La Vita di Pietro Aretino by MAZZUCHELLI, Gianmaria, conte, (1707-1765).

First Edition. 8vo, engraved portrait frontispiece and pp. viii, 303, [1] colophon, [4] advertisements, in contemporary glazed cream paper boards, front joint cracking, headcap chipped, some other light wear and stains, yellow labels on spine lettered in gilt, the lower one ruled in ink.

First edition of Mazzuchelli’s biography of the infamous poet, Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), known as the ‘scourge of princes’. Aretino’s satirical sonnets and burlesques were so feared by the nobles and princes of his day that they appear to have handed out large sums of money to buy his silence. This so-called patronage funded a notoriously profligate lifestyle and his home in Venice (where he went having been banished from his home town of Arezzo on the publication of his sonnet against indulgences) became the scene of continuous revelling and orgies.
The preface (pp. iii-viii) is supplied by A.F. Seghezzi. Giuseppe Bartoli’s letter to Mazzuchelli on the subject of the present work, praising the latter for his ‘erudizione si ammirabile’, is also included (pp. 263-267). The text is also accompanied by extensive bibliographical footnotes and a thirty-one page index.

Brunet III, 1563.