Albertino Mussato
(1261–1329).The best known of the Paduan circle of pre-humanist scholars and a friend and pupil of Lovato Lovati. He was a notary, and played an active role in the ...
Alessandro Braccesi
(1445–1503).Florentine poet, who was a notary from 1467 until his death, though he also served on important diplomatic missions and as secretary of the Florentine signoria. He put together ...
alexandrine
An iambic line of twelve syllables or six feet. The term comes (in the late 16th century) from French, from Alexandre (see Alexander1), the subject of an Old French poem in this metre.
Amico Di Dante
The author of five canzoni and sixty-one sonnets which appear at the end of the main Vatican manuscript collection of 13th-c. lyrics (Vat. Lat. 3793). The name was coined because ...
Andrea Calmo
(1509–71),Italian playwright and amateur actor, a gondolier by profession, who seems to have had a considerable influence on the development of the commedia dell'arte. A contemporary and rival of ...
Andrea Zanzotto
(1921– )is widely recognized as Italy's greatest living poet. He was born near Treviso in the village of Pieve di Soligo, where he still lives and where he worked for ...
Angelo Michele Salimbeni
(d.1517)was a notary from Bologna, and an active member of the city's literary circles. Some poems, mainly sonnets and eclogues [see pastoral], have survived, alongside a quantity of letters ...
Anna Seward
(1747–1809) British poet and authorElegy on Captain Cook (1780) PoetryMonody on Major André (1781) MiscellaneousLouisa (1784) PoetryLlangollen Vale, with Other Poems (1796) PoetryOriginal Sonnets on ...
Anne Vaughan Lock
The date is September 1545, the place the court of the bishop of London. A young schoolteacher, Master Cob, is again being examined for his radical religious views. Two years ...
Anselmo Calderoni
(1393–1446).Florentine poet, who spent some time in in the service of Guidantonio da Montefeltro in Urbino. He was known for his dissipated way of life, though he was appointed ...
Antonio da Ferrara
(1315–before 1374).Ferrarese poet, whose father was probably a butcher (beccaio). He moved between various Northern Italian courts, having a somewhat ambiguous status between courtier and giullare. ...
Antonio da Tempo
(14th c.)was a Paduan judge, versifier, and author of the first influential treatise on Italian metrical forms, the Summa artis rithimici vulgaris dictaminis (1332). As a North Italian, Antonio ...
Antonio di Meglio
(1384–1448),herald of the Florentine government (1417–46) and minor vernacular poet, wrote amorous sonnets, religious frottole, and political poems, many to commission. His Rappresentazione del dì ...
Antonio Malatesti
(1610–72).Florentine comic poet. He studied astrology and painting but worked in commerce until Ferdinando III de'Medici's patronage allowed him to dedicate himself to writing. He composed a ...
Antonio Pucci
(c. 1310–88).Florentine public servant (he was the city's town crier) and prolific poet. He wrote many sonnets, including some on moral themes, but he is best known for his ...
Antonio Vinciguerra
(c. 1440–1502).Venetian man of letters known for his Satire in terza rima, characterized by linguistic experimentation and a rigid religious morality. He is also author of a (lost) Libellus ...
Aurelia Fedeli
An actress working in Italy and then France from c.1640. She published a volume of poetry, I rifiuti di Pindo (1666), dedicated to Louis XIII, which contains sonnets, madrigals, canzoni, and ...
Aurora Sanseverino
(1669–1730).Sicilian noblewoman, who entered the Arcadia Academy as Lucinda Coritesia, and wrote Petrarchan sonnets which were included in the Rime degli Arcadi (1716).[Carlo Caruso]
Benedetto Varchi
(1503–65).Florentine historian, man of letters, and art theorist, whose career suggests the close relationship between literature and art in Medicean Florence. Exiled from Florence, he travelled in ...
Berardino Rota
(1508–75).humanist and poet, born into a privileged Neapolitan family, who made an important contribution to Petrarchism in Naples. His poems include piscatorial eclogues (1560), which are much ...
