Non si disperin quelli dello 'nferno

Cecco Angiolieri

General Description

Date: 1296
Rhyme: ABABABABCDCDCD
Meter: hendecasyllabics
Genre: sonnet

Bibliography

◦ Lanza, ed., Rime. Cecco Angiolieri Rime. Cecco Angiolieri, 165-166

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

DGR's source text was Trucchi (I. 275). It varies from the received text in a number of ways, but two deserve particular notice, for while they seem small enough, they led DGR, in his translation, to read the poem differently from the way scholars now read it. The issue focuses in the sestet, lines 10 and 11: where DGR's source (line 10) reads “più” the received reading is “giù”; and in line 11 where DGR's text reads “frate Arrigo” the received reading is “Fortarrigo”. The latter reading is particularly important since it leads scholars to believe that the sonnet was sent by Cecco Angiolieri to his friend Cecco, the son of Fortarrigo di Ranieri Piccolomini.

See DGR's translation for further commentary as well as the text and notes in Lanza, 165-166. DGR's fair copy of his Italian source text is preserved in the Huntington Library. It appears to have been made in 1860.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1