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

Una fera gentil più ch'altra fera

madrigal by Paolo da Firenze

Sources

Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds italien 568, fol. 37v-38 (2/2).

Editions

1. 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. 180.
2. The Music of Fourteenth-Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta and Ursula Günther, Rome: American Institute of Musicology. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8/VI. [forthcoming]

Text Editions

1. CORSI, Giuseppe. Rimatori del Trecento, Turin: Unione tipografica editrice torinese, 1969, p. 1046.
2. CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 271.

Literature

BECHERINI, Bianca. 'Antonio Squarcialupi e il codice mediceo-palatino 87', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento I: Certaldo 1959, 1962, p. 167.

Recordings

Ghirardello da Firenze, Ensemble Modo Antiquo (1992): Nuova Era 7151.

Text

Una fera gentil più ch'altra fera
vidi posar e stare in gentil loco,
candid', azurra, di color di foco.

Guardando pel sentier la gentil caccia,
cacciator vidi stare attenti al varco,
seguendola co' lor saette e arco.

Diana, fa' che fra tuoi prati verdi
questa candida fera non la perdi

Translation

I saw a wild animal, more noble-looking than any other game,
stopping and resting in a beautiful place:
her colours were white, azure and flame-red.

I saw a noble hunt along the path:
hunters lying in wait
with their bows and arrows at the ready.

O Diana, may this white animal
not be lost among your green meadows.

Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga