Cielo d'Alcamo (), also spelled Ciullo, was an Italian poet, born in the early 13th century. He is considered one of the fathers of Italian medieval

jester A jester, also known as joker, court jester, or fool, was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch kept to entertain guests at the royal court. Jesters were also travelling performers who entertained common folk at fairs and town ma ...

poetry. His traditional surname (which would mean "from

Alcamo Alcamo (; ) is the fourth-largest town and communes of Italy, commune of the Province of Trapani, Sicily, with a population of 44.925 inhabitants. It is on the borderline with the Metropolitan City of Palermo at a distance of about 50 kilometr ...

", a town in northwestern

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

) has been differently identified by other scholars as Dalcamo (the modern form of the name "Cielo" is "Michele" or "Michael"). Cielo d'Alcamo and fellow 13th century Sicilian poet

Giacomo da Lentini Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Jacopo da Lentini or with the appellative Il Notaro, was an Italian poet and inventor of the 13th century. He was a senior poet of the Sicilian School and was a notary at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Fred ...

are jointly credited as the inventors of the

sonnet A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...

as a verse form. D'Alcamo is known exclusively from the poem "Rosa Fresca Aulentissima" ("Fresh and Very Perfumed Rose"), written in

Messina Messina ( , ; ; ; ) is a harbour city and the capital city, capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of 216,918 inhabitants ...

-area

Sicilian dialect Sicilian (, ; ) is a Romance language that is spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands. It belongs to the broader Extreme Southern Italian language group (in Italian ). ''Ethnologue'' (see below for more detail) describes Sic ...

with influences from mainland Italian dialects and which survives only in a single codex now in the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...

. Similarly to the balcony scene from

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''

Romeo and Juliet ''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's ...

'', a young suitor sneaks into the garden of a young lady from a

noble A noble is a member of the nobility. Noble may also refer to: Places Antarctica * Noble Glacier, King George Island * Noble Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land * Noble Peak, Wiencke Island * Noble Rocks, Graham Land Australia * Noble Island, Gr ...

family and declares his love for her. He tries to seduce the girl with a devastatingly brutal

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

of the

Sicilian School The Sicilian School was a small community of Sicilian and mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II, most of them belonging to his imperial court in Palermo. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini, they produced more than 300 poems of courtl ...

love poetry Poetry (from the Greek word '' poiesis'', "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particul ...

cliché A cliché ( or ; ) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or literal and figurative language, figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being b ...

s. In reply, the girl berates him for his "ill" intentions, vowing to protect her honour, but her

prudishness A prude is a person with a very sensitive attitude and narrowness towards custom and morality. The word prude comes from the Old French word also meaning loyal, respectable or modest woman, which was the source of prude in the 18th century. Ac ...

is just a

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

to force her admirer to keep trying harder, until at last she gives in completely to his bold advances. It also represents an equally on target

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

of contemporary

Troubadour A troubadour (, ; ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female equivalent is usually called a ''trobairitz''. The tr ...

poetry from

Provence Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which stretches from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterrane ...

, as well as the

literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...

developed by the "Magna Curia" of poets surrounding

Emperor Frederick II Frederick II (, , , ; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225. He was the son of Emperor Henry VI of the Ho ...

at his court in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

. The date of the poem has been assigned to sometime between 1231This date has been set as the poem (verses 21-25) mentions the ''augustari'', a coin introduced in the

Kingdom of Sicily The Kingdom of Sicily (; ; ) was a state that existed in Sicily and the southern Italian peninsula, Italian Peninsula as well as, for a time, in Kingdom of Africa, Northern Africa, from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was ...

in 1231. and 1250. Identified by some scholars (such as

Francesco De Sanctis Francesco de Sanctis (28 March 1817 – 29 December 1883) was an Italian literary critic, scholar and politician, leading critic and historian of Italian language and literature during the 19th century. Biography De Sanctis was born in the so ...

) as a very popular work, "Rosa fresca aulentissima" was written by a very cultured and sophisticated

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

poet, as testified by his knowledge of works such as the ''

Roman de la Rose ''Le Roman de la Rose'' (''The Romance of the Rose'') is a medieval poem written in Old French and presented as an allegory">allegorical romantic love is disclosed. Its two authors conceived it as a psychological allegory; throughout the Lover' ...

'' and by his likely involvement in Frederick II's court.

Notes and references

Bibliography

* * * * Mendola, Louis (2015). ''Sicily's Rebellion against King Charles'' (includes poem of Cielo d'Alcamo in Sicilian and English). . * {{DEFAULTSORT:dAlcamo, Cielo 13th-century Italian poets Italian male poets Italian parodists Italian satirists Italian satirical poets People from Alcamo Poets from Sicily Romeo and Juliet Sicilian-language poets Sicilian School poets Year of death unknown Year of birth unknown

See also

Notes and references

Bibliography