ARNALDO DANIELLO (ARNAUTZ DANIEL)

ARNALDO DANIELLO (ARNAUTZ DANIEL). — Provençal troubadour of the second half of the twelfth century. From a brief biography of the period, in the Provençal language, and from his eighteen poetic compositions, all abstract and amorous in character, only a few facts can be inferred: born at Ribérac in the Dordogne (the date is unknown); he took part in the coronation ceremony of Filippo Augusto (21 May 1181); he was at the court of Riccardo Cuor di Leone at Poitiers. He sang of «pure love» for imaginary women or women who, in any case, were designated, in the Provençal manner, only by the senhal (a charming pseudonym; literally «signal»). He was the greatest exponent of the so-called «trobar clus» (closed or hermetic speech), a poetic style common to a group of Provençal troubadours, who delighted in an ingenious obscurity of expression, rich in vivid images. Dante held A. in high esteem, and it is to his favorable judgments that the fame enjoyed by the Provençal poet in Italy from the fourteenth century onward is due. Dante particularly admired him as the inventor of the sestina and a master of complex and elaborate technical devices (cf. De Vulg. Eloq., II, 2, 6, 10, 13); in canto XXVI of the Purgatorio, after exalting him, through the mouth of Guido Guinizzelli, as the greatest Provençal poet (vv. 118–19), he makes him speak in his own language (vv. 140–47). Petrarca, in the Trionfo d'Amore, IV, begins the series of the great troubadours with A. («Of them all, the first is Arnaldo Daniello — Great master of Love, who still brings honor to his land — With his strange and beautiful speech»).