Francesco da Barberino
He worked for a time as a diplomat for Venice and passed his exile at courts in Provence, France and Spain.
After his return to Florence, he gained respect as a notary and lawyer, but was not admitted to political office until the last three years of his life.
He is best known for two didactic works on virtue, the Documenti d'amore for men and the Reggimento e costume di donna for women, written in a mixture of prose and verse in both Tuscan and Latin.
His father, Neri di Ranuccio, was a political Ghibelline who relocated from the city of Florence to the countryside.
[1] He was the ambassador of the Republic of Venice to Pope Clement V in Avignon, where he was the personal friend of Cardinal Pietro Colonna.
[1] On 28 March 1313, Francesco received a doctorate of both laws by papal bull, although the bishop of Florence would not confirm it for five years.
He took part in the legal and economic affairs of the Florentine republic in his capacity as a doctor of both laws, but he was excluded from politics on account of his Ghibellinism until 1345, when he and his son Filippo were elected councillors.
[2] Filippo Villani included an entry on Francesco in biographical dictionary of Florence and Giovanni Boccaccio praises him in Genealogia deorum gentilium.
During his second period in Florence, he became acquainted with the stilnovisti, including Dante Alighieri and Guido Cavalcanti.
[1] His earliest known works date to this period, but are both lost: some lyric poems for a certain Costanza and the Flores novellarum (Italian Fiori di novelle), a collection of tales of Provençal origin.
[1] It was probably also during his exile that he wrote his two surviving longer works in the Tuscan vernacular, Documenti d'amore ('lessons about love') and Reggimento e costume di donna ('rules on good behaviour for women').
[2] His citation of authors from Aristotle down to Jean de Joinville, in both Latin and various vernaculars, demonstrates the breadth of his reading.
[2] It is written in Tuscan verse with accompanying Latin translation and explanatory glosses by Francesco.
It is an allegorical work, divided into twelve sections of unequal length, each containing the words of a female personification of a virtue, relaying the precepts of chivalry and good behaviour that Love dictated to Eloquence.
Besides Alighieri, Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti, he cites Brunetto Latini, Dino Compagni, Baldo da Passignano and Albertino Mussato.
