JACOPONE DA TODI (JACOBUS DE BENEDICTIS) (c. I230 1306), Italian Franciscan poet, was born of noble family at Todi. He practised as an advocate in his native town and acquired considerable wealth, but on the death of his wife about 1268 became a Franciscan. On account of his satire on Benedict VIII., who was not well disposed towards the Spirituals with whom Jacopone sympathized, he was imprisoned from 1298-1303. On his release he lived at Collazzone where he died, Dec. 25, 1306.
Jacopone's poems, which were written chiefly in the Umbrian dialect, and are a curious mixture of coarseness and tenderness, early acquired great popularity. They relate his inner experiences and reflect his profound piety, his missionary zeal, his Franciscan devotion to love and to poverty, and his mystical but practical bent. The best edition is that of 1490, recently reprinted (1923)
with preface by G. Papini. The short spiritual prose treatises were edited by Parenti at Modena (1832) and by Gigli at Rome See Ozanam, Les Poetes Franciscains (1852) ; Tobler's Life in Zeitsch. fur romanische Philol. ii. (1878) ; D'Ancona in Studi della Letteratura Italiana dei primi secoli (1884), and in Biblioteca Umbrai (1914) ; Gehart, L'Italie Mystique (189o) ; Macdonnell, Sons of Francis (1902) ; Brugnole, Fra Jacopone da Todi (Assisi, 19o7) ; E. Underhill, Jacopone da Todi (1919) ; and N. Sapegno, Trate Jacopone (1923).