Arethino Poses

Achilles and Briseis, engraving by Carracci

Original Edition of Pos Romano

According to legend ^[1] , Raphael's student Giulio Romano quarreled with Pope Clement VII because of a failure to pay the fee, and out of revenge painted the Constantine’s hall in the Vatican with pornographic scenes. The frescoes were destroyed, but the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi , another student of Raphael, painted them, and then created engravings from these drawings. According to a more down-to-earth version, Giulio Romano painted these murals commissioned by the Duke of Mantua, Federico II, for the Palazzo del Te palace in Mantua .

In 1524, Marcantonio Raimondi published these prints, which led to the arrest of Raimondi on the orders of the Pope and the destruction of all copies of the illustrations. The author of the original paintings, Giulio Romano, was not punished, since he worked for a private customer indoors, and his work, unlike engravings, was not corrupted by the general public. The famous poet Pietro Aretino visited Romano, who still continued to work on the frescoes in the palace, and composed for each love position on a sonnet. He also helped Raymondi free himself from prison.

Vasari writes:

After that, Giulio Romano instructed Marcantonio to cut out all possible ways, positions and poses in which depraved men sleep with women according to his drawings on twenty sheets, and, worst of all, Messer Pietro Aretino wrote an indecent sonnet for each method, so I really I don’t know what was disgusting: whether the appearance of Julio’s drawings for the eye or the words of Aretino for hearing. This work was strictly condemned by Pope Clement, and if, when it was published, Giulio had not left for Mantua, he would have earned the harsh punishment from the angry pope. (...) And since some of these drawings were found in places where this was least expected, they were not only banned, but Marcantonio himself was captured and imprisoned, and he would have been ill if he Cardinal Medici and Baccio Bandinelli , who were in Rome in the service of the pope, did not help him out. (...) and indeed it should not, as is often done, however, abuse God's gift to the shame of the whole world in matters disgusting in all respects.

Original Pose Arethino

In 1527, the second edition of the engravings was carried out, now with Pietro Aretino's sonnets, after which their subjects were nicknamed “Pos Aretino” . The publication was the first work combining erotic illustrations with texts at the same time. By order of the pope, the circulation was again destroyed. Raymondi escaped a new conclusion by a miracle.

Copies of the first two original editions were not preserved, with the exception of several fragments in the British Museum and two copies of pose No. 1. Another copy, supposedly published in a pirate way with clumsy redrawn illustrations, was printed in 1550 in Venice, containing 15 of 16 drawings. ^[2]

Although Raymondi’s original did not reach our time, at least one complete set of drawings escaped destruction, since the pirate copy of 1550 , and so on. The Carracci Poses (see below) are based on a single source in composition and style. A comparison with fragments from the British Museum reinforces this assumption.

The Poses of Carracci and His

The new edition of Pos was made by Agostino Carracci (1557–1602) (or, less likely, Camillo Procaccini ).

Its most common reprint is the 1798 edition printed in Paris under the title “ L'Arétin d'Augustin Carrache, ou recueil de postures érotiques, d'après les gravures à l'eau-forte par cet artiste célèbre ” thanks to Jacques-Joseph Coigny (1761-1809).

In subsequent years, several artists created their drawings for "Poses" based on the iconography of Carracci. Among them are Waldeck, Jean-Frederick and Avril, Edouard Henri .

In 1858, Count Jean-Frederic Maximilien de Waldeck , known for his hoaxes, said he had discovered a copy of the original publication in the library of the Franciscan monastery in Mexico City . This copy was published by Waldeck, but it is almost certain that this is not the original Romano, but a compilation of drawings from the British Museum and engravings by Carracci, especially since the monastery, which he named as the manuscript's find, does not exist. Other attempts have been made to fake the original based on the Karracha poses.

As suggested, the first edition of Marcantonio Raimondi was different from those of “Pos Aretino”, which came to the descendants in the presentation of Carracci. At Carracci, all the drawings nominally depict famous couples of lovers (for example, Anthony and Cleopatra), or married gods (Jupiter and Juno) from classical history and mythology. Characters were portrayed with recognizable attributes. The action takes place in classic interiors. Based on the only surviving engraving from the first edition, it is assumed that Raymondi’s lovers were ordinary people, without attributes, and had sex in ordinary interiors.

On the frontispiece of Carracci is a Venus Genetrix, naked and driving a chariot drawn by pigeons. The figures bear a clear imprint of the style of the era - overly muscular torsos, small breasts.

Text

The text includes 16 sonnets plus 2 poetic epilogues. The content of sonnets for the most part is obscene-courteous dialogue between a man and a woman, either preparing to indulge in passion, or during a test of some pose.

In some cases, Aretino mentions the names of women:

• No. 12 - courtesan Angela Greka;
• No. 14 - courtesan Beatrice de Bonis - courtesan native to Florence. She later moved to Rome and lived in an expensive neighborhood near the Bear Tavern. Her clients included Lorenzo Medici, the Duke of Urbino, and other notable people. The 1526 census indicates that Lorenzina and Beatrice are well-established "honest prostitutes."

Pietro Aretino dedicated his poems to a friend, Dr. Battista Zatti of Brescia ^[4] .

Translations into Russian from Italian by Alexei Purin (in the tradition of academic translation with stylization of the Renaissance), and Igor Petenko. The latter translates with an abundance of Russian mat , which does not correspond to the stylistic coloring of the corresponding words in the language of the Italian Renaissance, and in an arbitrary size (Purin uses logaedas that fit into the syllabic of the original). Aretino uses the words cazzo (in modern dictionaries - dick, horseradish, dick), potta (hole) and fottere (to tear , fuck) .

In the “ Records and Extracts ” of M. L. Gasparov it is mentioned that the Aretino sonnets requested the translation of the famous Italian translator E. M. Solonovich , to which he replied: “It will not work, there are all the necessary words there, but we have some unnatural as if they came from Turkic ” ^[5] .

The list is illustrated by engravings of the late 18th century edition.

Aretino's "Poses" became synonymous with debauchery, and the number of poses increased from 16 in increasing numbers, apparently added by new authors:

• Abbot de Brant ^[6] in the book “Gallant Ladies” (nicknamed the “New Decameron”) ironically describes the attitude of the higher French aristocracy to the illustrations of Aretino:

“He [the Duke of Anjou ] bought from a jeweler a magnificent goblet of gilded silver of the finest work, a true masterpiece of jewelry art, hitherto unprecedented: the figures of men and women in Aretino's poses were very elegantly and whimsically carved in the lower part of this goblet, and various methods of intercourse animals; it was there that I saw for the first time (subsequently I often had occasion to admire this goblet and even, not without laughter, drink from it) the case of a lion with a lioness, not at all like mating all other animals; whoever saw this, knows, and whoever has not seen, I don’t presume to describe. This cup stood by the prince in the dining room in a place of honor, for, as I have already said, he was distinguished by the extraordinary beauty and luxury of decoration that was inside, that was outside, and pleased the eye. When the prince arranged a feast for court ladies and damsels, and this often happened, then on his orders the cupbearers never forgot to bring them wine in this goblet; and those who had not yet seen him, were greatly amazed and, having taken the goblet in their hands or already after that, were quite speechless; others blushed, not knowing where to go from embarrassment, while others whispered to their neighbors: “What is depicted here?” In my mind, this is an abomination of abominations. Yes, it is better to die of thirst than to drink from a kind of dish! ”However, they had to either drink from the described cup or languish with thirst, which is why some ladies drank from it with their eyes closed, but others did not bother. Those ladies or girls who knew a lot about this craft laughed secretly, while the rest were burned with shame. ”

He also writes: “ One lady, who kept Tom Aretino in her room with her husband’s permission, admitted to her lover that books and other inventions serve her well .” A certain courtier gave his mistress an album with pictures depicting an aristocrat in all of Aretino's twenty-seven poses. The book went around the entire royal court and produced a curious effect. When one of the ladies looked at her with two friends, she was so excited that she "fell into love ecstasy in front of those present and could not go beyond the fourth page, losing her feelings on the fifth." ^[7]

• Denis Didro writes in “Rameau's Nephew”: “Can all this hinder the fact that her heart burns, sighs break out of her chest, that her passion flares up, that desire pursues her and that her imagination draws scenes from the Monastery Gatekeeper at night or poses from Arethino? ”
• The English king Charles II said that his mistress, Lady Castlemaine, knew more poses than Arethino ^[7] .
• Casanova in her memoirs writes that he celebrated the new year 1753 with a nun in an Arethine pose: “- In the meantime, I took one book in your boudoir. These are the poses of Pietro Aretino. In the remaining three hours, I want to try some of them. - A thought worthy of you; but there are poses that are impossible, and even ridiculous. - Right; but four are quite tempting. We indulged in these works all three hours. ” ^[8] In another place, he writes: “During the break, seeing their humility and lasciviousness, I forced them to take difficult poses from the book of Aretino, which entertained them beyond measure.”
• Alexander Pushkin wrote in one of his letters, somewhat exaggerating the number of Aretino's poses: “I will mimic the monkey, slander and draw you Ms. N in 36 poses of Aretino” ^[9] .
• Alfred de Musset , Galiani: " Elevantino and Aretino were beggars before our imagination ."

• In 2007, Michael Nyman put 8 of these poems to music - 8 Lust Songs . After their performance in 2008 at Cadogan Hall, they were removed from the program due to obscenity ^[10] .
• The modern novel “ 16 Pleasures ” (author - Robert Hellenga ). In the story, a young American, a book restorer, travels to Italy to save flood-damaged works. In the Carmelite nunnery, where the heroine is working on the restoration of the library collected by Lucia de Medici, one of the nuns finds a shocking book. A collection of erotic drawings by Raphael’s student and the obscene sonnets Pietro Aretino accompanying them is intertwined with one of the prayer books. The book is unique, all other copies are destroyed by the church. The main character, Margot, decides to sell the book in order to raise money to protect the nuns and their rights to own the library from the bishop. In order to sell the book, it should be restored. Work on this exciting book turns the life of the heroine into a real adventure.

• Kamasutra

• Издания:
  • Русское издание: «Любовные позиции эпохи Возрождения» / Перевод сонетов Алексея Пурина; составитель О. Я. Неверов. — М., 2002. ISBN 5-7654-1170-3 , 5-94730-054-0
  • Развратные сонеты Пьетро Аретино. Стихи и переводы / Перевод стихов Игоря Петенко . — 2007. ISBN 978-5-98628-083-7
  • I Modi : the sixteen pleasures : an erotic album of the Italian renaissance / Giulio Romano … [et al.] edited, translated from the Italian and with a commentary by Lynne Lawner. Northwestern University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-7206-0724-8
• Исследования:
  • Bette Talvacchia . Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture. 2001

• Pietro Aretino and his Sixteen Postures, 1524 (англ.)
• Les cuivres secrets (фр.)