INTELLIGENCE, THE. - An allegorical poem in ottava rima of 309 stanzas by an unknown author (the paternity of Dino Compagni is uncertain), but certainly composed at the end of the 13th century or the early 14th.
It sings of a most beautiful woman, luxuriously dressed, and describes her gold crown adorned with 60 stones (stanzas 16-58), her graceful retinue, and her sumptuous palace in the East divided into 12 parts and adorned with representations of the triumph of Love (stanzas 71-76), the stories of Caesar (stanzas 77-216), of Alexander (stanzas 216-39), of the Trojan War (stanzas 240-86), and of the Round Table (stanzas 287-88). The woman, her retinue, and her palace are a complex symbol of Intelligence, which dwells in the soul and shines up to God: «and never does any pleasure close itself to her... and whoever is her servant never was lacking». The material is drawn from lapidaries, French romances or their reworkings, and medieval Latin literature, and it overburdens the slender plot, which is however lightened by a delicate sense of nature and a gentle enchantment of Stilnovistic tone for the beauty of the woman.