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

Miracolosa toa sembianza apare

ballata by Bartolino da Padova

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 111v (2/2);
Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds nouv. acq. français 6771 (Reina Codex), fol. 45 (2/2).

Facsimiles

Il Codice Squarcialupi edited by F. Alberto GALLO, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1992.

Editions

1. Der Squarcialupi-Codex Pal. 87 der Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana zu Florenz, edited by Johannes Wolf and H. Albrecht, Lippstadt: Kistner and Siegel, 1955, p. 177.
2. Italian Secular Music: Bartolino da Padova, Egidius de Francia, Giulielmus de Francia, Don Paolo da Firenze, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1975. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century IX, p. 42 (Pn6771).

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 249.

Text

Miracolosa tua sembianza apare
né trovo cosa a lei da comparare:

onde mosso mi son a dir per rima
ballata in forma a novo sentimento,
considerando per qual virtù in prima
Amor t'ha posta in tanto piacimento,
che qualunque a te mira par contento
sol di vederti e non d'altro pensare.

Pur vegio donne in grado di biltate
per vera prova avanzar persona;
ma la tuo vista è di tal qualitate
che sopra quelle ognor pregio ti dona.
Maravigliando allor di te ragiona:
- Costei per certo ha in sé divino affare. -

Miracol, dunque, è ben in parte ch'io
veder non posso per qua' ragion sia
che maggior cosa e belleza 'l cor mio
vincer non pò che sol tuo legiadria:
se non ch'io penso che angelica sia
grazia che solo in te si vuol mostrare.

TranslationYour semblance shows itself like a miracle,
and I do not find anything comparable to it.

I am therefore moved to sing in rhyme
a ballade inspired by a new feeling,
considering, first of all, why Love has placed you
in the position of being so pleasure-giving
that whoever gazes upon you seems happy
merely to look at you and not to think about anything else.

I do see women who, putting to a true test
the beauty they are endowed with, reach a higher rank;
but to look at you is to see such a quality
as gives you the prize above them all.
One marvels and thinks:
"Surely she must have in her a divine power."

It's something of a miracle, therefore,
that I cannot see a good reason why
a greater display of beauty cannot win
my heart, but only your loveliness:
unless, I think, your gracefulness is angelic
and only in you it is allowed to appear.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga