Italy: Notable Writers (and their Works)

Organized chronologically by death date / date of publication of work

Laudi (All Facts)

• Italian for “praises to God,” it became a common form of religious song in Italy during the period following the death of St. Francis of Assisi

1260 - 1300 - Guido Cavalcanti (All Facts)

• Italian Poet

• He wrote in Tuscan

• His themes of spiritual love were given expression by his friend and student, Dante Alighieri

1230 - 1306 - Jacopone da Todi (All Facts)

• Italian Franciscan Poet and Friar from Umbria

• He wrote several “Laudi” (songs in praise of the Lord) in the local vernacular, considered the greatest poet of that style

  • Written in an Umbrian dialect, his ardent mystical “Laudi” counterposed a love of God with a harsh awareness of the secular world

• He was an early pioneer in Italian theatre, being one of the earliest scholars who dramatized the Gospels

1265 - 1321 - Dante Alighieri (All Facts)

• Italian Writer and Poet from Florence

• He established the Italian language as spoken in Italy as a vehicle for exquisite poetry

• His was likely the most illustrious name of all of Florence’s citizens during his time

• He died peacefully in the twentieth year of his exile from his native Florence

1294 - Dante Alighieri: New Life / Vita Nuova (All Facts)

• Collection of poems by the namesake author to his beloved Beatrice that he published when he was 30 years old, after the death of his beloved Beatrice in her mid-20s

• The namesake author tells us that he first set eyes on her when he was none years old and nursed a pure passion for her ever afterwards, although both underwent arranged marriages to others

1321 - Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author describe his journey through “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso,” in which he provides insight on medieval views and religious beliefs

  • Work which essentially made Tuscan Italy’s literary medium

• Work in which the namesake author voyages in the space of a week in 1300 through all the circles of Hell, or “Inferno,” meeting its famous inmates

• Having passed through Purgatory, the namesake author met the shade of Beatrice, his real-life lover, whom he promised to say of her “What never yet was said of any woman”

• Work in which the namesake author conducts the reader through the nine heavens to a vision of the river of light

1275 - 1342 - Marsilius of Padua (All Facts)

• Italian Writer and Scholar from Padua

1324 - Marsilius of Padua: The Defender of Peace / Defensor Pacis (All Facts)

• Treatise espousing the supremacy of lay power over the Church

• Claimed that all power derives from the people, from the ruler is a delegate

• Considered by some to be the most revolutionary political treatise written in the later Middle Ages

1304 - 1374 - Francesco Petrarch (All Facts)

• Italian Renaissance Poet, Scholar (of the Classics), and Humanist from Florence

• His humanistic outlook, spurred by his admiration of Greek and Roman ideals, influenced other writers of the time

• He was born in Arezzo

• He was the son of a lawyer from Florence

• He passed his early life at the papal court at Avignon in France as a churchman living on benefices from rich patrons

  • It was at Avignon that he saw Laura, the wife of Hugo de Sade, and conceived a passion for her which he celebrated in his poetry

• He corresponded with his friend Giovanni Bocaccio

• His fame was such that he was an honored guest at the courts of Europe where his hobby was to search libraries for forgotten Latin manuscripts

  • For example, in Verona, he discovered Cicero’s letters; or in Liege, where he discovered some of Cicero’s orations

• He was crowned poet laureate on the Capitoline Hill in Rome on Easter, the first modern poet to be given that honor by the Roman Senate

• He died in Arqua near Padua

1304 - 1374 - Francesco Petrarch: Il Canzioniere (All Facts)

• Collection of poems, madrigals, and sonnets which became famous for detailing the conceived passion the namesake author had for Laura, the wife of Hugo de Sade of France

  • Provided passionate form to Italian love poetry, of the aforementioned unrequited love

• Like his contemporary Dante Alighieri’s love for Beatrice, the namesake’s love for Laura remained pure and distant

  • She became the mother of 11 children and died in the Black Death Death

1304 - 1374 - Francesco Petrarch: Africa (All Facts)

• Latin Epic Poem in honor of Scipio Africanus

1304 - 1374 - Francesco Petrarch: On Illustrious Men / De Viris Illustribus (All Facts)

• Collection of prose biographies of famous Romans, an Italian Renaissance equivalent to the Roman Writer Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives”

1304 - 1374 - Francesco Petrarch: On the Solitary Life (All Facts)

• Treatise about the namesake subject

1313 - 1375 - Giovanni Bocaccio (All Facts)

• Italian Renaissance Writer, Poet, and Humanist from Tuscany

• He developed the Italian novella through his most famous work

• His father worked for the Bardi bankers

• Despite hopes that he might join either the church or the business world, he preferred and pursued writing

• He spent many years in Naples, where he moved in court society and launched his literary career

• He died at Certaldo

1353 - Giovanni Bocaccio: The Decameron (All Facts)

• Book which was designed to combat the many horrors of the Black Death

  • It consists of 100 amusing, witty, and bawdy stories and tales, supposedly told by seven young ladies and three young men taking refuge from the Black Death in the country, and, according the namesake author, is meant to console all unhappy lovers

  • Its storytelling takes ten days, hence the namesake title, which in Italian means “ten days”

  • It is not all humorous, however as the namesake author recounts the loss of his own mother to the Black Plague, and the book’s introduction provides one of the finest eyewitness accounts to emerge from this terrible experience

• Book whose stories’ humanism and breadth of social and psychological observations had an enormous influence on Italian Renaissance literature thereafter, himself influenced by Greco-Roman styles

• Book through which the Italian novella was developed

1404 - 1472 - Leon Battista Alberti (All Facts)

• Italian Renaissance Writer and Polymath

• He published works on ethics and jurisprudence

1434 - Leon Battista Alberti: On the Family / Della Famiglia (All Facts)

• Work which contained a theoretical treatise within a discussion of household affairs

• Styled on Latin models, it displayed a pessimistic view of contemporary life

1432 - 1484 - Luigi Pulci (All Facts)

• Italian Renaissance Humanist and Poet

1483 - Luigi Pulci: Morgante Maggiore (All Facts)

• Work which treated irreverently the heroic Charlemagne theme

1440 - 1494 - Matteo Maria Boiardo (All Facts)

• Italian Poet

• He wrote Latin eulogies and lyric love poems

1483 - Matteo Maria Boiardo: Orlando in Love / Orlando innamorato (All Facts)

• Epic Poem by the namesake author

1454 - 1494 - Angelo Poliziano (All Facts)

• Italian Renaissance Poet from Florence

• He was the official poet for Lorenzo de Medici

• His poems inspired Sandro Botticelli to paint “Primavera” and “The Birth of Venus,” Botticelli’s two most famous paintings

• He is most famous for writing the first secular play “Orfeo”

1433 - 1499 - Marsilio Ficino (All Facts)

• Italian Scholar from Florence

• He was known for translating the complete works of Plato from Greek into Latin