Jacopo da Leona

Jacopo da Leona, also spelt Iacopo (died 1277) was a medieval Italian jurist and poet.

A notary by profession, he became a nobleman's secretary and later a judge. Sixty of his sonnets survive.

Life and work

Beginning life as Jacopo del Tancredo in the village of Levane, Arezzo, Leona took his later surname from the Castle of Leona (Castello di Leona), on which his village depended. Here he learnt the work of a notary, under the patronage of the family of Ubertini of Arezzo, and one of the Ubertini, Ranieri, employed him as a secretary. Leona went with his master to Volterra, and in 1273, when Ranieri was elected as a bishop, Leona was appointed as a judge.[1]

Of Leona's poetry, a songbook of sixty sonnets survives, of which the Vatican Library's manuscript Codex 3793 (Canzoniere Vaticano latino 3793) contains seven.[2] All of the sonnets belong to the years before 1277.[3] They divide broadly into satire and love poetry, which is original but mannered, adopting the style and themes of courtly love. Leona’s best known work, which takes the form of a dialogue, has the title "Lady, I lament me of you" (Madonna, di voi piango e mi lamento).[4][5]

On Leona’s death, Guittone d'Arezzo addressed an ode to him which calls him Giacomo da Leona and refers to him as a friar.

Notes
  1. Luciano Rossi, 'I sonetti di Jacopo da Leona' in Il genere «tenzone» nelle letterature romanze delle Origini and in Atti del Convegno internazionale, Losanna, 13-15 novembre 1997
  2. Alessandro d'Ancona, Le antiche rime volgari secondo la legione del Codice vaticano 3793 a cura Della Biblioteca Vaticana, Roma (1888)
  3. Peter Weinmann, Sonett-Idealität und Sonett-Realität (1989), p. 142: "Jacopo da Leona, einem Dichter, dessen Aktivität sicher vor 1277 liegt."
  4. Joan H. Levin, Rustico di Filippo and the Florentine lyric tradition (P. Lang, 1986), p. 107
  5. Aurelio Roncaglia, Per due sonetti di Cecco Angiolieri ed uno di Jacopo da Leona (1941) in Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, vol. CXVIII (353-354), pp. 81-92
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