Rustico di Filippo, a Florentine poet of the generation before Dante, is known by and large as a poet of the jocose, or humorous, tradition. We tend not to know that Rustico was a major exponent of traditional love poetry.Unlike traditional literary history, this study relates Rustico to his Guittone d'Arezzo, Chiaro Davanzati, Monte Andrea and others. It also examines his influence on poets of the next Dante Alighieri, Guido Cavalcanti and Cecco Angiolieri. By reading Rustico within the mainstream of the Italian lyric tradition, we begin to see him as a major poet.
