The Three Hagiographies: Writing about Saints in the Age of the Council

Abstract

The hagiographical phase of the religious proses represented by the Vite of the Virgin Mary (1539), Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1540) and Saint Thomas Aquinas (1543) is still one of the less studied sections of Aretino’s work. The first part of the paper is focused on the description of the contents of the Vite. The three compositions are also considered from a stylistic point of view, pointing the attention on the rethorical qualities of Aretino’s prose and its strenght in moving contemporary readers’ religious feelings with a special mixture of realism, pictoricism and macabre and a clever use of the simile (sometimes in direct competition with contemporary artists like Titian). The second part of the paper is dedicated to the outline of the editorial history of the three hagiographies. The Vite are studied in their connections to Aretino’s biography (the Venetian milieu, the relationships with customers and sponsors in Milan, the connections with the papal Court from Paolo III to Giulio III etc.) and works (Aretino’s literary bipolarity and self-proclamed mastery of all styles, differencies and similarities with the first sacred proses etc.), from the editiones principes staged in collaboration with Francesco Marcolini to the aldine collective volume printed in 1552 by Paolo Manuzio.