Peter Hughes has over the years created exciting new versions of several Italian poets including Petrarch, Dante, Cavalcanti and Leopardi. Now he has turned his attention to Giacomo da Lentini, the Sicilian poet who wrote the very first sonnets. Lentini was a notary at the court of Frederick II in Palermo in the early years of the 13th century. Sicily in that period was already multicultural with scholars, philosophers, scientists and artists from the Christian, Judaic and Muslim traditions sharing thoughts and insights. Lentini absorbs and reworks the Occitan traditions and poetic forms of southern France. Interestingly there is no trace of his original Sicilian texts. We have only the transcriptions into Tuscan. So, translation in one form or another is here in his poetry from the beginning.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Jack Lentini & the Pirate Queen.