Mazzeo di Ricco da Messina. “Canzone. He solicits his Lady's Pity.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1849?; 1861
Rhyme: aabcabcdeed
Meter: iambic pentameter and trimeter
Genre: canzone

Bibliography

“Table of Poets” in Early Italian Poets, xxvi.

◦ Panvini, Le rime della scuola siciliana, I. 432-434.

◦ Contini, Poeti de duecento I. 153-154; II. 815.

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

Scholars now differ on the authorship of this canzone, although it remains part of the Sicilian School corpus. Contini (I. 153-154) assigns the poem to Mazzeo but Panvini (I. 432-434) leaves the authorship doubtful. DGR's source text is Poeti del primo secolo (I. 331-333), where it is attributed to Mazzeo di Ricco da Messina. DGR has only a brief note on Mazzeo that gives an approximate date of 1250 for his works.

Textual History: Composition

As with most of DGR's translations of the early Italian poets, the date of this cannot be precisely determined. DGR probably wrote it early, in the 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: 203d-1861.raw.xml