Pietro Aretino's (un)Virgilian Sack of Rome ☆

Abstract

Pietro Aretino was a particularly frequent commentator on the catastrophic 1527 Sack of Rome by the Spanish, German and Italian troops of Charles V. This article examines one of his most extended, and curious, responses to the Sack: the explicit parody of Virgil's Books I‐IV of The Aeneid that opens Day Two of his Dialogo. The episode features a satirical Cinquecento take on the story of Aeneas and Dido: a despicable baron who escaped Rome and a ruling lady in whom his tale of the city's fall stoked a desire that ultimately resulted in her abandonment and suicide. Commentary on these pages has centred especially on the Didonian scenes of the lady's laments and Aretino's explicit acknowledgement of his having ‘filched’ them from Virgil's Book IV. The baron's account of the Sack, in contrast, often has been summarized as a mere attempt – largely ineffective – to offer readers a conveniently contemporary equivalent to Aeneas's narration of the fall of Troy in Books II and III. This article argues instead that the baron's description is pointedly unVirgilian and draws on another body of unheroic texts: publications, including Aretino's own, on the Sack that circulated in its aftermath.