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Medieval Music Database

O crudel donna, o falsa mia serena
anonymous madrigal

Sources

Rome: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rossi 215, fol. 21v-22 (2/2).

Facsimiles

1. Il canzoniere musicale del codice vaticano Rossi 215 con uno studio sulla melica italiana del Trecento, facsimile edition by Giuseppe Vecchi, Bologna: Università degli studi di Bologna, 1966. Monumenta lyrica medii aevi italica, III/2.
2. Il Codice Rossi, edited by Nino PIRROTTA, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1992.

Editions

1. The Music of Fourteenth Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1960. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8/II, p. 42.
2. Italian Secular Music: Anonymous Madrigals and Cacce and the Works of Niccolò da Perugia, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1972. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century VIII, p. 68.

Text Editions<

1. LI GOTTI, Ettore. 'Poesie musicali italiane del sec. XIV', Estratto dagli Atti della Reale Accademia di scienze, lettere e arti di Palermo, Ser. IV, IV/2, 1944 (1945), p. 39.
2. SESINI, Ugo. 'Il canzoniero musicale trecentesco del cod. Vat. Rossiano 215', Studi medievali (N.S.), XVI (1943-1950), p. 231.
3. CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 338.

Literature

1. MARTINEZ, Marie L. Die Musik des frühen Trecento, Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1963. Münchener Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte 9.
2. TOLIVER, Brooks. 'Improvisation in the madrigals of the Rossi codex', Acta Musicologica, LXIV (1992), p. 168.

Text

O crudel donna, o falsa mia serena.
i' mi fuziva et asugava il pianto
ch'amando te avea soferto tanto.

quando tu me volzisti al dolce canto.
traendomi col so piacer adorno
come la donzella il leocorno.

E pi· me doglio assai che del mio danno
che in vaga donna regna tanto inganno.

Translation

O cruel woman, o false Siren of mine.
I was escaping and drying my tears.
because I had suffered much through loving you.

when you made me turn round with your sweet song
adorned with pleasure, and drew me to you
as a damsel attracts a unicorn.

I grieve much more for that than for my scorn:
that in fair woman could reign such deception.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga

Content Approved by: MMDB Director
Last updated: Wednesday, 19 March 2003