Italian poetry

Updated on Dec 08, 2023

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Italian poetry is a category of Italian literature.

Important Italian poets

Giacomo da Lentini a 13th Century poet who is believed to have invented the sonnet.

Guido Cavalcanti (c.1255 - 1300) Tuscan poet, and a key figure in the Dolce Stil Novo movement.

Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321) wrote Divina Commedia, one of the pinnacles of Middle Ages literature.

Francesco Petrarca (1304 - 1374) famous for developing the Petrarchan sonnet in a collection of 366 poems called Canzoniere.

Matteo Maria Boiardo (1441 – 1494) wrote the epic poem Orlando innamorato

Ludovico Ariosto (1474 – 1533) wrote the epic poem Orlando furioso (1516).

Torquato Tasso (1544 – 1595) wrote La Gerusalemme liberata (1580) in which he describes the imaginary combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade.

Ugo Foscolo (1778 - 1827): best known for his poem "Dei Sepolcri"

Giacomo Leopardi (1798 – 1837): highly valued for his Canti and Operette morali, author of L'infinito, one of the most famous poems of Italian literary history.

Giosuè Carducci (1835 - 1907) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1906

Giovanni Pascoli (1855 - 1912)

Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863 - 1938) poet and novelist of the Decadent Movement

Guido Gozzano (1883-1916) poet of the Decadent Movement, best known for his collection "I colloqui" (1911)

Umberto Saba (1883 - 1957)

Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888 - 1970)

Eugenio Montale (1896 – 1981) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1975

Salvatore Quasimodo (1901 – 1968) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1959

Cesare Pavese (1908 – 1950)

Leonardo Sinisgalli (1908 – 1981)

Alfonso Gatto (1909 – 1976)

Antonia Pozzi (1912 - 1938)