Important Italian Poets
- Giacomo da Lentini a 13th Century poet who is believed to have invented the sonnet.
- Guido Cavalcanti (c.1255 - 1300) Tuscan poet, and a key figure in the Dolce Stil Novo movement.
- Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321) wrote Divina Commedia, one of the pinnacles of Middle Ages literature.
- Francesco Petrarca (1304 - 1374) famous for developing the Petrarchan sonnet in a collection of 366 poems called Canzoniere.
- Matteo Maria Boiardo (1441 – 1494) wrote the epic poem Orlando innamorato
- Ludovico Ariosto (1474 – 1533) wrote the epic poem Orlando furioso (1516).
- Torquato Tasso (1544 – 1595) wrote La Gerusalemme liberata (1580) in which he describes the imaginary combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade.
- Ugo Foscolo (1778 - 1827): best known for his poem "Dei Sepolcri"
- Giacomo Leopardi (1798 – 1837): highly valued for his Canti and Operette morali, author of L'infinito, one of the most famous poems of Italian literary history.
- Giosuè Carducci (1835 - 1907) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1906
- Giovanni Pascoli (1855 - 1912)
- Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863 - 1938) poet and novelist of the Decadent Movement
- Guido Gozzano (1883-1916) poet of the Decadent Movement, best known for his collection "I colloqui" (1911)
- Umberto Saba (1883 - 1957)
- Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888 - 1970)
- Eugenio Montale (1896 – 1981) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1975
- Salvatore Quasimodo (1901 – 1968) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1959
- Cesare Pavese (1908 – 1950)
- Leonardo Sinisgalli (1908 – 1981)
- Alfonso Gatto (1909 – 1976)
- Antonia Pozzi (1912 - 1938)
- Mario Luzi (1914 – 2005)
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“For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
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