Guido da Pisa

GUIDO da PISA. - Carmelite writer from Caprona (Pisa). The year of his birth and death is unknown: a chronological orientation is provided by his dedication of certain works on Dante to the Genoese Lucano Spinola, whose name recurs in the years 1323-47. Despite the apparent ingenuousness of his writings, G. was a man not unacquainted with literary and hermeneutic experience.

With didactic aims he compiled, translating or reworking various sources (Bible, Aeneid, Commedia, Villani's Cronica, etc.), a historical-mythological compilation entitled Il fiore d'Italia, of which the first two books of the seven announced in the proem have survived. In them, "mixing and inserting for each period also the history of divine scripture," he set forth, with freshness of language and style and with almost Fidesque cadences, Roman prehistory from the mythical kings of Latium to the events of Aeneas. The work, among the most significant of the minor Trecento, was perhaps never completed. Two separate sections of it, I fatti d'Enea and Il fiore di mitologia, enjoyed vogue in the schools. Noteworthy, for the history of Dante's fortune, is G.'s love for the Commedia: besides citing it frequently in the Fiore, he dedicated to the Inferno a declaration in 8 cantos of tercets and a Latin commentary.