2. Composers and Contents

The lives and works of composers represented in the Paduan fragments reveal the diverse backgrounds from which they came and illuminate the variety of musical styles known and appreciated in late fourteenth-century Padua. Fourteen composers are represented by twenty-eight compositions in the sixteen folios of PadA, PadB, and PadC. There are also fifteen anonymous compositions in the fragments. The composers here represent the spectrum from the extremely famous and well-represented in the other surviving manuscripts to the virtually unknown and unique to the Paduan fragments.³⁴ Composers thought to be contemporaneous with the early 15th century copying of the manuscripts are found alongside works by composers such as Jacopo da Bologna, who was active before the middle of the fourteenth century. Local composers, members of the chapter of Padua’s cathedral, are represented, as are composers from the rest of northern Italy, Tuscany, France, and the Low Countries.

Pirrotta’s assertion that northern sources practically ignore Florentine music except for a few works by Giovanni da Firenze and Francesco Landini (works he presumes to have been written in northern Italy) cannot be disputed by this study, though there does not seem to be evidence that the compositions of Landini found in these fragments were composed in the north.³⁵ Pirrotta claims that the inclusion of music by Jacopo da Bologna and Bartolino da Padova in Florentine manuscripts suggests the Florentines had a more cosmopolitan view of Italy. However, since these are only two of the many northern composers found in the Paduan fragments and other northern sources, this view can be called into question.³⁶

The Johannes Ciconia we know today is not the same Ciconia we thought we knew twenty years ago. Ciconia was a composer from Liège in modern day Belgium who emigrated to Padua near the beginning of the fifteenth century. It was previously thought that Ciconia was born c. 1335 and remained there as part of the chapter of St. John the Evangelist until at least 1372 and, after composing most of his works around the age of 60 in the 1390s, possibly returned to his birthplace after 1411.³⁷ David Fallow’s article, "Ciconia padre e figlio," first put forth the possibility that a choirboy mentioned in a 1385 Liège document named Johannes Ciconia is more likely the composer Ciconia.³⁸ This new interpretation, widely accepted today, would place Ciconia’s birth around the year 1370.

Evidence based on references to the passing of a Paduan leader in Con lagreme bagnandome, suggests the possibility that Ciconia could have been in Padua as early as 1393 since the passing of the next leader, the disposed Francesco Il Novello in 1406, could not have been a time for celebration.³⁹ However, the most securely traceable references to Ciconia in Padua do not place him there until 1401. The virelais, Aler m’en veus (en strangne partie) may have been written as a farewell to his homeland, in the same way Dufay wrote Adieu ces bon vins de Lannoys, though with far fewer specific details. After arriving in north Italy, Ciconia began a tradition of writing celebratory motets for specific individuals, suggesting he may have had a number of patrons (see chapter 1).

The virelais Aler m’en veus and Sus unne fontaine are the only surviving French texted works by Ciconia, both of which can be found in the fragments studied.⁴⁰ Ciconia’s earlier works, such as Sus unne fontaine, seem to be more rhythmically complex than his later, Italian texted works.

Francesco Landini

An extremely prolific composer of 140 ballate, Francesco Landini was born c. 1330 and died in 1397.⁴¹ The name Landini never appears in the musical manuscripts; in the music, he is usually referred to as Magister Franciscus de Florentia, or some variant on this name often with the additional information relating to his profession as organist or his blindness (Franciscus Cecus Horghanista de Florentia).⁴² 145 of Landini’s compositions are found in five gatherings of the famous Squarcialupi codex (I-Fl 87): a beautiful manuscript containing the works of many Florentine and two northern composers (Jacopo da Bologna and Bartolino de Padova) prepared with elaborate decoration, including gold leaf and miniature portraits of the composers whose works are found in the codex.

Landini is represented with seven compositions in PadA, PadB, and PadC; nearly twice that of any other composer. Though Tuscan, Landini had some connections with northern Italy. In the 1360s Landini is said to have been in Venice to receive the "corona launda" by the King of Cyprus. It is also possible that an opus dubium motet was written for Doge Andrea Contarini and that the madrigal Una colomba candida was addressed to the Visconti of Milan.⁴³ No connections between Landini and Padua have so far been found.

Jacopo da Bologna

Jacopo da Bologna was the first important northern Italian composer of the Trecento. Jacopo’s compositions represent the oldest music found in the Paduan fragments, most of which was probably written between 1340-60.⁴⁴ Of the 34 works solidly attributed to Jacopo, three are found in the Paduan fragments, none of which is unicum. The madrigal O cieco mondo is found in PadC with a different version of the ritornello in PadA. The ritornello Si e piena la terra from Ogelletto Silvagio is also notated in PadC. PadA contains the only complete version of Jacopo’s only sacred work, the motet Lux purpurata/Diligite iusticiam.

Not much is known about the life of Jacopo. He was in service in the Visconti court of Milan during the 1340s and again in the mid-1350s, though there is no reason to assume that this would cause his music to have extra significance in Padua despite Visconti rule in Padua from 1388-90. Jacopo wrote a treatise, L’arte del biscanto misurato in which he stated that it is the breve which is the determinant of the tempus in music, showing that modus in mensuration was not commonly used even by mid-century (see chapter 3).⁴⁵ Jacopo da Bologna is the only composer of the trecento to set a text by Petrarch and may have been a poet himself.⁴⁶

Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut is the most well-known composer of the French Ars Nova. Machaut was born c. 1300 and died in 1377 probably in Rheims. His output is considerable: 23 motets, 42 ballads, 22 rondeaux, 33 virelais, 19 lais, a few secular and sacred pieces in various other styles, and one mass, Le Messe de Nostre Dame, probably the most famous medieval composition. Much of his popularity and the size of his output can be attributed to his success as a self-promoter. Machaut supervised the copying of several manuscripts devoted to preserving his works, without which much of his music would be either unknown or unattributable. Machaut was also a renown poet and wrote several monophonic songs and many poems without music.

Machaut is represented in the Paduan fragments by two pieces in PadA, the rondeaux Ma fin est mon commencement and the Ite missa est from his mass.⁴⁷ Ma fin est mon commencement is a secular composition for three voices. The first two lines of the composition, "My end is my beginning and my beginning is my end," give information about the structure of the piece: it is to sound the same forwards and backwards. The manuscripts containing the piece, including PadA (GB-Ob 229, f. D), notate a top voice and half of the tenor. The fifth and sixth lines of text "Mes tiers chants trois fois seulment/Se retrograde et einsi fin" give a clue to the performer how the remainder of the piece is to be created. The second voice is a retrograde canon of the first voice, that is, the top part sung backwards. The tenor (the "tiers chants") reverses itself halfway through when the notated music is exhausted. In the PadA however, only the first two lines of Ma fin est mon commencement are given. It is probable that the piece was appreciated for its canonic form and not necessarily for its uninspired text. In fact, it is quite possible that the piece, if performed, was not performed with the repetition scheme of a rondeaux.

The dismissing of the congregation with the intoning of the Ite missa est is the final part of the mass. Though not normally set by composers, Machaut includes a three voice setting of this short section in his Le Messa de Nostre Dame. Machaut is usually recognized as the first composer of a unified mass cycle consisting of Kyrie, Gloria (Et in terra pax), Credo (Patrem omnipotentem), Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite missa est, though the separation of the Ite missa est from the rest of the mass might be an indication that Paduan musicians were not interested in the work as a unified polyphonic mass cycle. This notion is supported by the few settings of the Agnus Dei and the extreme rarity of polyphonic Kyrie settings in late fourteenth-century Italian music.

Gratiosus de Padua

The complete extant works of Gratiosus de Padua are found in PadA, I-Pu 684, with a continuation of one work onto a page of I-Pu 1475. His surviving works consist of a Sanctus in three parts (no. 38-39), a Gloria in three parts (No. 45), and Alta regina de virtute, a lauda-ballata in either two or three parts, of which only the top voice survives. There is a possibility that Gratiosus is also the author of the motet Gratiosus fervidus/ Magnanissimus opere based primarily on the possible name in the incipit.

Archival work by Anne Hallmark has shown Gratiosus, or Grazioso, to have been in the chapter of Padua cathedral.⁴⁸ Documents from July 1391 in the Archivio di Stato di Padova and June 1392 in the Archivio Capitolare di Padova refer to a "presbiteris Gratioso" and a "presbitero Gracioso de Padua." By June 1392, Gratiosus held the position of mansionarius. Since this position would have given him charge over a large portion of church activities, it is thought that by the last decade of the fourteenth-century Gratiosus could have been old enough to be a position to have written his mature works. If the reference to the monk "Gracioso" is a reference to the composer, then there is evidence to show that Gratiosus was a member of the Abbey of Santa Giustina in 1398 and may have been present there when the manuscripts (particularly PadB, PadC, and PadD) were produced.

Billy Jim Layton has suggested that the Sanctus and the ballata Alta regina represent older, immature compositions while the Gloria was representative of Gratiosus’ later style.⁴⁹ I disagree with Layton’s assessment for two reasons. First, he based his supposition on the notion that Gratiosus’ Gloria has more French traits, traits which could have been learned from the venerable composer Ciconia. The new dates for Ciconia suggest that if there was any influence between the composers it probably went the other direction. Also there is no reason to assume that French style continued to gain popularity in the last decades of the fourteenth century and the first decades of the fifteenth. This is particularly true in Padua where Prosdocimus is advocating a return to earlier Italian notational styles during the early fifteenth century.⁵⁰ Secondly, Layton cites a "poverty of melodic invention" as evidence for the Sanctus being an earlier work.⁵¹ This claim seems untenable. Repetition of melodic motives is not common only to immature works by a composer and there is not even an extraordinary amount of this repetition in the piece. The simultaneous use of duple and triple divisiones is reminiscent of some ars subtilior compositions, even if the notation in .o. and .i. is not.⁵²

Composers represented by a single work, only in the fragments

Four composers are represented by a single work in PadA (each one a mass movement) and have no other surviving music: Barbitonsoris, Berlatus, Mediolano, and Sant Omer. Evidently, there were a few big names and many smaller composers writing music for the Church in northern Italy. What we know about the composers comes almost entirely from analyses of their musical style, since archival research on the lives of these composers has either not been undertaken or has proved fruitless.

In the Oxford fragment (GB-Ob 229), on f. C^V (f. 55^V) is a three part Sanctus by Barbitonsoris. The Sanctus and first Hosanna are in triple meter with a switch to duple for the Benedictus.⁵³ Since the composition uses indications of Italian meters, such as .q., without other important Italian devices (such as puncti divisiones), the notation can be seen to mix French and Italian elements.

Next to the second voice (contratenor) of the Sanctus, the word "ambrosius" is written. Ambrosius is most likely the name of the composer of the contratenor voice. There was a tradition of composing substitute contratenors and of adding new contratenors to compositions which previously had two voices. It is also possible that not only was Ambrosius the composer of the contratenor, but also the name of the scribe. It was not unheard of for scribes to compose their own contratenors to existing compositions. In Panciatichiano 26 (I-Fn 26) the words "musicha mia" are written in the final long of the contratenor to Jacopo de Bologna’s madrigal, Si Chome al Canto (f. 95). Kurt von Fischer and Michael Long have argued that this indicates that the scribe himself added this voice.⁵⁴ Even if Ambrosius was not the scribe or even the composer of the contratenor, the position of the name of the page allows us to reject Layton’s theory that Ambrosius is the first name of our composer, "Ambrogio del Barbitonsoris."⁵⁵

The Sanctus and first Hosanna sections are isorhythmic with some minor deviations. Isorhythmic compositions were most popular in the early fourteenth century. Isorhythms are rhythmic patterns (talea), often on a large scale, which are repeated to the same or different melodic patterns (color). Their use shows French influence, though it does not argue for Barbitonsoris being a French composer.⁵⁶ The style of the opening section, from Sanctus to the end of the "Pleni sunt" contains many parallel 6-3 sonorities.⁵⁷ This harmonic movement and dependence on imperfect, rather than perfect, consonances is somewhat reminiscent of the English sonorities of the time (part of the so-called contenance angloise) and was to become prominent in the music, particularly French and Burgundian music, of the fifteenth century. Since it is the contratenor voice which often moves in parallel fourths below the cantus, we cannot attribute these sonorities completely to Barbitonsoris. We may have evidence here for another composer, Ambrosius, updating music of an earlier era.

The composer Berlatus is known to us only through the top voice of his Credo in GB-Ob 229, f. B^V. Since only a fragment of a work with a fixed text survives, it is difficult to say much about his musical style and next to impossible to speculate about his life. Toward the middle of the composition (mm. 75-85) there is a short section which features breves imperfected both a parte ante and a parte post creating a series of very striking syncopations contrasted with breve-minim rhythms. This composition seems to avoid suggesting the influence of the rhythmic modes.⁵⁸ The ascending tetrachords (four note scales) from G to C on "resurexit [sic]" and "et ascendit" suggest word painting by this composer. Word painting, though rare, is not completely unheard of in music of this time (e.g., Ciconia’s Credo in I-Bc 15 and I-GR 197)⁵⁹ and the examples in Berlatus’s Credo stand out as being particularly unambiguous.

A Sanctus by Mediolano is found on ff. A^V-B of GB-Ob 229. The composer’s name indicates he is from Milan. The composition is the only four-voice work in the fragments studied. The top two voices and the tenor are fully texted; the contratenor is incompletely texted, though since the text would have been so well known this does not necessarily suggest instrumental performance. The composition is securely in the dorian mode: every phrase begins and ends with the tenor on D.⁶⁰ The opening motive, D-A-B-A suggests that the tenor might be based on a chant in mode 1. If so, the performer should examine the possibility that the B is actually a B, which would make the opening motive conform to the chant modal antiphon for mode 1. The use of so many breves suggests that the longa may be the unit of metrical time. An interpretation of modus perfectum (three measures per modus) yields a cadence on the downbeat of the modus for every phrase until the Benedictus. These modus do not make much musical sense as subdivisions, and there are syncopations across the modus (e.g., mm. 38-39) so their importance can be questioned. The Hosanna and Benedictus sections have overlapping phrase endings and unaligned text setting. Staggered entrances in a quasi-canonic fashion (in the modern sense of the word) are found in the second half of the composition, with the important pentachord from A to D figuring prominently.

Sant Omer is more likely the name of the city of origin of the composer of the Sanctus on f. B of I-Pu 1475 rather than that of the composer. Sant Omer was a city in the low countries near the Straits of Dover (approximately 20 miles west of the Belgian border, in modern day France), thus suggesting another link between Padua and the North. The Sanctus is in three voices, but has been damaged by a vertical cut which removes the right one-third or so of the folio. The tenor seems to be in transposed dorian with all surviving cadences (and most entrances) on G.

Other composers represented in the fragments

The composer of A piançer l’oche, Antonelus Marot de Caserta ("tonelus" in PadB) was active around the end of the fourteenth century, possibly in northern Italy.⁶¹ Antonelus’ French-texted compositions, ars subtilior in rhythmic complexity, survive primarily in ModA (I-MOe 5.24). His Italian compositions can all be found in the Mancini codex, I-Las 184. Because of the difference in style and complexity of the French and Italian compositions, and because compositions written in the two languages are preserved separately, it has been suggested by Nigel Wilkins that there were two composers of the same name.⁶² The different scribal hand of A piançer l’oche raises the possibility that it was inserted in the manuscript at a slightly later time. In this case, Trowell’s argument for a single composer based on the presence of many French texted works in PadB would be weaker. No tie between Antonelus Marot and Padua has been found.

Johannes Baçus Correçarus was a saddler from Bologna whose surviving work consists of the three voice ballata Se questa dea de vertue.⁶³ The complete composition is found in Reina (no. 68) and three staves worth of the contratenor are found in PadA. The composition is written in Italian notation, including oblique stemmed semibreves and puncti divisionis but without divisio letters. The composition seems to have originally been in .o. but through the addition of extra puncti, often added higher than normal on the staff, has been converted to .q., probably to bring it somewhat more up to date. However, theories that these puncti were added later must be dismissed since the breve is equal to two semibreves (as in .q.) rather than four normal semibreves, as would be the case if the composition had been notated in .o. in PadA before the dots were added.

Johannes Ecghaerd, known as Engardus in PadA and Egardus in other sources, was a northern composer active in Bruges in the 1370s and ’80s.⁶⁴ He may have been one of the musicians in the papal court of Bologna c. 1410; however, this is based on his presence in gatherings of ModA whose connections to the court in Bologna have not been securely established. Strohm suggests the Egardus may have been in Padua before his time at the papal court in Bologna, c. 1400-1410.⁶⁵ He also suggests a reason for the first wave of migration of composers to Italy: the Great Schism (1378) forced composers associated with Roman-supporting dioceses to study in Italy rather than France if they wished to gain a benefice upon their return.⁶⁶

Perrinet, or Perneth in PadA, was a French composer active around the turn of the century and might be Perrinet Rino, an instrumentalist at the court in Barcelona in 1417.⁶⁷ Two compositions of Perrinet’s survive: a three-part Kyrie and a Credo. The credo is in four parts in concordant manuscripts, but the arrangement of the two surviving parts in the version in I-Pu 684, f. C^V strongly suggests transmission of a three voice version, with one upper voice on each page of an opening and the tenor running across the bottom staves of both pages. In F-APT 16bis, the composition is attributed to "Bonbarde." This might be a reference to Perrinet being a player of the bombard (a tenor or bass shawm) or it might suggest performance by such instruments in the Credo. Though there are many untexted transitional sections between phrases that would seem well suited to instrumental playing, the use of shawms with voices would violate the prohibition against mixing loud instruments with soft.

Senleches was a French composer whose works date from the last three decades of the fourteenth century.⁶⁸ He was a harpist (one composition is even written in the shape of a harp) and spent some time at the court of Aragon. Of his six surviving works, only En ce gracieux temps is not written with the rhythmic complexities of the ars subtilior era (see chapter 4). Senleches was sent to Bruges in 1378 during which time it is possible he could have met Egardus and Petrus Vinderhout, the possible composer of Apolinis ecclipsatur (see chapter 5).⁶⁹

With so many unica compositions, it would be impossible to demonstrate that PadA was copied in bulk from any surviving manuscript. It is more fruitful to examine manuscripts which might have used PadA for their sources. The two fragments of PadD which have concordant readings of Gloria by Egardus and Ciconia appear to have been copied by Rolandus da Cassale from PadA. The omission of a necessary minim stem in I-Pu 1283, but present in PadA is the strongest evidence for the direction of dependence.⁷⁰ That the two Gloria are on the recto and verso of the same folio in PadA but in separate sections of PadD should not be taken as contrary evidence for this stemma: in order to not have to wait while the ink on one side of a folio dried, compositions were often copied on different folios, thus not preserving the order of the manuscript being copied. However, the demonstration that parts of PadD were copied from PadA should not lead us to discount PadD as a source for the compositions. As Margaret Bent points out, unlike literary stemmatics where the written text is the literary work, the notation of a composition is not the music.⁷¹ Thus, even a scribe unfamiliar with a composition can play the role of musical editor by adding valuable information about performance practice though his choice in text setting, layout of parts, and use of ligatures.

Manuscript Contents

Pieces are numbered by the order in which they appear in the manuscript, except in the case of I-Pu 1475, where one can only make sense of the document if the pieces are rearranged according to the original foliation.

Concordances with other Manuscripts

In contrast to the high rate of concordance among Florentine manuscripts, the high percentage of unica works (40% or 17 of 43) together with the low number of works in common with other Paduan manuscripts, PadD in particular, points to a large body of yet undiscovered northern Italian compositions.