Pietro Aretino (1492–1556)

The School for Whores, by Pietro Aretino, is not long, but boy was it funny. Aretino was a satirist of 16th century Italy and this piece, which is part of a longer one, is about an aging prostitute named Nanna who imparts all the wisdom she’s collected over the years to her daughter Pippa, who is about to enter the same profession. The story, which spans an afternoon and night, is told entirely in back-and-forth dialogue between the two, almost like an unstaged play. Like The Worm Ourobouros, which I reviewed in 2018, it’s one of those books you can open at any point and find some literary candy to savor. So, I’ll open a page at random, to Nanna giving some advice on how to conduct oneself at dinner.

" … when the salad arrives, don’t rush at it like a cow at hay, but take teeny-weeny mouthfuls, and put them in your mouth without greasing so much as a finger — don’t lower your head, gobbling up the food straight off your plate, as I have seen some oafs do. Keep majestically erect, extending your hand graciously, and when you ask for a drink, do it with a nod of your head. If the decanters are on the table, help your self and don’t fill the glass to the brim — slightly over halfway will do. "

As this is a story about courtesans, sex comes into the mix as well. Not pornographic, but it is bawdy and bedroom antics are alluded to without coyness. Everyone, customers, fellow prostitutes, and moralizers on them both are skewered in good satirical fun. It reminded me, in fact, of Moliere’s School for Wives for its takes on male delusion and hypocrisy, except the hypocritical ones were being gossiped about and not proclaiming their views on stage.

With all its twists and turns of language, and allusions to the people and social graces of another time, the work demanded my full attention to read, and I had to pace myself in spite of the breeziness of the dialogue. Kudos to the translators (there were three) for bringing the piece to life in modern English. I was well entertained by their efforts.

(I found this book where I find so many others, at my local Little Free Library.)… (more)

[Aretino's dialogues] or The Ragionamenti: The lives of Nuns; The Lives of married Women; The Lives of Courtesans by Pietro Aretino.
Pornography is defined as "Printed or visual material, containing explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity to stimulate sexual excitement, however it was originally defined as "Writing about Prostitutes" and in many ways the original definition more aptly describes Aretino's dialogues, although to be sure there are plenty of graphic passages describing sexual activity. Published in 1536 it can claim to be the first erotic book to be written in the vulgar tongue of ordinary speech, but there is more to it than just an early example of titillation.

[[John Addington Symonds]] a Victorian critic and translator could barely bring himself to write about Aretino describing the dialogues as indescribably nasty, but he had to admit that Aretino was an independent and original man of genius who had elements of strength and freedom that allowed him to stand outside and above the society of his time. The picture he paints is one of lust and greed with the men coming off far worse than the women. Money ambition and cynical power rule and the conversations between the women are all about how they can survive in such a world. The world view on offer here reminded me of [[Rabelais]] and it could be argued that the crudeness and bestiality on show here rivals that of the French Doctor, however Aretino is much more down to earth and provides us in the end with a more satisfying portrait of the corruption in 16th century society.

The first three dialogues in the book are between Nanna a successful prostitute and her friend Antonia and they settle themselves under a fig tree while Nanna does most of the talking. Her daughter Pippa is coming up to sixteen and she must decide on the best career path for her to follow and clearly her options are limited to becoming a nun, a wife, or a whore: Nanna has been all three and she ruminates about her life, with plenty of encouragement from Antonia who is all ears. She describes her first night in the Convent when the Bishop pays it a visit; alone in her room with a glass phial as a comforter she soon hears merriment and laughter and she takes to the corridor and peers into the various rooms and describes what she sees. It is a catalogue of debauchery which Aretino takes delight in telling us about in much detail and the first part of the book is little more than a succession of who did what to whom. Nanna soon has a lover of her own, but after a particularly brutal beating from her lover she begs her mother to take her out of the convent. The second conversation on the following day, takes on a different tone from the straight forward eroticism of the first and Aretino introduces it with some style:

Nanna and Antoniia got out of bed just as Tithonus, the silly cockold, was trying to hide his Lady Aurora's petticoat so that the pimp Day should not hand her over to the Sun, her paramour; but she getting wind of what was up, tore it out of the old fools hands, left him to croak and complain, and went off more powdered and painted than ever, determined to be screwed at least twelve times just to spite him, and to have the deed witnessed by Messer Clockface, the public notary.

This second conversation is more like stories from the tales of Boccaccio, which can be witty and amusing. The third days conversation is taken over with Nanna's tales of her life as a whore and the stories become particularly cruel and vindictive. Nanna has no respect for the men who are her customers, she lives in a dog eat dog world and only survives because she can outwit the fools who want to be her lovers. Nanna says "a whore without brains is the first to suffer from it; you have got to know how to handle yourself in this world" and Nanna certainly knows how to do that as she tells of the thieving, conniving and murderous tricks she pulled on her clients. She has no soft spots and Antonia becomes shocked, even horrified by what she hears; expostulating at one point that Nanna was a monster a she-Nero. Nanna counteracts by telling her about the beatings, disfigurements and the rapes that whores suffer; for example she tells of the notorious trial of the thirty ones where women are lured into a trap and serially raped by 31 men.

It is day two and the first conversation is between Nanna and Pippa, whose career has been chosen as Nanna teaches her the art of being a whore. There are graphic descriptions of how to handle men in bed and then more stories from Nanna's own life as a prostitute. Men are depicted again and again as foolish creatures goaded to love making by gross and vulgar lust. They are there to be taken advantage of, but they can be dangerous. Curiously though as the conversation develops Nanna softens her stance and her advice becomes almost humanitarian; it is a case of don't do as I did but do as I tell you. The second conversation between Nanna and Pippa is dire warnings about the viscous betrayals that men can wreak on women. Finally Nanna and Pippa are joined by the midwife and the wet nurse for more stories. The midwife is in fact a procuress and she provides a wealth of stories on how she can bring lovers together, tricking both men and innocent women. These stories are some of the best in the dialogue, being inventive and full of local colour, we have strayed beyond the eroticism of the earlier part of the book, as the Midwife keeps digressing and at one point celebrates the joys of love making in songs and verse. The book ends with the women enjoying the pleasures of the garden, the wine and the peaches, but Aretino leaves us with a bit of a cliff hanger by saying that Nanna had forgotten to tell Pippa "how to handle men who had failed to do it either because of her or because of their own shortcomings." Perhaps he was having some fun teasing his male readership.

So, how are we to read this book today, perhaps for its undoubted eroticism, perhaps for its welter of stories, or perhaps to gain a feel for the prevailing attitudes of early 16th century Italian states. Aretino's introduction made it clear that he wanted to expose the filth and muck at the heart of society to his contemporaries. He says:

Therefore I hope that my book will be like the scalpel, at once cruel and merciful, with which the good doctor cuts off the sick limb so that the others will remain healthy"

Do I detect irony here; Aretino was one of the most corrupt men in a time noted for its corruption, or is his book largely satirical in its attempt to expose the ills of society? The book is open to both readings. The overall impression I take away from the dialogues is that it is an assault on male sexuality, men are venal, they are nasty and deserve all the tricks that wives and whores can pull on them. The translation by Raymond Rosenthal keeps in mind that Aretino was careful to write in the vernacular and so uses modern terms to give the book a down to earth, easy readability. It worked for me and I have discovered many a new phrase for the sexual act, perhaps my favourite is "placing his paintbrush in her tiny colour cup" oooooo 5 stars.… (more)