ANGIOLIERI, CECCO

CECCO ANGIOLIERI. — Poet born in Siena around 1260, died between 1311 and 1313. The few biographical details about him are drawn from his own Canzoniere. His father had held important offices in the Sienese commune, but Cecco was neither an exemplary man nor citizen; he was repeatedly fined, in accordance with the customs of the time, for having arbitrarily abandoned the army or for being caught abroad after curfew. Before 1296 he left his city, though the reason is unclear, and by 1303 he was certainly in Rome. Only a Canzoniere of 150 sonnets survives (critical ed. by F. A. Massera, Bari 1920; new rev. and updated ed. by L. Russo, ibid. 1940). The dominant note is cynicism, which 19th-century criticism interpreted romantically but is now often confined within burlesque limits or sheer convivial display. Certainly the author was not a profound soul, nor can one seek in him any human or religious drama. He was a feeble spirit who gave himself over to vice and disorderly living without the strength to resist or elevate himself. Yet he possessed good imaginative qualities, which emerge even in his polemics and outbursts, and which at times—such as in certain gnomic sonnets—lend his expression singular power.