Sordello

Sordello da Goito or Sordel de Goit (sometimes Sordell) was a 13th-century Italian troubadour. His life and work have inspired several authors including Dante Alighieri, Robert Browning, and Samuel Beckett.

Life

Sordello was born in the municipality of Goito in the province of Mantua. About 1220 he was in a tavern brawl in Florence; and in 1226, while at the court of Richard of Bonifazio in Verona, he abducted his master's wife, Cunizza, at the instigation of her brother, Ezzelino III da Romano. The scandal resulted in his flight (1229) to Provence, where he seems to have remained for some time. He entered the service of Charles of Anjou, and probably accompanied him (1265) on his Naples expedition; in 1266 he was a prisoner in Naples. The last documentary mention of him is in 1269, and he is supposed to have died in Provence. His appearance in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy among the spirits of those who, though redeemed, were prevented from making a final confession and reconciliation by sudden death, suggests that he was murdered, although this may be Dante's own conjecture.¹

Works

So far as we have authentic facts about his life, Sordello was the most famous of the Italian troubadours. His didactic poem L’ensenhamen d’onor, and his love songs and satirical pieces have little in common with Dante's presentation, but the invective against negligent princes which Dante puts into his mouth in the 7th canto of the Purgatorio is more adequately paralleled in his sirventes-planh (1237) on the death of his patron , where he invites the princes of to feed on the heart of the hero.