Aretino’s Troubled Afterlife

Aretino’s death in 1556 coincided with a major shift in artistic, ethical and political attitudes governing early modern Italian culture. The experimental and highly creative drive based on the fundamental claim to freedom – in the arts like in religion and politics – that had inspired his generation came to a sudden end, being substituted by a culture in which order, control and obedience were of paramount importance. While this shift had been seasoning for some time, from the mid 1540s onwards, it was able to impose itself only at the end of the next decade, but with great force and long lasting effects. In this violent clash of cultures Pietro Aretino became a key figure of undisputed symbolic importance, recognised by partisans of both sides for whom he was a vilain or a hero. For many he represented even a combination of evil and excellence, as his legacy was seen with both disgust and admiration. Yet, its impact is undisputed, since both detractors and admirers were well aware of the far reaching implications of his example, rejecting it, contemplating it with curiosity, or using it as inspiration for their own projects. Only when in the mid nineteenth century scholarly historiography on early modern Italy developed, Aretino’s highly controversial and contested reputation changed. Starting from Burckhardt’s still somewhat ambiguous celebration as one of the finest specimens of a ‘Renaissance man’ wholly dedicated to develop his individuality and enjoy life, Aretino slowly became recognised as what he is: a profoundly innovative and courageous spirit who both as an artist and as a public intellectual imposed himself in a still predominantly closed context, providing fundamentally new ideas and examples to his generation and far beyond. Modern scholarship on Aretino has been developing this assessment into what now is a rich