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Updated: May 14, 2025
When Biagio complained, Paul wittily answered that, had it been Purgatory, he might have helped him, but in Hell is no redemption. Even the foul-mouthed and foul-hearted Aretino wrote from Venice to the same effect a letter astounding for its impudence. Michael Angelo made no defence.
That Aretino should thus daily assist in effigy at the procession of priests bearing the sacred emblems from the sacristy to the high altar of S. Mark, is one of the most characteristic proofs of sixteenth-century indifference to things holy and things profane. Jacopo Sansovino marks the final intrusion of paganism into modern art.
The latter are known to have been painted in 1392 by Spinello of Arezzo, or Spinello Aretino as he is called, of whose work we have some fragments in the National Gallery alas too few!
Very striking is the agreement of eye and nose in either case, while in the younger as in the older man we note an idiosyncrasy in which vigorous intellect as well as strong sensuality has full play. Van Dalen's engraving very probably reproduces one of the lost portraits of Aretino by Titian.
Aretino has made a witty scene about this in the 'Cortegiana, where one of the Vatican servants cheats a poor fisherman, and then hands him over to the sacristan of Saint Peter's to be cured of an imaginary possession by a ceremonious exorcism.
Aretino could ridicule and revile Cosimo, and in the same breath threaten the Florentine agent that he would obtain from the Duke his immediate recall; and if the Medicean prince felt himself at last to be seen through by Charles V he would naturally not be anxious that Aretino's jokes and rhymes against him should circulate at the Imperial court.
Who can wonder that such a woman should drink out of a cup covered with designs from Aretino. The Pope had an object in sending her to France. Her son was the Duc d'Alencon; and as they both remained incog. the world did not know that they were mother and son, which occasioned frequent mistakes.
These chronicles are often confusing as to dates and full of mistakes. Marino Sanuto, Diar. vol. i, 410. March, 1497. This document is given in part by Amati in Strozzi's Periodico di Numismatica, Anno III, part ii, p. 73. Florence, 1870. In the archives of Modena. Letters of Donato Aretino from Rome. Letter of Ludovico Carissimi, Rome, August 8, 1497. Archives of Modena.
The Florentines had the good taste not to crown their famous humanists till after death. Carlo Aretino and Leonardo Aretino were thus crowned; the eulogy of the first was pronounced by Matteo Palmieri, of the latter by Giannozzo Manetti, before the members of the council and the whole people, the orator standing at the head of the bier, on which the corpse lay clad in a silken robe.
It is not clear what Aretino expected from Enea Vico. A reference to the Duke of Florence seems to indicate that he wished to arouse suspicions among great and influential persons regarding the religious and moral quality of Michelangelo's work. This malevolent temper burst out at last in one of the most remarkable letters we possess of his.
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