Pietro Aretino

Pietro Aretino (20 April 1492 – 21 October 1556) was an Italian author, playwright, poet and satirist.

Pietro Aretino, 1512 by Titian.

Quotes

• I am a free man, I do not need to copy Petrarch or Boccaccio. My own genius is enough. Let others worry themselves about style and so cease to be themselves. Without a master, without a model, without a guide, without artifice, I go to work and earn my living, my well-being, and my fame. What do I need more? With a goose quill and a few sheets of paper I mock the universe.
  • Quoted in H. H. Plumb, The Horizon Book of the Renaissance, 1961, also quoted in Dictionary of Quotations, p. 29
• What evil is there in seeing a man possess a woman? Why, the beasts would be more free than we! It seems to me that that which is given us by nature for our own preservation ought to be worn round the neck as a pendant and in the hat for a medal.
  • Edward Hutton (1922) Pietro Aretino, the scourge of princes. p. 65

The Works of Aretino: Biography: de Sanctis. The letters, 1926

Pietro Aretino, ‎Francesco De Sanctis (1926) The Works of Aretino: Biography: de Sanctis. The letters.

• Yes, let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.
  • p. 143

• I love you and, because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.
  • p. 152