FREZZI, FEDERICO. - Dominican, theologian, and man of letters, born at Foligno in the mid-fourteenth century; he taught theology at Florence, Pisa, and Bologna; he was bishop of Foligno from 1404; he died at Constance, whither he had gone for the Council, in 1416.
In imitation above all of Dante, but also of Petrarch and Boccaccio, he composed (from before 1394 to about 1403) a poem of 74 cantos in terza rima: the Quadrigie, that is, the four kingdoms of Love, Satan, the Vices, and the Virtues (the last three recall Dante’s three kingdoms), in which, drawing by means of allegories and personifications a lesson from the events of his own spiritual life, he finds occasion to invite all men to rise to the supreme Truth. The poem is, on the whole, harsh and artificial, notwithstanding the merits of its form, which won it fame and still ensure its remembrance.