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Lorenzo Venier
1510–1550
A sharp, scandalous voice from Renaissance Venice, this 16th-century writer is remembered for satirical verse tied to the city’s world of courtesans and literary feuds. His surviving work is small, but it made enough noise to be linked with Pietro Aretino’s circle and reputation.
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About the author
Lorenzo Venier was a Venetian writer and poet from a patrician family, born in 1510. Sources connect him with the lively literary world of Renaissance Venice and describe him as the brother of Domenico Venier, another well-known man of letters.
He is best known for a small body of provocative writing, especially La Zaffetta and La puttana errante, works centered on famous courtesans of the time. Reference sources describe his poems and prose as scurrilous or obscene, but also vivid enough in style that one of his texts was at one point attributed to Pietro Aretino.
Some sources disagree on his death year, giving either 1550 or 1556. What seems clear is that his name survives less for a large bibliography than for the bold, satirical energy of the works attached to him and for his place inside the sharp-edged literary culture of 16th-century Venice.