Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

The late Thirteenth century was a marvellous time in Italy. It was like the dawn of a new era in human history. The medieval world was giving way to something far finer and more outward looking, which came to be known as The Renaissance. Already new forms of painting under such masters as Cimabue were being developed. The dead hand of plainchant was giving way to polyphony in music. Speak of this era and one immediately thinks of Dante, but there was another poet, a few years’ Dante’s senior, who deserves to be better known.

 Cecho Angiolieri was born in Siena around 1260. (My friend Gerry jokes that he has one big thing in common with Jude Law – they’ve both been in Siena …) Cecho moved to Rome where he son became famous, if not infamous for his skills as a versifier and a satirist. He liked the finer things in life, like wine and women, but seldom had money to pay for either, and what littler he did make he soon squandered away at the gaming tables. Surprisingly Cecho lived to the ripe old age (for his day) of fifty-two.

 Cecho is famous for a fresh and unencumbered style. Not for him the anally retentive prissiness of Dante and the dolce stil nuovo dominated by its adoration of love and female perfection. While Dante swooned after his Beatrice, Petrarca his Laura, and Boccaccio his Fiammetta, Cecho lusted after his Becchina, but whereas these poetical muses were “high class totty”, either married or destined to marry noblemen and w bankers, Becchina was a full-blooded, three-hundred-and-sixty degrees woman, the daughter of a cobbler and leather worker. Incidentally he is reputed to have once called dearest Dante a bollocks, or the Florentine equivalent.

About 150 poems by Cecho including the sonnet “S’ I’ fosse foco” (If I were fire) which I have appended in a rather free translation which probably seems like Jack Kerouac meets Stewy from Family Guy.

 If I were fire I’d burn the world,
If I were wind I’d blow it away.
If I were water I’d drown it,
If I were God I’d send it to the depths/
If I were Pope, I’d have a great time
As I’d do everyone in Christendom.
If I were emperor – do you know what I’d do?
I’d cut off the heads of everyone around me

If I were Death I’d go to my father’s,
If I were life I’d flee from him.
I’d do the same with my mother.
If I were Cecho, which I am and have been.
I’d take the girls who are young and gay,
And give the old and ugly away.