For centuries, Pietro Aretino's reputation was dominated by the negative judgment of the compilers of the Index of Prohibited Books (1557) who condemned his entire literary production (opera omnia). Because of that, he was seen two-dimensionally, as a pornographer and pimp. Lost were the nuanced political opinions and social commentary of his six volumes of epistles, as well as the amateur theologizing in his religious works, to say nothing of the immense body of satires. In recent decades, literary critics have revised their appraisal of Aretino, exploring his literary aims along with how he employed the visual arts and printing technology to become one of the most famed authors of the age. What has emerged is the image of a writer who castigated immorality in his lifetime, and who employed numerous means to curate his public image. Far from merely appealing to the base instincts of his readers, Aretino engaged directly with the questions of his times.

In the light of the renewed scholarly interest in Aretino, A Companion to Pietro Aretino, edited by Marco Faini and Paola Ugolini, is a welcome contribution to the fields of Italian literary criticism and scholarship of the early modern period. The volume is encyclopedic in scope, consisting of nineteen chapters and an introduction written by the editors; it includes forty-nine images, many in color, as well as a timeline of the author's life, and a comprehensive bibliography. To assist the readers, furthermore, the chapters are grouped into seven broad areas: “Selfhood and the Public Sphere,” “Criticism and Satire,” “Arts,” “Literary Genres,” “Religion,” “Networks,” and “Afterlife.” The chapter authors include the leading scholars of Aretino studies, such as Raymond B. Waddington, Ian Frederick Moulton, Chiara Lastraioli, Paul Larivaille, Brian Richardson, Deanna Shemek, and Jane Tylus, to name only a selection. As the list indicates, people from different disciplines are represented—from Italian to English, from art history to the history of the book—demonstrating the broad impact of the writer in the high Renaissance. Each chapter focuses on a particular facet of Aretino's literature, discussing it as thoroughly as possible.

Under normal circumstances, a review such as this would discuss each chapter; however, there are too many to do so here. Rather than focus on some and not others, I will instead deal with the collection as a whole. Fortunately, it is a credit to the nineteen contributors and the two coeditors that, across the board, all the chapters are written clearly and comprehensively. In short, there is not a single weak chapter—a remarkable feat. Taken as a whole, the volume provides a thorough picture of Pietro Aretino's literature: his activities of self-promotion through the visual arts, including his friendship with Titian and the circulation of medallions; his satires, beginning in Rome with the voice of Pasquino and his pioneering of pornographic language; his hagiographies and epistolary; his networks of support and rivalries—sometimes violent—with contemporaries. The volume presents a complete composite view of the author's activities during the sixteenth century.

In conclusion, the volume functions as a compendium of the criticism of Aretino, synthesizing the work of many scholars into chapters that are accessible and easy to read. It will serve as a type of one-stop shopping for those wishing to understand the “scourge of princes,” whether in part or in whole. Consequently, the volume will also serve as the starting point for future studies, providing the background necessary upon which future critics can build. Coeditors Marco Faini and Paola Ugolini are to be commended for this major contribution to the field of literary criticism.