isidore Liseux, Paris (?), 1889.

In addition, there is the bootlegged (has booklegged in text--> and filthy translation of the Sonetti lussuriosi, referred to in my introduction.

__________________

I am indebted, for valuable assistance in the compilation of this bibliography, to Mr. Theodore Wesley Koch, librarian of Northwestern University, to James Thayer Gerould, librarian of Princeton University, and to the University of Chicago library.

S. P.

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Produced by THE FAITHORN COMPANY CHICAGO under the direction of WILL RANSOM

end-papers

[The End of The Works of Aretino, in 2 Volumes, by Samuel Putnam]