Aretino’s Sonnets
Pietro Aretino was a satirical poet and writer who had the favor of Pope Clement VII. During the former Giulio de Medici’s candidacy for the papal crown, the man who was known as “The Scourge of Princes” had lent his pen to the Medici cause. When Medici became pope in 1523, Aretino found himself in high favor. Aretino’s own writings were controversial. So he had a particular fellow-feeling for the imprisoned Raimondi and began to petition for his release.
Arentino was successful. However, his fascination with I Modi did not end there. “After I arranged for Pope Clement to release Raimondi,” he later recalled, “I desired to see those pictures which has caused the [Vatican] to cry out that their creators should be crucified. As soon as I gazed at them, I was touched by the spirit that had moved Giulio Romano to draw them” In 1526, Aretino visited Giulio Romano at work on the Palazza de Te and was privileged to look at the pictures in the Sala di Psyche. Soon after, He and Raimondi entered into a partnership, bringing out the second edition of I Modi in 1527.
“Come view this you who like to fuck,” wrote Aretino provocatively in the introduction to the second edition, “without being disturbed in that sweet enterprise…with all respect to hypocrites, I dedicate these lustful pieces to you, heedless of the scurvy strictures and asinine laws which forbid the eyes to see the very things that delight them most.” A poem now accompanied each picture, mimicking a dialogue between the sexual partners. These Sonetti Lussuriosi –lewd sonnets or sonnets of lust- were pretty direct. “Open your thighs,” began one, which accompanying the image of a highly aroused gentleman, expectantly grasping the legs of his lady, “so I can look straight at your beautiful…”
Perhaps both Arentino and Raimondi believed that in the case of this second edition, they could trade on Arentino’s favor with the Pope and avoid censure. However, that favor only went so far, as they were soon to learn. For Arentino’s sonnets were not just explicit; the poet used them to depict the men in I Modi not as classical figures but as certain prominent men of power. When the Pope’s Datuary, Giovanmatteo Giberti opened the book to find that Arentino had turned him into a sixteenth-century porn star, he ordered Arentino’s arrest.
Arentino fled to Venice, a city more conducive to his pen. Raimondi, meanwhile escaped a second spell in prison, only later to be thoroughly financially ruined. As for I Modi, once again the Vatican gathered up all available copies and burnt them. Although attempts were made years later to recreate the book using Raimondi’s original plates and Arentino’s sonnets, the Vatican left no copy of the first or second edition in existence. Unless, of course, some papal official saved a copy for the Vatican library, where the pictures and the sonnets could be enjoyed in the way the Church preferred such material: safely in private.
Where Do we get this stuff? Here are our sources:
The Guardian – Marcantonio Raimondi: The Renaissance Printer Who Brought Porn to Europe
The Sixteen Pleasures: The Vatican’s 16th Century Sex Guide, Karen Strike, Flashbak, March 26, 2017.
Giulio Romano, Encyclopedia Britannica, October 29, 2008.
Marcantonio Raimondi, Encyclopedia Britannica, April 8, 2009
NGP Rague – Marcantonio Raimondi, the Famous Engraver of the Great Raphael
Atlas Obscura – Europe’s First Pornographic Blockbuster Was Made in the Vatican
Artsy – How Renaissance Artists Brought Pornography to the Masses
Collection Online: Nine fragments depicting the ‘Loves of the Gods’ (I Modi), The British Museum
Sex and Punishment: Four thousand years of judging desire, Eric Berkowitz. The Westbourne Press.
Frescoes in the Sala di Psiche (1526-28), Web Gallery of Art.
Salon – The Renaissance Origin of Porn: Inside “I Modi,” The 16th-Century Sex Manual Masterpiece