Albert Malaspina called Alberto Moro ("the Moor") and lo marches putanier ("the whoring marquess"), was a member of the illustrious Malaspina family. He was a noted troubadour

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

 and patron of troubadours. Albert disputes with Peire de la Caravana

Peire de la Caravana

Peire de la Caravana was an Italian troubadour in Lombardy in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. He was one of the earliest Occitan troubadours in Italy...

 the position of earliest native Italian troubadour.

He was a son of Obizzo I the Great and husband of a daughter of William V of Montferrat. His brother-in-law Boniface I of Montferrat and his nephews Corrado (Conrad) and Guglielmo (William) were all enthusiastic patrons of troubadours. He was renowned for his bravery, generosity, courtliness, and learning. He composed a tenso

Tenso

A tenso is a style of Occitan song favoured by the troubadours. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position on a topic relating to love or ethics. Closely related genres include the partimen and the cobla exchange...

with Raimbaut de Vaqueiras

Raimbaut de Vaqueiras

Raimbaut de Vaqueiras was a Provençal troubadour and, later in his life, knight. His life was spent mainly in Italian courts until 1203, when he joined the Fourth Crusade....

 that begins Ara'm digatz Raimbaut, si vos agrada. Though this is the only work of his to survive, the author of his vida

Vida (Occitan literary form)

Vida is the usual term for a brief prose biography, written in Old Occitan, of a troubadour or trobairitz.The word vida means "life" in Occitan languages. In the chansonniers, the manuscript collections of medieval troubadour poetry, the works of a particular author are often accompanied by a...

compliments his couplet

Couplet

A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...

s, cansos

Canso (song)

The canso is a song style used by the troubadours. It consists of three parts. The first stanza is the exordium, where the composer explains his purpose. The main body of the song occurs in the following stanzas, and usually draw out a variety of relationships with the exordium. The canso can end...

, and sirventes

Sirventes

The sirventes or serventes is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry used by the troubadours. In early Catalan it became a sirventesch and was imported into that language in the fourteenth century, where it developed into a unique didactic/moralistic type...

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According to Raimbaut, in his famous "epic letter" Valen marques, senher de Monferrat, in the 1170s Albert abducted Saldina de Mar, a daughter of a prominent Genoese

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 family only to have her rescued by Boniface of Montferrat and restored her to her lover, Ponset d'Aguilar.

Albert's wife was possibly the trobairitz

Trobairitz

The trobairitz were Occitan female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries, active from around 1170 to approximately 1260. The word trobairitz was first used in the 13th-century romance Flamenca. It comes from the Provençal word trobar, the literal meaning of which is "to find", and the...

 known only as Ysabella

Ysabella (trobairitz)

Ysabel or Ysabella was a 13th-century trobairitz. Almost nothing is known about her with certainty, but many conjectures have been put forward...

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Sources