ABSTRACT
Antonio Tabucchi's narrative is a fictional masterpiece because it is constructed around a complex network of alternate realities: imaginary dreams based on the literature of the sleeping authors. Tabucchi merges the real-world writer with his works, and in this way, he parodies much of the scholarship dedicated to Angiolieri. To those familiar with Angiolieri scholarship, such an assertion might appear inaccurate. After all, in 1953, Mario Marti saw the connections between Cecco Angiolieri and a general European medieval comic tradition. Tabucchi's 'dream' owes much of its existence to Alessandro d'Ancona, the critic who performed the first in-depth study of Angiolieri in 1878. Given that rough and rustic people constitute his audience, d'Ancona asserts that Angiolieri has no intercourse with the important literary figures of the age and is immediately forgotten after his death. A subsequent development in the 'legend' occurred around the middle of this century when several scholars produced anthologies of comic verse.
