The Revolt of the Ciompi was a popular uprising of the Florentine lower classes, including the wool-carders, in 1378. The rebels demanded a voice in the government and better working conditions, briefly overthrowing the oligarchic rule of the city. The revolt was crushed later that year, but it represented a significant challenge to the social and political order of the Italian republics.

The Revolt of the Ciompi was a major subject for contemporary Italian chronicle poetry and later political satire. It appears in the works of Florentine poets like Franco Sacchetti and Giovanni Boccaccio, who used the event to comment on social instability and the dangers of popular rule. The revolt's imagery of class conflict and urban chaos influenced the development of social commentary in Italian Renaissance poetry.