PULCI, Lulu (1432-84). An Italian poet, born at Florence of a family once wealthy and noted in the fifteenth century for its literary attainments. Both Cosimo and Piero de' Medici were his patrons and friends, and he was on terms of intimacy with Lorenzo the Magnificent. Pulci's chief work is the romantic, chivalrous poem called by him the Morgante when he pub lished 23 cantos of it at Venice in 1482, and known as the Morgante maggiore since the ap pearance of the second and complete edition of it at Florence in 1453. The great value of the Morgante consists in the fact that it was the first artistic treatment in Italian of the chival rous stories of Charlemagne and his peers so long before imported from France. It marks the first important step in the direction of the chivalric poem of Ariosto. There is little unity of ac tion in Pulci's work. It takes its name from the giant Morgante, who is converted to Chris tianity and accompanies Orlando (Roland) on some of his expeditions, but Morgaute is by no means the chief personage of the poem. Al though the 1/organte is in no sense a mock heroic poem, it must be admitted that in its tone it often mingles the serious with the humor ous, the heroic with the vulgar, the grave with the grotesque, and piety with irreverence, and all these were characteristic qualities of the Floren tine democracy of Pulci's time. The first canto
of his poem was translated into English octaves by Byron. Pitlei's other poetical works com prise the Confessions, which has somewhat the air of a parody on the Scriptures; the Beca di Dieomano, a burlesque imitation of the Yencia da Barberino of Lorenzo the Magnificent; his revision of the Ciriffo Cainane° of his brother Luca, and his continuation of the octaves on the Giostra of Lorenzo de' Medici ascribed to Luca; some ,Strombotti. some satirical and jocose son nets, and other shorter lyrics. In prose he wrote the Lettere a Lorenzo it Jlagnifico (Lucca. 18S6) and a novel. There are several editions of the Morgante; the the Beca, and the son nets may be found in the editions of Lucca, 1759.
Consult Volpi, "Luigi Pulci, studio hiografico," in the Giornale storico della lettcratura italiana, xxii.. and the Life prefacing Bongi's edition of the Lettere.