Browsing by Author "Rautiainen, Tanya"

I research the official censorship of print by the Catholic Church and its connection to the censorship of 16th century Italian satire. From the perspective of church history, I consider how the bulla Inter sollicitudines declared in 1515 regarding the pre-emptive censorship of printed literature affected authors of satire, and how it changed the way these authors discussed politics and theology. My starting point is the Church's desire to censor the printing press pre-emptively. We can see from the papal bulls how the Church is afraid of the threat of heresy; they feel that the printing press has to me censored so that lay people would not stray to the wrong path. Even if this censorship was not specifically pointed at erotic satire, the regulations led to the observation of every piece of printed art and literature. I claim that the authors wanted to censor their works beforehand if the works were meant for public consumption. I compare two erotic satires of the 1520s to each other. I present Cazzaria by Antonio Vignali as an example of an uncensored work and Il Marescalco by Pietro Aretino as contrast as an example of a play meant for the public. I refer to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum -catalogue started in 1557, in which the Church placed the works, authors, and prints it condemned. With it I compare the Church's reception of Cazzaria and Il Marescalco. For this I will go through the three first printed editions of the Index from 1559, 1564, and 1589 respectively; we have digital versions of these editions provided by the Bavarian State Library. In these editions I search for the names of Aretino and Vignali as well as their works. I then find out that all of Aretino's works (opera omnia) were placed in the Index on its first year in print, whereas Vignali nor his work never ended up in these editions. I ponder the reason as to why this might be. I conclude the research by stating that the infamy of the author or their work affected their placement into the Index. Il Marescalco ended up into the Index due to Aretino's fame and not because to the contents of the play since all his works ended up in the Index immediately in 1559 — even if my research points out that Il Marescalco did not contain any especially scandalous or explicit content. In contrast, Vignali and his work did not end up in the Index at least during this first century, even if Cazzaria was purposefully degrading, heretical, and provocative — meaning it meets the requirements to be put into the Index.