Casella (died before 1300) was an Italian composer and singer, none of whose works have survived. [1]
Casella (died before 1300) was an Italian composer and singer, none of whose works have survived. [1]
He was probably a friend of Dante Alighieri who made him into the main character of the 2nd canto of the Purgatorio (the second part of the Divine Comedy).
All that is positively known about him is what is found in Dante's work and it has been impossible to identify him with absolute certainty with any of the Casellas named in contemporary documents.
To whatever is said of him in Dante's work one can add (with some degree of probability) information furnished by the earliest commentators of the Divine Comedy : Pietro di Dante, Benvenuto da Imola, Buti and Landino give him as being born in Florence, while an anonymous early commentary of the Divine Comedy gives him as being born in Pistoia.
Potential mentions of this Casella in other documents include a mention in Codex Vaticano 3214 (Casella dedit sonum, i.e. "Casella set [this] to music") that he set to music a madrigal by Lemmo da Pistoia, and a mention of him in a sonnet by Niccolò de' Rossi. There is also a document denoting that Casella might have received a fine in July of 1282. [2]
Casella died in 1299 or early in the year 1300, since Dante enters Purgatory in 1300. [2]
From what is said of him in Purgatorio, Canto II, it appears that he was a friend of Dante, and that he set to music poetry by Dante himself, namely the canzone Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona found in Dante's Convivio and possibly some other short poems by Dante. Specifically, in line 107 of the Canto II, it might be inferred that the amoroso canto ("amorous song") that Dante connects with Casella is a specific indication that Casella's music was (at least in part) in the monodic style which accompanied Occitan lyric poems, or Italian lyric poems in the Occitan manner.
Casella appears among the dead entering Purgatory in the Divine Comedy, and embraces Dante upon recognizing him. It is implied that there is mutual familiarity and a potential close friendship between them.
"I saw one of them come forward
with such affection to embrace me
that I was moved to do the same."
—Purgatorio, Canto II, Lines 76-78 [3]
Subsequently, Dante identifies Casella by name and asks him to sing. Casella's singing is referred to as characteristically sweet by Dante. Casella begins to sing the first lines of a Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona, a poem written by Dante himself. [4]
"'Love that converses with me in my mind,'
he then began, so sweetly
that the sweetness sounds within me still."
—Purgatorio, Canto II, Lines 112-114 [3]
Dante Alighieri, probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to simply as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.
The Divine Comedy is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed in 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
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Bonagiunta Orbicciani, also called Bonaggiunta and Urbicciani, was an Italian poet of the Tuscan School, which drew on the work of the Sicilian School. His main occupation was as a judge and notary. Fewer than forty of his poems survive.
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Beatrice d’Este was an Italian noblewoman, now primarily known for Dante Alighieri's allusion to her in Purgatorio, the second canticle of the Divine Comedy. Through her first marriage to Nino Visconti, she was judge (giudichessa) of Gallura, and through her second marriage to Galeazzo I Visconti, following Nino’s death, lady of Milan.
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