Saint Francis of Assisi. “Cantica. Our Lord Christ: of Order.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1848?; 1861
Rhyme: a5b5a5b5a5 b5b3c3c3d5
Genre: fragment

Bibliography

Poeti del Primo Secolo1 I. 30

◦ Giovanni Ferri, ed. Jacopone da Todi. Le Laude Bari 1930 208-216

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

This translation is a passage from a longer poem attributed to St. Francis of Assisi in DGR's source text, Poeti del Primo Secolo. The poem, “Amor di caritate”, is not by St. Francis, but is one of the more celebrated works of his follower, the mystic poet Jacopone da Todi (1230?-1306). DGR has translated lines 147-162 of the poem, which is one of Jacopone's Laude (no. XC).

DGR stays quite close to the metrical scheme of his source text. The latter, however, is not lineated in the metrical order explicated by scholars from the early texts (for the latter see the authoritative edition by Ferri).

Textual History: Composition

As with most of DGR's translations of the early Italian poets, the date of this one cannot be determined with certainty. It is probably one of the early translations.

Printing History

The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 145d-1861.raw.xml