SORDELLO. – Italian troubadour, born at Goito c. 1200, died c. 1260.
After a youth of adventure and turbulence (he abducted in Verona the wife of Ricciardo di S. Bonifacio, Cunizza, at the instigation of her brother Ezzelino III da Romano), in Provence, where he sought refuge with Count Raymond Berengar IV, he seems to have adopted a more correct manner of life, which justifies his reputation as a noble knight. He accompanied Charles I of Anjou on his expedition to Italy; in a brief of 22 Feb. 1261 Pope Clement IV reproached the King for his ingratitude toward S., whose praises he extolled. In 1269 S. received from the Angevin the investiture of certain castles in Abruzzo. The second phase of S.’s life, together with the impression made by the *Compianto in morte di ser Blacatz*, a violent satire of the sovereigns of the time, and the *Ensenhament de honor*, a code of refined living, explain Dante’s celebration of him in Canto VI of the *Purgatorio*. Dante also praised S. in the *De vulgari eloquentia* for the elegance of his poetic language. Besides the poems mentioned, some forty-five lyrics survive in which, though some show the Platonic idealization of the beloved woman sung in accents that foreshadow the *dolce stil novo*, the prevailing note is one of yearning.