The Squarcialupi Codex and Francesco Landini
Most of the musical illuminations in the Fisher Antiphonarium are direct copies from another manuscript from the same time and place. The Squarcialupi Codex is a collection of hundreds of secular Florentine songs, unmatched in both the extent of its contents and the beauty of its decorations.¹⁹ The codex lives in Florence, but an incredible facsimile is held in the rare book collections of the University of Toronto Music Library, and a rough digitization (of the facsimile) is available for download on the International Music Score Library Project, an online database of sheet music. A 20th-century edition of the music, more comfortable to modern eyes, is also available at the University of Toronto Music Library. Organized by composer, each section starts with a beautiful illustration of the composer, and some sections feature blank pages—the intent being to fill them with future works.²⁰
Francesco Landini
The composer with the most material in the codex is Francesco Landini, a prominent musician and prolific composer in late 1300s Italy. Known as “the blind organist from Florence,”²¹ Landini played and built many instruments, and composed secular ballatas and madrigals.²² Despite being a secular composer, Landini is connected to the sacred Fisher Antiphonarium because his likeness is reproduced on the verso of the 12th leaf.
Adieu, Adieu, Douce Dame Jolie is one of the many Landini songs found in the Squarcialupi Codex, a simple, beautiful melody about lost or unrequited love. French music and poetry had a lot of influence on Italian composers of the era, and this song is a virelai, the French version of the Italian ballata, a verse form popularly set to music of the era.²³ There are many different versions of the sheet music and lyrics, but the text as given by a 1955 edition of the Squarcialupi Codex’s music, edited by musicologist Johannes Wolf, is as follows:
┃Adieu, adieu, douce dame iolie,
┃Car de vous se départ le corps (?coeur?) pleurant.
┃Mais à vous, las, l'esprit et larme mie.
┃Lointain de vous, hélas, vivrai dolent.²⁴
The music as written in the Squarcialupi Codex is concise, using only two staves of music and giving a single voice line with text.
The sheet music in the 1955 Wolf version is written for three parts in alto and tenor clefs (not standardly used for vocal music in the 20th century). Accidentals are written in figured bass style above the notes and are sparse, giving the song a minor sound.
Another modern edition of Landini’s works, edited by musicologist Leo Schrade, adds a second verse of text and more accidentals, presenting the song in a major mode. The preface to this edition, by musicologist Kurt von Fischer, notes the “difficult” problem of musica ficta (essentially the use of accidentals, notes outside the music as written, unwritten but inherently understood by musicians of the day), which led to the inconsistencies in modern accidental use (and explains the lack thereof in the 15th century score).²⁵
Both of these modern editions of the sheet music were written for three lines, but only provided the text for the superius, the highest voice. So while I cannot compare myself to the great German musicologists cited above, I too have thrown my hat in and created my own score and recording of Adieu, Adieu. My arrangement and performance are based on historic practices, but take considerable artistic license. The intent is to provide a three-part sung version for female voices, of the piece to explore how the three lines could fit together vocally, as other recordings use instruments for the tenor and contratenor lines. I also used the minor mode to contrast with the palatin87 version of the song. Fischer notes that one medieval composer stated that the music of the era should be sung “[w]ith smooth and sweet melody,” imbibing the qualities of dulcedo (sweetness) and subtilitas (precision).²⁶
¹⁹ “Squarcialupi Codex,” Frank Cooper Music Facsimile Collection, http://scholar.library.miami.edu/facsimile/squarcialupi.html.
²⁰ “Squarcialupi Codex,” Frank Cooper Music Facsimile Collection, http://scholar.library.miami.edu/facsimile/squarcialupi.html.
²¹ Margherita Ferro Luraghi, “The Miniatures,” in Il Codice Squarcialupi, edited by F. Alberto Gallo, 159-192, Firenze: Giunti Barbèra, 1992, 187.
²² “Francesco Landini,” Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd Edition, Volume 9, Detroit: Gale, 2004, https://go-gale-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&u=utoronto_main&id=GALE|CX3404703703&v=2.1&it=r.
²³ palantino87. Liner notes for La Bella Mandorla: Madrigals from the Codex Squarcialupi. CPO/Deutschlandfunk, compact disc, 13.
²⁴ Der Squarcialupi-Codex, Pal. 87 Der Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Zu Florenz, edited by Johannes Wolf, Lippstadt: F. Kistner & C.F.W. Siegel, 1955, 299.
²⁵ Francesco Landini, Complete Works, edited by Leo Schrade, preface by Kurt von Fischer, Monaco: L’Oiseau-Lyre, 1982, iv.
²⁶ Schrade/Fisher, iv.