Pietro Aretino was somewhat surprised to find a red- haired demon at his door that day in Venice in

1524. But not too surprised. Aretino made it a point never to be put out of countenance by anything.

He was a big man, his own red hair receding from his high brow. Thirty-two years old that month, he had spent all his adult life as a poet and playwright. His verses, which combined the utmost scurrility with an exquisite sense of rhyme, were recited and sung from one corner of Europe to the other.

Aretino 'was able to live well on the expensive presents that kings, noblemen, and prelates were forever forcing upon him to induce him to desist from attacking and mocking them. "Pray take this gold salver, good Aretino, and be so kind as to disinclude me in your latest broadside."

"Good evening to you, sir," Aretino said, keeping a respectful tone until he knew whom he was insulting.

"Have you some business with me? For I think I have not seen your race.

"We have not met before this," Azzie said. "Yet it seems to me that I know the Divine Aretino through the luscious sagacity of his verses, in which a sound moral point is never far behind the laughter."

"It is good of you to say so, sir," said Aretino. "But many hold that there is no moral content whatsoever to my lines."

"They are deceived," Azzie said. "To scoff at the pretensions of mankind, as you unerringly do, dear master, TS to point up the excellencies of that which the churchmen are usually all too willing to dismiss."

"You speak out boldly, sir, in favor of those deeds that men consider evil."

"Yet men perform the Seven Deadly Sins with an alacrity they do not display in their high-minded quests for the good. Even Sloth is entered into with a greater alacrity than accompanies the pursuits of piety."