(“Nature, God, philosophy, and common sense”). The
cohesion of civilization depends on trust and the applica-
tion of reason. The most basic transgression of that trust,
self-deception, corrupts the entire fabric of civilization:
che mal l’averebbe d’altrui/chi se medesimo decede
(“for those who deceive themselves would certainly not
have mercy from others,” in O dolce terra aretina). Thus
when Guittone adddresses Finfo del Buono (Letter 20),
or an infi rm brother (Letter 21), or any of his numerous
verse and epistolary correspondents (his societas amico-
rum), he also addresses the citizenry at large, embracing
the universal within the individual.
However, Guittone was not exclusively a moral-
ist. His early poems treat primarily the theme of love.
Three of his fi ve song cycles examine loyalty, joy, and
unhappiness in love; the third cycle, partially, takes the
form of a feigned debate between a woman and her
lover. The sonnet sequence theorized to have been his
fourth amounts to an ars amandi, dubbed by Avalle
a manual of seduction, which is retracted in the fi fth
cycle (Trattato d’amore). Yet even Guittone’s love
lyrics have a rhetorical cast; their intellectual ardor
overwhelms the conventional necessities of tolerance
and torment with almost legalistic analyses of the pro-
cess of love. Sentimental passion seems to be replaced
by what Quaglio (1975) calls Guittone’s “casuistry of
love,” in which system dominates the lyric’s focus on
the moment. Consequently, Guittone’s theory of love
sometimes refl ects moralistic symmetry and a strong
sense of reciprocity in a process that helps refi ne the
lover’s spirit and nobility. Nobility is no longer defi ned
as a matter of aristocratic lineage; it is now the educa-
tion of the heart: Non ver lignaggio fa sangue, ma core,
“The heart, not the blood, makes for true lineage” (in
Comune perta fa comun dolore, “A common loss makes
for a common sorrow”).
Perhaps the most signifi cant feature of Guittone’s
production is its high level of contrast. Guittone startles
his reader with unexpected technical and structural
revelations to support his repeated messages of peace
or—earlier in his career—conventional courtly themes,
now adapted to the municipal reader. Guittone’s strategy
seems to be based on enigmas of faith, echoed in his
advice that spiritual richness can be found in only pov-
erty (Letter 3) and happiness only in strife: solamente
apresso travaglio è poso (“tranquillity is achieved only
after strife,” Letter 25). Guittone’s opus is itself divided
between his early verses, described in a sonnet to Monte
Andrea (A te, Montuccio—“To you, Montuccio”) as
“poisonous fruits,” and his “conversion poems,” which
are assigned in the manuscripts to “Fra (Brother) Guit-
tone.” This distinction refl ects mostly Guittone’s entry
into the Gaudenti, a lay order known for its religious
dedication to pacifi cation and antifactionalism. Yet even
Guittone’s preconversion works declare the common
humanity of all citizens, regardless of faction.
Guittone’s poetic trademark is severe rhetorical
artifi ce. In his early poems, this artifi ce is penetrable
only by “those who love”: Scuro saccio che par lo/mio
detto, ma’che parlo/a chi s’entend’ ed ame, “I know my
writing may seem obscure, except that I speak to those
who have understanding and love” (in Tuttor, s’eo veglio
o dormo, “Always if I lie awake or sleep”). In his later
poems it is penetrable by those who have forgone the
constraints of love (“where... madness reigns,” in Ora
parrà). This distinction seems to have been born natu-
rally from a vital contrast in all his poetry between the
past and the present. His remembrance of Arezzo’s past
glories (O dolce term aretina/... membrando ch’eri...
/arca d’onni divizia—“O sweet city of Arezzo... when
I recall that you contained all wealth”) is bitterly coun-
tered, in a bold display of rhetorical antithesis, by the
city’s present “abundance of moral dearth” (in Or è di
cavo piena l’arca). Ye t the symbolism of these tempo-
ral terms is not static. In the collective conscience, the
past—the benedetto tempo—recognized the concepts of
value and love as distinct from wealth and self-indulgent
solitude. But in the progress of the soul, the individual’s
past represents a worse state of moral ignorance.
Guittone’s poetics of formal obscurity is, by contrast,
the vehicle for themes often linked by the absolute moral
maxims of his political Christianity and the concrete
pragmatism of his traditional Guelf and mercantile
ethos. However, his political-moral writing forges not
so much municipal realism, more germane to Monte’s
poetry, as civic idealism. Nevertheless, he is prone to
express these ideals with stormy sarcasm and subtle
irony reinforced by a syntax designed to persuade by
its brilliantly articulated complexity.
The artistic refutation of Guittone was fi rst voiced by
Guido Cavalcanti and Dante. Cavalcanti, in Da più a uno
face un sollegismo (“From the many to the one makes a
syllogism”), condemned Guittone’s literary language,
excessively diffi cult rhymes, and lack of imagination.
Dante (who was, like Guittone, an exile) undertook his
own stylistic ventures—especially in his rime petrose
and tenzoni with Dante da Maiano. Afterward, in his
assessment of the new courtly-literary language of Italy
(De vulgari eloquentia, l.xiii.l), Dante dismissed the
“municipal” elements in the poetic language of Guittone
and Guittone’s followers. Dante recognized Guittone’s
historical stature in Purgatorio 24, while deriding
his notoriety in Purgatorio 26. In spite of these early
negative judgments, imprints of Guittone’s harsh style,
polemical and sarcastic logic, and moralistic themes
appear throughout the Commedia and are ingrained in
the poetry of rectitude of the Italian Middle Ages.See also Bonagiunta Orbicciani degli Averardi;
Dante Alighieri; Guinizzelli, GuidoGUITTONE D’AREZZO