The earliest native Italian 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....

 may be one called Cossezen (probably a nickname), the subject of one stanza of the famous satire of contemporary poets by Peire d'Alvernhe

Peire d'Alvernhe

Peire d'Alvernhe or d'Alvernha was an Auvergnat troubadour with twenty-one or twenty-four surviving works. He composed in an "esoteric" and "formally complex" style known as the trobar clus...

 which must have preceded 1173. Of "Cossezen" Peire writes:

E.l dotzes us veilletz [or vielhs] Lombartz que clama sos vezins coartz et elh eis sent de l’espaven; pero us sonetz fai gaillartz ab motz maribotz e bastartz, e lui apell’om Cossezen.

And the twelfth poet is an old Lombard who calls his countrymen cowards and feels the same about fear; yet he composes small robust songs with made-up and hybrid words, and he is called Cossezen.

"Cossezen" is probably an ironic nickname, in light of his "bastard" (bastartz) diction, meaning "graceful, delicate". The Italian identity of this troubadour is predicated on his being "an old Lombard

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

" and his use of "hybrid" words, possibly a reference to Italianisms. On the other hand, "Lombartz" was a common term of approbation for a miser or usurer

Usury

Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...

 during the period and may not refer to Cossezen's homeland. If Cossezen was, however, as seems more probable, a Lombard, it would make him the earliest Occitan lyric poet of Italian birth, though none of his work survives and there is no mention of him outside of Peire's satire.