(fl Florence, 14th century). Italian poet. He came from a Ghibelline family, of whom almost nothing certain is known (details in Miraglia are not reliable). In addition to moral canzoni and sonnets, he wrote many ballatas and madrigals and at least three cacce whose manuscript tradition is strictly linked either to that of Ars Nova or to that of Giovanni Sercambi’s Croniche (ed. S. Bongi, Lucca, 1892) and Novelliere (ed. L. Rossi, Rome, 1974), written in about 1400. There are extant musical settings of his works by Lorenzo da Firenze, Niccolò da Perugia, Donato da Cascia and Gherardello da Firenze. (His poetry is ed. G. Corsi: Rimatori del Trecento, Turin, 1969, pp.717–77.)
J. Miraglia: La vita e le rime di Niccolò Soldanieri (Palermo, 1947)
L. Rossi: ‘Scrittori borghesi dell’ultimo Trecento’, Storia della letteratura italiana, ed. E. Malato, ii (Rome, 1995), 879–919, esp. 910–19
G. D’Agostino: ‘La tradizione letteraria dei testi poetico-musicali del Trecento’, Studi su Francesco Landini e la musica del suo tempo in memoria di Nino Pirrotta, ed. M.T.R. Barezzani and A. Delfino (Florence, 1999), 389–428
GIANLUCA D’AGOSTINO