Cecco Angiolieri

Cecco Angiolieri was from Siena, and lived during the second half of the thirteenth and early part of the fourteenth centuries. He was the best known poet in the comic-realist tradition of his time, his poetry notable particularly for the ribald and vituperative tone of his parodies of stilnovo forms and content, for which he uses sophisticated, and often highly colloquial, wordplay. Many of his poems focus not on love for an angelicized woman, but on love for a deformed and brazen creature named Becchina. Although it is not known whether Dante met Cecco during the battle of Campaldino (1289), in which both men took part, the personal relationship between them is documented by three sonnets by Angiolieri addressed to Dante: Lassar vo’ lo trovare di Becchina; Dante Allaghier, Cecco, ’l tu’ servo e amico; Dante Allaghier, s’i’ so’ bon begolardo. In the second of these Cecco alleges that there is a contradiction in the tercets of Dante’s sonnet Oltre la spera che più larga gira. It seems likely that Dante’s analysis of this text in the Vita Nuova (XLI 7) is a defence against Cecco’s accusations. Cecco’s third sonnet, possibly dating from 1303, contains a lengthy sequence of trivial accusations against Dante; from his syntax, based on a replication of the construction s’io…e tu (“if I…and you”), it seems that he is responding to a similar text by Dante, now lost. It was ser Guelfo Taviani from Pistoia who replied to Cecco’s insults in defence of Dante, with the sonnet Cecco Angelier, tu mi pari un musardo, in which he criticizes Cecco’s insolence in daring to insult a learned man such as Dante, skilled also in philosophy. Together with the tenzone with Forese Donati and the Fiore, the exchange with Cecco provides further important evidence of Dante’s stylistic experimentation.