Dante Alighieri, most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to 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.
Francis Petrarch, born Francesco di Petracco, was a scholar and poet of the early Italian Renaissance and one of the earliest humanists.
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word troubadour is etymologically masculine, a female equivalent is usually called a trobairitz.
Courtly love was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various deeds or services for ladies because of their "courtly love". This kind of love was originally a literary fiction created for the entertainment of the nobility, but as time passed, these ideas about love spread to popular culture and attracted a larger literate audience. In the high Middle Ages, a "game of love" developed around these ideas as a set of social practices. "Loving nobly" was considered to be an enriching and improving practice.
Guido Cavalcanti was an Italian poet. He was also a friend and intellectual influence on Dante Alighieri.
The Sicilian School was a small community of Sicilian and mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II, most of them belonging to his imperial court in Palermo. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini, they produced more than 300 poems of courtly love between 1230 and 1266, the experiment being continued after Frederick's death by his son, Manfred.
Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Jacopo da Lentini or with the appellative Il Notaro, was an Italian poet of the 13th century. He was a senior poet of the Sicilian School and was a notary at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Giacomo is credited with the invention of the sonnet. His poetry was originally written in literary Sicilian, though it only survives in Tuscan.
The sonnets of Petrarch and Shakespeare represent, in the history of this major poetic form, the two most significant developments in terms of technical consolidation—by renovating the inherited material—and artistic expressiveness—by covering a wide range of subjects in an equally wide range of tones. Both writers cemented the sonnet's enduring appeal by demonstrating its flexibility and lyrical potency through the exceptional quality of their poems.
Gui de Cavalhon, Cavaillo, or Gavaillo was a Provençal nobleman: a diplomat, warrior, and man of letters. He was probably also the Guionet who composed tensos and partimens with Cadenet, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, Mainart Ros, Pomairol, and a certain Guillem.
(La) Nina Siciliana was the composer of one Italian sonnet, and a candidate to be the first Italian woman poet. She only came to light in 1780, along with 74 other poets, in the Étrennes du Parnasse. She is now considered legendary by most scholars.
Terino da Castelfiorentino was a Florentine poet from Castelfiorentino in the Valdelsa. The only biographical document concerning Terino was in the past dated to either 1268 or 1270, but a date of April 1281 has since been settled on. This notice was first publicised by Santorre Debenedetti. It shows that Terino was a cloth seller in Florence at the time. He is recorded as Terino f. Nevaldi di castè fiorentini. His father Nevaldo matriculated in the Arte della Seta in 1225. His son Truccio entered the Arte dei Giudici e Notaj in 1302. A document of 1 June 1362 refers to a Terio and a Giovanni of Castelfiorentino, probably younger sons of Terino.
Chiaro Davanzati was an Italian poet from Florence, one of the Siculo-Tuscan poets, who introduced the style of Sicilian School to the Tuscan School. He was one of the most prolific Italian authors before Dante: at least 122 sonnets and sixty-one canzoni by Chiaro are known, many of them in tenzone with other poets. Only Guittone d'Arezzo produced more lyrics in the thirteenth century.
Madeleine de l'Aubespine, dame de Villeroy was a French aristocrat, lady in waiting to Catherine de Medicis, poet, and literary patron. She was one of the only female poets praised by "the prince of poets," Pierre de Ronsard and she was one of the earliest female erotic poets.
The Abbot of Tivoli was an Italian poet of the thirteenth century. His birth and death dates are not known, but he was alive at least between 1230 and 1250.
"Becchin'amor! – Che vuo', falso tradito?" is a sonnet by the Italian poet Cecco Angiolieri.
Laudomia Forteguerri was an accomplished Italian poet and a member of one of the most powerful families in the sixteenth-century Republic of Siena. She is considered by some historians to be Italy's earliest lesbian writer, and she was famous for her beauty, wit, and intelligence. In January 1553, Forteguerri led a group of women in helping with the construction of a defensive bastion to protect her city against an anticipated attack from Imperial Spanish forces. The attack and siege that followed in 1554–55 ultimately lead to the fall of the independent Republic. Forteguerri became a legendary figure in Sienese history and her legacy has lived on long after her death.
Nicoletta Pasquale, known also as Coletta Pasquale or Paschale was an Italian poet.
Bianca Bianchi was an Italian teacher, socialist politician, feminist, and writer.
Nella Donati was a medieval noblewoman from Florence, Italy. She is primarily known because of Dante Alighieri's treatment of her relationship to her husband, Forese Donati, in the Divine Comedy and in a series of poems Dante exchanged with Forese.
Gaia da Camino was an Italian noblewoman and poet hailing from Treviso, Italy. Her family was descended from the Lombards. She is mentioned briefly in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.
