Sonnets

Cecco Angiolieri, the enfant terrible of Italian literature, loved women, gambling, food, and wine. It is said that he found comfort for his bad luck at dice and with Becchina, his unreciprocating lover, only by pouring venomous scorn upon his miserly parents. Cecco’s outbursts of rage against his fate and his earthly view of the world—poles apart from the Stil Novo of Cavalcanti and Dante, the target of some of his fiercest sonnets—are perfectly encapsulated in his poetry, which is presented here with the facing Italian text in C. H. Scott’s beautiful verse translation. This volume also includes Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s translations of Cecco Angiolieri’s poems.

"The originality of Cecco lies above all in having made poetry out of his own very special experiences, his most intimate sentiments, with a sincerity that is aggressive and offensive… For his originality and craftmanship, he really deserves to be widely studied." - Luigi Pirandello