ANTHOLOGY PART II  
                     
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   THE TRADITION OF "ACCURSED BOOKS"  
  AND THE PRODUCTION OF THEIR IMAGES  
(INCLUDING THE STORY OF THE MOST FAMOUS 
      FORGERY OF THE RENAISSANCE)  
                "MODI"  
                     
                PART I  
                     
  In the mid-16th Century three famous 
         artists, a painter, an 
  engraver and a poet - Giulio Romano, 
     Marcantonio and Pietro Aretino 
- drew, engraved and annotated in verse 
      sixteen "lascivious images" 
   which today would surely be deemed 
    "pornographic". Their respective 
efforts went into making the book which 
       down through the centuries 
has remained the most important work in 
       the history of erotica. It 
   is called "I Modi" ("The Modes") a 
     blatant reference to the ways 
            of love-making.  
                     
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 The book, as we have described in the 
       Anthology of the Part I of 
this CD, was published in 1525 and meet 
           with great success 
throughout Europe (it represents one of 
       the first "best-sellers in 
 the history of publishing). I MODI was 
          the object of Church 
persecution from the very outset. Every 
          existing copy of its 
original edition was destroyed, except, 
        of course, those in the 
          Vatican Libraries.  
                     
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 Scholars of history and collectors of 
     its precious materials named 
 this masterpiece of drawing, engraving 
              and poetry,  
   The Renaissance Liber Maledictus. 
                     
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 As is always the case with attempts at 
      censure, the persecution of 
 the Liber Maledictus had, in the end, 
        the completely opposite 
 effect. Not only did it not succeed in 
       canceling I Modi from the 
   minds and markets of its European 
    readership, it actually promoted 
 the underground "bootlegging" of both 
       texts and images, together 
             and separately. 
                     
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In the Part I anthologies we reproduced 
      the images and texts of the 
 most famous of these "bootleg" copies. 
        It is referred to as "La 
  Veneziana", after the lagoon city in 
      which it was produced by an 
anonymous printer three years after the 
         original Modi had been 
              published.