Un poeta alla corte dei papi. Bonaiuto da Casentino e Bonifacio VIII

[Autom. eng. transl.] In the sec. XIII the papal curia welcomed many intellectuals, who composed occasional poems commissioned by popes and cardinals: in this fertile cultural environment Bonaiuto da Casentino stands out, a curia official who supported the duties of his office with his love for the Muses. His poetic production, dating back to the end of the thirteenth century, includes autobiographical texts and eulogies reserved for Boniface VIII and the 'family' of the pontiff (including the epitaphs for some relatives of Pope Caetani). Poet by the fervent narrative vocation Bonaiuto, he recounts in his verses the plague in Rome in the torrid summer of 1292, the dismay of the cardinals who repaired in Rieti, the subsequent return to the Urbe bloodied by struggles after the death of Niccolò IV. He also dedicates three festive poems to the election and coronation of Boniface VIII. The most daily aspects of life emerge in the papal court, in a sequence for the purge and in a hymn for a drain made by Boniface VIII, addressed with a letter to the pontiff's doctor: both poems are accompanied by musical notation. The volume offers the commented edition of Bonaiuto's poems and a general presentation of the poetic production of the thirteenth century linked to the papal curia.