Constructing Sebastiano del Piombo: Pietro Aretino and the Artistic Landscape of Clementine Rome ☆

Sebastiano del Piombo's heyday in Rome coincided with that of Pietro Aretino, and they benefitted there from the same patrons, first Agostino Chigi and then Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici. Both men flourished especially, in the brief 4 years of the pontificate of Giulio, between his election as Pope Clement VII and the traumatic Sack of 1527, although Aretino had already had to leave the city in 1525. Aretino is now most famous as the friend and supporter of Titian but perhaps his first close relationship with an artist had been with Sebastiano in Rome. The magnificent but damaged portrait, still in Arezzo, 20 years before that by Titian bears enduring witness to this. There has been much recent work on Aretino's relationship with the fine arts, culminating in the curtailed Uffizi exhibition in 2019/2020 and its concomitant publications, but relatively little on this relationship that was so significant for both men. This essay will consider that relationship, particularly in relation to the urban development of Rome in these years, how the careers of both men covered the rise and fall of ‘High Renaissance’ Rome and will problematize the continuing use of that term. It will also address the circles of influence that sustained both men's careers at Rome, in terms not only of their patrons but also of their contemporaries.