I bei senbianti con busiardi efetti

madrigal by Bartolino da Padova

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 102v-103 (3/3); San Lorenzo, Archivio Capitolare 2211 [palimpsest], fol. 6v-7;
Modena: Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria a.M.5.24 (Latino 568; olim IV.D.5), fol. 22 (3/2);
Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds nouv. acq. français 6771 (Reina Codex), fol. 45v-46 (3/3).

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. 160.
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. 22 (Pn6771).

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 240.

Literature

1. 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.
2. FELLIN, Eugene C. 'The notation-types of Trecento music', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento IV: Certaldo 1975, 1978, pp. 211-224.
3. BAUMANN, Dorothea. Die dreistimmige italienische Lied-Satztechnik im Trecento, Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner, 1979. Sammlung musikwissenschaftlicher Abhandlung no. 64, passim.
4. HALLMARK, Anne. 'Some evidence for French influence in northern Italy, c.1400', Studies in the Performance of Late Mediaeval Music, edited by Stanley Boorman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 193-226.
5. D'ACCONE, Frank. 'Una nuova fonte dell' "Ars nova" italiana: il codice di San Lorenzo, 2111', Studi Musicali, XIII (1984): 3-31.
6. 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.

Text

I bei sembianti con busiardi efetti
che in vece di prudenza el mond'onora,
discipuli zà fece assa' provetti.

Ahi quanta industria a quel ch'e più coreze
fi necessaria a zò che tropo in freta
a creder non s'alisca contra leze!

Però, a voi signor non sia fatica
discerner ben la rosa da l'ortica

Translation

There are many who are very proficient in exploiting
the fact that the world pays tribute to fine
but ultimately untruthful appearances instead of wisdom.

A ruler will need to expend much effort
so that his people will not too readily risk holding
[such] beliefs against the law.

However, my Lord, you will not find it difficult
to sort out the rose from the stinging nettle.

Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga