FRANCESCO da BARBERINO (FRANCESCO di Neri di Ranuccio). — Poet, born in Barberino in 1264, died in Florence in 1348. He practiced the profession of notary in Bologna and Florence. Exiled from Florence, he lived for a long time in Venice, Provence, and Picardy. He was able to return to Florence in 1315, where he then lived until his death.
He wrote the *Documenti d'amore* (the autograph manuscript is in the Vatican Library), a collection of moral teachings (cf. V. F. Egidi, 4 vols., Rome 1905-27), and the treatise *Del reggimento e costumi di donna* (cf. V. C. Baudì di Vesme, Bologna 1875), where the didactic material, veiled by an allegorical composition of Provençal and Stilnovistic taste, is often developed with keen observation and with a more attentive interest, however, in external behavior than in the life of the conscience. His poetic gift is entrusted to some "bazzetti" of family and civic life of the fourteenth century, fresh and serene in their immediacy.