Jacopone da Todi, born Jacopo dei Benedetti in Todi, Umbria, around 1230, was a 13th-century Italian lawyer, Franciscan friar, poet, and mystic. Descended from a noble family, he studied law in Bologna and established a successful legal career in his hometown, living a worldly and prosperous life.

A sudden personal tragedy radically altered the course of his life around 1268. His young wife, Vanna, was killed when a grandstand collapsed during a public tournament. Upon rushing to her side, Jacopo discovered that she was wearing a cilice underneath her garments as a secret penance for his worldly excesses. Overcome with grief and religious conviction, he renounced his profession, gave away his wealth, and adopted a life of extreme asceticism and public penance. His dramatic displays of humility and spiritual zeal led his contemporaries to label him a madman, earning him the nickname Jacopone ("Crazy Jim").

After a decade as a wandering penitent in the Third Order of St. Francis, he sought entry into the Friars Minor, earning admission in 1278 as a lay brother after composing a poetic treatise on the vanities of the world. Within the Franciscan Order, Jacopone allied himself with the "Spirituals"—a faction advocating for strict adherence to absolute poverty and opposing institutional accommodations. This stance brought him into direct conflict with Pope Boniface VIII. Jacopone openly opposed the papacy, joining political and religious resistance that ultimately led to his excommunication and imprisonment in 1298. He remained incarcerated until the death of Boniface VIII in 1303, when Pope Benedict XI restored him to communion.

Jacopone spent his remaining years in declining health at a monastery in Collazzone, where he died on Christmas Eve in 1306. His literary output includes over one hundred laude (devotional songs) written in the Umbrian dialect, which made profound spiritual themes accessible in the vernacular and influenced early Italian literature and drama. He is most widely recognized in Christian hymnody as the probable author of the landmark Latin sequence "Stabat Mater Dolorosa" ("At the Cross Her Station Keeping"), a reflection on the sorrow of the Virgin Mary at the crucifixion of Jesus.