Lapo Gianni

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Lapo Gianni was a Florence-born Italian poet who lived in the late 13th and early 14th centuries and died after 1328. He was part of the Dolce Stil Novo circle. He was probably a notary, and he was a close friend of Dante and Guido Cavalcanti, supporting Dante politically when he led Florence. He belonged to the Ricevuti family and was still alive in May 1328, so he outlived both Dante and Cavalcanti.

Several of his poems survive, along with his notarial records from 1298 to 1328. He wrote eleven ballate (short lyric poems), three long canzoni (one of which attacks love), two shorter canzone stanzas, and a famous long double sonnet, Amor, eo chero mia donna in domìno, in a Provençal plazer style. His preference for ballate links him with Cavalcanti and Gianni degli Alfani. He reworked the Dolce Stil Novo language and imagery in an “international Gothic” style, looking back in some ways and forward to the 14th century.

Lapo Gianni is regarded as one of the founders of the Dolce Stil Novo, alongside Cavalcanti, Dante, and Cino. Dante cites him in the ninth sonnet of his Rhymes and regarded him as one of the best Tuscan poets of his time.