Bonagiunta Orbicciani da Lucca

(ca. 1220–ca. 1297)

   The only verifiably certain fact about Bonagiunta Orbicciani da Lucca’s life is that he was a notary whose official documents were produced between 1242 and 1257. He seems to have lived into the later part of the century, since one of his poems takes Guido GUINIZELLI to task, and a few poems attributed to him are addressed to DANTE. Bonagiunta seems to have been a well-known orator as well as a poet. He also apparently had something of a reputation as a heavy drinker, and, as a result, Dante places him in purgatory among the gluttons in his DIVINE COMEDY.

   Dante also refers to Bonagiunta in De VULGARI ELOQUENTIA, where he is mentioned along with GUITTONE D’AREZZO as writing in a “plebeian” rather than a courtly style, and is there associated with the Tuscan school of poetry.Most scholars associate Bonagiunta more with the earlier Sicilian school of GIACOMO DA LENTINO, and in fact he was accused at one point by another poet, probably Chiaro Davanzati, of plagiarizing from Giacomo. Ultimately Bonagiunta seems to have drawn from both the Sicilian and Tuscan poets and from those of Dante’s group, the stilnovisti, but was not necessarily a close follower of any tradition. The technical proficiency of his poetry is acknowledged, but Bonagiunta is not known for any stylistic or thematic innovations—he simply uses the conventions he inherited.He is best known not for any of his poems but rather for the use Dante makes of him in the Purgatorio, where in canto XXIV he is made to recognize that neither he nor Giacomo nor Guittone had been able to achieve the loftiness of expression evident in the DOLCE STIL NOVO (“sweet new style”) of Dante and his group.

   Bibliography

   ■ Goldin, Frederick, trans. German and Italian Lyrics of the Middle Ages: An Anthology and a History. New York: Doubleday, 1973.

   ■ Miller,Kenneth W.“A Critical Edition of the Poetry of Bonagiunta Orbicciani da Lucca,” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1973.