Italian lyric poet, born in the thirteenth century, of a noble family of Bologna. Little is known of his life, the chief fact of interest being that he greatly modified the style of the Provençal troubadours, which up to this time was artificial and conventional. Becoming interested in the speculations of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura, he began to introduce them in his poetry, working out a new theory of love, and explaining it in philosophical terms. The new style powerfully attracted Dante, who adopted it, in part, in the Vita Nuova and the Divina Commedia. He died in 1276. See also Of His Lady.
