August 29, 2026 • 34 mins
Nowadays it's no secret that some Papal administrations from centuries past were a bit more scandalous than others, but when master engraver Marcantonio Raimondi created prints of explicit art located within the papal palace, the church was scandalized. Learn more about the bizarre tale of "The Sixteen Pleasures".
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow ridiculous historians, you may have heard about the Vatican
from earlier. Turns out they like to ban stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yeah, yeah, they're big fans of prohibition. They're real yuckers
of yums.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yeah, so back in the day, we looked into a
story that seemed very strange. It involves a master engraver
named Marcantonio Ramondi, who... put in some saucy, explicit art
throughout the papal palace.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Boy, did he ever. Particularly raunchy art, in fact. The
church was so scandalized that it had to take action.
Let's find out what they did.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Thank you. Welcome
(01:16):
to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
tuning in. We have a bit of a disclaimer, I think,
or a bit of a thing we must say for
the beginning of this episode.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Ben, is this like a trigger warning or no? Is
that different? Is that the same as a disclaimer?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I guess a trigger warning is a genre of a disclaimer, Noel.
But yeah, either way, it's a thing you have to
say at the top. This episode, we are kind of
a family show, you know, you and I, we're in
And our super producer, Paul Mission Control Deccant. As well
as our super producer, Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Who has returned, as it turns out, from his secret
life as an international criminal?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Spy? What is he exactly again?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I keep getting the stories mixed up.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
He is simply LeBouche.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
He is LeBouche.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So, you know, all of us on the show, including
our producer, Maya Cole. Give it up for her. It's
her first day. Wave to her there. All of us
are generally like PG people, maybe PG-13. This is not
a hard-hitting, mature-themed show.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
You mean on the show?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
On this show.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Well, in our personal lives, we can— Oh, my gosh.
It goes off the rails.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Oh, wow. Very quickly. But today's show, No Fooling— Does
encounter some things that may not be appropriate for all listeners.
So if you're one of the very, very kind teachers,
whoever uses our show for your students.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Surely that's not a thing.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I think a couple times. Yeah. Okay. But if you
are one of those teachers, listen through the entirety of
this episode before playing it for you.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Your students or if you're some kind of prude and
prone to pearl clutching um i would also maybe skip
this one or maybe give it a go and it'll
make you grow up a.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Little bit you'll have you'll have that uh aladdin a
whole new world moment right that's my favorite part of
that movie it is such an amazing movie overall are
you gonna see the live version i.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Gotta say that the physics of it absolute garbage They
would be torn to shreds or they would like suffocate
in the atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
On the carpet. Give me a break.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I always thought the carpet sort of created this field.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
That is some magical thinking, Ben. I like that.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's a story about magic.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That is quality suspension of disbelief, my friend.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Well done.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Speaking of suspension of disbelief.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
That's a weird segue. But today's episode addresses a little
bit of hypocrisy. in the Catholic Church addresses something that
you and I both, I think, found fascinating, but maybe
not entirely surprising.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, possibly a little titillating. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Just a little. A bit of Twitter patient.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Indeed. We should get right to it.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Today's episode is, I don't know, you could kind of,
this is a bit of a misnomer to refer to
it like this, but I still like it. The banned
16th century pornographic sex guide made in, you guessed it,
the Vatican.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
True story. True story, folks. Yes, this is entirely non-fictional.
So nowadays, when people think of the pope, right, the
head of the Catholic Church, we typically are going to
think of maybe someone who's kind of isolated, a kindly
(04:42):
older man in white with a unique set of hats. Mm-hmm.
But in centuries leading up to the modern day, popes
were somewhat salacious or what's that other word? We were salubrious.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Salubrious?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Well, I mean, you know, here's the thing, too. There's
a public facing popeness and then there's the private facing popeness.
I made up the word popeness just now, by the way.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I thought it was good.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I think I'm okay with it. But think about it.
I mean, we know this from all the exposés that
have been going on.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
About the Catholic Church for decades now and beyond, where,
as it turns out, some of these kindly older gentlemen
in their robes and whatnot were actually not so kindly treated.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
At all.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And were doing pretty terrible things behind closed doors when
they thought they could get away with it.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
This is not that necessarily.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
This is a little more just being a little on
the naughty side and perhaps commissioning, as legend would have it.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
There's different versions of the story.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Some pornographic art in a particular space in the Vatican
that is now referred.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
To as the Sala di Constantino.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Well done, Ben. What an authentico accento.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Thank you. Do you remember that earlier conversation? This is
a point you brought up, Noel, that I thought was
very interesting where I can't remember whether this was on
air or whether we were just hanging out after work.
But you said to me, you're like, Ben, you notice
that we're always very careful not to stereotype people or
(06:10):
do unfair caricatures except for Italian people.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And apparently Australians. We got an email where people were like, hey,
I really like the show. But all you ever do
talk about my home country is bad Australian accents and
genitalia references.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I believe little Australia.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
But that's neither here nor there. But, yeah, we do
try our best to be thoughtful and courteous.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So if there is anything that sounds like a stereotypical
or Italian accent or caricature thereof, It is simply our
bad pronunciation.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, and feel free to yell at us. So the
Sala di Constantino is one of the largest rooms in
the Vatican. And at this point in time, it depicts
kind of fresco paintings of the first Roman emperor to
convert to Christianity, Constantine. And it is believed by some,
(07:03):
though I've not found any unequivocal evidence for this, that
those were painted on top of some rather salacious, let's
call it Renaissance pin-up type paintings, right?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Right, yeah. The way this story goes is that once
upon a time, there were a series of very explicit
paintings of lovers, historical figures, throughout history in explicit... explicit
(07:39):
uh romantic positions.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah and i mean more so than just depictions like
they were almost intended to be like a guidebook sort
of like the kama sutra or something like that and
i think there were how many of them were there
been 16 yes there were 16 right 16 for the
16th century that's totally why they did that and um
we'll get to this in a little bit but Raphael
(08:03):
was one of the most well-renowned artists of the time
and adorned many a room in the Vatican with his
incredibly elaborate, what would you call the style of Raphael, Ben?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
He was the, he's considered the architect of the high Renaissance,
full name Raphael Osanzio da Urbino. And he was born
in 1483, passed away at the age of 37 in 1520.
allegedly after a night of wild passion.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Wild passion, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
All signs point to Raphael being a bit of a
horny boy and keeping company with some others of that ilk.
There was sort of a cabal of these sort of
lechy older men that kicked it in this particular palazzo
that belonged to a man who was a patron of
the arts.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
By the name of Agostino Chigi. Uh, Chigi? Is it
like Gili? Chigi. Chigi. I'm going to do a hard G.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I think it was a very smart move to put
both of those pronunciations out there.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Yeah, so yell at me about the wrong one and
praise me for the correct one.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I feel like this is a thing for you.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It is.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
It's going to be okay.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
You think so?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I think it'll be okay.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Dude, the ire of the internet never ceases to terrify me.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Well, it's spelled C-H-I-G-I.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
C-H-I-G-I.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Banker to the Vatican, right?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Banker to the Vatican, like Iron Bank kind of dude, right? Serious,
like power behind the purse to the Vatican, one of
the most powerful institutions in the world. And he would have,
I don't know, I've heard them referred to as wild
garden parties. And he owned a palatial estate by the
Tiber River and had a vast collection of erotic art,
(09:40):
including a particularly lewd statue of Greek god and fellow
horny boy, Pan, or Puck.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Likely anatomically correct, I think, is.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
What we're getting at here. Despite his day job, his
private life was— extraordinarily hedonistic. Yeah. There's a fair way.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
To say this.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
And he and his pals were considered libertarian, but not
the way we think of libertarianism today in terms of,
you know, being pro-weed and anti-government.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
In any sense, right? Yeah. Yeah. This means that they
were in contrast to the official doctrine or public view
of the Catholic Church. They were very, let's say, open, right?
They are at this point. kind of polyamorous. Swingers. Yeah,
(10:30):
they're seeking all this. They're seeking the carnal pleasures. It's
similar to Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion. This is a surprisingly
apt comparison.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
They likely had a grotto in this particular estate as well,
I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And they had a lot of guests amongst the upper
echelons of society at the time. One regular guest was
a writer named Pietro Aretino, and He described the erotic
art in this famous villa by saying, why shouldn't the
eye see what delights it most?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Exactly, because the Vatican was infamous for covering up nude sculptures.
Any kind of depiction of the male nude form or
female nude form, they would require the artist to drape it.
Like I believe Michelangelo's– some of his famous nudes were
required to be added onto with additional material to cover
them up.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Kind of like the Statue of Liberty originally had. Yeah,
or like the fig leaves. Exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Oh, that's right. I totally forgot about that. Or like
the famous fig leaves of Adam and Eve and all
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
But I think that Artino very accurately summed up what
this whole kind of cabal of dudes with their whole
like kind of philosophy of life kind of Fidelio kind
of vibe was all about.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Why shouldn't the eye see what delights it most? Exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
So. In his bedroom, the banker, Chigi, had a fresco
of Alexander the Great in a sexually explicit position with
his wife, Roxanne, and Raphael himself. Like, Raphael is famous
at this time.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Big time.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
He has a team of people working under him, so
it's a big deal that he himself paints some of
the most famous frescoes in the villa. But according to
his biographer... an author named Vasari, Raphael himself couldn't work
properly in this environment because Vasari says the guy had
(12:31):
a sex addiction. So Raphael's lover at the time had
to be given a bedroom in the location. So he
would paint and then go fool around and then go
back and paint, rinse and repeat. And this, according again
to his biographer, is what is what actually this is
the situation that led to his death at the early
(12:53):
age of 37. And he left when he passed away.
He left his his business, his work. to his most
talented assistant, a guy named Giulio Romano or Giulio Romano.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Let's think about him the way we might think of
a modern street artist today, right? A lot of these
folks are known as the, you know, power behind the
throne and like the style guide of like this.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
You know, everything associated with this person's brand.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But everyone from like a shepherd fairy to likely a
Banksy or whatever has like teams of people working with
them to help them recreate their work and like do
it in different locations, especially when it comes to like
reproducible stuff. And so this assistant was kind of his
right-hand man and could literally take the baton and kind
of like keep the business going after his, you know,
(13:40):
what would you call it?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
His master?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
No.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
His boss?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I guess his boss, yeah. His mentor? His mentor. After he,
you know, had a very erotic death.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
A very erotic death. The story of Raphael. Yes. And
so now this guy is the successor here. Romano is
in charge of this team. He has inherited this. One
of the connections he inherits is a printmaker named Marcantonio Ramondi.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I want to backtrack here just slightly. Not backtrack really,
but this is where the story diverges a little bit.
I've seen a couple spots that say, okay, he was
hired to paint that Constantine room, which was considered one
of the Raphael rooms in the Vatican. Because Raphael had
done many of them, but then this room was left
uncompleted when he had passed away. So his assistant was
(14:33):
supposed to go in there and finish it. I've seen that.
And then I know Pope Leo X was going to
make Raphael like an honorary high church official because of
all his work that he had done. It's really funny
considering that he was a known sex addict and kind
of lech. But that didn't come to fruition because he,
of course, passed away. But whoever employed his assistant to
(14:55):
supposedly paint this room. The assistant got irritated at him,
legend says, and he instead decided to paint these 16
erotic scenes on these panels.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
That's one version of the story.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, and there are a couple of different versions. So
before Raphael's death, just to rewind in time a bit,
in 1516, a guy named Cardinal Bibiana commissions Raphael to
decorate His personal bathroom with these nude nymphs bathing while
very anatomically correct satyrs are spying on them. And this
(15:29):
only flies because the cardinal's bathroom is considered a private place, right?
So these various works of art, explicit sexual art, were
never meant to be a matter of public discussion or
even public knowledge, right? It goes– it's the same way
with the erotic frescoes on the walls of the Sala
di Constantino. Whether they were commissioned or drawn out of spite, right,
(15:54):
that's the big divergence on the story. They were either
commissioned on purpose or drawn as kind of a troll.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Well, it is a divergence of the story.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
But then I've also seen a version of the story
where the Vatican doesn't come into it at all. Like
where this guy just drew these himself and then had them–
And then had the printmaker– Had the printmaker disseminate them.
Because that's where we get into more of the idea
of this thing as this collection of nudes as being
the first form of widely circulated pornography.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Right. The 16 postures as they came to be known.
So the printer, Marcantonio Raimondi, engraves and prints– these explicit
illustrations of sex acts drawn by Romano, and he publishes
this in 1524 under the title I, Modi, which translates
(16:46):
as The Positions. And this is not erotica. This is not,
you know, some sort of sensitive exploration of the human
aesthetic visually. This is pornography.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, dude, I'm looking at them right now. They are really.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
They're NSFW.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
They really, really are.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
If you want to get a look at them, If
you're really interested, you can go. There's an article on
dangerousminds.net that has all of them.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Actually, that's not true. We'll get to this.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
They ultimately are lost to time. But the idea of
what they are was recreated because it created like a
whole new genre of stuff, you know, which is like
let's depict sex acts in as frank a way as
humanly possible, often with satyrs and mythical creatures as well.
So you're going to see a lot of that stuff.
So if you want to catch that yourself, it is NSFW,
as Ben said. You can go to dangerousminds.net. And the
(17:32):
headline is An 18th Century Guide to Sex Positions. So
you can just search for that right there.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Great site.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And I'm sure many people have just probably run into
that earlier. Sure.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Why wouldn't you have?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Why would you not? So according, let's go back to
this divergence in the story. According to Lynn Launer, who
is an art historian focusing on the Renaissance in Italy,
in 1523, Giulio began the decoration of the Sala di
Constantino in the Vatican. And the pope at the time,
Clement VII, was tardy in paying the bill.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Hence the beef.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
And hence the beef. And so then he says, all right,
you know what? I'll keep working, but I'm going to
draw these 16 postures.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
That doesn't make sense. That would be a real risk
to do that. Don't you think?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Do you think he felt like totally above the law
that he could like essentially graffiti this guy's walls with
what would be considered filth? You know, because let's not
forget the collected versions of these.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
We're jumping around in time a little bit.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Ultimately end up getting the printer, whose name is escaping
me now, Ben.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Who's the printer?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Raimondi.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Raimondi. Getting him thrown in jail by the pope.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So the idea of maybe some of these nudes existing
behind closed doors, like you said, Ben, in private, maybe
wouldn't have caused the pope to totally go full ham
on it and trying to censor it out. But once
it starts being disseminated, you know, in printed form, it's
like something that has to be.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Squashed, right? Let's talk a little bit about Pope Clement
VII as well. He's a real peach. So he was
pope from 1523 to 1534. He was known for being
a bit of a flip-flopper. He didn't really keep his word.
He would make and break alliances with France, Spain, and
(19:24):
Germany over the course of his papacy. He was inclined
to changing his political views to match those of whomever
was the most powerful and wealthy at the time. And
as a result, his critics said that he was not
to be trusted. So he was the sort of– at
least from what we can tell historically, he was the
(19:46):
sort of person who would attempt to swindle people out
of money. which is where this whole thing begins. If
you trust the historians who say that the postures arrive
out of spite. When the 16 postures are published, as
you said, Raimondi is thrown in jail by Clement VII.
And because the printmaker has some powerful friends, He is
(20:09):
eventually released, but you can't screw the lid back on
Pandora's jar here.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Oh, no. It's out.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Not only did they not screw the lid back on
Pandora's jar, they bespoke the jar even further.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Because remember that guy, Arantino, we talked about, who had
that fantastic quote about give the eyes what they want
or whatever? He really wanted to double down and lean
into that because he composed 16 absolutely filthy, raunchy sonnets
that described– Each of the scenes in poetically graphic detail.
(20:42):
And in an introduction to this book, the new edition,
this is sort of an incantation to the reader.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
An invocation. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Invocation of the muses of raunchiness. Quote, come view this,
you who like to f * * *. Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Without being disturbed in that sweet enterprise. I would have
added a second sweet. I would have been that sweet,
sweet enterprise.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Well, we have the benefit of hindsight in retrospect. Editorialism.
So this is a blockbuster.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Absolute smash. No pun intended.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, yeah. It's strange because Romano, the guy who has
made these images, has already absconded from Rome. He is
a court artist. in Mantua, and Raimondi, you know, before
he was released, he was stuck in prison by himself,
and the church attempted to seize and destroy all copies
(21:42):
of the book. They didn't want that getting out.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
The church is really good at eradicating unflattering literature, aren't.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
They, Ben? Yeah, but in 1527, Imodi was reissued with
those licentious poems we mentioned earlier, and it became a blockbuster.
It was selling out across Europe. And the book had
many names. It was called Imodi, The Posture, The Fashion.
It's also known as Arentino's Postures, The Sixteen Pleasures, or
(22:12):
De Omnibus Veneris Schematibus.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Veneris, huh?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
That's Latin. What does schematibus mean? It must mean some
form of position. In fact, when I Google the word,
the first thing that comes up is Imodi again. So
that obviously just refers to the function and practice of
moving things. The limbs are out in particular arrays, right?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, exactly. So this did more than just make money
and get people thrown in jail, though. It was one
of those rare works of erotica or let's be honest,
pornography that jumped from niche to mainstream. You know what
I mean? It's sort of like in a way it's
similar to Fifty Shades of Grey.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And there's a really great article from Atlas Obscura called
Europe's First Pornographic Blockbuster Was Made in the Vatican that
makes that very connection. Or something like Deep Throat, which
was a pornographic film that became pretty widely disseminated and
almost like tongue-in-cheekedly disseminated. Talked about in, you know, polite
social circles.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Right, right. People would performatively clutch their pearls. Tee hee. Yeah,
and hide their faces.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, so you refer to it as a joke. You
know what I mean? To be a little bit edgy
in conversation. Some people will even argue that William Shakespeare
himself snuck a reference to this book in A Winter's
Tale when he talks about that rare Italian master, Julio Romano.
There was a 16th century Italian phrasebook that was aimed
(23:43):
at English tourists, and it taught them how to ask
in Italian for the works of Arentino at bookstores.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
It's a must, dude.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
But alas, I guess I'm going to say alas. I mean, thankfully,
we have these lovely recreations that you can see on
the Dangerous Minds site. But the book itself, and as
far as I know, the text of the sonnets, are
pretty much were successfully eradicated by the Vatican.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And the original frescoes as well.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
The original frescoes as well.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
If you'd like to believe that they're buried underneath those,
you know, paintings of Constantine, the life of Constantine, you know,
that's possibly one way you could uncover that mystery.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
If you want to go in there and start scraping
away the paint, not recommending that.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Wait, wait, wait. I'll recommend.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Vatican's serious business, dude. They will throw you in some
sort of like dungeon.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Listen to me carefully, grad students, art historians. My spider
sense tells me there might be a grant in here,
maybe even a dissertation.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Surely there's a way you could x-ray them or something
and penetrate. I mean, I'm not sure exactly how technology works, really.
That's not what kind of show this is.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
But it's true that there were illegal or bootleg copies
of iModi or things purporting to be iModi that were
printed for over a century afterwards, well into the 1600s.
There's no way to know how many works were printed.
But because churches and governments cooperated to hunt down and
(25:09):
destroy the copies, at least with as much enthusiasm as
people sought to collect and print them, we don't have
a record of the actual 16 postures that were depicted.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
There's a few.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
There's a few. We don't have all of them.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
A few little scrappies that remain in the collection of
the British Museum.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We do have the sonnets. I found some and off
the air, I sent these to you as well. They're,
you know, you can blame a little bit on the translation,
but they're pretty, they're pretty bawdy.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Let's like Canterbury Tales bawdy or like.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Wow. Wow. Ben. So, okay. So we'll, I'll, I'll read
one and we'll, we'll need to beep this. So Paul,
I'm going to make eye contact with you. Be ready
for this.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
That's some intense eye contact right there.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Eye movement here, yeah. Okay, here we go. Stick your
finger up my a * *, old man. Thrust Kazo
in a little at a time. Lift up my leg.
Maneuver well. Now pound with all inhibitions gone. Oh, I
got bad.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
It's worse.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I believe this is a tastier feast than eating garlic
bread before a fire.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
It goes on.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Okay. Wow. Not what you were expecting? No.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
See, when you start bringing the food metaphors in there,
that's when it really turns me, dude.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And we should talk about this because we talked about this.
We can totally not read any of those ever again.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah. I took one for the team on that one.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Oh, man.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Oh, God.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Oh, my good heavens.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Okay. Sorry.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Speaking of pearl clutching, I'm being, I'm kind of, I'm
kind of a prude. I am very much blushing. Listen though,
we gotta, we gotta get this out of the way.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Uh, before we went on the air, we were deciding
whether or not to look, whether to use the word
pornography or porn. And you, Ben mentioned that you always
felt the word porn was more salacious nowadays. And we
were trying to figure out why that was.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I don't know why. Yeah. It must, it must entirely
be a subjective thing. I guess, um, Pornography at least
sounds a little more academic, I guess. And also there's
something that puts me ill at ease when people describe
non-sexual things as porn, like when people say, oh, food porn.
Or even when, you know, I saw somebody who was,
(27:33):
I met someone's dog. I love dogs. And I was
rubbing this dog's belly and the dog's owner says, oh, yeah,
she's like such a slut for belly rubs. And that
was really gross to me. I'm just scratching the stock.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Well, you know, I mean, people are taking that word back.
But I think that that's a good point. I really
am with you on the food stuff. Like, I don't
think either one of us like it when someone describes
a bite of cake as orgasmic or sumptuous.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
No, it turns me, it turns my, exquisite is fine.
That's not inherently sexual.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I was just feeling the riff. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
No, it's true.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
But I think we've gotten to the bottom of it.
And I think both of us feel the same way.
But I think we used a combination of porn and
pornography in this episode because it was, you know, It
was about all the many shades, 50 shades of Renaissance erotica.
And that's also, I think, why that sonnet really did
it for me, not in a good way. Because once
you started bringing garlic bread into the equation, I'm like,
(28:28):
leave garlic bread out of this, okay?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I'm so pro snack, man. Oh, dude. It's funny because
this is our producer Maya's literal favorite. first day.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
We did warn her.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
We tried to.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
We're not a naughty show.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
We're not. We are nothing if not wholesome in general.
But this is fascinating because I think a lot of
people who enjoy reading about the history of the Catholic Church,
I think a lot of us are familiar with the
scandalous popes of years gone by, but we're maybe not
(29:04):
as aware of the The pornography that the Catholic Church
unwittingly created.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Unleashed on the world.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Unleashed. That's a great word.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
That's it. That's the thing, though, right?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I mean, it's sort of like the idea of, I
don't know, prostitution or sex work being the oldest profession.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
That's sort of a misnomer, probably. But it makes sense
because it's a thing that people. In some form or
fashion need. It's like a gap people need filled. Well,
that's very, very graphic sounding. But in terms of like
there's artists, why wouldn't artists do this? It's sort of
I wonder if they didn't even realize like the idea
that this can be a stand in for actual.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Sex.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Because someone had to invent the idea of pornography.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Right. I think it's parallel thinking. I'm fairly certain. Many
lonely people invented the idea of pornography.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Cave paintings, you think?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
On their own.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Erotic cave paintings?
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Sure. And sculptures, you know, the Venus figures.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
That's right. Color me naive, Ben.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
You know, I've got to admit, I'm usually laser focused
when we're exploring these fascinating stories, Noel. But I still
have this PDF up and it is startling. Yeah. It
is a splash of cold water. It really is. So
you can find this book. You can find translations of
(30:22):
it available on Amazon. Again, categorically, emphatically, not safe for work.
But what a strange book. amazing story. And what a
bizarre effect this had on the world.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
We're okay though, right? We looked at it at work.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
It's sort of our job.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It is. It is literally our job. We had a
reason for it. If it comes at us, we can
say we were doing this for an episode.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yep. At least I was, I don't want to, I mean, I'm, I'm,
I'm along for the ride for you. I'm hanging onto
your coattails.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I'm hanging onto your coattails. Where are we going?
Speaker 3 (30:55):
We are going home or to the bar or something.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
That's right. This concludes today's episode, but not our show.
We do hope you enjoyed this strange journey wherein both
of us did take some off-air breaks laughing a bit
because we're emotionally both probably, what, nine, ten? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Between us. Combined.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Combined. That's a cumulative effect.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Our powers combined, we are a nine-year-old boy.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Great. So... We want to hear your stories, too. What
are some of the weird, scandalous tales of art in
years gone by?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Did you end up with a copy of the Kama
Sutra when you were 14?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
I did. You did?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Sure did.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I saw one, but I never had my own copy.
I had it hidden under my mattress. Is this TMI?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
That's fine. I'm going with it.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
No, that's good. Good for you, man. It feels kind
of academic.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
It's academic, and it's also personally liberating for me.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
There you go, man.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
But thanks for joining us for the show.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Thanks, as always, to our super producer, Paul, Mission Control Deccan, Labouche,
Casey Pegram.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
We'll be back very soon.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
It's true. He's returning. Thanks also to Christopher Haciotis. Thanks
to our research associate, Gabe. Thanks to... Alex Williams, who
composed that nifty little riff you hear at the opening
of every show.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
By the way, we promised to do this on a
previous episode but did not get to it.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Just want to point out that Alex's fantastic new show, Ephemeral,
is live in the feed on any place you get
your podcasts. And the episode he talked with us about
concerning the Collier brothers, we had said on the episode
that it wasn't coming out for another month or so.
He actually switched it up, and it is now out
in the ephemeral feed. So go catch that and get
the whole story of these weird kind of hermity hoarder brothers.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Good save. Good save. Well done and well put, though,
because we did assure him, yeah, we'll do it. We'll
do it in a previous episode. But now we have
finally made good on it. Alex, if you are listening,
every soon-to-be ardent fan of ephemeral, go check it out.
Do not hesitate. So we'll be back very soon with
a new, ridiculous, and hopefully a bit less salacious episode.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
I was into it, man. I was perfectly comfortable. Except
when you said the thing about the old man and
the garlic bread. That really threw me.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
That got to me. Yeah. That's going to stay with me.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
It really is. It's an image. That's for sure.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
You and I have read the full thing. Did you
read the rest of it? No, dude.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I stopped there.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
But if you want to share any of this stuff
with us, Kama Sutra, Any of the poetry, any of
this kind of, you know, whatever your sexual journey has been.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Maybe that's too much. We don't need all that.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
But you can do it either by joining us on
our Facebook group, which is called Ridiculous Historians, where we
have a really cool community of friends, folks that like
the show, that are talking to each other, sharing memes,
discussing the episodes, all of that. All you have to
do is say either me and Ben's name, kind of
genie style, to gain entry.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Or honestly say something that gives either of us a chuckle.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Also true.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
It's a good pun. I'm a sucker for those. You
can also find us on Twitter. You can find us
on Instagram, both as a show and as our real-life personas. Recently,
I went to the Comic Strip Museum in Belgium and
was very surprised by the deeply racist roots of that.
(34:20):
You can see some of those adventures on my Instagram,
where I am at Ben Bolin.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
And I am at HowNowNoelBrown.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
If you don't want to do any of that stuff,
just shoot us an email where we are ridiculous at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Fellow ridiculous historians, you may have heard about the Vatican
from earlier. Turns out they like to ban stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yeah, yeah, they're big fans of prohibition. They're real yuckers
of yums.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yeah, so back in the day, we looked into a
story that seemed very strange. It involves a master engraver
named Marcantonio Ramondi, who... put in some saucy, explicit art
throughout the papal palace.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Boy, did he ever. Particularly raunchy art, in fact. The
church was so scandalized that it had to take action.
Let's find out what they did.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Thank you. Welcome
(01:16):
to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
tuning in. We have a bit of a disclaimer, I think,
or a bit of a thing we must say for
the beginning of this episode.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Ben, is this like a trigger warning or no? Is
that different? Is that the same as a disclaimer?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I guess a trigger warning is a genre of a disclaimer, Noel.
But yeah, either way, it's a thing you have to
say at the top. This episode, we are kind of
a family show, you know, you and I, we're in
And our super producer, Paul Mission Control Deccant. As well
as our super producer, Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Who has returned, as it turns out, from his secret
life as an international criminal?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Spy? What is he exactly again?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I keep getting the stories mixed up.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
He is simply LeBouche.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
He is LeBouche.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So, you know, all of us on the show, including
our producer, Maya Cole. Give it up for her. It's
her first day. Wave to her there. All of us
are generally like PG people, maybe PG-13. This is not
a hard-hitting, mature-themed show.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
You mean on the show?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
On this show.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Well, in our personal lives, we can— Oh, my gosh.
It goes off the rails.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Oh, wow. Very quickly. But today's show, No Fooling— Does
encounter some things that may not be appropriate for all listeners.
So if you're one of the very, very kind teachers,
whoever uses our show for your students.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Surely that's not a thing.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I think a couple times. Yeah. Okay. But if you
are one of those teachers, listen through the entirety of
this episode before playing it for you.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Your students or if you're some kind of prude and
prone to pearl clutching um i would also maybe skip
this one or maybe give it a go and it'll
make you grow up a.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Little bit you'll have you'll have that uh aladdin a
whole new world moment right that's my favorite part of
that movie it is such an amazing movie overall are
you gonna see the live version i.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Gotta say that the physics of it absolute garbage They
would be torn to shreds or they would like suffocate
in the atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
On the carpet. Give me a break.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I always thought the carpet sort of created this field.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
That is some magical thinking, Ben. I like that.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's a story about magic.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That is quality suspension of disbelief, my friend.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Well done.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Speaking of suspension of disbelief.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
That's a weird segue. But today's episode addresses a little
bit of hypocrisy. in the Catholic Church addresses something that
you and I both, I think, found fascinating, but maybe
not entirely surprising.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, possibly a little titillating. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Just a little. A bit of Twitter patient.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Indeed. We should get right to it.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Today's episode is, I don't know, you could kind of,
this is a bit of a misnomer to refer to
it like this, but I still like it. The banned
16th century pornographic sex guide made in, you guessed it,
the Vatican.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
True story. True story, folks. Yes, this is entirely non-fictional.
So nowadays, when people think of the pope, right, the
head of the Catholic Church, we typically are going to
think of maybe someone who's kind of isolated, a kindly
(04:42):
older man in white with a unique set of hats. Mm-hmm.
But in centuries leading up to the modern day, popes
were somewhat salacious or what's that other word? We were salubrious.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Salubrious?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Well, I mean, you know, here's the thing, too. There's
a public facing popeness and then there's the private facing popeness.
I made up the word popeness just now, by the way.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I thought it was good.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I think I'm okay with it. But think about it.
I mean, we know this from all the exposés that
have been going on.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
About the Catholic Church for decades now and beyond, where,
as it turns out, some of these kindly older gentlemen
in their robes and whatnot were actually not so kindly treated.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
At all.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And were doing pretty terrible things behind closed doors when
they thought they could get away with it.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
This is not that necessarily.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
This is a little more just being a little on
the naughty side and perhaps commissioning, as legend would have it.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
There's different versions of the story.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Some pornographic art in a particular space in the Vatican
that is now referred.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
To as the Sala di Constantino.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Well done, Ben. What an authentico accento.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Thank you. Do you remember that earlier conversation? This is
a point you brought up, Noel, that I thought was
very interesting where I can't remember whether this was on
air or whether we were just hanging out after work.
But you said to me, you're like, Ben, you notice
that we're always very careful not to stereotype people or
(06:10):
do unfair caricatures except for Italian people.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And apparently Australians. We got an email where people were like, hey,
I really like the show. But all you ever do
talk about my home country is bad Australian accents and
genitalia references.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I believe little Australia.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
But that's neither here nor there. But, yeah, we do
try our best to be thoughtful and courteous.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So if there is anything that sounds like a stereotypical
or Italian accent or caricature thereof, It is simply our
bad pronunciation.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, and feel free to yell at us. So the
Sala di Constantino is one of the largest rooms in
the Vatican. And at this point in time, it depicts
kind of fresco paintings of the first Roman emperor to
convert to Christianity, Constantine. And it is believed by some,
(07:03):
though I've not found any unequivocal evidence for this, that
those were painted on top of some rather salacious, let's
call it Renaissance pin-up type paintings, right?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Right, yeah. The way this story goes is that once
upon a time, there were a series of very explicit
paintings of lovers, historical figures, throughout history in explicit... explicit
(07:39):
uh romantic positions.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah and i mean more so than just depictions like
they were almost intended to be like a guidebook sort
of like the kama sutra or something like that and
i think there were how many of them were there
been 16 yes there were 16 right 16 for the
16th century that's totally why they did that and um
we'll get to this in a little bit but Raphael
(08:03):
was one of the most well-renowned artists of the time
and adorned many a room in the Vatican with his
incredibly elaborate, what would you call the style of Raphael, Ben?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
He was the, he's considered the architect of the high Renaissance,
full name Raphael Osanzio da Urbino. And he was born
in 1483, passed away at the age of 37 in 1520.
allegedly after a night of wild passion.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Wild passion, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
All signs point to Raphael being a bit of a
horny boy and keeping company with some others of that ilk.
There was sort of a cabal of these sort of
lechy older men that kicked it in this particular palazzo
that belonged to a man who was a patron of
the arts.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
By the name of Agostino Chigi. Uh, Chigi? Is it
like Gili? Chigi. Chigi. I'm going to do a hard G.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I think it was a very smart move to put
both of those pronunciations out there.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Yeah, so yell at me about the wrong one and
praise me for the correct one.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I feel like this is a thing for you.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It is.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
It's going to be okay.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
You think so?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I think it'll be okay.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Dude, the ire of the internet never ceases to terrify me.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Well, it's spelled C-H-I-G-I.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
C-H-I-G-I.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Banker to the Vatican, right?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Banker to the Vatican, like Iron Bank kind of dude, right? Serious,
like power behind the purse to the Vatican, one of
the most powerful institutions in the world. And he would have,
I don't know, I've heard them referred to as wild
garden parties. And he owned a palatial estate by the
Tiber River and had a vast collection of erotic art,
(09:40):
including a particularly lewd statue of Greek god and fellow
horny boy, Pan, or Puck.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Likely anatomically correct, I think, is.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
What we're getting at here. Despite his day job, his
private life was— extraordinarily hedonistic. Yeah. There's a fair way.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
To say this.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
And he and his pals were considered libertarian, but not
the way we think of libertarianism today in terms of,
you know, being pro-weed and anti-government.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
In any sense, right? Yeah. Yeah. This means that they
were in contrast to the official doctrine or public view
of the Catholic Church. They were very, let's say, open, right?
They are at this point. kind of polyamorous. Swingers. Yeah,
(10:30):
they're seeking all this. They're seeking the carnal pleasures. It's
similar to Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion. This is a surprisingly
apt comparison.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
They likely had a grotto in this particular estate as well,
I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And they had a lot of guests amongst the upper
echelons of society at the time. One regular guest was
a writer named Pietro Aretino, and He described the erotic
art in this famous villa by saying, why shouldn't the
eye see what delights it most?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Exactly, because the Vatican was infamous for covering up nude sculptures.
Any kind of depiction of the male nude form or
female nude form, they would require the artist to drape it.
Like I believe Michelangelo's– some of his famous nudes were
required to be added onto with additional material to cover
them up.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Kind of like the Statue of Liberty originally had. Yeah,
or like the fig leaves. Exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Oh, that's right. I totally forgot about that. Or like
the famous fig leaves of Adam and Eve and all
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
But I think that Artino very accurately summed up what
this whole kind of cabal of dudes with their whole
like kind of philosophy of life kind of Fidelio kind
of vibe was all about.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Why shouldn't the eye see what delights it most? Exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
So. In his bedroom, the banker, Chigi, had a fresco
of Alexander the Great in a sexually explicit position with
his wife, Roxanne, and Raphael himself. Like, Raphael is famous
at this time.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Big time.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
He has a team of people working under him, so
it's a big deal that he himself paints some of
the most famous frescoes in the villa. But according to
his biographer... an author named Vasari, Raphael himself couldn't work
properly in this environment because Vasari says the guy had
(12:31):
a sex addiction. So Raphael's lover at the time had
to be given a bedroom in the location. So he
would paint and then go fool around and then go
back and paint, rinse and repeat. And this, according again
to his biographer, is what is what actually this is
the situation that led to his death at the early
(12:53):
age of 37. And he left when he passed away.
He left his his business, his work. to his most
talented assistant, a guy named Giulio Romano or Giulio Romano.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Let's think about him the way we might think of
a modern street artist today, right? A lot of these
folks are known as the, you know, power behind the
throne and like the style guide of like this.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
You know, everything associated with this person's brand.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But everyone from like a shepherd fairy to likely a
Banksy or whatever has like teams of people working with
them to help them recreate their work and like do
it in different locations, especially when it comes to like
reproducible stuff. And so this assistant was kind of his
right-hand man and could literally take the baton and kind
of like keep the business going after his, you know,
(13:40):
what would you call it?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
His master?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
No.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
His boss?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I guess his boss, yeah. His mentor? His mentor. After he,
you know, had a very erotic death.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
A very erotic death. The story of Raphael. Yes. And
so now this guy is the successor here. Romano is
in charge of this team. He has inherited this. One
of the connections he inherits is a printmaker named Marcantonio Ramondi.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I want to backtrack here just slightly. Not backtrack really,
but this is where the story diverges a little bit.
I've seen a couple spots that say, okay, he was
hired to paint that Constantine room, which was considered one
of the Raphael rooms in the Vatican. Because Raphael had
done many of them, but then this room was left
uncompleted when he had passed away. So his assistant was
(14:33):
supposed to go in there and finish it. I've seen that.
And then I know Pope Leo X was going to
make Raphael like an honorary high church official because of
all his work that he had done. It's really funny
considering that he was a known sex addict and kind
of lech. But that didn't come to fruition because he,
of course, passed away. But whoever employed his assistant to
(14:55):
supposedly paint this room. The assistant got irritated at him,
legend says, and he instead decided to paint these 16
erotic scenes on these panels.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
That's one version of the story.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, and there are a couple of different versions. So
before Raphael's death, just to rewind in time a bit,
in 1516, a guy named Cardinal Bibiana commissions Raphael to
decorate His personal bathroom with these nude nymphs bathing while
very anatomically correct satyrs are spying on them. And this
(15:29):
only flies because the cardinal's bathroom is considered a private place, right?
So these various works of art, explicit sexual art, were
never meant to be a matter of public discussion or
even public knowledge, right? It goes– it's the same way
with the erotic frescoes on the walls of the Sala
di Constantino. Whether they were commissioned or drawn out of spite, right,
(15:54):
that's the big divergence on the story. They were either
commissioned on purpose or drawn as kind of a troll.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Well, it is a divergence of the story.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
But then I've also seen a version of the story
where the Vatican doesn't come into it at all. Like
where this guy just drew these himself and then had them–
And then had the printmaker– Had the printmaker disseminate them.
Because that's where we get into more of the idea
of this thing as this collection of nudes as being
the first form of widely circulated pornography.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Right. The 16 postures as they came to be known.
So the printer, Marcantonio Raimondi, engraves and prints– these explicit
illustrations of sex acts drawn by Romano, and he publishes
this in 1524 under the title I, Modi, which translates
(16:46):
as The Positions. And this is not erotica. This is not,
you know, some sort of sensitive exploration of the human
aesthetic visually. This is pornography.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, dude, I'm looking at them right now. They are really.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
They're NSFW.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
They really, really are.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
If you want to get a look at them, If
you're really interested, you can go. There's an article on
dangerousminds.net that has all of them.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Actually, that's not true. We'll get to this.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
They ultimately are lost to time. But the idea of
what they are was recreated because it created like a
whole new genre of stuff, you know, which is like
let's depict sex acts in as frank a way as
humanly possible, often with satyrs and mythical creatures as well.
So you're going to see a lot of that stuff.
So if you want to catch that yourself, it is NSFW,
as Ben said. You can go to dangerousminds.net. And the
(17:32):
headline is An 18th Century Guide to Sex Positions. So
you can just search for that right there.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Great site.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And I'm sure many people have just probably run into
that earlier. Sure.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Why wouldn't you have?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Why would you not? So according, let's go back to
this divergence in the story. According to Lynn Launer, who
is an art historian focusing on the Renaissance in Italy,
in 1523, Giulio began the decoration of the Sala di
Constantino in the Vatican. And the pope at the time,
Clement VII, was tardy in paying the bill.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Hence the beef.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
And hence the beef. And so then he says, all right,
you know what? I'll keep working, but I'm going to
draw these 16 postures.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
That doesn't make sense. That would be a real risk
to do that. Don't you think?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Do you think he felt like totally above the law
that he could like essentially graffiti this guy's walls with
what would be considered filth? You know, because let's not
forget the collected versions of these.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
We're jumping around in time a little bit.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Ultimately end up getting the printer, whose name is escaping
me now, Ben.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Who's the printer?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Raimondi.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Raimondi. Getting him thrown in jail by the pope.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So the idea of maybe some of these nudes existing
behind closed doors, like you said, Ben, in private, maybe
wouldn't have caused the pope to totally go full ham
on it and trying to censor it out. But once
it starts being disseminated, you know, in printed form, it's
like something that has to be.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Squashed, right? Let's talk a little bit about Pope Clement
VII as well. He's a real peach. So he was
pope from 1523 to 1534. He was known for being
a bit of a flip-flopper. He didn't really keep his word.
He would make and break alliances with France, Spain, and
(19:24):
Germany over the course of his papacy. He was inclined
to changing his political views to match those of whomever
was the most powerful and wealthy at the time. And
as a result, his critics said that he was not
to be trusted. So he was the sort of– at
least from what we can tell historically, he was the
(19:46):
sort of person who would attempt to swindle people out
of money. which is where this whole thing begins. If
you trust the historians who say that the postures arrive
out of spite. When the 16 postures are published, as
you said, Raimondi is thrown in jail by Clement VII.
And because the printmaker has some powerful friends, He is
(20:09):
eventually released, but you can't screw the lid back on
Pandora's jar here.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Oh, no. It's out.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Not only did they not screw the lid back on
Pandora's jar, they bespoke the jar even further.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Because remember that guy, Arantino, we talked about, who had
that fantastic quote about give the eyes what they want
or whatever? He really wanted to double down and lean
into that because he composed 16 absolutely filthy, raunchy sonnets
that described– Each of the scenes in poetically graphic detail.
(20:42):
And in an introduction to this book, the new edition,
this is sort of an incantation to the reader.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
An invocation. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Invocation of the muses of raunchiness. Quote, come view this,
you who like to f * * *. Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Without being disturbed in that sweet enterprise. I would have
added a second sweet. I would have been that sweet,
sweet enterprise.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Well, we have the benefit of hindsight in retrospect. Editorialism.
So this is a blockbuster.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Absolute smash. No pun intended.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, yeah. It's strange because Romano, the guy who has
made these images, has already absconded from Rome. He is
a court artist. in Mantua, and Raimondi, you know, before
he was released, he was stuck in prison by himself,
and the church attempted to seize and destroy all copies
(21:42):
of the book. They didn't want that getting out.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
The church is really good at eradicating unflattering literature, aren't.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
They, Ben? Yeah, but in 1527, Imodi was reissued with
those licentious poems we mentioned earlier, and it became a blockbuster.
It was selling out across Europe. And the book had
many names. It was called Imodi, The Posture, The Fashion.
It's also known as Arentino's Postures, The Sixteen Pleasures, or
(22:12):
De Omnibus Veneris Schematibus.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Veneris, huh?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
That's Latin. What does schematibus mean? It must mean some
form of position. In fact, when I Google the word,
the first thing that comes up is Imodi again. So
that obviously just refers to the function and practice of
moving things. The limbs are out in particular arrays, right?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, exactly. So this did more than just make money
and get people thrown in jail, though. It was one
of those rare works of erotica or let's be honest,
pornography that jumped from niche to mainstream. You know what
I mean? It's sort of like in a way it's
similar to Fifty Shades of Grey.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And there's a really great article from Atlas Obscura called
Europe's First Pornographic Blockbuster Was Made in the Vatican that
makes that very connection. Or something like Deep Throat, which
was a pornographic film that became pretty widely disseminated and
almost like tongue-in-cheekedly disseminated. Talked about in, you know, polite
social circles.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Right, right. People would performatively clutch their pearls. Tee hee. Yeah,
and hide their faces.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, so you refer to it as a joke. You
know what I mean? To be a little bit edgy
in conversation. Some people will even argue that William Shakespeare
himself snuck a reference to this book in A Winter's
Tale when he talks about that rare Italian master, Julio Romano.
There was a 16th century Italian phrasebook that was aimed
(23:43):
at English tourists, and it taught them how to ask
in Italian for the works of Arentino at bookstores.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
It's a must, dude.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
But alas, I guess I'm going to say alas. I mean, thankfully,
we have these lovely recreations that you can see on
the Dangerous Minds site. But the book itself, and as
far as I know, the text of the sonnets, are
pretty much were successfully eradicated by the Vatican.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And the original frescoes as well.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
The original frescoes as well.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
If you'd like to believe that they're buried underneath those,
you know, paintings of Constantine, the life of Constantine, you know,
that's possibly one way you could uncover that mystery.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
If you want to go in there and start scraping
away the paint, not recommending that.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Wait, wait, wait. I'll recommend.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Vatican's serious business, dude. They will throw you in some
sort of like dungeon.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Listen to me carefully, grad students, art historians. My spider
sense tells me there might be a grant in here,
maybe even a dissertation.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Surely there's a way you could x-ray them or something
and penetrate. I mean, I'm not sure exactly how technology works, really.
That's not what kind of show this is.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
But it's true that there were illegal or bootleg copies
of iModi or things purporting to be iModi that were
printed for over a century afterwards, well into the 1600s.
There's no way to know how many works were printed.
But because churches and governments cooperated to hunt down and
(25:09):
destroy the copies, at least with as much enthusiasm as
people sought to collect and print them, we don't have
a record of the actual 16 postures that were depicted.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
There's a few.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
There's a few. We don't have all of them.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
A few little scrappies that remain in the collection of
the British Museum.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We do have the sonnets. I found some and off
the air, I sent these to you as well. They're,
you know, you can blame a little bit on the translation,
but they're pretty, they're pretty bawdy.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Let's like Canterbury Tales bawdy or like.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Wow. Wow. Ben. So, okay. So we'll, I'll, I'll read
one and we'll, we'll need to beep this. So Paul,
I'm going to make eye contact with you. Be ready
for this.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
That's some intense eye contact right there.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Eye movement here, yeah. Okay, here we go. Stick your
finger up my a * *, old man. Thrust Kazo
in a little at a time. Lift up my leg.
Maneuver well. Now pound with all inhibitions gone. Oh, I
got bad.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
It's worse.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I believe this is a tastier feast than eating garlic
bread before a fire.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
It goes on.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Okay. Wow. Not what you were expecting? No.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
See, when you start bringing the food metaphors in there,
that's when it really turns me, dude.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And we should talk about this because we talked about this.
We can totally not read any of those ever again.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah. I took one for the team on that one.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Oh, man.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Oh, God.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Oh, my good heavens.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Okay. Sorry.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Speaking of pearl clutching, I'm being, I'm kind of, I'm
kind of a prude. I am very much blushing. Listen though,
we gotta, we gotta get this out of the way.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Uh, before we went on the air, we were deciding
whether or not to look, whether to use the word
pornography or porn. And you, Ben mentioned that you always
felt the word porn was more salacious nowadays. And we
were trying to figure out why that was.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I don't know why. Yeah. It must, it must entirely
be a subjective thing. I guess, um, Pornography at least
sounds a little more academic, I guess. And also there's
something that puts me ill at ease when people describe
non-sexual things as porn, like when people say, oh, food porn.
Or even when, you know, I saw somebody who was,
(27:33):
I met someone's dog. I love dogs. And I was
rubbing this dog's belly and the dog's owner says, oh, yeah,
she's like such a slut for belly rubs. And that
was really gross to me. I'm just scratching the stock.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Well, you know, I mean, people are taking that word back.
But I think that that's a good point. I really
am with you on the food stuff. Like, I don't
think either one of us like it when someone describes
a bite of cake as orgasmic or sumptuous.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
No, it turns me, it turns my, exquisite is fine.
That's not inherently sexual.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I was just feeling the riff. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
No, it's true.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
But I think we've gotten to the bottom of it.
And I think both of us feel the same way.
But I think we used a combination of porn and
pornography in this episode because it was, you know, It
was about all the many shades, 50 shades of Renaissance erotica.
And that's also, I think, why that sonnet really did
it for me, not in a good way. Because once
you started bringing garlic bread into the equation, I'm like,
(28:28):
leave garlic bread out of this, okay?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I'm so pro snack, man. Oh, dude. It's funny because
this is our producer Maya's literal favorite. first day.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
We did warn her.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
We tried to.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
We're not a naughty show.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
We're not. We are nothing if not wholesome in general.
But this is fascinating because I think a lot of
people who enjoy reading about the history of the Catholic Church,
I think a lot of us are familiar with the
scandalous popes of years gone by, but we're maybe not
(29:04):
as aware of the The pornography that the Catholic Church
unwittingly created.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Unleashed on the world.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Unleashed. That's a great word.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
That's it. That's the thing, though, right?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I mean, it's sort of like the idea of, I
don't know, prostitution or sex work being the oldest profession.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
That's sort of a misnomer, probably. But it makes sense
because it's a thing that people. In some form or
fashion need. It's like a gap people need filled. Well,
that's very, very graphic sounding. But in terms of like
there's artists, why wouldn't artists do this? It's sort of
I wonder if they didn't even realize like the idea
that this can be a stand in for actual.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Sex.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Because someone had to invent the idea of pornography.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Right. I think it's parallel thinking. I'm fairly certain. Many
lonely people invented the idea of pornography.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Cave paintings, you think?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
On their own.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Erotic cave paintings?
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Sure. And sculptures, you know, the Venus figures.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
That's right. Color me naive, Ben.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
You know, I've got to admit, I'm usually laser focused
when we're exploring these fascinating stories, Noel. But I still
have this PDF up and it is startling. Yeah. It
is a splash of cold water. It really is. So
you can find this book. You can find translations of
(30:22):
it available on Amazon. Again, categorically, emphatically, not safe for work.
But what a strange book. amazing story. And what a
bizarre effect this had on the world.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
We're okay though, right? We looked at it at work.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
It's sort of our job.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It is. It is literally our job. We had a
reason for it. If it comes at us, we can
say we were doing this for an episode.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yep. At least I was, I don't want to, I mean, I'm, I'm,
I'm along for the ride for you. I'm hanging onto
your coattails.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I'm hanging onto your coattails. Where are we going?
Speaker 3 (30:55):
We are going home or to the bar or something.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
That's right. This concludes today's episode, but not our show.
We do hope you enjoyed this strange journey wherein both
of us did take some off-air breaks laughing a bit
because we're emotionally both probably, what, nine, ten? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Between us. Combined.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Combined. That's a cumulative effect.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Our powers combined, we are a nine-year-old boy.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Great. So... We want to hear your stories, too. What
are some of the weird, scandalous tales of art in
years gone by?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Did you end up with a copy of the Kama
Sutra when you were 14?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
I did. You did?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Sure did.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I saw one, but I never had my own copy.
I had it hidden under my mattress. Is this TMI?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
That's fine. I'm going with it.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
No, that's good. Good for you, man. It feels kind
of academic.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
It's academic, and it's also personally liberating for me.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
There you go, man.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
But thanks for joining us for the show.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Thanks, as always, to our super producer, Paul, Mission Control Deccan, Labouche,
Casey Pegram.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
We'll be back very soon.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
It's true. He's returning. Thanks also to Christopher Haciotis. Thanks
to our research associate, Gabe. Thanks to... Alex Williams, who
composed that nifty little riff you hear at the opening
of every show.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
By the way, we promised to do this on a
previous episode but did not get to it.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Just want to point out that Alex's fantastic new show, Ephemeral,
is live in the feed on any place you get
your podcasts. And the episode he talked with us about
concerning the Collier brothers, we had said on the episode
that it wasn't coming out for another month or so.
He actually switched it up, and it is now out
in the ephemeral feed. So go catch that and get
the whole story of these weird kind of hermity hoarder brothers.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Good save. Good save. Well done and well put, though,
because we did assure him, yeah, we'll do it. We'll
do it in a previous episode. But now we have
finally made good on it. Alex, if you are listening,
every soon-to-be ardent fan of ephemeral, go check it out.
Do not hesitate. So we'll be back very soon with
a new, ridiculous, and hopefully a bit less salacious episode.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
I was into it, man. I was perfectly comfortable. Except
when you said the thing about the old man and
the garlic bread. That really threw me.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
That got to me. Yeah. That's going to stay with me.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
It really is. It's an image. That's for sure.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
You and I have read the full thing. Did you
read the rest of it? No, dude.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I stopped there.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
But if you want to share any of this stuff
with us, Kama Sutra, Any of the poetry, any of
this kind of, you know, whatever your sexual journey has been.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Maybe that's too much. We don't need all that.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
But you can do it either by joining us on
our Facebook group, which is called Ridiculous Historians, where we
have a really cool community of friends, folks that like
the show, that are talking to each other, sharing memes,
discussing the episodes, all of that. All you have to
do is say either me and Ben's name, kind of
genie style, to gain entry.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Or honestly say something that gives either of us a chuckle.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Also true.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
It's a good pun. I'm a sucker for those. You
can also find us on Twitter. You can find us
on Instagram, both as a show and as our real-life personas. Recently,
I went to the Comic Strip Museum in Belgium and
was very surprised by the deeply racist roots of that.
(34:20):
You can see some of those adventures on my Instagram,
where I am at Ben Bolin.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
And I am at HowNowNoelBrown.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
If you don't want to do any of that stuff,
just shoot us an email where we are ridiculous at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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