Pietro Aretino

Pietro Aretino , 1492-1556, Italian satirist. He led a life of adventure and wrote abusive works for hire. His derisive wit was so feared that the gifts of those who sought either to buy him or buy him off made him very wealthy. He was a friend of Titian, who painted his portrait. His comedies, such as La cortigiana and La talenta, are singular, if exaggerated, portraits of his time. His letters, in spite of their impudent coarseness, are full of verve. Ariosto called him the "scourge of princes."

Aretino, Pietro (1492–1556), Italian author and playwright, chiefly remembered for his comedies, which, though written in haste and lacking refinement, are original, amusing, and thoroughly Italian in their realistic and satiric thought and presentation, throwing light on the less creditable aspects of the social life of the day. It has been suggested that Ben Jonson's Epicoene (1609) may owe something to Aretino's comedy II marescalco (The Sea Captain, 1533), which was based on Plautus' Casina. Among his other comedies Lo ipocrito (1542) may be considered a precursor of Molière's Tartuffe. Aretino's only tragedy Orazio (1546) is perhaps the best of those written in his time.