Pietro Aretino
Italian author, playwright, poet, satirist, and blackmailer (1492-1556) · Italy · Writers · Died at 64
Pietro Aretino is read about 377 times a day, in 39 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 23 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 97 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He wrote satires so vicious that monarchs and popes paid him to stop. A 16th-century blackmailer with a quill, he turned gossip and scandal into both art and income, shaping reputations across Europe while never quite getting murdered for it.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
_-_Pitti_Palace.jpg?width=1200)
Portrait of Pietro Aretino (by Titian) - Pitti Palace
Aretino, Pietro. Talanta. Venezia, Francesco Marcolini, 1542
François-Félix Nogaret, L'Arétin François - Titelblatt.jpg?width=1200)
Giovanni alberto albicante, vita di pietro aretino del berna, per bianchin dal leon, perugia 1538 (bibl. marciana)_01.jpg?width=1200)
Giovanni dalle bande nere con sottoscriz. ed estensione di pietro aretino, lettera a federico II gonzaga di mantova, in reggio emilia, 6 sett. 1523 (mn ads) 01_02.jpg?width=1200)
Index auctorum et librorum qui ab officio s. et u. inquisitionis caveri ... in universa christiana republica mandatur, per blado, roma 1559 (bncf) 02.jpg?width=1200)
Pietro aretino, lettara al duca cosimo I de' medici, in venezia, 28 maggio 1548 o 1546 (fi, ads).jpg?width=1200)
Pietro aretino, lettara al duca cosimo I, in venezia, 6 aprile 1546 (fi, ads)In their own words 4
, I am a free man, I do not need to copy Petrarch or Boccaccio. My own genius is enough. Let others worry themselves about style and so cease to be themselves.
What evil is there in seeing a man possess a woman? Why, the beasts would be more free than we!
Yes, let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.
About this person
Born in April 1492, Pietro Aretino climbed out of obscurity through sheer nerve and a gift for demolition - his lampoons could wreck careers, so the powerful bought his silence or his favor. He worked every angle: erotic literature, religious commentary, drama, all of it laced with the kind of bite that made him dangerous. His friendships ran high: Titian painted his portrait three times, and he sparred by letter with Michelangelo over The Last Judgment fresco. He sympathized quietly with Protestant reformers, a Nicodemite in Catholic Venice, and advised rulers while skewering them in print. He died in October 1556, feared and famous, having turned criticism itself into a form of power.
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