[159] Part of this third Satire will be found translated in Roscoe's Leo X., ch. xvi., where the demands of nepotism upon his Holiness are playfully exposed.
[*160] Cf. Satire II., vv. 1-24, 85-93, 97-114, 217-231, 238-265, and III., 1-81.
[162] Bernardo Tasso, Lettere, II., No. 165. In a privilege of copyright granted in very complimentary terms by Leo X., the Orlando is pedantically described by Bembo as "a work in vernacular verse regarding the feats of those called knights-errant, composed in a ludicrous style, but with long study, and the laborious application of many years."—Bembo, Epistolæ nomine Leonis X., Lib. X., No. 40.
[*163] A good edition of the Lettere of Aretino was published under the care of Vanzolini and Bacci della Lega, in four volumes, in Bologna, 1873-75. The best edition, now very rare, of I Ragionamenti is that of Florence, 1892. See also Fabi, Opere da P.A., Milano, 1881. For his life, consult Luzio, P.A. nei primi suoi anni a Venezia e la corte dei Gonzago (Torino, 1888); Gauthiez, L'Aretin, 1492-1556 (Paris, 1895); and Sinigaglia, Saggio di uno studio su P.A. con scritti e documenti inediti (Roma, 1892). It was, I think, Mr. Claude Phillips who wittily called Aretino not the scourge but "the screw of princes." Nevertheless, those who knew Aretino best will appreciate him most. Titian was wise enough to have him for a friend, and, indeed, he was capable of many very human and even beautiful actions, as when he would daily throw wide his doors at nightfall and take the lost and the beggars into his house. After all, those he blackmailed were blackmailers themselves. He made even the Pope fear him.
[164] Orlando Furioso, XLVI., st. 14.
[*165] These designs have lately been found and photographed and published in Paris. They are impossible, but extremely vigorous and lovely. The verses are even more terrible than the drawings, but splendid too, with a sort of fullness of joy.
[*166] His writings have much of the undoubted fascination of the daily paper, but are on the whole less vulgar and probably less harmful and enervating.
[*167] This is sheer hypocrisy. Aretino's intercourse with Urbino was so slight as to be easily ignored, and Dennistoun, as a fact, says next to nothing of it.