William bouguereau, dante e virgilio, 1850, 04

Schicchi (died February 1280) was a medieval knight of

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

in the thirteenth century. His life, including his crime of fraud by being a talented imposter, is detailed by

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

in the ''

Inferno Inferno may refer to: * Hell, an afterlife place of suffering * Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire Film * ''L'Inferno'', a 1911 Italian film * Inferno (1953 film), ''Inferno'' (1953 film), a film noir by Roy Ward Baker * Inferno (1973 fi ...

'', which inspired a

Puccini Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long lin ...

opera and a later play. Dante's depiction of Schicchi's eternal punishment with insanity in hell inspired a painting by Bouguereau.

Dante's portrayal

There is not much historical information about him, but taking

's reference to him as a starting point, commentators have portrayed a biography of him that largely follows the passage of the ''

'' – (Canto trentesimo, vv. 32-33 and 42-45). In the

forger Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone (other than themself). Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidd ...

's edict, he is condemned for "personal falsification", that is for having cheated others by taking the place of .

Other views

The question widely debated by the glossators, albeit with some differences but substantially the same, is that this Schicchi was famous for the imitations of people and that when the rich widower and childless Buoso died, he, at the request of his friend Simone Donati, Buoso's nephew, sneaked into the bed of the deceased shortly after his death and called a notary and dictated a will in favor of Simone, which was promptly ratified. For himself, it seems that he was entitled only one

mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four ...

(quoted by Dante) which is an indication of the burlesque and ''novella'' character of what happened.

Works inspired by Schicchi

Starting from this story, and with much lighter and more pleasant stylistic characters,

Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long li ...

composed the comic opera ''

Gianni Schicchi () is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's ''Divine Comedy''. The work is the third and final part of Puccin ...

'', performed in 1918. Another famous play is the comedy ''Gianni Schicchi'' by Gildo Passini, which made its successful debut in Milan in 1922 at the Olympia theatre, staged by the Compagnia Talli-Melato-Betrone.

Bibliography

* , ''Inferno'', Rizzoli editions 2001. * and Giovanni Reggio, ''La Divina Commedia – Inferno'', Le Monnier 1988. * Fabrizio Scheggi, ''Il Mugello nel libro di Montaperti'', Borgo San Lorenzo 2016,

References

External links

Gianni Schicchi
{{Divine Comedy navbox Medieval Italian knights Italian male criminals Forgers Characters in the Divine Comedy