Clement A. Miles, in his book Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan (1912) wrote:  

Not till the close of the thirteenth century do we meet with any vernacular Christmas poetry of importance ... The first real outburst of Christmas joy in a popular tongue is found in Italy, in the poems of that strange “minstrel of the Lord,” the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi…

In this laude Jacopone expresses the emotions that ecstasy aroused in him and that now, writing the laude, are renewed vividly in his memory. Evelyn Underhill considered it Jacopone's masterpiece, reaching a peak rarely equalled in Italian religious poetry. Other great saints, close to Jacopone in sensitivity and experience, expressed themselves in language strongly echoing the sentiments of this laude. Little Thérèse of Lisieux described her mystical experience in this way:…

These opening lines are the verses of a great poet who, after a life of struggle and pain, had achieved the perfect joy of St Francis and the bliss that Jesus promised to the poor in spirit. Have you ever met a happier person than the one described in these verses? This exhilarating condition is what Edgar Morin describes as “the feeling of fusion with the Absolute”.

This laude is one of the earliest examples of great prison literature. In 1299 Jacopone was chained in an underground prison, probably in the friary of San Fortunato in Todi, where he had spent almost twenty years as a friar. About 68 years old, he may have been tired and regretful at getting embroiled in the Church's political squabbles. Most likely he saw that he had been used by the Colonna, who claimed to be protectors of the Franciscan ‘Spirituals’ but actually were more interested in advancing their own family. In the end, he found himself in prison, in conditions this laude describes with great realism and precision.

The laude Donna de Paradiso and the hymn Stabat Mater are the best known of all of Jacopone da Todi’s works. Both address the same theme – the suffering of Mary, as a mother, at the death of Jesus at Calvary – and can therefore be considered as ‘twin poems’. Like all twins, however, there are also important differences between them.