Zagonara e Anghiari nella poesia politica del primo Quattrocento toscano

Abstract

The four poems taken into account are examined primarily in their formal and metrical structures, their imagery, and the emotive charge of the discourse designed to excite the listeners’ emotions rather than to appeal to their intellect. It emerges that, far from being hackneyed and trite pieces of political propaganda, these poems are rhetorically sophisticated compositions which draw on a rich and varied poetic tradition. In them are combined the Humanist
myth of tyranny versus Republican freedom, exempla from Roman history, municipal legends and beliefs and a substantial number of literary reminiscences.