GIAMBULLARI, BERNARDO

Image from page 230
Image from page 230

GIAMBULLARI, Bernardo. - Florentine poet, b. 1450, d. 1529. Father of the historian Pierfrancesco, a member of the Magnificent’s circle and later a courtier of Leo X, to whom he dedicated the *Sonetti* of Biagio del Capporeno.

He versified in popular style the life of St. John Gualbert and other saints’ legends, tales in ottava rima, the satire *Il sonaggio delle donne*, and a lengthy addition to *Ciriffo Calvaneto* by Luca and Luigi Pulci. As was customary, he composed both lauds and spiritual verse alongside carnival songs, ballads, sonnets, and *rispetti*. Initiator of the rustic idyll with *Nencia da Barberino* (whose attribution to Lorenzo de’ Medici having been disproved, it must be assigned to him), he found in the Mugello vernacular an original form of expression. With *Contenzione di Mona Costanza* and *Contrasto di Ton di Puccetto* (unpublished), likewise in dialect, he provided the very first examples of rustic comedy.

BIBL.: D. Merlini, *Saggi di ricerche sulla satira contro il villano con appendice di documenti inediti*, Turin 1894; C. Aprile, *Sonetti rustici di Biagio del Capporeno (B. G.)*, Città di Castello 1902; L. Marchetti, *B. G., autore della «Nencia da Barberino»*, in *Nuova Antologia*, 84 (Apr. 1949), pp. 406 ff. Italiano Marchetti