L’Antifonario del convento dei Francescani di Bolzano (Hall in Tirol, Biblioteca e archivio provinciale dei frati minori, Ms. 30, sec. XVI) (original) (raw)
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surveys ten attempts, from Lazarus Moore's still much used, though eccentric, version () to that included in the Orthodox Study Bible (). It should be required reading for anyone attempting to make a translation of the Psalter for (Orthodox) liturgical use. Galadza cites Father Ephrem Lash quite frequently. It is a pity that Fr Ephrem's own translation, on which he had worked for years, beginning with the fixed Psalms in the offices, and gradually including the rest, was still incomplete at his death. Another topic of contemporary interest is the question of the translation of liturgical texts into Modern Greek: an issue addressed by Koumarianos. It is a serious question, and little progress is being made on it. Koumarianos sees the issue in terms of personal initiative versus synodical institutionalism, the latter thwarting the former. Koumarianos is clearly passionate about the question, which has maybe clouded his vision. The basic case for such translation is quite clear: as Fr Ephrem put it, mutatis mutandis, when asked why he devoted so much effort to translating the Byzantine liturgical texts into English: 'Because not all the old ladies in my parish know classical Greek'. Koumarianos demolishes effectively the arguments used against translation, save for one, that he does not mention: that, uniquely in the case of Greek, these are the original texts, which is presumably the fundamental reason why people (even those who do not understand them: popular religion is often quite conservative) are so attached to them. Having admitted the necessity of translation, there arises another question that Koumarianos does not raise. Why stop at translation? Why not re-write in modern Greek? This is no longer a theoretical issue, for in (admittedly, later than the conference in Volos), an anonymous layman (whose identity is an open secret), who had earlier published re-written services for marriage and burial of the departed in Byzantine Greek, published a proposed text of the divine liturgy (and also of baptism) in modern demotic Greek. These are not translations, but newly composed services expressing different aspects than those contained in the traditional rites. That also could have been part of Koumarianos's remit.
Studi Musicali, 2023
In 2019 two largely intact parchment bifolios containing late fourteenth-century polyphony, reused as book covers, were found independently in Milanarea libraries: one at the Biblioteca Universitaria in Pavia (I-PAVu, Pergamene sparse, scatola 4, n. 8) and the other at the Biblioteca Trivulziana in Milan (binding of I-Mt, 1759). This is the first of two articles demonstrating that the two bifolios belonged to the same original manuscript, a compilation of Mass Ordinary movements and secular songs copied in northern Italy (ca. 1400). This first essay presents the fragment Pv, a bifolio containing five polyphonic anonymous unica. The pieces are written in fourteenth-century black notation using dragmae, including an unknown form of ‘dragma brevis’ and a case of half-coloration. The four secular works, two virelais and two rondeaux, are all for two voices with untexted tenor. The fifth piece is a fragmentary Credo of which only two texted voices remain. The essay contains a codicological and palaeographic description of the bifolio, a musicological study of the works, a linguistic and stylistic analysis of the French poems, and a critical edition of both texts and music. In the final paragraph, we offer a hypothesis on the origin of the fragment based on the data collected.
2014
This thesis discusses the role of the manuscripts written, read and studied by the Franciscan friars from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries in the city of Padua, northern Italy. In order to study the manuscripts, the study proposes a model of analysis that consists of four aspects: the ideal, the space, the purpose and the interaction. The ideal was expressed by the regulations on learning, study and use of books. The regulations determined the type of book that the manuscripts should be aiming for. The thesis shows that the friars proposed interpretations of the rule in order to reconcile this ideal with their actual use of books. The space was expressed by the Franciscan libraries as places where the manuscripts were collected, but also studied. The thesis discusses how the libraries of the friars found the best ways to guarantee the availability of books for their readers through practices such as long-term loans. The study shows also that the purpose of the manuscripts was related to their physical characteristics, as well as to their type as a book of study, pastoral care, devotion or preaching. The dimension of the interaction refers to the practices of reading. The study reveals that Franciscans were skilled readers who showed remarkable flexibility and contributed significantly to the affirmation of the portable, personal library as a tool for learning and writing. This thesis follows an innovative approach by comparing for the first time the book collections of the medieval Franciscan libraries in Padua. It also explores an original path by applying the reception theory and the notion of interpretive community as tools to discuss the cultural agency of the medieval Franciscan friars. As a result of its interdisciplinary approach, this study offers findings on the dynamics of circulation of vi manuscripts in the libraries, the role of portability in the manuscripts employed by the friars, and prospective fields of application of the model of analysis. vii
Sometime after its creation, the manuscript under investigation, a fifteenth-century Florentine antiphonary, received a remarkable new program of illumination, which included several heraldic devices and other images copied from or inspired by important Florentine works of art. Thus it lost its original liturgical role and was used simply as a canvas to demonstrate a more political and social purpose. This paper does not attempt to explain how this came about, but rather to explore the intricacies of this manuscript's new context. Besides dating its later illumination to the years around 1480, largely by identifying and analyzing the heraldic evidence, I argue that the manuscript must be placed within the humanist circle of Lorenzo de' Medici. By investigating the nuanced political atmosphere in Florence and the relations between wealthy, intellectual families of Lorenzo's circle, I furthermore conclude that Filippo Strozzi commissioned the illumination of this manuscript in order to solidify his political relationship with the Medici, to glorify his family, and to prove its devotion to Florence.