Renaissance Porn Star ― The Saga of Pietro Aretino, the World's Greatest Hustler

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR RENAISSANCE PORN STARTHE SAGA OF PIETRO ARETINO: THE WORLD'S GREATEST HUSTLERSex, drugs, and the Medicis. A story of murder, revenge, art, pornography, and celebration with anall-star cast of characters: Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, a klatch of mafi a-don-style popes, and Shakespeare. A tale that turns deep, deep erudition into exquisite sweets for the heart andmind.—Howard Bloom, author of The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of CapitalismIf Jan Wenner had given Hunter S. Thompson an assignment to write a historical essay ofRenaissance sexuality and literature, the resulting pages might have looked something like Renaissance Porn Star: raw, uncensored, clearly mad, and quite brilliant.—Jess Winfi eld, author of My name is WillLike a buried treasure unearthed, Renaissance Porn Star sheds new light on how the Italian icon of the Renaissance,Pietro Aretino, helped shape an awakened world. Mark Lamonica mixes his amazing attention tohistorical detail and breathes new life into Shakespeare.—Thelma Reyna, Ph.D. author of The Heavens Weep for UsWhat art restoration has done for paintings, Mark Lamonica has done through a historical account ofPietro Aretino that wipes clean the whitewash of our puritanical perspective on the Renaissance over the past several hundred years. Not unlike a newly restored masterpiece, Renaissance Porn Star is both beautiful and shocking.—Adam Hall, Shakespeare scholarMark Lamonica is an accomplished photographerand author of three highly acclaimed books: Junkyard Dogs and William Shakespeare (1997); co-author of Rio LA: Tales from the Los Angeles River (2001); named “a best book of the year” by the Los AngelesTimes Book Review. Whacking Buddha: The Mysterious World of Shakespeare and Zen Buddhism (2005); hailed as a work of “spiritual literary dynamite.” He is atwork on a new book about the Devil.