Giacomo da Lentini
Illustration — Detail in the National Central Library in Florence Jacopo da Lentini, also known as Giacomo da Lentini or with the appellative Il Notaro, was a 13th-century Italian poet and inventor. He was a senior poet of the Sicilian School and was a notary at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Jacopo is credited with the invention of the sonnet. His poetry was originally written in literary Sicilian, though it only survives in Tuscan.
Also recorded as Jacopo da Lentino
Giacomo da Lentini
Anonimo monaco fiorentino (Anonymous Florentine monk) · scan postcard of thumbnail depicting the poet Jacopo da Lentini (from Palatine Song Book, Florence National Library) · Public domain
- Born
- 1210 · Lentini.
- Died
- 1260 · Lentini.
- Occupation
- poet · writer · notary
- Movements
- Sicilian School
- Languages
- Italian
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Illustration — Detail in the National Central Library in Florence Jacopo da Lentini, also known as Giacomo da Lentini or with the appellative Il Notaro, was a 13th-century Italian poet and inventor. He was a senior poet of the Sicilian School and was a notary at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Jacopo is credited with the invention of the sonnet. His poetry was originally written in literary Sicilian, though it only survives in Tuscan.
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A "Canzone" of Jacopo da Lentini
A "Canzone" of Jacopo da Lentini
Although some scholars believe that da Lentini's Italian poetry about courtly love was an adaptation of the Provençal poetry of the troubadours, William Baer argues that the first eight lines of the earliest Sicilian sonnets, rhymed ABABABAB, are identical to the eight-line Sicilian folksong stanza known as the Strambotto. Therefore, da Lentini, or whoever else invented the form, added two tercets to the Strambotto in order to create the 14-line Sicilian sonnet. Some of his sonnets were produced in tenzone, a collaborative form of poetry writing in which one poet would write a sonnet and another would respond, likewise in a sonnet; da Lentini cooperated in this manner with the Abbot of Tivoli.
This is one of the most popular poems – "Canzone" (Song) – of Jacopo da Lentini. The Italian text is from "I poeti della Scuola siciliana. Vol. 1: Jacopo da Lentini", Milano, Mondadori, 2008, 47–49.
In popular culture
In popular culture
• In Canto 24 of The Purgatorio, Virgil and Dante Alighieri encounter the soul of Jacopo da Lentini. • Dante Gabriel Rossetti's volume The Early Italian Poets contains his literary translations of the poetry of Jacopo da Lentini, Emperor Frederick, and many other poets of the Sicilian School. • In Jorge Luis Borges' sonnet Un Poeta del Siglo XIII ("A Poet of the 13th Century"), the unnamed protagonist is Jacopo da Lentini.
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Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1."Giacomo Da Lentini."
- 2.William Baer (2005), Sonnets: 150 Contemporary Sonnets, University of Evansville Press. pp. 153–154.
- 3.Ploom 108.
- 4.Bondanella 255, 551.
- 5.Kleinhenz 62–64.
- 6.Lansing, The Complete Poetry of Giacomo da Lentini (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.
- 7.William Baer (2005), Sonnets: 150 Contemporary Sonnets, University of Evansville Press. p. 153.
- 8.William Baer (2005), Sonnets: 150 Contemporary Sonnets, University of Evansville Press. p. 153.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 18 August 2026.
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