author
Francesco Belo
An early Italian comic playwright from the Renaissance, remembered for sharp, satirical stage works printed in 1538. Very little is known about his life, which gives his surviving comedies an added air of mystery.
1 Audiobook
Il pedante Commedie del Cinquecento
by Francesco Belo
About the author
Francesco Belo was an Italian comic dramatist of the Renaissance. Reference sources identify him as the author of El beco and El pedante, both published in 1538.
Biographical details about him appear to be scarce. The surviving descriptions focus much more on his writing than on his personal life, noting a sharp, biting comic tone in his work.
Because so little is firmly documented, Belo is best approached through his plays: lively examples of sixteenth-century Italian comedy that have kept his name in literary history even as the man himself remains elusive.