Pietro Aretino

Pietro, son of Luca the cobbler and his wife Tita, was born at Arezzo in Tuscany on April 20th, 1492. For many years he preferred to deny his parentage, and claim he was the illegitimate son of a gentleman. He adored his mother who educated him; but his schooldays lasted only long enough to acquaint him with the basic tenets of a religion whose trappings he later came to loathe. Then, from 1511 to 1512, he lived at Perugia, studying painting, and acquiring the insight that would afterwards make him such a knowledgeable art critic.

Aretino was a fiercely ambitious young man; and, in 1516, he moved to Rome to enter, in some lowly employment, the sumptuous palace of the immensely rich Agostino Chigi. There he learned to relish conspicuous luxury; Rome was now at the height of its most florid and grandiloquent age. Aretino was unusually fortunate; his literary talent soon attracted the interest of Pope Leo X, a churchman who enjoyed worldly comedies, and patronized the minor arts.