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

Imperial sedendo fra più stelle

madrigal by Bartolino da Padova with text by Giovanni da Ravenna

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 109v-110 (2/2);
Lucca: Archivio di Stato 184 (Mancini Codex), fol. 90v-92 (3/2);
Modena: Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria a.M.5.24 (Latino 568; olim IV.D.5), fol. 30v-31 (2/2);
Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds italien 568, fol. 47v-48 (2/2); Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds nouv. acq. français 6771 (Reina Codex), fol. 13 (2/2) (Tenor only), 22v-23 (2/2).

Facsimiles

1. The Lucca Codex. Codice Mancini. Introductory Study and Facsimile Edition, edited by John N das and Agostino Ziino, Lucca: Libreria musicale italiana editrice, 1990.
2. 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. 174.
2. Keyboard Music of the Late Middle Ages in the Codex Faenza 117, edited by D. Plamenac, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1972. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 57, p. 84 (Pn6771).
3. 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. 25 (Pn568).
4. Three Madrigals by Bartolino da Padova, for Voices, edited by Nigel Wilkins, Devon: Antico Edition AE 9, 1986, p. 4 (Las184).
5. WILLIAMS, Carol J. The Mancini Codex: A Manuscript Study, Ph.D. dissertation (University of Adelaide), 3 vols., 1983, Vol. II, p. 139.

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 241.

Literature

1. KÖNIGSLÖW, Annamarie von. Die italienischen Madrigalisten des Trecento, Würzburg-Aumühle: Triltsch, 1940, p. 20, ex. 24.
2. BONACCORSI, Alfredo. 'Un nuovo codice dell' Ars nova: Il codice Lucchese', Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Ser. 8, I/12 (1948), pp. 582-583.
3. PIRROTTA, Nino and Ettore LI GOTTI. 'Il Codice di Lucca. III. Il repertorio musicale', Musica Disciplina, V (1951), p. 122, 139.
4. PETROBELLI, Pierluigi. 'Bartolino da Padova', Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Rome: 1960, p. 634.
5. GOLDINE, Nicole. 'Fra Bartolino da Padova, musicien de cour', Acta Musicologica, XXXIV (1962), pp. 150-151.
6. PETROBELLI, Pierluigi. 'Some dates for Bartolino da Padova', Studies in Music History: Essays for Oliver Strunk, edited by Harold Powers, Princeton/New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1968, pp. 94-100.
7. 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.
8. FELLIN, Eugene C. 'The notation-types of Trecento music', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento IV: Certaldo 1975, 1978, pp. 211-224.
9. GÜNTHER, Ursula. 'Problems of dating in Ars nova and Ars subtilior', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento IV: Certaldo 1975, 1978, p. 294.
10. BAUMANN, Dorothea. Die dreistimmige italienische Lied-Satztechnik im Trecento, Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner, 1979. Sammlung musikwissenschaftlicher Abhandlung no. 64, passim.
11. WILKINS, Nigel. Music in the Age of Chaucer, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1979. Chaucer Studies I, pp. 54, 58.
12. BROWN, Howard M. 'The Trecento harp', Studies in the Performance of Late Mediaeval Music, edited by Stanley Boorman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 60-61.
13. 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.

Recordings

1. Every Delight and Fair Pleasure, Hartley Newnham (countertenor), Tom Healey (tenor), Ensemble of the Fourteenth Century, directed by John Griffiths and John Stinson (1991): Move MD 3092.
2. Codex Faenza. Italie XVe siècle, Josep Benet (tenor), Josep Cabrè (baritone), Ensemble Organum, directed by Marcel Pèrès (1991): Harmonia Mundi HMC 901354.

Text

Imperial sedendo fra più stelle
del ciel disces'un carro d'onor degno
sott'un signor d'ogn'altro più benigno.

Le rote sue guidavan quattro donne,
Iusticia e Temperancia con Forteza
et an' Prudenza tra cotant'alteza.

Nel mezz'un Saracin coll'ale d'oro
tene 'l fabricator del so tesoro.
TranslationFrom the sky, where it was sitting amongst several stars,
an Imperial chariot descended, worthy of honour,
under a ruler more merciful than any other.

Four women steered its wheels: Justice and Temperance,
with Fortitude and also Prudence
in such exalted company.

In the middle a golden-winged Saracen
held the maker of his treasure.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga