Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti: Terrace 1, Purgatorio 11
When, in the field of literature, Oderisi da Gubbio says that one "Guido" has supplanted another (11.97-9), he alludes to the poets Guido Cavalcanti and Guido Guinizzelli. Cavalcanti, whose father Dante met in Hell, was a fellow Florentine and Dante's best friend, while Guinizzelli (c. 1225-76) was considered the master of a new kind of writing--in which love and moral-intellectual excellence reinforce one another--that influenced both Cavalcanti and Dante. His canzone "Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore" ("In the noble heart love always finds its refuge"), became a poetic manifesto of this new style. |