Angelo Grillo

Grillo was one of the most highly regarded poets of his generation. Between 1587 and 1613, twenty editions of his poetry appeared, a record for a poet of that time. His verse hovers between Petrarchism and conceptismo, with substantial debts to Torquato Tasso. Grillo was an important and innovative letter writer as well as a poet. His Lettere, published in several editions after his death, contain correspondence with most of the major writers of the day and give a detailed and lively picture of contemporary literary life. Beginning in 1584, Grillo maintained an epistolary correspondence with Torquato Tasso, then imprisoned in Sant'Anna; Tasso dedicated several works to him, including the Discorso dell'arte del dialogo of 1585. Marino knew Grillo's poetry and utilised some of his religious themes. Much of his verse was especially designed for musical settings. His madrigal texts were set by Monteverdi, Filippo Bonaffino, Orazio Vecchi, Luca Marenzio, Giuliano Paratico, Salamone Rossi, Pomponio Nenna and others. The close relationship between Grillo and Monteverdi appears in their correspondence, which began about 1610 and continued until the poet's death in 1629. Grillo's letters to Giulio Caccini, to Caccini's daughters, Francesca and Settimia, who were both musicians, to Monteverdi, to the poets Rinuccini and Chiabrera, to Giovanni Matteo Bembo, throw most interesting and revealing sidelights on the relationships of poets and musicians.