Bertolome Zorzi

Zorzi, from an Italian MS of the 13th century, forming the central stroke of the "M" in the first line of Mout fort me sui d'un chant mervaillatz.

Bertolome Zorzi (; fl. 1266–1273 ) was a Venetian nobleman, merchant, and troubadour. Like all Lombard troubadours, he composed in the Occitan language. Eighteen of his works survive.

According to his vida, while travelling with a large band of merchants to the Byzantine Empire, they were captured by the Republic of Genoa, which was then at war with the Republic of Venice, and taken prisoner to Genoa. There Zorzi composed many songs from prison and even collaborated on some tensos with Bonifaci Calvo, a native Genoese troubadour.

Upon the release of the prisoners when Venice and Genoa came to terms of peace (about seven years later), Zorzi also has been cited as one of several troubadours who protested Alfonso X's refusal to rescue his brother the infante Henry from an Italian prison. In Mout fai sobrieira foli, each stanza of Zorzi's ends with a corresponding quotation from Peire Vidal's Quant hom es en autrui poder, whom he is defending from those who label him a "fool".

Example

An example of Zorzi's use of metaphor: