AN EARLY JOURNALIST. PIETRO ARETINO, AND HIS LIFE OF JESUS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2719, 25 April 1906, Page 15

AN EARLY JOURNALIST. PIETRO ARETINO, AND HIS LIFE OF JESUS.

(By Fsaxk Moeton.)

In these most moral days the merest mention of Pietro Aretino's name savours of the brimstone. He is one of the awful examples of comparative antiquity, one of the most fearsome bogeys in the path of respectable research. And yet, somehow, as one comes to know him, one can't help liking him. I have an etched portrait of him by Dunki, and one needs only to glance at it to see that through the ostentatious splendour of the apparel, behind the frank and half-savage sensuality of the eyes and mouth, there shines a something admirable, the spirit of a man. To me the man Aretino appeals especially, because I discover in him one of the earliest of the journalists, and I am a journalist predestined, with the glamour and the fever and the occasional squalor of my craft in all my bone and marrow. Let us see.

Pietro Aretino was born in a hospital or refuge at Arezzo, 1492. His mother, Tita, was beautiful, and enjoyed subprofessionally a certain reputation as an artist's model. His reputed father was Luigi Bacci, a small noble of the city, except as Aretino's- father unremembered. Piefcro was brought up in his mother's easy house, and .his mother superintended his easy education. He was doubtless a fluent liar before -he wa3\six, a very accomplished rascal before -10 years had shaped him in .their passage. He had already a. very acid and audacious wit. While still a boy, he wrote an,d circulated a ribald sonnet against" indulgences, whereat the -priests were so incensed' that Pietro was with ' such of his mother's cherished valu- ; ables as he could conveniently carry, he left the home of his childhood.

Later, we catch a glimpse of him at vPerugia. He is book-binding. He has learned a little of painting. In one of the public places of the city there is a picture of the Magdalen, lifting imploring hands in a passion of penitence. Pietro went out by night, and so revised the painting that the imploring hands toyed with a lute. Then the thermometer wont up in Perugia also, and Pietro moved on. In Rome he secured or appropriated the patronage of Apostinq Chigi, and for seven years found a nlace in the retinue of two Popes. Then there befell some misunderstanding regarding a silver flagon, and Pietro, the victim of suspicion, set off again. He joined himself to a Capuchin convent at Ravenna. Then, being rested and refreshed, flung his frock inr,o a ditch, and commenced with firm determination* to achieve his fame. He became a hanger-on at courts, a decorative parasite One great man after another petted and protected him. He had a marvellous nose for news, and hoarded all stories to his profit. He bled his patrons greedily, and incidentally hoarded- other stuff than news. So that presently he made another descent on Rome, and there set up his own establishment. He entertained lavishly, and lived riotously at his ease. He had evolved his scheme and assured his income. He would set bishop against bishop, princeling against princeling-, and ' amid their dissensions he would draw his fees from everybody and make his bed in comfort. Given sufficient audacity and resouroefulness and the thing was possible, in that age when reig-ning- princes grew over the land like mushrooms and prelates were as bitter in their jealousies as they were shameless in their excesses. But again Aretino had to move on. He supplied the text — the Sonnetti Lussuriosi — to accompany Giulio Romano's figure drawings. As to this matter Aretino remains without excuse The paintings of Giulio Romano, as engraved by Raimondi, were admittedly wonderful figure-studies, however objectionable 1 otherwise. Painter and engraver were probably more intent on producing an artistic tour" de force than on demoralising modest Italy. But for Aretino there can be no justification in art. His sonnets, while presenting no literary charm or comeliness, were flagrantly abominable and obscene. They were, indeed, too atrociously nasty to harm anybody ; because I hold that no man was ever tempted from the narrow ways of decency by the stench of a sewer away to the left. But in that fact there He 3no excuse for Aretino. Papal Rom© rose in a heat of indignation, which must have appealed to Aretino's sense of humour, since few men knew Papal Rome belter than he. Tha collaborator* were driven forth. Aretino sought and obtained the protection of the Giovanni de' Medici, and bo prospered exceedingly. Giulio Romano went to build a palace for a noble at some distance from Rome. The unfortunate engraver, Raimondi, waa caught and imprisoned. Eventually, he was released, thanks to Aretino's constant efforts in hia behalf: the great artist apparently never troubled his head about Raimondi'a fate. Through the Medici, Aretino was brought to the notice of Francis I of France, thenceforward the greatest and warmest of his patrons. In 1526 Giovanni de' Medici died; in 1527 Aretino settled in Venice. He had become a famous and formidable

man. The Doge welcomed him, formally in the city's name. The Doge's son provided him with a pension. The splendid courtesans, who really ruled the city, were graciously pleased to look on him with favour. In Venice, then, he settled.

Venice, the unique and incomparable city of the sea, terrible in power, magnificent in audacity, was at that time the safest city on earth, and in the broad sense the freest. The man who had sense to abstain from political intrigue had fullest liberty there to conceive and elaborate his schemes and his caprices. The freedom of the

press (again, in all matters apart from politics) ran to incredible lengths of license. The Renaissance had sprung into full exuberance of triumphant life, and the life of the Renaissance pulsed most strongly and most joyously in Venice. The Republic must be regarded now from tho standpoint of its own stage in evolution, its own heredity and environment. Men were still quite frankly the creatures of absorbing passions, the vovs of the primary impulses. The purge of Puritanism had not yet been contrived for the cleansing of society. Venice of the sixteenth century oannot fairly, be judged by the criteria of Dunedin cf the twentieth. At least equal fairness must be claimed for Aretino. The child of an easy mother; he was dragged up in an easy age. when restraint lolled with laggard 6teps far behind the heels , of opportunity.

From hisr sumptuous residence in Venice, Aretino stretched his brigand's- arm unscrupulously ot4" every court in Europe. He knew the precise appearance and history j of the skeletons in every cupboard -worth consideration, and on that knowledge traded recklessly. He had studied men to some purpose, and reckoned with their foibles, vanities, passions, fears, and vices. On these things he played adroitly, with a certain venomous coolness of effrontery that is probably -without parallel in the history of parasitism. He was the greatest of the blackmailers. He would write a letter couched in terms of grossest flattery to some potentate big or little, and immediately afterwards publish the letter to the world: and the world knew, as the potentates knew, that always beneath the glove of greasy velvet there was the hand that menaced and, if needs be, would strike. Among any given mob of rascals, ' the boldest rascal of intelligence is omnipotent. With magnificent assurance Aretino demanded money, and he got it. The gold he got so easily he royally flung away. He kept open house and open purse. He banqueted the gorgeous Venetian hetairse. He had his costly hobbies, his extravagant caprices, even hia host of pauvrej. He robbed Peter, but he paid Paul without a trace of niggardliness. No man or woman. i went hungry while Pietro Aretino 'was at ! hand. 'And all the time that Aretino rioted and wantoned and "squandered," Aretino wrote. His energy was tremendous, his fecundity almost inhuman. I was put in mind of_ these things the other day when" a friend reminded m© indirectly that my Italian was rusting. The reminder came tho more forcibly becaue.3 the friend- was a journalist. The friend and Aretino stand so far apart in time, and ar-e so utterly dissimilar "in character, that I must rreeda justify "my- contention that Aretino — the " divine " Aretino, scourge of princes — was one of the earliest of the journalists. He loved to write, and ho lived by writing. Generally, he wrote for dishonest purposes ; but frequently he wrote berau-s-e tho turbid biting soul within him cried for expression and would not be stilled. He wrote fluently, rapidly, easily, with no special regard for nice rules of grammar, no oonp.cioue strivings after style. " I 6wear to God, I hardly know my mother tongup," he says, flashing into candour in one of his letters. He was no poet, but ho persistently wrote verse. In prose, however, he was themaster of a new style, and that style had [ much in common with the style of modern j journalism. Aretino would have made an admirable special correspondent. We journalists write, you know, always hotfoot, on the spur of the moment. We have practically no time for reflection. It is only by accident that anything can become permanent in the rush of our properly ephemeral production. It waa so with Aretino. His time was crowded. Distractions swarmed tumultuously on each other's heele. He could n«t spend weeks on the fit expression of an idea, the quest for the inevitable word, the moulding and remoulding of a precious sentence. In his overloaded life there was little leisure. The thing immediately to bo done had to be done without hesitation or misgiving. It is so with us. ■We must write this or that at a moment's notice. Remembering all things, it is marvellous to me that so little rank and absolute rubbish "gets into the papers from the pens of harassed journalists, and that so overwhelming a proportion of printed absurdity anpears m those matured productions, the letters to the editor. It is a gift, this knack of impromptu writing, and Aretino had it in the supreme degree. In the best of his letters, and quite frequently in the Ragionamenti and the Comedies (you will search vainly for them in English book lists), there are vivid flashes of extraordinary power and poignancy. Whatever he had to say he said with all his might, and the instinct that transcends art frequently informed his prose with intense colour and virility. Ho has a wonderful supple freedom of phrase and simile, a biting keenne=^ of touch. His work lives and moves, and still breathes buoyantly from out the dust of centuries. His invective is vitriolic, burning through bone and marrow. He would be fettered by no bonds of classicism or of sentiment. With his virulent hatred of pedantry and the rut, his utter abandonment of old conventions, his euperb self-reliance that was not all effrontery, he, alone among his peers, struck off the links that bound him to the dead body of the past, and reached boldly forward in the direction of the new spirit. There is the note of modernity in hia criticisms. He was of an incredible impudence, a terrible and untameable astucity. He lived (be it remembered) among a sccietv that accepted Bandello's putrid novelle by way of polite recreation. Writing feverishly as he did, and only really in the intervals of a life devoted resolutely to the satisfaction of the individual, he inevitably wrote much rubbish. But the bulk of his writings had grip and vitality. The Ragionamenti, admitting their impurities and defects, are masterpieces in their kind ; the Comedies did great things for dramatic art in Italy. And his finest qualities are the finest qualities of modern journalism. In the end he died of a fit of laughter.

Aretino wrote, with perfect seriousness, 6everal religious books. He did it without hypocrisy, being a man of an age that was pervactad with religiousnec,^ although it had

revolted against asceticism. Apart from those sonnets, Aretino was never bo squalidly obscene, so morbidly licentious, as his contemporary Banclello; and Bandello preached many sermons, and died a bishop. Doni, a very naughty writer, wrote a treatise on the Apocalypse, in which he proved, to his own complete satisfaction, that Martin Luther was Antichrist.

I have a fragment of a '' Life of Jesus," written by Aretinc — " The Three Books of the Humanity of Christ," by M. Pietro Aretino, Venice. 1535, — a.nd certainly never translated into English. When he wrote it, he hoped to be made a cardinal. The book was very popular in Italy, as late as the seventeenth century. Aretino was a passionate lover of art, and the book waa really inspired by the works of the great painters of his period. It is entirely unobjectionable, unless exception may be taken to a comparison of the mystery of the Conception with the fable of Leda. Because I find tho matter int-e rest ing, I quote a. few 6oraps of his account of the conversion of tho Magdalen : —

" The Lady of Magdala, sister of that Lazarus whom at the end of four days the pity and the power of Christ had drawn from the sepulchre and the hands of Death, was in the great palace of her ancestors at Jerusalem, when Martha came to her from Bethany. This lady, older than Magdalen, wa3 neither tall nor short. Although tho years were commencing to bear down upon her with that weight that bends erect shoulders ' and blights fair bosoms, she did not show her age ; and tho cause of that was the joyousness of her heart, consoled by the possession of Jesus. A mantle of little worth and humble colour covered her, a hood of coarse and badly bleached linen was the only adornment of her head. She showed herself resiless. active, all unselfish in the service of the Lord, and, apart from what was strictly necessai-y to support her life, she yielded all her substance to the necessities of her neighbour. She spoke softly, but in a clear voice. She nursed the sick, ministered to the prisoners, and found her comfort in every office that was agreeable to God. In short, she hated the -world yet more than, Magdalen loved it, and once arrived, without other ceremonies- of _ salutation, she addressed her- sister in these words : —

'" ' O dear sister, in whom all my hopes were centred before I knew Him whose pity wrought for me that grace which thou in thy turn shalt know, is it possible that thy mind doth not yet understand how "much sweeter are the pleasures that heaven gives the soul than those that the world gives 'the body? . . . "Vain are thy thoughts, thrice vain thy works; but change thee, little sister, and thy works shall be of service. . > Perchance thou mayost not be able yet to vanquish the lasciviousness of sin, but thou shali triumph over the traps of the Evil One who dowered thee* with thy boauty. What happiness for thee, if thy loveliness were less alluring or more v modest ! '. . . . Soon comes old age " -fo scorch thy lips of- rose. But if thou art converied, if thou changest, if thou knowest the Messiah who hath come, thy beauty ' shall grow it is the equal of the Ajngela 1 - _ Say just_ one word of penitence, and he will par- J don thee.' " . i Martha's speech is much longer and prosie»* j than 'this, and (truth to tell) extremely j tedious. Magdalen shakes her golden head, and will not bo led to the Lord ; but Martha persists day aftec day, till Magdalen a-\voary gives her promise that on a etated day she will go to the temple. '" The day before the two sisters were to go to the temple to listen to the voice of Christ, Magdalen, always self-centred in the arrogance of her loveliness, gave c sumptuous feast: the last repast at which she was to commie the sin of overweening luxury. Martha, with no eyes for the purple and scarlet with whioh the walla were hung, veiling her face and shaking her head in her contempt for such vanities, sat far from her sister, in the humblest place. While eating whatever was put before her, as Jesus had bidden her. she adroitly marked her dislike of this superfluity of good cheer, the mother of diseases. Ten servants were needed to cook and spice the meats, and six were occupied in tending the fires of odoriferous woods. A legion of children mixed the winea and changed the cups before the guests. The trpod Martha, intoxicated with the love of Christ, spoke boldly of him as a sybil speaks of things to be in" the throes of her divine ecstasies. . . . But Magdalan, who seemed to add a gok'.en glory to the meats she tasted, and who in drinking lent new savour to the wine, was not to be suddenly detached from her dolicale languor?. . . ." Early next morning ths busy Martha was stirring, for the time of the temple service was at' hand. She called Magdalen, who ras© unwillingly, and put herself in the hands of her maids. Slowly the toil«t proceeded, and Magdalen, to Martha's great displeasure, stood for a moment quit© unclothed. The- robing of beauty took time, and Martha grew impatient. ' At length Magdaten was ready, and as she came out of her hou?e, the curious crowd without cried plaudits, dazzled by her beauty. One. asked if the verj bloom of Aurora had been used to tint the cheeks of Magdalen. Another declared that it was her hair that made the sunshine golden. Amid these many adorations she passed graciously into the street. She reached the temple, and for the first time heard tho voice of Christ. Sho caught his eyo, " and had more fear than a criminal feels before the stern face of c judge." Then the divine eyes softened, and, her beauty all forgotten, she fctood humbly in the presence. "Without a thought for the crowd that stood stricken by her charms, she stood motionless as on© of those figures that have no life, save such a« art has give« them." Then Jesus, "in that voice which admonished without menacing," addressed her. Aretino's conception of Christ's speech and style is unmistakably pictorial and of the Renaissance. But there is no trace of irreverence in it. no hypocrisy, no lack of tho religious epint. When Aretino wrote these words he was genuinely pious— in a strictly pictorial manner. " O dear soul that art by celeatial favour the sister of my soul, and who as thou desoendest from Paradi6e wert a aubstanee worthy of my eoul's love, where is that candour, that purity, that simplicity, with which God dowered thee? Tell me, O soul, heiress of immortality, not becaiisa thou hast offended me. but becau^ thou hast caused rue no offence, v.-here are tha virtues, the qualities, the graces that thou brougbtett from on high?

Ah! ungrateful that thou art! other re- ~ - compsnse an<i other gratitude ho merited who made thee not what thou art, but •what tbou ehouldest be. Do the ermines ©f heaven come to befoul themselves in the mire of the earth, to exchange against the gratification of a moment the beatifcude of eternity? Nay, sweet soul, let there be peace between us, and love me »3 thou now lovest the world. Let there be mediation of my pity and thy repentance;, this I beg of thee, as thou shouldesfc rather beg it of myself. Dost thou hesitate to do so much? "Why have I created thee in my own likeness? Why do I offer thee my peace? "Why have I come to e&ve thee at the price of mine own blood? Of what thinkest thou? For what sighesfc thou? On what are thine eyesfixed? Ah, turn thee from the way thou ' goeit; mourn for thy sins; look on me, who am to die that thou mayest live. What wilt thou with these tears so sweet when tears should be most bitter, so bitter in. the hour when tears should bs m-csi iweet? Ah, weep then, weep! for by such weeping shall the sons of men win ->' - to' eternal laughter." One may appreciate this according to - Mie's taste;- but this is not the Man of *_- Nazareth. is a Christ of Giorgione, a * Magdalen "of Bonifazio, a Martha of Bellino. Aretirib, in such work as this, is merely the creature ,of these masters and their contemporaries." These A suave colours ofchis are _ taken' from the palette 'of Correggio, and all the raise on scene is of Correggio's period. The / painters' quaintaesses are here, the painters' Javisb anachronisms. The MagdaTen, wearing^ a robe Euperbly Italian, suffers herself to be converted in the most approvfid manner of ,the Renaissance. Probably the model immediately under Arefcino's eye was in no mood for repentanoe.