Dante's best friend and a major exponent of the Dolce Stil Novo, Guido Cavalcanti has had a lasting influence upon Italian poetry and is best known to English readers through the essays, translations and adaptations of Ezra Pound. Born from the cultural ferment of thirteenth-century Florence, Cavalcanti's poetry is an extraordinary blend of unorthodox philosophy, sharp psychological insight and dazzling formal mastery.

Anthony Mortimer, acclaimed for his versions of Petrarch and Michelangelo, provides a new verse translation complete with notes, critical comment and biographical material: following in the footsteps of Rossetti and Pound, he presents a Cavalcanti who speaks for his own time and to ours.

Contents: Complete Poems, Notes on the text, Notes, Guido Cavalcanti's Life, Cavalcanti, Dante and the Dolce Stil Novo, The Poetry, Cavalcanti in English, The Forms of Cavalcanti's Poetry, Select Bibliography, Appendix 1: Cino da Pistoia's Poem to Cavalcanti, Appendix 2: Documents Relating to the Life of Cavalcanti