Chavalchando chon un giovine achorto

Two-voice canonic madrigal by Piero

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Panciatichiano 26, fol. 91 (2/2);
Perugia: Biblioteca Comunale C.43, fol. 47v (text).

Facsimiles

Il codice musicale Panciatichi 26 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, facsimile edition by F. Alberto Gallo, Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1981, no. 162 (FP).

Editions

1. WOLF, Johannes. 'Florenz in der Musikgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts', Sammelbände der internationale Musikgesellschaft, III (1901), no. 6.
2. MARROCCO, W. Thomas. Fourteenth-Century Italian Cacce, Cambridge/Massachusetts: The Medieval Academy of America, 1942, p. 15.
3. History of Music in Sound. III. Ars Nova and the Renaissance, edited by Dom Anselm Hughes, London: Oxford University Press, 1953, p. 23.
4. The Music of Fourteenth Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1960. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8/II, p. 8.
5. Italian Secular Music by Magister Piero, Giovanni da Firenze and Jacopo da Bologna, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1967. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century VI, p. 4.

Text Editions

1. CORSI, Giuseppe. Rimatori del Trecento, Turin: Unione tipografica editrice torinese, 1969, p. 1009.
2. CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 3.

Literature

1. WOLF, Johannes. 'Florenz in der Musikgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts', Sammelbände der internationale Musikgesellschaft, III (1901): 599-646.
2. LI GOTTI, Ettore. La poesia musicale italiana del secolo XIV, Palermo: Palumbo, 1944, p. 51.
3. LI GOTTI, Ettore. 'Madrigali del Trecento', Poesia, IX (1948), pp. 51-52.
4. PIRROTTA, Nino. 'Piero e l'impressionismo musicale del secolo XIV', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento 1: Certaldo 1959, 1962, pp. 57-74.
5. MARTINEZ, Marie L. Die Musik des frühen Trecento, Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1963. Münchener Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte 9.
6. WILKINS, Nigel. Music in the Age of Chaucer, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1979. Chaucer Studies I, p. 60.
7. GALLO, F. Alberto. 'The musical and literary tradition of 14th century poetry set to music', Musik und Text in der Mehrstimmigkeit des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, edited by U. Günther and L. Finscher, Kassel: Bärenreiter: 1984, pp. 55-76.

Recordings

1. Musik aus dem Trecento, Silvia and Walter Frei: Fono. Ges. Luzern S 30-4703.
2. The History of Music in Sound. Vol. III. Ars Nova and the Renaissance (c. 1300 - 1540), Pro Musica Antiqua/Cape, Lemuel Hughes, Clarence Roberts, Br (1953): HMV HMS 20-31, 21=(78rpm mx. 2EA 15609-1B).
3. Every Delight and Fair Pleasure, Ian McDonald, Hartley Newnham (countertenors), Ensemble of the Fourteenth Century, directed by John Griffiths and John Stinson (1991): Move MD 3092.

Text

Cavalcando con un giovine acorto
qual io bramoso di trovare Amore,
giugnemo in un bel prato pien di fiore.

Guardando in mezo di questa verdura,
vedemo Amor in forma d'una dea,
che due donzelle in suo braccio tenea,

l'una biondetta, cogli ochi leggiadri,
l'altra col viso benigno e umile
e di coraggio ciascuna gentile.

Quando ci vide, Amor le braccia aperse:
allor queste col raggio di sua vista
cinsono intrambi d'amorosa lista.

Ciascuna prese 'l suo per sua vaghezza,
l'una cogli occhi, l'altra colla trezza

Translation

As I was riding with a wise young man
as eager as I was to encounter love,
we reached a lovely meadow full of flowers.

Looking amidst that greenery
we saw Love in the form of a goddess,
who was holding two damsels in his arms.

One was a blonde with beautiful eyes,
the other had a kind and humble face,
and each of them had a noble heart.

When he saw us, Love opened his arms;
and they, with their shining eyes,
bound both of us with an amorous chain.

Each one of them won over a suitor
according to what each of us fancied:
the eyes of the one, the hair of the other.

Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga