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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2008
Another fragment can now be added to the list of manuscripts of fourteenth-century secular Italian polyphony. The new source (henceforth called Fn F.5.5) comprises two leaves, and at present serves as guard-sheets at the front and back of an incunabulum in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, with the call-number Incunab. F.5.5. This fifteenth-century book is a copy of the monumental historical accounts by Flavius Josephus of early Jewish history – a compendium that includes the De bello judaico, De antiquitate judaica contra Apionem and Antiquitates judaicae – translated from Greek into Latin by Ruffino d'Aquileia (Rufinus Aquileiensis) and published in Venice by Rinaldo da Nimega in 1981.
1 See the Catalogue of Book Printed in the xvth Century Now in the British Museum, V (London, 1924), p. 254;Google Scholar Indice generale degli incunaboli delle biblioteche d'Italia, III (Rome, 1954), no. 5389.Google Scholar
2 An inventory published in Blum, R., La Biblioteca della Badia Fiorentina e i codici di Antonio Corbinelli (Vatican City, 1951), p. 131 (no. 345).Google Scholar
3 A detailed discussion of the structure of the Reina Codex appears in a forthcoming article by John Nádas, ‘The Reina Codex Revisited’.
4 Throughout the five gathering of Sq which contain Landini's compositions (gatherings 12–16, fols, 121v–171r) there appear small clusters of ballatas, each characterised not only by scoring (two or three voices) but also by a common initial capital letter (Landini's madrighals, constituting the beginning of the composer's section in Sq, are not arranged by initial letters). The following important grouping in Sq may be noted:
fols. 131r–132v: L'alma mie piange; Lasso per mie fortuna; Lasso di donna
fols. 133r–133v: Gentil aspetto; Gram piant' agli ochi
fols. 134r–134v: Non arà ma' pietà Non dò la colp' a tte; Nella tuo luce
fols. 136r–136v: I' piango lasso; I' vegio c' a nnatura
fols. 137r–138v: Selvagio fera; Se la vista soave; Si fossi certo
fols. 138r–138v: Questa fanciulla amor; Quel sol che raça
fols. 140r–140v: Altri n'arà la pena; Ara' tu pietà mai; Amor c' al tuo sugetto
fols. 144r–144v: Donna, con vo' rimane; De, pon' quest' amor; De, non fugir da mme; Donna, perché mi spregi; Donna, i' prego amor; Doulsi la vita; D'amor mi biasmo; Debba l'anim' altero; De, volgi gli ochi; Donna, per farmi guerra; Donna, tu prendi sdegno
fols. 149r–151v: Donna, languir mi fay; De, che mi giova; De sospirar sovente; Donna, 'l tuo partimento; Dapoi che vedi 'l mie; Donna che d'amor senta; Donna, la mie pertença; Dappo' c' a tte rinasce; Donna, l'animo tuo
fols. 155r–156v: L'onesta tuo biltà; L'antica fiama; L'alma legiadra
fols. 156r–156v: Abbonda di virtù; Amar sì li alti; Altera luce
fols. 157r–158v: Chi pregio vuol; Co' gli ochi assai ne miro; Che fa'? Che pensi?
fols. 160r–160v: Giovine vagha; Già d'amore sperança; Giunta vaga biltà; Giovine donna vidi star
fols. 163r–163v: Che cos' è quest' amor; Caro signor, palesa
fols. 165r–166v: Per la belleça Po' che partir convien; Per seguir la sperança
fols. 167r–167v: S'andrà sança merçe; Se la nimica mie
fols. 168r–168v: Non per fallir di me; Nella mie vita sento
fols. 169r–169v: Già perch' i' penso; Già non biasim' amor
fols. 170r–170v: Se pronto non sarà; Sie maladetta l'or; Senpre gir` caendo
fols. 171r: Va' pure, amore; Viditi, donna.
5 This reconfirms an earlier hypothesis about particular scribes in FP and their habit of texting only the cantus in two-part pieces, or cantus and tenor in three-part ballatas; see Nádas, J., “The Structure of MS Panciatichi 26 and the Transmission of Trecento Polyphony’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 34 (1981). pp. 393–427, esp. pp. 422–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 For the most detailed account currently in print of the number of scribes represented in Pit, see Günther, U., “Die “anonymen” Kompositionen des Manuskripts Paris, B.N., fonds it. 568 (Pit)’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 23 (1966), pp. 73–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 In her analysis of the Pit scribes, Günther also considered, and modified, previous conclusions drawn by Nino Pirrotta regarding the relationship of the scribes of the Lowinsky fragment (in the possession of Prof. Edward E. Lowinsky, Chicago) to the copyist of the last three compositions in the Mancini Codex (Lucca, Archivio di Stato, MS 184, and Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale, MS Augusta 3065) and to the scribes of Pit; see Pirrotta, N., ‘Paolo da Firenze in un nuovo frammento dell'ars nova’, Musica Disciplina, 10 (1956), pp. 61–6Google Scholar, and idem, Paolo Tenorista in a New Fragment of the Italian Ars Nova (Palm Springs, 1961).Google Scholar
8 Figures 1–4 may be compared with the photographs published in Günther, , ‘Die “anonymen” Kompositionen’, between pp. 88 and 89 Google Scholar. Particularly convincing in equating the Fn F.5.5 scribe with that of Pit fols. 99v–111r is the drawing of custodes and clefs, as well as the forms of capital letters M, E (Figures 34–5), minuscule g, p (Figures 34, 35 and 18) and minuscule f (Figures 15, 18, 34 and 35).
9 Cattin, G., ‘Ricerche sulla musica a S. Giustina di Padova all'inizio del i quattrocento: il copista Rolando da Casale – nuovi frammenti musicali nell'Archivio di Stato [Padova]’, Annales Musicologiques. 7 (1964–1977), pp. 17–41.Google Scholar
10 See note 3 above.
11 Noted independently in Nádas, J., ‘Trecento Sources: Identifying Editorial Practices’ (Ph.D. thesis, New York University Google Scholar, in progress) and Long, M., ‘Musical Tastes in Fourteenth-century Italy: Notational Styles, Scholarly Traditions, and Historical Circumstances’ (Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1981), p. 171.Google Scholar
12 For an account of concordant readings (excluding, of course, those of Fn F.5.5) of the six Landini ballatas, see Schrade, L., ed., The Works of Francesco Landini, Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century 4 (Monaco, 1958), Commentary.Google Scholar
13
There are particular notational features shared by Sq and Fn F.5.5 in three ballatas. Chi pregio vol: (1) use of a slash in the text line, corresponding with a rest in the music, in line 2 of the text, ‘in donna no/ch'a vizio induce'1 core’; (2) the reading of ‘l'anima anobilisce’ in the text residuum, against ‘l'animo anobilisce’ of other sources; (3) the spelling ‘ccosa’ (with two Cs); (4) bar 6 (cantus), 
against 
; (5) bars 23–4 (tenor), repetition of the syllable ‘fe’ and ligaturing. Cosa nulla più fé: ligatures in the cantus part (bars 12–13) and in the tenor part (bars 24–9). Co' gli ochi assai ne miro: (1) bar 48 (cantus), 
against 
; bar 7 (tenor), 
against 
; (2) in bar 2 (tenor), # below the note; bar 6 (tenor), Bb.
14 See von Fischer, K., Studien zur italienischen Musik des Trecento und frühen Quattrocento (Berne, 1956), p. 100;Google Scholar Reaney, G., ‘The Manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds italien 568 (Pit)’, Musica Disciplina, 14 (1960), pp. 35, 42.Google Scholar
15 A direct connection between Pit and Sq was discounted by Günther, in ‘Die “anonymen’ Kompositionen’, pp. 77, 79–81, 92.Google Scholar
16 Günther, , ‘Die “anonymen’ Kompositionen’, pp. 83–4Google Scholar: O me, si oglio (fol. 102v) and De, fa per quella speme (fols. 110v–111r).
17 See the catalogue of Paolo's works in Pirrotta, , Paolo Tenorista, pp. 53–6Google Scholar, and additions by Günther, in ‘Die “anonymen” Kompositionen’, pp. 83–4Google Scholar. The idea of a scribal monopoly was first advanced by Pirrotta, Nino in ‘Paolo da Firenze in un nuovo frammento’, p. 66.Google Scholar
18 See von Fischer, K., ‘Paolo da Firenze’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, S., 20 vols. (London, 1980), XIV, p. 615.Google Scholar For a general discussion of senhals in ballatas by Landini and Paolo, see Corsi, G., Poesie musicali del trecento (Bologna, 1970), pp. 192–3, 287–8, 231–2, 370.Google Scholar
19 See Corsi, , Poesie musicali, pp. 231–2Google Scholar, for references to ‘Sandra’ in purely literary sources of the period, including specific references to the Strozzi family and to ‘Alessandra degli Alberti’ in Sacchetti's, Franco Battaglia delle belle donne. Corsi also mentions a small (late-fourteenth-century, Florentine?) canzioniere dedicated to ‘Alessandra’ (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, MS Ashb. 446).Google Scholar
20 See Lanza's, Antonio critical edition of Il Paradiso degli Alberti by da Prato, Giovanni Gherardi (Rome, 1975), p. 180 Google Scholar, where line 83 of Libro ii reads as follows: ‘Era nella lieta brigata una venerabile e giovane donna di grande intelletto e di costumi motto gentile, il cui nome Cosa si era’. For further references to Cosa and to Florentine artistic circles, see Corsi, , Poesie musicali, pp. 74, 76;Google Scholar see also Corsi, , Rimatori del Trecento (Turin, 1969), pp. 1058 Google Scholar (where Corsi makes a point of connecting ‘Cosa’ with Landini and the Paradiso degli Alberti) and 1077 (reference to the senhal in Andrea da Firenze's ballata Cosa crudel m'ancide). For references to Cosa in Boccaccio's Decameron and Rime, as well as to a connection with Giovanni Soderini, see Corsi, , ‘Madrigali inediti del Trecento”, Belfagor, 14 (1959), p. 338.Google Scholar
21 See Corsi, , Poesie musicali, p. 288 Google Scholar, for the possible reading of the senhal in Gherardello's Cacciando un giorno and its appearance in Sacchetti's, Franco Su per lo verde colle.Google Scholar
22 von Fischer, K., “Paolo da Firenze und der Squarcialupi-Kodex’, Quadrivium, 9 (1968), pp. 5–19.Google Scholar
23 Ibid., p. 14.