Toynbee "Cino"
Cino (i.e. Guittoncino) di ser Francesco de' Sinibaldi (or Sighibaldi) of Pistoia, commonly known as Cino da Pistoia, the friend of D., and one of the principal poets of the new lyric school in Italy (which comprised, among others, Lapo Gianni, Dino Frescobaldi, Guido Orlandi, Gianni Alfani, Guido Cavalcanti, and Dante Alighieri); he was born at Pistoia in 1270; he was a lawyer by profession, and was the author of several legal works, the most important of which is the Lectura super codicem, a commentary on the first nine books of the Code of Justinian; after studying at Pistoia (whence he was exiled in 1307) and Bologna, he received his doctorate at Bologna (1314), and lectured on law successively at Treviso (1318), Siena (1321), Florence (1324), Perugia (1326) (where he had among his pupils the famous Bartolo da Sassoferrato), and Naples (1330). In 1333 he returned to Pistoia, which he had revisited at various intervals, and held several official posts in his native town, where he died at the end of 1336 or the beginning of 1337. He was buried in the cathedral of San Jacopo at Pistoia, where a monument by Cellino di Nese of Siena was erected to him; on it is a bas-relief representing Cino lecturing to nine pupils, among them Francesco Petrarca, who afterwards composed a sonnet on his death. Among Cino's friends, besides D., who in the De t)ulgari eloquentia usually speaks of himself as asnicus eius [Cini] ( ?',SD,vi(1923),113-30;G.Zaccagnini,'CinodaPistoia:FudiparteBiancaoNera?'GSLI,lxxxi(1923),337-47;andP.Landini,'ComeCinofuuomodiparte',inCinodaPistoianelVIcentevariodellamorte(Pistoia,1937),pp.95-103.]Cinowasoneofthosewhoreplied(Rimeiii)toD.'ssonnet,Aciascun'almapresaegentilcore(Rimei,','toynbeeWin',1,0,270,600,200); return false;">V.E. I. x. 4, xvii. 3, II. ii. 9, v. 4, vi. 6), were Onesto da Bologna, Cecco d'Ascoli, Bosone da Gubbio, and his pupil Petrarca. [On the rather complicated question of Cino's politics, see M. Barbi, 'Cino fu di parte "Bianca" ?', SD, vi (1923), 113-30; G. Zaccagnini, 'Cino da Pistoia: Fu di parte Bianca o Nera?' GSLI, lxxxi (1923), 337-47; and P. Landini, 'Come Cino fu uomo di parte', in Cino da Pistoia nel VI centevario della morte (Pistoia, 1937), pp. 95-103.] Cino was one of those who replied (Rime iii) to D.'s sonnet, A ciascun'alma presa e gentil core (Rime i,b V.N. iii. 10-12); among numerous poems of his which have been preserved, several of them addressed to D., is a canzone on the death of Beatrice (Rime xxviii), and another on the death of D. himself. His love-poems are said to have been inspired by his passion for Selvaggia, daughter of Filippo Vergiolesi of Pitecchio, who afterwards married Focaccia de' Cancellieri of Pistoia. He himself married (in 1300) Margherita degli Ughi, by whom he had five children. [See G. Carducci, Rime di Cino da Pistofa (Firenze, 1862); A. Bartoli, Storia della letteratura italiana (Firenze, 1881), iv, pp. 1-133; and G. Contini, Poeti del Duecento (Milano Napoli, 1960), ii, pp. 631-90.] D. addressed two sonnets to Cino (Rime xcvi, cxiv); and a letter (Exulanti Pistoriensi Florentinus exul inmeritus . . .) in which he replies to C.'s inquiry whether the soul 'can pass from passion to passion' (Epist. iii) (cf. Rime cx-cxi); Cino is named, messer Cino, Rime xcvi. 1 2, cxiv.2; Cinus Pistoriensis, V.E . I . x. 4, xiii. 3, xvii. 3- 11. ii. 9, v. 4, Cinus,b V.E. II. ii. 9' Cinus de Pisiorio, V.E. II. vi. 6, he is addressed by D. as carissime, Epist. iii. 2; frater carissime, Epist. iii. 8; his poems are quoted,b V.E. II. ii. 9, v. 4, vi. 6; D. couples C. with himself as having written poems in the vulgar tongue, V.E. I. x. 4; and with Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni, and himself, as having rejected the Tuscan dialect,b V.E. I. xiii. 3; the excellence of the vulgar tongue exemplified in the canzoni of C. and D., V.E. r. xvii. 3; C. the poet of love, D. the poet of rectitude,b V.E. II. ii. 9; he and D. both made use of eleven-syllabled verses, V.E. II. ii. 4; and both employed the most excellent form of canzone,b V.E. II. vi. 6; his poetic correspondence with D., Rime xcivxcviii, cxiv cxv, and in the name of Moroello Malaspina, Rime cxii-cxiii (see also Rime dubbie x-xviii).
©Oxford University Press 1968. From A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante by Paget Toynbee (1968) by permission of Oxford University Press