Till some years ago the road dedicated to Paganino was only a small suburban road among vegetable gardens and some houses. Today it’s still a winding road but it has widened and tall blokcs of flats flank it.
Who was Paganino? There aren’t many works of literature that quote his poems, most of which have been lost. We have scanty information about his life. Perhaps one of his brothers, Piero, was a notary in Sarzana. Quite sure he knew Emperor Frederick II who was in Sarzana in 1226 and that confirmed his grandfather’s (Frederick I) decree and took the town under his protection. Perhaps Paganino accepted the invitation of Frederick, himself a poet, to go to Palermo where he had gathered all the most famous poets of the time. Paganino never came back to Sarzana. Prof. Giovanni Cantini placed him with the poets of the Sicilian School.
We know only two poems of his, not easy to understand, in the troubadour style. The first is rather an exercise in verses to protest his love to a woman of noble origin that disliked him, knowing well that he couldn’t reach her. His name appears in the end:

… .ch’a se voi m’aucidete
ben dirla Paganino:
Troppo for’a diclino, ben savete,
l’alto prei’ che tenete indimino
(….. you, who know to stand so high, if you make me die for love, I, Paganino, say that you ruin me to have me under your power)

The second is a still a lament for the absence of the beloved:

Piangendo gli occhi miei
Mi bagnano lo viso
Perché diviso son dall’amorosa
( my eyes, crying, wash my face, because I’m separated from my beloved lady).

He is influenced by the Provençal poetry, but the fact that he had the possibility to take part of the restrict group of the sicilian poets put him at the same level of the others, better known only because we have received many more poems from them.

From “Appunti per una storia di Sarzana” Ennio Callegari.