"Aretino Poses– - medieval Kama Sutra from Europe, which the church fought against

The genre of erotic art has been known since ancient times and it existed in different parts of the world. We are well aware of the Indian Kama Sutra, Japanese engravings by Shunga, defiantly frank sculptures made of wood by African tribes. In Europe, eroticism was held in high esteem in the ancient period, but with the advent of Christianity, everything ended. For several centuries, the church has been vigilantly monitoring morality, but sometimes immodest masterpieces still appeared. "Aretino Poses" can be called a Renaissance Kama Sutra, which miraculously survived despite the efforts of the Inquisition.

(Careful! Adult content).

Scientists cannot say for sure how the "Aretino Poses" appeared. These illustrations with signatures have been known since the 16th century and there are several versions of their origin. According to the most common, images of men and women making love in different poses were created by a disciple of the great Raphael Santi named Giulio Romano.

Pope Clement VII commissioned a painting of the Constantine Hall in the Vatican Papal Palace for a young student of the Renaissance genius. But when it came time to pay for part of the work, the pontiff began to cheat and delay the calculation in every possible way. An angry Giulio quickly changed the concept of frescoes, covering the vaults and walls of the hall with images that can be called pornographic.

In total, 16 images were created, which, as you may have guessed, did not decorate the residence of the popes for a long time. They were destroyed as soon as they were discovered and only a few had the happiness to see them. Legend has it that Raphael had to put a lot of effort into saving his disciple from the massacre of the churchmen, but everything ended well.

And the carefully destroyed frescoes were still saved for posterity by another student of Raphael — graphic artist Marcantonio Raimondi, who loved to depict the naked body. The master managed to make copies of Romano's frescoes before they disappeared under the hammers and scrapers of the workers.

Based on sketches made in the Papal Palace, Raimondi created a series of erotic, to say the least, engravings. Each of them depicted ancient heroes, gods and warriors at the moment of copulation with goddesses and priestesses. The engravings had unambiguous names: a spear, a leg on the neck, a frog, a church on a bell tower, a relay race, an Anthea door, sheep grazing, a heron at a tree, legs on the neck from behind, riding a donkey, a cheerful vagina, a hermaphrodite.

The daring engraver printed a lot of copies from erotic boards and they went to the people. People bought indecent pictures well, causing healthy curiosity in men and shameful longing in women. The Church has made a lot of efforts to find and destroy sinful images, but has not succeeded in this matter. Raimondi began to make copies of the originals and it was impossible to control the "pirated products".

By order of Pope Clement VII, Raimondi was arrested and thrown into prison. Thanks to numerous petitions of famous masters and connoisseurs of art, the engraver was soon released from prison. The poet Pietro Aretino, who had a certain influence at the papal palace, played an important role in saving the artist. Ironically, he also gave a second life to Raimondi's immodest illustrations.

Aretino wrote a short but meaningful sonnet for each erotic engraving. A total of 16 engravings with poses turned out - not much when compared with Kama Sutra, but nevertheless it was a real event for Catholic Italy. Today we can see copies of the "Aretino Poses" made in the 18th century.

Erotic art is eternal, just like any other. This is also the opinion of Perm artist Sergey Pakhomov, who created the world's first Kama Sutra from ... pasta.