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

Molto mi piace chi non dice face

ballata by Niccolò da Perugia

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 83 (2/1).

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. 125.
2. Italian Secular Music: Anonymous Madrigals and Cacce and the Works of Niccolò da Perugia, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1972. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century VIII, p. 147.
3. KELLY, Stephen K. The Works of Niccolò da Perugia, 2 vols., Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1974.

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 109.

Literature

KÖNIGSLÖW, Annamarie von. Die italienischen Madrigalisten des Trecento, Würzburg-Aumühle: Triltsch, 1940, p. 5., p. 20, ex. 27.

Text

Molto mi piace chi non dice e face.

Chi vuol servir faccia 'l servigio tosto
con fatti e non parole,
ché 'l buon servir già mai non sta nascosto,
ma luce più che 'l sole:
però molto mi duole chi è fallace

Translation

I like a man who does not speak, but acts.

Let him who wants to serve perform his service
immediately, with deeds and not with words;
because good service never remains hidden
but shines much brighter than the sun:
that's why the losers fill me with much sorrow.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga