Ferrarino Trogni da Ferrara
Encyclopedia
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
of Ferrara
Ferrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. He was a composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, anthologist, and possibly autobiographer. He was one of the last active troubadours in Italy.
Florilegium
Ferrarino is best known as the compiler of a florilegiumFlorilegium
In medieval Latin a florilegium was a compilation of excerpts from other writings. The word is formed the Latin flos and legere : literally a gathering of flowers, or collection of fine extracts from the body of a larger work. It was adapted from the Greek anthologia "anthology", with the same...
of Occitan lyric poetry
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
appended to the end of manuscript D, an Italian chansonnier
Chansonnier
A chansonnier is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings of songs, hence literally "song-books," although some manuscripts are so called even though they preserve the text but not the music A chansonnier is a manuscript or...
of 1254. He was also a poet himself. His vida
Vida (Occitan literary form)
Vida is the usual term for a brief prose biography, written in Old Occitan, of a troubadour or trobairitz.The word vida means "life" in Occitan languages. In the chansonniers, the manuscript collections of medieval troubadour poetry, the works of a particular author are often accompanied by a...
was placed atop his florilegium. Both were written in Italy. From this biography we know that he composed no more than two cansos
Canso (song)
The canso is a song style used by the troubadours. It consists of three parts. The first stanza is the exordium, where the composer explains his purpose. The main body of the song occurs in the following stanzas, and usually draw out a variety of relationships with the exordium. The canso can end...
and one retroensa (or retroncha), yet he was also a composer of sirventes
Sirventes
The sirventes or serventes is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry used by the troubadours. In early Catalan it became a sirventesch and was imported into that language in the fourteenth century, where it developed into a unique didactic/moralistic type...
and couplet
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
s, but what this contradiction in the vida means is probably that he compiled the best sirventes and extracted couplets from them.
Of Ferrarino's work we only possess one cobla
Cobla (Occitan literary term)
A cobla is a stanza in Occitan lyric poetry, the art form of the troubadours. Though not usually standalone work in itself, in many instances a cobla or two is all that survives of what was once a complete poem. Each cobla of a song was usually played to the same melody, but a few songs were...
of a tenso
Tenso
A tenso is a style of Occitan song favoured by the troubadours. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position on a topic relating to love or ethics. Closely related genres include the partimen and the cobla exchange...
composed in Italy with Raimon Guillem. It was added to the florilegium, so Ferrarino's vida relates, only later by the book's owner, who wished his anthologist to be remembered. From the little of his work which survives, however, it can be gleaned that Ferrarino was an able lyricist in the academic Occitan he had acquired, and his original structures merit his works' inclusion in the corpus of trobar clus
Trobar clus
Trobar clus , or closed form, was a complex and obscure style of poetry used by troubadours for their more discerning audiences, and it was only truly appreciated by an elite few. It was developed extensively by Marcabru, but by 1200 its inaccessibility led to its disappearance...
. In his lost works, however, he may have abandoned this defining characteristic (clus), so unusual of the Italian troubadours.
From his choice of excerpts for his florilegium can be derived another characteristic of Ferrarino the poet: a preference for moralising and didactic works. If he was, as his vida indicates, already old when he sojourned at the Da Camino
Da Camino
The da Camino were an Italian noble family whose fame is connected to the medieval history of the March of Treviso, a city of which they were lords for a while.-History:...
court in Treviso
Treviso
Treviso is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,854 inhabitants : some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls or in the historical and monumental center, some 80,000 live in the urban center proper, while the city...
, it may be that he composed his short anthology for Gherardo III da Camino
Gherardo III da Camino
Gherardo III da Camino was an Italian feudal lord and military leader. He is generally considered the most outstanding member in the da Camino family.-Biography:...
(Giraldo or Girardo), in order to instruct his three children: the celebrated Gaia of Dante Alighieri's
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
Divina Commedia, Rizzardo, and Guecellone. That there were didactic Occitan poets in Italy is known: Uc Faidit composed his Donat there and Terramagnino da Pisa
Terramagnino da Pisa
Terramagnino da Pisa was a Pisan author in Italian and Occitan of the second half of the 13th century. In Italian he wrote lyric poetry and in Occitan he penned the famous Doctrina de cort, basically a condensed form of the Razos de trobar of Raimon Vidal...
his Doctrina. On the other hand, Ferrarino's florilegium may have been written without a specific purpose or with a general purpose in mind. Or it may have been intended for a private student, one Tuisio or Tuixio, later a master (fl.
Floruit
Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...
1302). Some of these works may be "Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
" masked in Provençal
Franco-Provençal language
Franco-Provençal , Arpitan, or Romand is a Romance language with several distinct dialects that form a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue d'Oïl and Langue d'Oc. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G.I...
orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
in order to teach the latter to a young pupil. Ferrarino, who is called doctor proençalium and said by his biographer to sab molt be letras (know many good letters), could have been a teacher of Occitan and Latin (letras means "Latin").
Identification
A certain "Ferrarino, maestro di grammatica", of the Trogni family of Ferrara, mentioned in 1330, has been identified with the troubadour. This lengthens the poet's life considerably, but there is a reference in a juramentum fidelitatis praestitum anno 1310 a populo ferrariense Clementi pp. V (an oath of fealty of the people of Ferrara to Pope Clement VPope Clement V
Pope Clement V, born Raymond Bertrand de Got was Pope from 1305 to his death...
in 1310) to a Magister Ferrarinus doctor grammatice ("Master Ferrarino, doctor of grammar") and Guicardus (or Guiçardus) filius dicti magistri Ferrarini ("Guizzardo, son of the aforementioned master Ferrarino"). It is generally accepted that this is the same Maistre Ferari de Feirara of the florilegium and this pushes his dates back at least to 1310, making the 1330 reference probable. The father and son who took the oath to the pope were said to be contrata sexti Sancti Romani: proprietors of a sixth of San Romano.
Ferrarino is probably also the Ferrarino dei Trogni, son of Bartolomeo, found in Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
in 1317, 1325, and 1330. This Ferrarino had a son, Guizzardo, who appears in an Este
Este
The House of Este is a European princely dynasty. It is split into two branches; the elder is known as the House of Welf-Este or House of Welf historically rendered in English, Guelf or Guelph...
document of 1313: Ego Guiçardus filius magistri Ferarini de Trongnis de Ferraria doctoris gramatice sacri palatij notarius ("I, Guizzardo, son of the master Ferari de Trogni de Ferraria, doctor of grammar and notary of the sacred palace [i.e. Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
]"). Thus, the troubadour was Ferrarino Trogni da Ferrara and he lived in Padua as late as 1330. This thus forms an important date in Italian Occitan literature, being one of the last datable events concerning a troubadour.
Vida
In his vida is written qan ven ch'el fo veil … anava a Trevis a meser Guiraut da Chamin et a sos filz ("when he became old, he did not travel much except to go to Treviso to [see] Milord Giraut de Chamin and his sons"). If thus Ferrarino was old when he came to the Trevisan court, an even that must have occurred before Gherardo's death on 26 March 1307, he must have been very old (probably over eighty) at the time of his death in 1330 or later. Of his last years we know nothing and he was probably living when his biography was composed. He may have even narrated it himself.The vida is highly laudatory of Ferrarino's contributions to Occitan poetry. "[H]e understood better how to invent (trobaire) poems in Provençal [i.e. Occitan] than any other man who was ever in Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
," or so his biographer says. He was also reputed for his understanding of the language, for his writing (probably including penmanship), and for his composition of "good and beautiful books". He partook of court culture
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
at the Este court in Ferrara, his hometown, for many years, there becoming something of a champion
Champion
A champion is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition.There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, and even further divisions at one or more of these levels, as in soccer. Their champions...
to whom any other aspiring troubadours would consult him for literary/linguistic advice, calling him their "master".
The vida also contains the expected reference to a love interest. Ferrarino was said in his youth to have loved a lady Turcla, obviously of the house of Turchi (or Turcli). He performed many good deeds for her. In his later life he moved from the Este court to the Caminesi at Treviso, where he was accepted on account of the friendship between the two families.