"Gentile madonna d'amore". Un frammento di lirica d'occasione nella Volterra del primo Trecento

This esssay aims to study a poetic fragment (a couplet) written on the cover of a register of delibera tions of the Commune of Volterra, dating back to the first decades of the fourteenth century. In particular, the hand of the writer can be identified with that of ser Vito di ser Ghino, notary of the 12 Defenders of Popolo. Under the couplet, another notary active for the Commune, ser Bonifacio del fu ser Matteo da Città di Castello, listed a proper name (Chelino di Totto called Gru gera), which referred to an innkeeper who lived in Volterra in the same years. The occasion for the writing for the two notaries arrived with the solemn embassy made by Rosso della Tosa on behalf of the Commune of Florence in autumn 1317. Through the analysis of the relationship between the hands of the two notaries and between the two styles (one courtly and marked by a fashionable poetic taste, the other evidently parodyistic), this essay tries to outline the cultural context of Volterra in the early fourteenth century.