Note 490 — Chapter XV

Aretino's comedies, letters, and occasional poems are our best sources for acquaintance with the actual conditions of palace-life. The Dialogo de le Corti opens with a truly terrible description of the debauchery and degradation to which a youth was exposed on his first entrance into the service of a Roman noble. It may have been drawn from the author's own experience. The nauseous picture of the tinello, or upper-servants' hall, which occurs in the comedy Cortigiana (act v. sc. 15), proves intimate familiarity with the most revolting details of domestic drudgery. The dirt of these places made an ineffaceable impression on Aretino's memory. In his burlesque Orlandino, when he wishes to call up a disgusting image, he writes:

Odorava la sala come odora Un gran tinel d'un Monsignor Francese, O come quel d'un Cardinal ancora Quando Febo riscalda un bestial mese.