The Squarcialupi Codex (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Pal. 87) is an illuminated manuscript compiled in Florence in the early 15th century. It is the single largest primary source of music of the 14th-century Italian Trecento (also known as the "Italian ars nova").
It consists of 216 parchment folios, organized by composer, with each composer's section beginning with a portrait of the composer richly illuminated in gold, red, blue and purple. The manuscript is in good condition, and musical pieces are complete. Included in the codex are 146 complete pieces by Francesco Landini, 37 by Bartolino da Padova, 36 by Niccolò da Perugia, 29 by Andrea da Firenze, 28 by Jacopo da Bologna, 17 by Lorenzo da Firenze, 16 by Gherardello da Firenze, 15 by Donato da Cascia, 12 pieces by Giovanni da Cascia, 6 by Vincenzo da Rimini, and smaller amounts of music by others. It contains 16 blank folios, intended for the music of Paolo da Firenze, since they are labeled as such and include his portrait; the usual presumption by scholars is that Paolo's music was not ready at the time the manuscript was compiled, since he was away from Florence until 1409. There is also a section marked out for Giovanni Mazzuoli which contains no music.
The manuscript was almost certainly compiled in Florence at the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, probably around 1410–1415. Because the same unidentified family seal appears on the first folio of the manuscript and on the portrait page of Paolo da Firenze, it was long suggested that Paolo may have had some part in supervising the effort or have been part of the family that commissioned the manuscript. However, more recent evidence about the biography and in particular poor finances of Paolo has his connection to financing the manuscript unlikely. The manuscript was owned by renowned organist Antonio Squarcialupi in the middle of the 15th century, then by his nephew, and then passed into the estate of Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, who gave it to the Biblioteca Palatina in the early 16th century. At the end of the 18th century, it passed into the ownership of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.
The first folio in the codex states: "This book is owned by Antonio di Bartolomeo Squarcialupi, organist of Santa Maria del Fiore." On the following pages, added later, are humanistic poems in praise of Squarcialupi.
All of the compositions in the codex are secular songs in Italian: ballata, madrigals, and cacce: there are 353 in all, and they can be dated to the period from 1340 to 1415. Notably absent are Italian pieces by Johannes Ciconia, a northerner transplanted into Italy, and the more innovative compositions of Antonio Zachara da Teramo.
Kurt von Fischer, "Antonio Squarcialupi," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN1-56159-174-2
Kurt von Fischer/Gianluca d'Agostino, "Sources, MS, Italian Polyphony, 1325-1420", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed June 24, 2005), (subscription access)
Richard H. Hoppin, Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN0-393-09090-6
The Trecento Madrigal is an Italian musical form of the 14th century. It is quite distinct from the madrigal of the Renaissance and early Baroque, with which it shares only the name. The madrigal of the Trecento flourished ca. 1340–1370 with a short revival near 1400. It was a composition for two voices, sometimes on a pastoral subject. In its earliest development it was simple construction: Francesco da Barberino in 1300 called it a "raw and chaotic singalong".
Francesco Landini was an Italian composer, poet, organist, singer and instrument maker who was a central figure of the Trecento style in late Medieval music. One of the most revered composers of the second half of the 14th century, he was by far the most famous composer in Italy.
The Rabbula Gospels, or Rabula Gospels is a 6th-century illuminated Syriac Gospel Book. One of the finest Byzantine works produced in West Asia, and one of the earliest Christian manuscripts with large miniatures, it is distinguished by the miniaturist's predilection for bright colours, movement, drama, and expressionism. Created during a period from which little art survived, it nevertheless saw great development in Christian iconography. The manuscript has a significant place in art history, and is very often referred to.
Jacopo da Bologna was an Italian composer of the Trecento, the period sometimes known as the Italian ars nova. He was one of the first composers of this group, making him a contemporary of Gherardello da Firenze and Giovanni da Firenze. He concentrated mainly on madrigals, including both canonic (caccia-madrigal) and non-canonic types, but also composed a single example each of a caccia, lauda-ballata, and motet.
Antonio Squarcialupi was an Italian organist and composer. He was the most famous organist in Italy in the mid-15th century.
Lorenzo Masi, known as Lorenzo da Firenze, was an Italian composer and music teacher of the Trecento. He was closely associated with Francesco Landini in Florence, and was one of the composers of the period known as the Italian ars nova.
Paolo da Firenze was an Italian composer and music theorist of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, the transition from the musical Medieval era to the Renaissance. More surviving music of the Trecento is attributable to Paolo than to any other composer except for Francesco Landini.
Bartolino da Padova was an Italian composer of the late 14th century. He is a representative of the stylistic period known as the Trecento, sometimes known as the "Italian ars nova", the transitional period between medieval and Renaissance music in Italy.
Donato da Cascia was an Italian composer of the Trecento. All of his surviving music is secular, and the largest single source is the Squarcialupi Codex. He was probably also a priest, and the picture that survives of him in the Squarcialupi Codex shows him in the robes of the Benedictine order.
Andreas de Florentia was a Florentine composer and organist of the late medieval era. Along with Francesco Landini and Paolo da Firenze, he was a leading representative of the Italian ars nova style of the Trecento, and was a prolific composer of secular songs, principally ballate.
The Rossi Codex is a music manuscript collection of the 14th century. The manuscript is presently divided into two sections, one in the Vatican Library and another, smaller section in the Northern Italian town of Ostiglia. The codex contains 37 secular works including madrigals, cacce and, uniquely among trecento sources, monophonic ballatas. The codex is of great interest for trecento musicologists because for many years it was considered the earliest source of fourteenth-century Italian music. Although other pre-1380 sources of secular, polyphonic, Italian music have now been identified, none are nearly so extensive as the Rossi Codex.
The Trecento was a period of vigorous activity in Italy in the arts, including painting, architecture, literature, and music. The music of the Trecento paralleled the achievements in the other arts in many ways, for example, in pioneering new forms of expression, especially in secular song in the vernacular language, Italian. In these regards, the music of the Trecento may seem more to be a Renaissance phenomenon; however, the predominant musical language was more closely related to that of the late Middle Ages, and musicologists generally classify the Trecento as the end of the medieval era. Trecento means "three hundred" in Italian but is usually used to refer to the 1300s. However, the greatest flowering of music in the Trecento happened late in the century, and the period is usually extended to include music up to around 1420.
Gherardello da Firenze was an Italian composer of the Trecento. He was one of the first composers of the period sometimes known as the Italian ars nova.
Maestro Piero was an Italian composer of the late medieval era. He was one of the first composers of the Trecento who is known by name, and probably one of the oldest. He is mainly known for his madrigals.
Antonio "Zacara" da Teramo was an Italian composer, singer, and papal secretary of the late Trecento and early 15th century. He was one of the most active Italian composers around 1400, and his style bridged the periods of the Trecento, ars subtilior, and beginnings of the musical Renaissance.
Giovanni da Cascia, also Jovannes de Cascia, Johannes de Florentia, Maestro Giovanni da Firenze, was an Italian composer of the medieval era, active in the middle of the fourteenth century.
Vincenzo da Rimini, also Magister Dominus Abbas de Arimino, L’abate Vincençio da Imola, Frate Vincenço, was an Italian composer of the medieval era, active in the middle of the 14th century.
Pluteo 29.1, also known as Pluteus 29.1, or simply the Florence Manuscript, is an illuminated manuscript in the Laurentian Library of Florence.
The Modena Codex is an early fifteenth-century Italian manuscript of medieval music. The manuscript is one of the most important sources of the ars subtilior style of music. It is held in the Biblioteca Estense library in Modena.
Add MS 29987 is a mediaeval Tuscan musical manuscript dating from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, held in the British Library in London. It contains a number of polyphonic Italian Trecento madrigals, ballate, sacred mass movements, and motets, and 15 untexted monophonic instrumental dances, which are among the earliest purely instrumental pieces in the Western musical tradition. The manuscript apparently belonged to the de' Medici family in the fifteenth century, and by 1670 was in the possession of Carlo di Tommaso Strozzi; it was in the British Museum from 1876, where it was catalogued as item 29987 of the Additional manuscripts series. It is now in the British Library.
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