For commentary on Rustico see editorial notes on DGR's translation of Rustico's
This translation is one of DGR's strangest, being at once quite difficult and not at all attractive. In this respect it mirrors its original, which is rarely anthologized since it is one of Rustico's most notoriously recondite works. DGR's note to his translation explains that he failed to trace the Fazio named in the sonnet, and subsequent scholars have fared no better. But we do know that Messer Bertuccio is the Lambertuccio of Firenze, a prominent figure in the political and commercial life of the city toward the end of the thirteenth-century, and that Cocciolo (Chiocciola) was Lambertuccio's brother. Everyone also recognizes that Rustico's sonnet is a highly ironical treatment of Lambertuccio and that it carries its satire via a series of veiled obscenities. Beyond that the commentators agree only in acknowledging that the sonnet's precise meaning remains uncertain.
Why would DGR attempt to translate such a work? The answer is probably
inferable from his own realistic and satirical poems, particularly those he wrote in
1849 during his trip with Hunt to Paris and Belgium. Fastidious as he was,
DGR wrote some rude and even coarse works—most notably, perhaps,
The translation is extremely free, even misleadingly so in the final lines.
DGR's source text is Trucchi's
The sonnet is probably an early work, from the late 40s or early 50s.
The translation was first published in 1861 in
Early Italian Poets)