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

Nel mio parlar di questa donn' eterna

ballata by Jacopo da Bologna

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Panciatichiano 26, fol. 74v-75 (3/2).

Facsimiles

Il codice musicale Panciatichi 26 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, facsimile edition by F. Alberto Gallo, Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1981, no. 137.

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. 65.
2. The Music of Fourteenth-Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta, Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1963. Corpus Mensurablis Musicae 8/IV, p. 38.
3. 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. 110.

Literature

1. GHISI, Federico. 'La persistance du sentiment monodique et l'èvolution de la polyphonie italienne du XIVe au XVe siècle', Les Colloques de Wègimont II, 1955, Paris: Sociètè d'Edition "Les belles lettres", 1959, p. 222.
2. FISCHER, Kurt von. 'Zur Ciconia-Forschung', Die Musikforschung, XIV (1961), p. 317.
3. FISCHER, Kurt von. 'Ballata', The New Grove, II (1980): 86-88.

Text

Nel mio parlar di questa donna eterna
doname, Cristo, grazia sempiterna.

Nel mondo fu la donna peccatrice
de quel mortal peccato..

Translation

As I am speaking of this woman who will forever be remembered,
give me, o Christ, your everlasting grace.

This woman was in the world,
guilty of that mortal sin...
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga