preceded by this title; but there are surprisingly few
documents testifying to his professional career. The year
of his birth is unknown; but there is no room for doubt
about his birthplace, since in two or three of his poems
he describes himself as having been born in Lentino
(nato da Lentino), a small locality on the eastern coast
of Sicily. The documents bearing witness to his juridi-
cal activities date from 1233 and 1240. In 1233, two
privileges were drawn up by the hand of Giacomo da
Lentini—per manus Iacobi de Lentino (or Lintin)—the
fi rst one in March at Policoro on the Basilicata coast, and
the second in June in Catania. The formula per manus Ia-
cobi notarii is encountered in a document from Palermo
and in a letter from Castrogiovanni (modern-day Enna)
that same year; thus we have enough evidence to show
that the Notaro must have accompanied the emperor
on a journey in March–August 1233 from Policoro via
Messina and Catania to Palermo. A document issued
in Messina on 5 May 1240 bears the signature Iacobus
de Lentino domini Imperatoris notarius (Giacomo da
Lentini, notary of the emperor). Nothing else is known
of the biography of the founder and most famous poet of
the Sicilian school, and his end is veiled in mystery.
Internal evidence is of little help in establishing a
chronology for Giacomo’s life. In the canzone Ben m’è
venuto prima al cor doglienza, he compares his lady’s
arrogance to the pride of Milan over its carroccio and
makes a brief reference to a feud between Florence and
Pisa. Sanesi (1899) and Gaspary (1882) assumed that
Giacomo must have written this passage before the battle
of Cortenuova in 1237, a battle at which the Milanese
suffered a humiliating defeat. Torraca (1902), however,
opted for 1246–1248 as the period when these lines
were composed. In 1246, the Guelf Florentines voiced
their dissatisfaction with the podestà appointed by the
emperor, and in 1248 they were defeated by the Ghibel-
lines. Zenatti (1896) dated the war between Florence
and Pisa to 1233 and Santangelo (1959) suggested the
summer of 1234, but Langley (1915) considered these
references too vague to be of much use in dating the
poem. A reference in La ’namoranza disiosa to a naval
encounter near Syracuse, tentatively dated to 1205 by
Cesareo (1924), offers no proof of the composition date,
and it remains highly unlikely that this poem could have
been written during the decade 1200–1210. The period
of Giacomo’s most intense poetic activity probably
coincided with the years of his documented profes-
sional duties at the imperial court. The episode involving
Bonagiunta da Lucca in Canto 24 of Dante’s Purgatorio
(verses 55–57) confi rms Giacomo’s role as the chief
representative of the Sicilian school, and Dante praises
the poem Madonna dir vi voglio, though without men-
tioning the poet by name. Giacomo’s prestige may also
be in ferred from the poem Di penne di paone e d’altre
assai, in which Chiaro Davanzati accuses Bonagiunta
of plagiarizing the Notaro. In the Vatican Codex (Vat.
Lat. 3793), Giacomo is given more prominence than any
of his contemporaries: his poems are listed fi rst in each
genre section; and with some forty pieces defi nitively
attributed to him, he far outdistances all other Sicilian
poets in sheer numbers.
We have little reason to doubt that Giacomo was
instrumental in choosing an Italian dialect for poetry
composed in the Provençal mode in Sicily. He may
also have played a decisive role in imposing a very
narrow thematic orientation on the school, and he is
usually credited with being the inventor of the sonnet
form. Except for a single sonnet on friendship, Giacomo
wrote solely on amorous themes. Most of his canzoni
are conventional in theme and style; and his sonnets,
twenty-one in all, with four more of uncertain attribu-
tion, show the same adherence to the Provençal mode.
Even at this early stage in its evolution, however, the
sonnet tends to become more philosophically oriented,
serving as a forum for discussions of the nature and
power of love. In the poem Amor non vole ch’io clami,
Giacomo ridicules the abuse of lovers’ laments, but
this satirical approach is itself purely conventional and
does not reveal any beginnings of disenchantment with
a stereotyped motif. This poem, therefore, is not to be
considered a literary manifesto. Giacomo wrote many
canzoni or canzonette of great technical simplicity, but
other poems of his testify to his mastery of some of
the most complex metrical schemes inherited from the
troubadours.
See also Bonagiunta Orbicciani degli Averardi;
Frederick IIFurther Reading
Antonelli, Roberto, ed. Giacomo da Lentini: Poesie. Rome:
Bulzoni, 1979.
Apollonio, Mario. Uomini e forme nella cultura italiana delle
origini. Florence: Sansoni, 1943, pp. 208–217.
Cesareo, G. A. Le origini delta poesia lirica e lapoesia siciliana
sotto gli Svevi, 2nd ed. Palermo: Sandron, 1924, pp. 124–131,
332–354.
Contini, Gianfranco, ed. Poeti del Duecento. Milan and Naples:
Ricciardi, 1960, Vol. 1, pp. 49–90.
De Lollis, Cesare. “G. A. Cesareo, La poesia siciliana sotto gli
Svevi (Catania, 1894).” In Giornale Storico delta Letteratura
Italiana, 27, 1896, pp. 112ff. (Review of 1st ed.)
Gaspary, Adolfo. La scuola poetica siciliana del secolo XIII,
trans. S. Friedmann. Livorno: Vigo, 1882.
Langley, Ernest F., ed. The Poetry of Giacomo da Lentini, Sicilian
Poet of the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1915.
Pasquini, Emilio, and Antonio Enzo Quaglio. Il Duecento dalle
origini a Dante. Bari: Laterza, 1970, pp. 189–203.
Sanesi, I. “Il toscaneggiamento della poesia siciliana.” Giornale
Storico della Letteratum Italiana, 34, 1899, pp. 354–367.
Santangelo, Salvatore. “La canzone Ben m’è venuto e la politica
remissiva di Federico II.” In Saggi Critici. Modena: Società
Tipografi ca Editrice Modenese, 1959, pp. 191–209.GIACOMO DA LENTINI