Collection: Pietro Aretino

Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) was an Italian writer, playwright, poet, satirist, and… blackmailer who had a significant influence on 16th-century art and politics. He was also one of the most influential writers of his time.

Apart from his sacred and secular texts and comedies, Aretino is remembered above all for his letters, full of literary flattery that could easily turn into blackmail. They circulated widely in manuscript, and he collected and published them from time to time, gaining as many enemies as fame. He also gained the dangerous nickname given to him by Ariosto: the flag of the prince (“plague of princes”). In 1559, three years after Aretino’s death, all of his work was included in the papal Index of Forbidden Books.

It is said that Aretino died of choking from laughing too hard. A more mundane truth may be that he died from a stroke or heart attack.