Pietro Aretino, AKA "Aretine," as a Measure of Taste and Morality in Volpone
Ben Jonson's Volpone mentions, in passing the names of many authors, including some we have read (Bembo from The Courtier and Petrarch). Those allusions often sound like "name dropping," the intentional attempt to seem learned or associated with something important, an attempt achieved by the careless mention of the Important Name (a show of sprezzatura?). In other instances, the name dropper may actually know the work in question, but knowing some works can be incriminating rather than elevating. One author named twice in the same act is Pietro Aretino, author of sallacious Italian sonnets and famous for having his work banned by the Pope. Is it a bad thing or a good thing to know "Aretine"?
Lady Politic Would-be: "Dante is hard, and few can understand him, / But for the desperate wit, there's Aretine! / Only his pictures are a little obscene" (III.5.95-7).
Corvino to Celia: "[ . . . ] Should I offer this / To some young Frenchman, or hot Tuscan blood / That had read Aretine, conned all his prints, / Knew every quirk within lust's labyrinth, / And were professed critic in lechery, / And I would look upon him and applaud him, / This were a sin" (III.7.57-64).