Francesco Berni

Francesco Berni Poems

Francesco Berni Biography

Francesco Berni (1497/98 – May 26, 1535) was an Italian poet. He is credited for beginning what is now known as "Bernesque poetry", a serio-comedic type of poetry with elements of satire. Berni was born about 1497 in Lamporecchio, a town of Tuscany near the river Arno. His father Nicolò was a notary of a long-established Florentine, but excessively poor. At an early age he was sent to Florence, where he remained until his nineteenth year and wrote a pastoral play, Catrina. In 1517 he set out for Rome, in the service of Bernardo Dovizi, Cardinal Bibbiena. After the cardinal's death (1520), he was thrown on his own devices. At the time of the election of Adrian VI he circulated witty lampoons, for which he was obliged for a time to leave Rome. Later he returned to accept a situation as clerk or secretary to Giovanni Matteo Gilberti, datary to Clement VII. The duties of his office, for which Berni was in every way unfit, were exceedingly irksome to the poet, who, however, made himself celebrated at Rome as the most witty and inventive of a certain club of literary men, who devoted themselves to light and sparkling effusions. So strong was the admiration for Berni's verses, that mocking or burlesque poems have since been called poesie bernesca. About the year 1530 he was relieved from his servitude by obtaining a canonry in the cathedral of Florence. In that city he died in 1536, according to Romantic tradition poisoned by Duke Alessandro de Medici, for having refused to poison the duke's cousin, Ippolito de' Medici; but considerable obscurity rests over this story.)

The Best Poem Of Francesco Berni

Sonetto

THE deuce, a roast of scraggy quails, a bit
Of salted pork to cram down a dry throat;
To be dead tired and find nowhere to sit;
To have the fire near by, the wine remote;
To pay cash down but to be paid at leisure;
To be compelled to grant a profitless boon;
Not to see aught when you've gone out on pleasure;
To stew in January as you did in June;
To have a pebble lurking in your boot;
To feel a flea a-running round about
Your stirrup-leg, inside your sock; to know
One hand is clean and one as black as soot,
One foot is with a shoe and one without,
To be kept waiting when you're wild to go;
Add to all this what tries you most in life,
Vexation, care, grief, every sort of strife,
You'll find that far away the worst's a wife.

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