The Father of Literary Erotica Aptly Died Laughing at a Dirty Joke
Pietro Aretino’s exile morphed into a life on the run for a while, when a bishop who had been victimized by the scurrilous writer’s vicious pen hired assassins to take out the satirist. So Aretino hit the road and wandered northern Italy. He served various aristocrats and distinguished himself with his wit and audacity. While at it, he also made ends meet every now and then via blackmail. He eventually ended up in Venice and hit it off with the locals. He led a grand and dissolute life amidst the Ventians for the rest of his days.
It finally came to an end at a party on October 21st, 1556 when his sister told a particularly risque joke. Aretino laughed so hard that he fell over backwards from his chair, hit his head on something, and passed then and there. Another version has it that he was done in when he fell into a fit of apoplectic laughter after he heard the joke. Yet another variant has it that his death was caused by suffocation from too much laughter. Whichever version it was, all accounts agree that it was laughter at a dirty joke that ended him.
