La Trobe University - Library: Medieval Music Database - Annual cycle of feasts of liturgical chant, liturgical polyphony and secular music of the late middle ages.

Sì chome al canto della bella Yguana

madrigal by Jacopo da Bologna

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 19v-20 (2/2); Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Panciatichiano 26, fol. 94v-95 (3/3);
Grottaferrata: Biblioteca dell' Abbazia E. B.XVI (olim 374), fol. 3 (2/2) (Tenor only, with variants);
London: British Library, Additional 29987, fol. 7v (2/2);
Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds nouv. acq. français 6771 (Reina Codex), fol. 33v (3/3).

Facsimiles

1. The Manuscript London, British Museum Add. 29987, facsimile edition by Gilbert Reaney, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1965. Musicological Studies and Documents 13, (Lo).
2. Il codice musicale Panciatichi 26 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, facsimile edition by F. Alberto Gallo, Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1981, no. 168 (FP).
3. Il Codice Squarcialupi edited by F. Alberto GALLO, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1992.

Editions

1. The Music of Jacopo da Bologna, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Berkeley: University of California, 1954. University of California Publications in Music 5, p. 91 (Fn26).
2. Der Squarcialupi-Codex Pal. 87 der Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana zu Florenz, edited by Johannes Wolf and H. Albrecht, Lippstadt: Kistner and Siegel, 1955, p. 41.
3. The Music of Fourteenth-Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta, Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1963. Corpus Mensurablis Musicae 8/IV, p. 24.
4. 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. 146 (Fn26)., p. 150 (Lbl29987).
5. Three Madrigals by Jacopo da Bologna, edited by Nigel Wilkins, Devon: Antico Edition AE 5, 1986, p. 6 (Pn6771).
6. GOZZI, Marco. [London, British Library 29987: Transcription and Commentary], 2 vols., dissertation, Cremona, Scuola di paleografica musicale, University of Pavia: 1984-1985.
7. GARFORTH, Constance C. The Lo Manuscript: A Trecento Collection, Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University: 1983.

Text Editions

1. CORSI, Giuseppe. Rimatori del Trecento, Turin: Unione tipografica editrice torinese, 1969, p. 1026.
2. CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 8.

Literature

1. FERRARI, S. Madrigali e ballate del secolo decimoquarto, Bologna: Zanichelli, 1903.
2. LI GOTTI, Ettore. La poesia musicale italiana del secolo XIV, Palermo: Palumbo, 1944, p. 30.
3. CORSI, Giuseppe. 'Frammenti di un codice musicale dell' Ars nova rimasti sconosciuti', Belfagor, XX/2 (1965), pp. 213-214.
4. FISCHER, Kurt von. 'Ein neues Trecentofragment', Festschrift für Walter Wiora, edited by L. Finscher & C. H. Mahling, Basel and New York:Bärenreiter, 1968, p. 266.
5. FELLIN, Eugene C. A Study of Superius Variants in the Sources of Italian Trecento Music: Madrigals and Cacce, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin: 1970, passim.
6. THIBAULT, Geneviève. 'Emblèmes et devises des Visconti dans les oeuvres musicales du Trecento', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento III: Certaldo 1969, 1970, p. 136.
7. PAGANUZZI, Enrico. 'Il Trecento', [chapter 2 of] La musica a Verona, Verona: Banca mutua popolare di Verona, 1976, pp. 33-70.
8. FELLIN, Eugene C. 'The notation-types of Trecento music', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento IV: Certaldo 1975, 1978, pp. 211-224.
9. BAUMANN, Dorothea. Die dreistimmige italienische Lied-Satztechnik im Trecento, Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner, 1979. Sammlung musikwissenschaftlicher Abhandlung no. 64, passim.
10. NADAS, John. 'The structure of MS Panciatichi 26 and the transmission of Trecento polyphony', Journal of the American Musicological Society, XXXIV (1981), p. 412.
11. FISCHER, Kurt von. 'Das Madrigal "Si come al canto della bella Iguana" von Magister Piero und Jacopo da Bologna", Festschrift H. H. Eggebrecht zum 65. Geburtstag, Stuttgart: Steiner, 1984, pp. 46-56.
12. ZIINO, Agostino. 'Ripetizioni di sillabe e parole nella musica profana italiana del Trecento e del primo Quattrocento', Musik und Text in der Mehrstimmigkeit des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1984, pp. 93-120.

Recordings

Two Gentlemen of Verona, Ensemble of the Fourteenth Century, directed by John Griffiths and John Stinson (1987): Move MC 3091.

Text

Sì come al canto de la bella Iguana
obliò suo cammin più tempo el greco,
prendendo suo piacer con forma umana,

così per esser, donna, sempre teco
faresti la mia voglia esser lontana
da ogn'altro piacer, sendo 'l tuo meco;

però che se' d'ogni virtute unita,
tu sola cara gemma Margherita

Translation

As, enthralled by the beautiful Circe's song,
the Greek forgot his journey for a long time,
taking his pleasure with the nymph in her human form,

in your case also, o woman. To be with you always, my desire
would be turned away from every other pleasure
if your pleasure were simply to be with me.

Being endowed with every virtue,
you are a precious gemstone Pearl.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga