Rustico Filippi, 'The Art of Insult'

Book excerpt: Although he was a skilful author of courtly love lyrics, Rustico’s fame rests on another type of poetics altogether. At the time, he was credited with fathering a new branch of comic literature—insult. Of his 59 sonnets, 30 are insulting caricatures of fellow citizens, political figures, and Florentine women. Literary theorists had justified insult as a means to enforce public morality, but in the Italian tradition, no one had explored the artistic range of insulting literature before Rustico. After Rustico, insult was a central element of comic literature.