ABSTRACT
The vast majority of Cecco Angiolieri's lyrics is dedicated to a self-presentation as an all-suffering lover, thereby forming a type of mock-amorous poetry. Some seventy sonnets treat this material in Angiolieri's poetic corpus, making it his most insistently employed topic. From Angiolieri's position at the end of the Duecento and at the beginning of the Trecento, love takes on a heightened relevance. Broadly speaking, the evolution of the conception of literary love mirrors the sociological changes occurring in Italy at the time. As the social context becomes radically different from that found in literature, however, innovative writers begin to redefine love, and by extension, poetry itself. The vast majority of Angiolieri's mock-amorous poetry depicts him in service to a woman. Angiolieri similarly reveals the direct influence of the early Tuscan poets in his verses. The Bolognese jurist and poet Guido Guinizzelli initially adhered to the traditional troubadouric ideology of love.
