Cecco Angiolieri - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Biography

Cecco Angiolieri was born in Siena

Siena

Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...

in 1260, son of Angioliero, who was himself the son of Angioliero Solafìca who was for several years a banker to Pope Gregory IX

Pope Gregory IX

Pope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.The successor of Pope Honorius III , he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his uncle Pope Innocent III , and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.-Early life:Ugolino was...

; his mother was Lisa de' Salimbeni, from a powerful Senese family.

In 1281 he was with the Guelphs of Siena

Siena

who were besieging their Ghibelline fellow citizens in the Torri di Maremma, near Roccastrada

Roccastrada

Roccastrada is a comune in the Province of Grosseto in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 90 km south of Florence and about 25 km north of Grosseto, between the Maremma plain and the Colline Metallifere.-External links:*...

, Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, and he was fined many times for deserting the battlefield without permission. He was fined again on July 11, 1282, for violating the curfew of Siena

Siena

, signalled by the third ringing of the commune

Medieval commune

Medieval communes in the European Middle Ages had sworn allegiances of mutual defense among the citizens of a town or city. They took many forms, and varied widely in organization and makeup. Communes are first recorded in the late 11th and early 12th centuries, thereafter becoming a widespread...

bells. Cecco was fined again in 1291 under similar circumstances.

He fought with the Florentines against Arezzo

Arezzo

Arezzo is a city and comune in Central Italy, capital of the province of the same name, located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 km southeast of Florence, at an elevation of 296 m above sea level. In 2011 the population was about 100,000....

in 1288 and it is possible that this was where he met Dante

DANTE

Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...

. His Sonnet 100, dated between 1289 and 1294 seems to confirm that the two knew each other, since Cecco refers to a person (a mariscalco) whom they both knew personally ("Lassar vo' lo trovare di Becchina, / Dante Alighieri, e dir del 'mariscalco'"). Around 1296 he left Siena

Siena

to go into exile for political reasons. We can deduce from Sonnet 102 (from 1302-1303), addressed to Dante who was already in Verona, that during this period, Cecco was in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

("s'eo fatto romano, e tu lombardo"). We do not know whether his exile from Siena

Siena

from 1296 to 1303 was interrupted. The sonnet also shows a definitive break between Cecco and Dante

DANTE

("Dante Alighier, i' t'averò a stancare / ch'eo so lo pungiglion, e tu se' 'l bue" - "Dante boy, I'll simply wear you out: / since I'm the cattle-prod that drives your ox." ). Unfortunately most of the poetic material relating to Dante has been lost: their poetic dispute, as well as their possible earlier relationship which then deteriorated.

In 1302 Cecco had to sell off his vineyard to one Neri Perini del Popolo di Sant'Andrea for seven-hundred lire, and this is the last information that is available from Angiolieri's lifetime.

From a later document (February 25, 1313) we know that five of his children (Meo, Deo, Angioliero, Arbolina and Sinione- another daughter, Tessa, had already left the household) renounced their inheritance because the estate was too far in debt. It is therefore possible to assume that Cecco Angiolieri died in Siena around 1310, perhaps between 1312 and the beginning of 1313.

Works

There are about 110 sonnets attributed to Angiolieri (including some twenty of dubious provenance), which pick up the goliardic tradition and the tradition of poesia giocosa, and which, using colorful and realistic expressions, were impudent and light-heartedly blasphemous. One of Cecco's more well-known poems is the sonnet S'ì fosse foco, arderei 'l mondo (If I were fire, I would burn the earth), which expresses his misanthropy as well as his passion for living.

Criticism

The most recent criticism holds that it is not correct to search for autobiographical references in his compositions, given the strangely literary character of his poems. Even in those poems which seem most personal we find a taste for parody and caricature, and stylistic exaggeration, in which emotions and passions are the pretext for linguistic games. In these extreme expressions there is an enjoyment of impressing the reader, and the rejection of the ideals of courtly life and of the dolce stil novo

Dolce Stil Novo

Dolce Stil Novo , or stilnovismo, is the name given to the most important literary movement of 13th century in Italy. Influenced by both Sicilian and Tuscan poetry, its main theme is Love . Gentilezza and Amore are indeed topoi in the major works of the period...

. We are faced with a refined man of letters who knows well how to calculate his effects.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.