JACOPONE DA TODI (1274)

Real name JACOPO DEI BENEDETTI.

Religious poet, author of more than 100 mystical poems of great power and originality.

Born of a noble family and trained for the law, he practiced in the town of his birth until his wife´s sudden death at a party around 1268 (when, according to some sources he discovered that she was wearing a hair shirt under her pretty clothes) precipitated his total conversion to an ascetic life. He disposed of his belongings dedicated himself to God in absolute poverty and became first a tertiary then (1278) a lay brother of the Franciscan order.

As a member of the Spiritual faction of his order, a group espousing uncompromising poverty, Jacopone wrote violent satirical verse against Pope Boniface VIII (who was under suspicion for having caused the abdication and later the death of his saintly predecessor Celestine V) and signed the manifesto (1297) that declared Boniface´s election invalid.

Boniface retaliated by first excommunicating and then (1298) imprisoning Jacopone for life. Boniface died first (1303) and Jacopone was released by the new pope Benedict XI. Jacopone retired to the monastery at Collazzone where he died three years later. His tomb is in the medieval church of S. Fortunato, Todi.

Most of Jacopone´s poetic work is in the vernacular. A notable exception is the Latin Stabat mater dolorosa which has long been attributed to him. That poem was added to the Roman liturgy in the 18th century and has been set to music by many composers, including Josquin des Prez, Palestrina, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Gioacchino Rossini and Antonín Dvorák.

His many laudi spirituali (spiritual canticles), some written during his imprisonment are vivid and original outpourings of many moods, ranging from bitter anger to mystical ecstasy.

Jacopone´s religious canticles were first collected in Laude di frate Iacopone da Todi (1490).