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Howard Mayer Brown, ed., A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale MS Banco Rari 229, Monuments of Renaissance Music 7.2 vols. Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 1983. ix + 322 pp. xii + 645 pp.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2008
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1 Manuscript citations follow the convention used by Brown: Florence 176 = Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Magl. xix 176; Florence 178 = Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Magl. xix 178; Florence 2356 = Florence, Biblioteca Riccar-diana, MS 2356; Paris 15123 = Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds français 15123; Rome xiii.27 = Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, C.G.xiii.27; Rome 2856 = Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, MS 2856.
2 References to Brown, A Florentine Chansonnier – all, unless otherwise noted, to the text volume – appear within parentheses in the main text.
3 On the approximate but uncertain date of the appointment, see pp. 32, 41 and 44, including n. 16.
4 Atlas finds that a comparison of the readings of the Martini pieces common to both manuscripts ‘turns up a negligible number of variants (except in the widely disseminated “La Martinella”)’ (see Atlas, A., review of Howard Brown, Mayer, ed., A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 37 (1985), pp. 153–61, esp. p. 159).Google Scholar Still, the unquestionably significant variants in the readings of the popular La Martinella, no. 45, the disjunction between the readings of the opening of Des biens d'amours in the two sources (noted by Brown, music volume, p. 41, n. 2), and the lack of correspondence in title between the manuscripts for nos. 5, 7 and, again, 45 (in each case from a garbled French title in Rome 2856 to an Italian one in Florence 229: Je remerchi Dieu to Se max il [el] cielo e fati fur benigni, Per faire tousjours to O di prudenza fonte, and Vive vive to La Martinella) all seem at least potentially important.
5 The following discussion essentially depends upon and elaborates that of Rifkin, J., ‘Pietrequin Bonnel and Ms. 2794 of the Biblioteca Riccardiana’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 29 (1976), pp. 284–96, esp. p. 289, n. 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 On the date of this manuscript and the other Florentine sources, see Atlas, A., The Cappella Giulia Chansonnier (Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, C. G.XIII.27), Musicological Studies 27, 2 vols. (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1975–1976), i, pp. 246–8, 254–6.Google Scholar
7 One might contrast this situation with that of Busnois, who closely approaches Agricola in representation in Florence 229. Busnois is not known to have visited Florence, but his prominence is no novelty in the local repertory. In the most immediate predecessor to Florence 229 among the local manuscripts, Paris 15123, he far outpaces any other composer with at least twenty-three compositions, the second most represented composer with but fourteen.
8 Caution may be necessary in considering the relationship of this piece to the date of the manuscript in that Adieu Florens straddles a gathering (fols. 150v–151) and could have been copied after the surrounding music. There is, however, no evidence that its entry into the manuscript is later by any measurable gap: the decoration of these pages appears to be the same as that surrounding them, and the script shows no notable distinctions.
9 That Florence 229 is the earliest source for the composition is at the least congruent with this supposition.
10 Atlas, , Cappella Giulia, i, pp. 247–8.Google Scholar
11 See, for example, the descriptions in J.Alexander, J. G. and De La Mare, A. C., The Italian Manuscripts in the Library of Major J. R. Abbey (New York and Washington, 1969)Google Scholar of MS 13. J. A. 5989 (pp. 44–5 and Plate xvii), prepared in Florence in 1466 for Antonello Petrucci of Aversa, secretary to King Ferrante; MS 14. J. A. 3188 (pp. 46–7 and Plate xviii), written in Florence c. 1460–70, a book originally belonging to Francesco Manno, a member of a family distinguished in Florentine government; and MS 23. J. A. 3236 (pp. 65–6 and Plates xxviiib and xxix), copied in Florence and illuminated by Attavante degli Attavanti c. 1485–1500, for a member of the Pazzi family. Moreover, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS iv. 922 – a decorated Mass and motet manuscript – was copied in Brussels or Mechlin c. 1526–34 for Pompejus Occo of Amsterdam, a merchant and representative of the Fugger banking firm (cf. H. Kellman and Hamm, C., ed., Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music, 1400–1550, Renaissance Manuscript Studies l/i, Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1979, p. 98).Google Scholar
12 Atlas, review of A Florentine Chansonnier, pp. 158–9.
13 Litterick, L., ‘Performing Franco-Netherlandish Secular Music of the Late 15th Century: Texted and Untexted Parts in the Sources’, Early Music, 8 (1980), pp. 474–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14 As Brown himself was one of the first to point out; see Brown, H. M., ‘Critical Years in European Musical History: 1500–1530’, Report of the Tenth Congress of the International Musicological Society: Ljubljana 1967 (Kassel, Basel, Paris and London, 1970), pp. 78–94.Google Scholar
15 See Atlas, Cappella Giulia, and Lowinsky, E. E., ed., The Medici Codex of 1518, a Choirbook of Motets Dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, 3 vols., Monuments of Renaissance Music 3–5 (Chicago and London, 1968).Google Scholar
16 See, for example, Isaac's Helas que devera mon cuer (no. 6), which takes as its point of departure Caron's rondeau Helas que poura devenir (no. 206), and De Planquard's setting of the superius and tenor of Hayne van Ghizeghem's De tous biens plaine (no. 178) or Martini's setting, referred to above, of the superius of the anonymous J'ay pris amours (no. 179).
17 See, for example, the severally attributed J' ay bien nori (no. 46).
18 Florence 229 is unique in providing what could, at first glance, be interpreted as evidence supporting the practice of texting such pieces. Three of the arrangements based on voices from formes-fixes chansons – two settings of the superius of J'ay pris amours, by Isaac (no. 8) and Jannes Japart (no. 152), and one anonymous setting of the superius and tenor of Hayne van Ghizeghem's De tous biens plaine (no. 177) – carry in the superius (or what appears to be the superius) the refrain of the poem from the original vocal setting. In at least one of these instances, however, Brown himself recognises that the text had no function for performance and served at best as nothing more than an aid to identification: in writing about Japart's J'ay pris amours, he notes that the borrowed voice is ‘in fact to be transposed down a twelfth and played in retrograde motion, functioning as the bassus’ (p. 269, col. 2; see also music volume, p. 327, n. 1), and that ‘since it is not likely that the words would have been sung backwards with the cantus prius factus, they have not been added to the music’ (music volume, p. 327, n. 1). Moreover, he characterises one of the remaining two compositions, Isaac's J'ay pris amours, as ‘probably an instrumental arrangement’ (p. 210, col. 1).
19 Brown suggests that Puis qu'elle est morte is ‘by a composer whose style resembles that of Agricola’ (p. 218, col. 1) and Ma perfayte joye ‘by a composer whose style resembles that of Busnois’ (p. 246, col. 2).