Fra mille corvi una cornachia bianca
madrigal by Giovanni da Cascia
Sources
Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 6v (2/2); San Lorenzo, Archivio Capitolare 2211 [palimpsest], fol. 5v-6.
Facsimiles
Il Codice Squarcialupi edited by F. Alberto GALLO, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1992.
Editions
1. The Music of Fourteenth Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta, Amsterdam: American Institute of Musicology, 1954. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8/I, p. 14.
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. 14.
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. 36.
Text Editions
CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 28.
Literature
1. KÖNIGSLÖW, Annamarie von. Die italienischen Madrigalisten des Trecento, Würzburg-Aumühle: Triltsch, 1940, pp. 12-13, ex. 5 and 6.
2. GÜNTHER, Ursula. 'Die Mensuralnotation der Ars Nova in Theorie und Praxis', Archiv
für Musikwissenschaft, XIX-XX (1962), p. 16.
3. MARROCCO, W. Thomas. 'Integrative devices in the music of the Italian Trecento', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento III: Certaldo 1969, 1970, p. 428.
4. D'ACCONE, Frank. 'Una nuova fonte
dell' "Ars nova" italiana: il codice di San Lorenzo, 2111', Studi Musicali, XIII (1984): 3-31.
5. NADAS, John. 'Editorial practices in early Quattrocento Florentine anthologies of secular polyphony', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento VI:
Certaldo 1984, Certaldo: Centro di Studio L'ars nova italiana, 1992.
Recordings
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Ensemble of the Fourteenth Century, directed by John Griffiths and John Stinson (1987): Move MC 3091.
Text
Fra mille corvi una cornachia bianca
fa che ciascun si tiene un pappagallo,
ben che le verdi penne e 'l becco manca.
......................................
Vivesi ad arte e così el mondo regna
Translation
A white crow among a thousand ravens
makes everyone feel like a parrot,
though the green feathers and the beak are lacking.
....................................
One lives by cunning and thus the world is
governed.Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga
