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But while it was still flourishing was developed, chiefly in Rome the greatest railer of modern times, Pietro Aretino.A glance at his life and character will save us the trouble of noticing many less distinguished members of his class.
We know him chiefly in the last thirty years of his life, (1527-56), which he passed in Venice, the only asylum possible for him.From hence he kept all that was famous in Italy in a kind of state of siege, and here were delivered the presents of the foreign princes who needed or dreaded his pen.Charles V and Francis I both pensioned him at the same time, each hoping that Aretino would do some mischief to the other.