ballatetta

Updated: May 27, 2025

Indeed, the stanza itself, as used by our earliest poets, may be found in Guido Cavalcanti's 'Ballatetta, beginning, Posso degli occhi miei. Between Chaucer and Surrey the Muse of England fell asleep; but when in the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. she awoke again, it was as a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains and essayed fresh metres.

John Addington Symonds - Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series