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

Sedendo all'ombra d'una bella mandorla

madrigal by Giovanni da Cascia

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 2v (2/2); Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Panciatichiano 26, fol. 52v-53 (2/2);
London: British Library, Additional 29987, fol. 8 (2/2).

Facsimiles

1. The Manuscript London, British Museum Add. 29987, facsimile edition by Gilbert Reaney, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1965. Musicological Studies and Documents 13, (Lo).
2. Il codice musicale Panciatichi 26 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, facsimile edition by F. Alberto Gallo, Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1981, no. 97 (FP).
3. 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. 39.
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. 6.
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. 74., p. 76 (Lbl29987).
4. GOZZI, Marco. [London, British Library 29987: Transcription and Commentary], 2 vols., dissertation, Cremona, Scuola di paleografica musicale, University of Pavia: 1984-1985.
5. GARFORTH, Constance C. The Lo Manuscript: A Trecento Collection, Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University: 1983.

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 21.

Literature

1. FISCHER, Kurt von. 'Zur Entwicklung der italienischen Trecento-Notation', Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, XVI (1959), pp. 92-93.
2. MARTINEZ, Marie L. Die Musik des frühen Trecento, Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1963. Münchener Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte 9.
3. FELLIN, Eugene C. A Study of Superius Variants in the Sources of Italian Trecento Music: Madrigals and Cacce, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin: 1970, passim.
4. FELLIN, Eugene C. 'The notation-types of Trecento music', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento IV: Certaldo 1975, 1978, pp. 211-224.
5. NADAS, John. 'The structure of MS Panciatichi 26 and the transmission of Trecento polyphony', Journal of the American Musicological Society, XXXIV (1981), p. 421.
6. HERLINGER, Jan. The Lucidarium of Marchetto da Padova. A Critical Edition,Translation and Commentary, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 13.

Text

Sedendo a l'ombra d'una bella mandorla,
sonno mi venne subito:
ond'io dormetti in su la man del gombito.

Poscia veder mi parve un agnel candido,
ch'avea dal destro un aspido,
da l'altro un struzzo più varo che iaspido.

Ferì l'agnel, sì che'n ver mi ricolsesi:
per cotal modo 'l sonno mio disciolsesi

Translation

I was overcome by sleep as I was sitting
in the shadow of an almond tree, so that I slept
with my head resting in my hand propped up by my elbow.

Then a white lamb appeared to me in my dream,
which had an asp on its right, and on the left an ostrich,
more mottled than jasper in colour.

The asp struck the lamb and made it draw towards me,
so that sleep left me.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga