Poetry
The Poetry of Guido Guinizelli
Rime
Guido Guinizelli · 1270
Synopsis
The corpus consists of five canzones and some fifteen sonnets, preserved in the great manuscript anthologies of early poetry. One of the canzones, “Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore”, serves there as a manifesto: love, it says, has its dwelling in the noble heart, as the bird in the forest, and nobility is born of virtue, not of lineage, just as the sun strikes the mud without ennobling it. The beloved woman is compared there to an angel of the kingdom of God.
Context
The secure body of work comprises twenty poems, five canzones and fifteen sonnets, to which a few disputed pieces are added. They have come down to us through the earliest manuscript chansonniers, then through the collections of the dolce stil novo, one manuscript of which acknowledges him as its father. Dante cites him twice in his treatise on the vernacular and hails him, in canto XXVI of the Purgatorio, as a father to himself and to other poets. Robert Edwards produced a bilingual English edition in 1987.
Who it is for
Short poems in thirteenth-century Italian, to be read in an annotated edition, beginning with the manifesto canzone.
Prizes and reception
According to Peter Dronke, the canzone “Al cor gentil” is perhaps the most influential love song of the thirteenth century.