Exiled from Pistoia in 1302, he was able (unlike Dante) to return to his native city after a few years and hold public office.

In Italian Cino is the most prolific writer of lyric poetry between Guittone d'Arezzo and Petrarch, with a secure surviving corpus of twenty canzoni, eleven ballate and 134 sonnets, notable for purity of language and harmony of rhythms.

On the death of Dante in 1321 Cino wrote the celebratory ‘Su per la costa, Amor, de l’alto monte’.

Cino is the link between the Dolce Stil Novo and the greater lyric poetry of Petrarch, whose musicality his own practice anticipates.

His poetic correspondents include Guido Cavalcanti and Onesto da Bologna, who jibed at the dreaminess of the Dolce Stil Novo.

The opening of the canzone, ‘La dolce vista e’l bel guardo soave’, is cited respectfully by Petrarch (Canz.