Aretino: "the miraculous monster of mankind"

Ralph Roeder, The Man of the Renaissance: Reading Notes Part XVIII (final)

The Renaissance wanes in the loss of Italy's dream of cultural supremacy: "sapped of religious faith, politically disrupted, dominated by the barbarian, Italy was demoralized; and the deepening despair of its society was manifest, like a phosphorescence of decay, in its lust for fame."

Roeder presents his fourth "lawgiver," Aretino, as a prophet of art ("the lust of the eye was the first revelation of his gospel") and, it would seem, media culture and consumerism -- Aretino forms a partnership with the painter Titian, marketing his work to noble patrons.

"The real religion of Italy," Roeder writes, "the impulse with which the Renaissance had been laboring all along, was the deathless passion of art."

Ushering in the modern (even postmodern) age, Aretino was adept at "persuading the world to accept him at his own valuation." In turn he assayed the value of others: "he created and controled public opinion; he dispensed censure and honor and made and unmade reputations."

Roeder continues: "He was the lawgiver of the vainglory of life. . . . Though his reputation rested on nothing more solid than puff, he lived on it."

More consumerism. Aretino "composed a whole series of epistles to the Venetians in praise of the table, spending hours of delicious gustation in the recollection and anticipation of food."

A random Roederism: "Life was a puzzle to those who lived it and a pattern to those who watched it."

Aretino considers himself "a miraculous monster of mankind" and sees his enormous appetites as a testament to the glories of God's creation.

He sees Christ as in all things benevolent and forgiving: "Christ, so far as we know, in His humanity, left no prisons nor wheels nor ropes nor flames to torture those who, if they have misread His laws, confess their error. He punishes with mercy all those who cry."

His self-image so closely tied to his robust nature, Aretino dreads the arrival of old age even more than most men: "No. A thousand times no -- against the dread advances of age Aretino mustered all his animal spirits and shook his whole body in vigorous denial."

Aretino's achievement: "Of all the ideals for which men had lived and suffered and died he had made a mockery and a farce; he had voided every creed and discredited every code; his work was done. He had accomplished his mission. He had destroyed all the superiorities of man to nature."

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