Jacopo da Leona

Jacopo da Leona, also spelt Iacopo (died 1277) was a medieval Italian jurist and poet.

Beginning his career as a notary, he became a nobleman's secretary and later a judge. Sixty of his sonnets survive.

Beginning life as Jacopo del Tancredo in the village of Levane, Arezzo, he took his later surname from the Castle of Leona (Castello di Leona), on which his village depended. Here Jacopo began to learn the work of a notary, under the patronage of the family of Ubertini of Arezzo, and one of the Ubertini, Ranieri, employed him as a secretary. Jacopo went with his master to Volterra, and in 1273, when Ranieri was elected as a bishop, Jacopo was appointed as a judge.

Of Jacopo's poetry, a songbook of sixty sonnets survives, of which the Vatican Library's manuscript Codex 3793 (Canzoniere Vaticano latino 3793) contains seven. Jacopo's sonnets are divided broadly into love poetry and satire, of which the former is original but somewhat mannered, adopting the style and themes of courtly love. All of the sonnets belong to the years before 1277. His best known work, which takes the form of a dialogue, is entitled Madonna, di voi piango e mi lamento ("Lady, I lament me of you").