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“Table of Poets” (in
Early Italian Poets)
I. xxix-xxx
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Contini,
Poeti de Duecento,
II. 353-365
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Trucchi,
Poesie Italiana inedite,
I. 225
This collection contains 10 texts and images, including:
Early Italian Poets text
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
DGR's note on this versatile Florentine poet, who worked in various styles, remains pertinent. Rustico was born around 1230 and died near the century's end, and he is best known for his comic and realistic verse, similar to the work of Cecco Angiolieri. The source text is Poesie Italiane inedite (I. 225).
The subject of this caricature is Albizzo de' Caponsacchi (known as the Lord Messerin), who may have been the maternal uncle of Beatrice Portinari. The diction of the translation is effective but the opening quatrain's metrics, a kind of doggerel, weaken the sonnet. DGR would probably have done much better to have flattened the verse toward a prose rhythm of the kind one sees in so many of his other translations.
Textual History: Composition
The translation is probably an early one, late 1840s.
Printing History
The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.