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

Presunzion da ignoranza procede

ballata by Andrea da Firenze

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 184v (3/2).

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. 337.
2. The Music of Fourteenth Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1964. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8/V, p. 24.
3. Italian Secular Music, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1977. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century X, p. 42.

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 305.

Literature

TAUCCI, Raffaello. 'Fra Andrea dei Servi, organista e compositore del Trecento', Rivista di studi storia sull'Ordine dei Servi di Maria, II (1935), p. 90.

Recordings

Italian Secular Music of the Trecento, Hortus Musicus, directed by Andres Moustonen: Chant du Monde LDX 78.665 (FRA).

Text

Presunzion da ignoranza procede;
la virtù sotto 'l pe tener si crede.

Dentr'a l'alma gentile
virtù suo sedia pon e quivi ferma
umilmente suo stile,
dove presunzion rimane inferma.
Da ignoranza virtù mal si conferma,
non conoscendo qual tener si crede

Translation

Arrogance proceeds from ignorance
and thinks it can trample virtue underfoot.

Virtue places its seat
within a noble soul, and there it fixes
humbly its style
where arrogance is weakened.
Virtue is ill served by ignorance
which does not know what style it should adopt.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga