Aretino: Scourge of Princes

$3.50

FOR one who wishes to exhibit the seamy side of Italian high life in the first half of the sixteenth century, Aretino is a lay figure made to order; a very able man, a good versifier, and withal a blackmailer, ‘gangster of literature,’ thug, sharper, and general all-round scoundrel of the first water. In short, he is a whole ‘social history’ in himself; he might serve for almost any age, but he does very well where he is. Mr. Chubb makes the most of him, and for those who like that sort of lurid period piece this is probably about the sort they like. It is written in a brusque, irregular, headlong style, often ungrammatical, apparently with a view to enhancing the story’s vigor and vividness — an erroneous view, for it merely puts the reader out of breath and tires him. The book has some historical value, and it gets a certain faint attractiveness from the fact that Mr. Chubb knows his subject thoroughly and is deeply interested in it. He communicates his knowledge freely to his readers, and one is grateful for that, but unfortunately he can communicate very little of his interest.