Editing Troubadour (section)

===''Podestà''-troubadours===
A phenomenon arose in Italy, recognised around the turn of the 20th century by Giulio Bertoni, of men serving in several cities as ''[[podestà]]s'' on behalf of either the [[Guelphs and Ghibellines|Guelph or Ghibelline]] party and writing political verse in Occitan rhyme. These figures generally came from the urban middle class. They aspired to high culture and though, unlike the nobility, they were not patrons of literature, they were its disseminators and its readers.

The first ''podestà''-troubadour was [[Rambertino Buvalelli]], possibly the first troubadour native to the Italian Peninsula, who was ''podestà'' of [[Genoa]] between 1218 and 1221. Rambertino, a Guelph, served at one time or another as ''podestà'' of [[Brescia]], [[Milan]], [[Parma]], [[Mantua]], and [[Verona]]. It was probably during his three-year tenure there that he introduced Occitan lyric poetry to the city, which was later to develop a flourishing Occitan literary culture.

Among the ''podestà''-troubadours to follow Rambertino, four were from Genoa: the Guelphs [[Luca Grimaldi]], who also served in Florence, Milan, and [[Ventimiglia, Italy|Ventimiglia]], and [[Luchetto Gattilusio]], who served in Milan, [[Cremona]], and Bologna, and the Ghibellines [[Perceval Doria]], who served in [[Arles]], [[Avignon]], [[Asti]], and [[Parma]], and [[Simon Doria]], sometime ''podestà'' of [[Savona]] and [[Albenga]]. Among the non-Genoese ''podestà''-troubadours was [[Alberico da Romano]], a nobleman of high rank who governed [[Vicenza]] and [[Treviso]] as variously a Ghibelline and a Guelph. He was a patron as well as a composer of Occitan lyric.

Mention should be made of the Provençal troubadour [[Isnart d'Entrevenas]], who was ''podestà'' of Arles in 1220, though he does not fit the phenomenon Giulio Bertoni first identified in Italy.