Antonio Pucci (c. 1310–1388) was a Florentine

bellfounder Bellfounding is the casting and tuning of large bronze bells in a foundry for use such as in churches, clock towers and public buildings, either to signify the time or an event, or as a musical carillon or chime. Large bells are made by casting ...

town crier A town crier, also called a bellman, is an officer of a royal court or public authority who makes public pronouncements as required. Duties and functions The town crier was used to make public announcements in the streets. Criers often dress ...

self-taught Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individu ...

as a versifier, who wrote his collection, ''Libro di varie storie'' ("Book of Various Tales"), using a popular dialect for a popular audience. In his ''Centiloquio'' he set out in ninety-one

canto The canto () is a principal form of division in medieval and modern long poetry. Etymology and equivalent terms The word ''canto'' is derived from the Italian word for "song" or "singing", which comes from the Latin ''cantus'', "song", from the ...

s' worth of chronicle from

Giovanni Villani Giovanni Villani (; 1276 or 1280 – 1348)Bartlett (1992), 35. was an Italian banker, official, diplomat and chronicler from Florence who wrote the ''Nuova Cronica'' (''New Chronicles'') on the history of Florence. He was a leading statesman ...

's ''Cronaca.'' In ''Le proprietà di Mercato Vecchio'' he praised, again in terzinas, the incomparable street life of Florence's crowded market piazza. In poems he could blame or praise women with equal force, a favorite medieval

trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things ...

. He composed ''cantari'' in the eight-line stanzas called ''

ottava rima Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio. The otta ...

,'' telling the subjects of courtly romance in a fast-paced narrative, with an undertone of subversive populist skepticism that undercut the very conventions that the stories embraced, full of vivid contemporary color and pious sentiment, and perhaps he declaimed them in the public squares: ''La Reina d'Oriente'', ''Gismirante'', ''Apollonio di Tiro,'' ''Brito di Brettagna'', ''Madonna Lionessa.'' During the second half of the 14th century, Florence remained a centre of culture, but its literature developed a more popular character. The best-known representative of this development was town crier Antonio Pucci, whose vast verse production includes poems on local Florentine lore as well as historical and legendary verse narratives. About 1373, '' New Chronicles'' from

was versified and produced by fellow Florentine Antonio Pucci as a rhymed version in

terza rima ''Terza rima'' (, also , ; ) is a rhyming verse form, in which the poem, or each poem-section, consists of tercets (three line stanzas) with an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme: The last word of the second line in one tercet provides the rh ...

. The poetic transcription was called ''Centiloquio''.

References

Bibliography

*''Libro di varie storie di Antonio Pucci'', edited by Alberto Varvaro, Palermo, 1957 (First modern edition). * P. Divizia, ''I quindici segni del Giudizio: appunti sulla tradizione indiretta della ''Legenda aurea'' nella Firenze del Trecento'', in ''Studi su volgarizzamenti italiani due-trecenteschi'', a cura di P. Rinoldi e G. Ronchi, Roma, Viella, 2005, pp. 47–64. *E. H. Gombrich, “Giotto's Portrait of Dante?” Burlington Magazine, Vol. 121, No. 917 (Aug., 1979), pp. 471–483. (Pucci's poem on a portrait of Dante by Giotto) * *Levin, Joan: ''Antonio Pucci.'' In: Kleinhenz, Christopher (ed.): ''Medieval Italy. An encyclopedia.'' Routledge, 2004, , pp. 42–43 ()

External links

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''Brito di Brettagna''
e-text (in Italian)

e-text (in Italian)
''El Contasto de Glhuomini et Delle Donne''
From the Collections at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pucci, Antonio 14th-century Italian poets Italian male poets

Antonio Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular male ...

1310 births 1388 deaths