her to accept him as a lover; and, after the relationship
has ended, his despair at losing her.
One reason cited by the poet for his inability to win
Becchina back is his constant lack of money. The cause
of the poet’s poverty is his avaricious father, the subject
of many of Cecco’s sonnets written in the vituperative
tradition of medieval comic poetry. In Sed i’ credesse
vìvar un dì solo, V ho un padre sì compressionato, Sed
i’avesse mille lingue in bocca, and other sonnets, the
poet describes his father’s stinginess in hyperbolic terms
and fears that the old man will live forever, thus prevent-
ing his son from ever inheriting his money.
The anti-paternal theme, unique to Cecco, gives rise
to a series of sonnets about the power of money and the
misery of the poor. According to sonnets such as Cosi
è l’uomo che non ha denari and Quando non ho denar,
ogn’ om mi schiva, those who fi nd themselves thrust
into poverty discover that their friends desert them and
that people point to them as objects of derision. Cecco’s
ingenious use of hyperbole results in a sonnet in which
the poet is so poor that he has pawned his smiles (Per
sì gran somma ho ’impegnate le risa).
From the sonnets on poverty it is a short jump to
sonnets written in the gnomic-moralizing tradition, in
which the values and institutions of society are viewed
as corrupt. Typical of this group are Senno non val a cui
fortuna è cònta and Egli è sì poco di fede e d’amore.
Although many scholars have interpreted Cecco’s
poetry as autobiographical, it is important to keep in
mind that his themes are deeply rooted in medieval
literary tradition, and that his style attests to a thorough
knowledge of the medieval arts of composition, artes
dictandi.
See also Dante Alighieri; Rustico Filippi
Further Reading
Editions
Angiolieri, Cecco. Rime, ed. Gigi Cavalli. Milan: Biblioteca
Universale Rizzoli, 1959. (3rd ed., 1984.)
——. Le rime, ed. Antonio Lanza. Rome: Archivio Guido Izzi,
1990.
Contini, Gianfranco, ed. Poeti del Duecento, 2 vols. Milan and
Naples: Ricciardi, 1960, Vol. 2, pp. 367–401.
Marti, Mario, ed. Poeti giocosi del tempo di Dante. Milan: Riz-
zoii, 1956, pp. 113–250.
Massèra, Aldo Francesco, ed. Sonetti burleschi e realistici dei
primi due secoli, 2 vols. Bari: Laterza, 1920; rev. Luigi Russo,
1940, Vol. 2, pp. 63–138.
Vitale, Maurizio, ed. Rimatori comico-realistici. Turin: UTET,
1956, pp. 257–453. (Reprint, 1976.)
Translations
Angiolieri, Cecco. The Sonnets of a Handsome and Well-Man-
nered Rogue, trans. Thomas Caldecot Chubb. Hamden, Conn.:
Archon, 1970.
——.Cecco As I Am and Was: The Poems of Cecco Angiolieri,
trans. Tracy Barrett. Boston, Mass.: International Pocket
Library, 1994.
Dante and His Circle, with the Italian Poets Preceding Him
(1100–1200–1300), trans. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. London:
Ellis and Elvey, 1892, pp. 183–205.
Tusiani, Joseph, trans. The Age of Dante: An Anthology of Early
Italian Poetry. New York: Baroque, 1974, pp. 123–128.
Studies
Alfi e, Fabian. Comedy and Culture: Cecco Angiolieri’s Poetry
and Late Medieval Society. Leeds: Northern Universities
Press, 2001.
——.‘“I son sì magro che quasi traiuco’: Inspiration and Indebt-
edness among Cecco Angiolieri, Meo Dei Tolomei, and Il
Burchiello.” Italian Quarterly, 135–136, 1998, pp. 5–28.
Angiolillo, Paul F. “Cecco Angiolieri, Scamp and Poet of Medi-
eval Siena.” Forum Italicum, 1, 1967, pp. 156–170.
Figurelli, Fernando. La musa bizzarra di Cecco Angiolieri.
Naples: Pironti, 1950.
Kleinhenz, Christopher. The Early Italian Sonnet: The First Cen-
tury (1220–1321). Lecce: Milella, 1986, pp. 157–200.
Levin, Joan H. Rustico di Filippo and the Florentine Lyric Tradi-
tion. New York: Peter Lang, 1986, pp. 99–111.
Maier, Bruno. La personalità e la poesia di Cecco Angiolieri:
Studio critico. Bologna: Cappelli, 1947.
Marti, Mario. “Cecco Angiolieri.” In Cultura e stile nei poeti
giocosi del tempo di Dante. Pisa: Nistri-Lischi, 1953, pp.
83–129.
——.“Angiolieri, Cecco.” In Encicbpedia Dantesca, 6 vols.
Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970–1978.
——, Con Dante fra i poeti del suo tempo. Lecce: Milella,
1971.
Nannetti, Elvira. Cecco Angiolieri: La sua patria, i suoi tempi, e
la sua poesia. Siena: Libreria Editrice Senese, 1929.
Orwen, Gifford P. “Cecco Angiolieri: The Sonnets of Dubious
Attribution.” Italica, 51, 1974, pp. 409–422.
——. Cecco Angiolieri: A Study. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Department of Romance Languages, 1979.
Petrocchi, Giorgio. “I poeti realisti.” In Le origini e il Duecento.
Milan: Garzanti, 1965, pp. 575–607. (Reprint, 1979.)
Quaglio, Antonio Enzo. “La poesia realistica.” In Il Duecento:
Dalle origini a Dante. Bari: Laterza, 1970, pp. 183–253.
Joan H. LevinCECCO D’ASCOLI (1269–1327)
The physician, poet, and astrologer, Francesco Stabili,
known as Cecco d’Ascoli, was born in Ancarano, near
Ascoli Piceno in the Marches. At age fi fteen he attended
medical school in Salerno. He continued his training
in Paris and later became a lecturer in medicine at the
University of Bologna. In 1324, he was suspended
from teaching after having been accused of heresy by
the inquisitor Lamberto da Cingoli. In 1326, he was in
Florence in the service of Charles, duke of Calabria, and
became Charles’s personal physician and astrologer.
Cecco’s troubles in Bologna, however, followed him
to Florence, where he made some powerful enemies.
Dino del Garbo, a renowned Florentine physician,
conspired to ruin him. The pretext for Dino’s animosity
was Cecco’s belief that the birth of Christ had been fore-
shadowed by the stars, but historians have speculatedCECCO ANGIOLIERI