Italian Ars nova notation with red black full coloration

front pastedown verso, i r+v, 80 r+v, 81

Parchment

RISM Supplement: 4 fols, (heavily trimmed; front pastedown (unfoliated), fols, i, and, reversed, 81 (back pastedown), 80). Parchment. Now 220 x 150 mm. Written space at least 190 x at least 143 mm. Ruling: at least eight red five-line staves (14.5 mm) ruled with a rastrum. Collation: two bifolia, not obviously contiguous, and neither from the centre of a gathering (but fol. 80v may be the last page of a gathering). Script: Italian gothica textualis. Notation: Italian Ars nova, with red full coloration in 1 and 4; mensuration signs in 7.

Written in Italy. Used to form a pastedown and flyleaf at each end of MS Canon. Pat. Lat. 56, a collection of texts on St Jerome, s. xv. Contemporary binding of stamped leather over wooden boards with two clasps. Pacht and Alexander attribute the illumination to Venice, s. xv, and the book may also have been written there. It was sold at Venice in 1471 to Marina Bocho, wife of Zuan Barbo, and used in the settlement of a debt after her death, c. 1478 (fol. 80 'Iste liber est domine Marine Bocho de Venetiis emptus a magistro Johanne Fabro pro prectio undecim librarum pecunie numerate sexto die octobris. 1471. In vigilia sancte Iustine et in ecclesia eiusdem' written over another [the same?] inscription, erased; for the debt, see the note pasted to fol. ii [formerly pasted to the front pastedown]). Owned, by 1475, by Iohannes Barbus, papal protonotary, who was possibly a relative (fol. 81 'Iste liber est meus Iohannes Barbus protonotarius apostolicus et sedis apostolice Romane curie per manum pontificis. Pape [sic, for 'papa'] Sixtus Quartus. 4'). 'Maximo' (?), scribbled on the front pastedown. A bookplate relating to its sale in 1478, formerly pasted to the front pastedown, was lifted in 1981. Owned: Abate Matteo Luigi Canonici, d. 1805; Giovanni Perissinotti, 1807. Bought 1817.

NOTES ON CONTENTS

1-8 Fragmentary and often illegible, even under ultra-violet light. 1, 5 have been read from the show-through on the verso of the front pastedown (not lifted) and fol. 81r, on which the majority of note- and ligature-stems are unclear. All stems given in the incipits for these pieces are distinguishable under close inspection, but some other notes and ligatures may also be stemmed. 2 Top voice only, from shortly before 'Jesu Christe' to end (bb. 226-227, 233-234 and 262-280 visible, confirming that a long setting of the Amen is used here) ; ed. PMFC 24, pp. 36-43 (No. 7). Also, with some variants of decoration at cadences, in PL-Wn, MS F. I. 378, Ms. 25v-27; I-Pu, MS 675, fol. 2v, attributed to 'M. Jo. Ciconia'; I-GR, MS 197, fols. 9v-10v; I-GR, MS s.s., fol. 2v. 4 One voice; from 'Domine deus' to end. 5 Two voices, labelled 'contratenor' and 'tenor', of a Gloria setting, from 'Laudamus te' to 'deprecationem nostram'. 7 Possibly a tenor part. 8 Part of one upper voice, beginning at ' -nus dei filius patris', and two lower voices almost complete. Similar in design, and in some details (including the change of mensuration to O at 'Qui sedes', and the use of identical musical material in the top voice at 'Qui tollis peccata mundi'), to the Gloria Spiritus et alme by Ciconia (ed. PMFC 24, pp. 30-35 (No. 6), esp. bb. 65-70). 8 May thus be added to the group of musically-related Gloria settings identified by Bent and Hallmark (Ibid., pp. xi-xii). Change of mensuration to (- [C-dot] in the top voice at 'Amen', and in the T to -) [C-dot reversed] at 'Cum sancto'.

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