Non corer troppo e tien la mano al freno

ballata by Bartolino da Padova

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 116 (3/3);
Lucca: Archivio di Stato 184 (Mancini Codex), fol. 31v (2/2);
Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds nouv. acq. français 6771 (Reina Codex), fol. 22 (2/2).

Facsimiles

1. The Lucca Codex. Codice Mancini. Introductory Study and Facsimile Edition, edited by John N das and Agostino Ziino, Lucca: Libreria musicale italiana editrice, 1990.
2. 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. 186.
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. 46 (Pn6771)., p. 48 (Fl87).
3. WILLIAMS, Carol J. The Mancini Codex: A Manuscript Study, Ph.D. dissertation (University of Adelaide), 3 vols., 1983, Vol. II, p. 26.

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 251.

Literature

1. BONACCORSI, Alfredo. 'Un nuovo codice dell' Ars nova: Il codice Lucchese', Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Ser. 8, I/12 (1948), p. 584.
2. GOLDINE, Nicole. 'Fra Bartolino da Padova, musicien de cour', Acta Musicologica, XXXIV (1962), pp. 149-150.

Recordings

Every Delight and Fair Pleasure, Hartley Newnham (countertenor), Ian McDonald (countertenor), Lloyd Fleming (tenor), Ensemble of the Fourteenth Century, directed by John Griffiths and John Stinson (1991): Move MD 3092.

Text

Non corer troppo e tien la mano al freno,
ché chi vuol ir più forte che non puote
tosto si stanca, e subito percuote
e cade in terra et ivi vene a meno.

Dunque non aver fretta, va di passo,
ché, se tu cadi e truovite nel basso,
amaro sentirai più che veneno

Translation

Don't run too fast, and hold the reins in your hand;
for, whoever wants to run faster than he can,
soon tires, and suddenly bumps into something
and collapses to the ground in a faint.

Therefore don't be in a hurry, go at a walking pace;
because, should you fall and find yourself in a spot,
you will feel more bitterness than if you had taken poison.

Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga