Andrea De Franchi Bulgaro (1359–1446)

Andrea Bulgaro is the first poet in Ligurian whose name and biography are known with any degree of certainty, and was an important figure in Genoese political and civic life. He was an Elder of the Commune in 1390, an ambassador to the king of France in 1399, then to Rome in 1412, among the first protectors of the Hospital of Pammatone and an advisor to the Banco di San Giorgio. In 1425 he was in Savona to collect certain back tithes from the local bishop and, having accomplished his mission, wrote in verse to his friend Archbishop Pileo de Marini to jokingly inform him of this fact. According to F. Toso, the poem is notable for its character of continuity with the production of the Genoese Anonym, who often wrote letters in verse to friends in a humorous tone, due to the meter adopted, the cross-rhymed octosyllables, and, moreover, for the chronicle-like and sometimes ironic trend of the composition. Bulgaro uses the spoken Genoese of his times, to enhance its expressiveness, which stands out the most in the comic-realistic register. This continuity would suggest that Andrea Bulgaro, who lived in a century that is usually described as “without poetry”, wrote other texts, which still have not come to light, and moreover it is likely that a contemporary production of poems in Genoese, by other authors, existed but has not come down to us.

À Pileo de Marini

Segnor mè monto honorao
tropo stago in questa Saonna
den che è lo cor xachao
e la mente pocho sanna.

E no trovo chì boteta
chi me daga de tal vim
como fa la gaiardeta
ni so figio botesin,

bem che lo vescho condanao
voiando mendar la falla
per tuto so veschoao
de cerchar certo no calla

se in pareise o in secreto
fosse una tal boteta
chi per conçar lo me peto
me ne desse una iarreta.

Vegandolo in tar ateça
armao forte de tute arme
steti monto in dubieça
che o no devese pagarme.

Niente men cum cortexia,
bem che o fosse monto stancho,
cum boin cibi e diragia
o fè mette um bello bancho.

Pagao me à compimento
sea dra xorta, sea dre speise,
De ge dea in firmamento
megior vim che no è roçeise.

Però, karo segnor mé,
fai che lo zuxe competente
tire processi in derré
sì che o no paghe pu niente.

Cercherò quanto e porrò
de vegnì à vostra presença
e bem ihairo mostrerò
sempre cum gram reverença

che ’l prelato sovra dicto
si è axoto de ogni penna
avesse, e ’llo sovrascripto
che à lo gram Vescho de Senna.

Infra tanto grande payre
e’ me recomando à voi
cossì fosse, e de bonne ayre,
como e’ sum bem um dei doy

chi a’ vostri mandamenti
seam pu presti apparegiay,
de poy li streiti parenti
sempre che o’ vorei prohay.

Lo Segnor omnipotente
dàgave tal stao felice
como vorem vostre gente
bem che o’ no mangei pernixe.