19. The Creator of Modern Pornographic Literature Perished From Laughing at a Dirty Joke
Pietro Aretino (1492 – 1556) was an Italian writer, satirist, poet, playwright, and blackmailer. He was among the influential writers of his era and wielded influence in contemporary arts and politics. He also created modern literary pornography – erotic literature whose main feature is accounts of intimate relationships that are intended to arouse the reader. Aretino’s whole life seems to have been one long and often seedy adventure, so it was somehow fitting that he met a tragicomic ending by dying from laughing too hard at a dirty joke.
He came from a humble background, born in the Tuscan town of Arezzo to a shoemaker who abandoned the family to go soldiering when Pietro was a child. When he grew up, Pietro abandoned his father’s name, and took the name Aretino, meaning “from Arezzo”. His mother became the mistress of a local nobleman, who raised Aretino and his siblings. That left a mark, and Aretino spent the rest of his life pretending to be a nobleman’s bastard, rather than a shoemaker’s son.