Nina Siciliana

[2] Adolfo Borgognoni first proposed that Nina was a fictional construct of male poets in 1891 and was soon followed by Giulio Bertoni.

[5] Liborio Azzolina tried to resuscitate her and also Compiuta Donzella, whom Borgognoni, with less supporters, also ascribed to later male poets' imaginations.

[6] More recently the Italian scholar Lino Pertile has called her fantomatica (phantomlike) and Paolo Cherchi dismissed her as "mythical", to be followed by Anne Klinck.

[7] Francesco Trucchi was the first to assign a poem to Nina: the sonnet Tapina in me, c'amava uno sparvero ("Alas for me, I loved a sparrowhawk"), probably composed in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century.

[9] Francesco de Sanctis, the foremost Italian literary critic of his day, praised la perfetta semplicità of Nina and Compiuta.