Gian Battista Casella

Casella (died before 1300) was an Italian composer and singer, none of whose works has survived.

Biographical fragments and identity He was probably a friend of Dante Alighieri who made him into the main character of the 2nd canto of the Purgatorio (the second part of the Divine Comedy).

All that is positively known about him is what is found in Dante's work and it has been impossible to identify him with absolute certainty with any of the Casellas named in contemporary documents.

To whatever is said of him in Dante's work one can add (with some degree of probability) information furnished by the earliest commentators of the Divine Comedy: Pietro di Dante, Benvenuto da Imola, Buti and Landino give him as being born in Florence, while an anonymous early commentary of the Divine Comedy gives him as being born in Pistoia.

Potential mentions of this Casella in other documents include a mention in Codex Vaticano 3214 (Casella dedit sonum, i.e. "Casella set [this] to music") that he set to music a madrigal by Lemmo da Pistoia, and a mention of him in a sonnet by Niccolò de' Rossi. There is also a document denoting that Casella might have received a fine in July 1282.

Casella died in 1299 or early in the year 1300, since Dante enters Purgatory in 1300. Subsequently, Dante identifies Casella by name and asks him to sing. Casella's singing is referred to as characteristically sweet by Dante. Casella begins to sing the first lines of a Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona, a poem written by Dante himself. "'Love that converses with me in my mind,'

he then began, so sweetly

that the sweetness sounds within me still."

—Purgatorio, Canto II, Lines 112-114