Cino da Pistoia. “Sonnet. He impugns the verdicts of Dante's Commedia.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1849?; 1861
Rhyme: abbaabbacdcdcd
Meter: iambic pentameter
Genre: sonnet

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

Scholars no longer attribute the original Italian sonnet to Cino; its authorship is unknown. The work is interesting, however, in its (presumably ironical) attack on Dante's poem for its “lovely heresy”.

See also the commentary for the source text, which was Sebastiano Ciampi's edition of the Vita e Poesie di Messer Cino da Pistoia (page 114).

Textual History: Composition

An early translation, late 1840s.

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: 189d-1861.raw.xml