Homoerotic Poets of the Italian Trecento explores same-sex desire in the work of three skilled medieval Italian poets, bringing their verse and expression to English readers.
Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy produced a wide range of literature, from the courtly love of the Sicilian School, to the spiritualized love of the dolce stil nuovo and Dante, to the comic poetry that flourished with authors such as Cecco Angiolieri and Folgore da San Gimignano. Author Fabian Alfie, through his translations of these poets, shows how this cultural context allowed three medieval Italian poets—Meo dei Tolomei, Cecco Nuccoli, and Marino Ceccoli—to openly discuss their sexual relationships with other men in their own poetic verse. These three poets adapted the languages of comic literature and courtly love to the new topic of homoeroticism. The result is a unique form of poetics that blended traditional expressions with innovative material.
While homoerotic subtexts in the canonical works are often highlighted in the scholarship, the expression of same-sex desire ran deeper and was more prominent than in those works alone. For these poets, same-sex desire is not the subtext to their verse—it is the text itself. Through their poems, presented in facing Italian/English format, we are given a glimpse into the range of sexual attraction available to men in medieval Italy.