Cecco Angiolieri

Cecco Angiolieri (* Siena in 1260; † around 1312 ) was an Italian poet of the Middle Ages and contemporary of Dante Alighieri.

About his life little is known, the few sources that can be used to let appear his life as a fugitive and unconventional. However, direct current reviews that Cecco was probably actually less rebellious than the relating to him romantics would have us believe.

Life

He was born in 1260 against the son of Angioliero and Lisa de ' Salimbeni. The father, in turn, stemmed from Solàfica - of Angioliero called, this was a few years banker by Pope Gregory IX. been.

In 1281 he was among the Sienese Ghibellines at the siege of entrenched at Castello di Torri di Maremma Ghibelline fellow citizens. According to tradition, he was prosecuted several times for illegal exit from the battle field. Even from a later period are occasionally sanctions for various violations. 1288 he took as a soldier with the allied Florentines battles against Arezzo part. It seems possible that he thereby Dante met. The sonnet 100 that is dated 1289-1294, indicates at least that the two knew each other personally. Against 1296, he had to be removed due to political complications from Siena. From the Sonnet 102 (1302-1303) suggests that Cecco was at the time in Rome. Whether the absence of Siena was continuously in the years 1296 to 1303, remains unclear. The sonnet, however, testifies to the final break between Dante and Cecco. The corresponding answers from Dante have been lost, so that the reasons for the deterioration of the presumably initially friendly relations are not traceable.

The last documented testimony of his life we have 1302 as Cecco sold from neediness a vineyard on a certain Neri Perini from Sant'Andrea for seven hundred lire.

From a document dated February 25, 1313 can learn that his five minor children ( a daughter was already married ) renounced the inheritance because she was too burdened with debt. It is therefore to assume that's Cecco Angiolieri died at the turn of 1312/1313.

Work

Angiolieri be attributed to some 150 sonnets. At about 20 the attribution is uncertain. Taken in a vivid and realistic language, its poetry of irreverent and biting satire and exaggeration. The most famous sonnet ( S'i ' fosse foco, arderei ' l mondo ) is certainly exemplary in its provocative worldliness and his disregard for the conventions of the 14th century.