Rossi Codex
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The Rossi Codex is a music manuscript collection of the 14th century. The largest part of Rossi is currently in the Vatican Library (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rossi 215) while a smaller portion is in the Northern Italian town of Ostiglia (Biblioteca musicale Opera Pia "G. Greggiati," generally listed as "MS without shelfmark," but recently given the catalog number "Mus. rari B 35"). Although other pre-1380 sources of secular, polyphonic, Italian music survive, none are nearly so extensive as the Rossi Codex.
While the music is anonymous, some composers have been identified from the appearance of the same pieces in other, later sources. The Codex was probably copied sometime between 1350 and 1370, and the music was written between approximately 1325 and 1355.
The Vatican section of the codex was acquired by the Vatican library in 1922 from the Jesuit library in Vienna, and before that Linz; prior to that, it was in the possession of 19th century Italian collector G.F. de Rossi, from whom it acquired its name. In the 15th century it was probably owned by Cardinal Domenico Capranica (1400–1458), but the other gaps in its ownership have not been explained.
While the precise history of the Codex is obscure, some details have been established. Most likely it preserves the repertory of the group of singers and composers who were gathered by Alberto della Scala in Padua and Verona between around 1330 and 1345. Alberto was the son of Can Grande della Scala, Prince of Verona, the famous patron of Dante. Alberto was an even greater patron of the arts than his father, according to an 18th century history. He lived in Padua, which was controlled by the Scaglia family until 1337; the presence of the local Paduan dialect in much of the music reinforces a Paduan origin for much of the music. Most significant of all, notational peculiarities in the manuscript are close to those described by Marchetto da Padova in his Pomerium in arte musice mensurate of the second decade of the century, which was from the same region.
Overall, there are 29 pieces, some of which are incomplete, in the Vatican fragment. The Ostiglia leaves add another eight compositions to the total. Thirty of the pieces are madrigals, including one extremely unusual canonic madrigal, and there is one caccia, one rondello, and five ballatas. All of the ballatas are monophonic. Only two composers have been identified: Maestro Piero and Giovanni da Cascia (Giovanni da Firenze), and these only from concordances in other sources.
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[edit] References and further reading
- Nino Pirrotta, ed. Il Codice Rossi 215: Studio introduttivo ed edizione in facsimile (The Rossi Codex 215: Introductory Study and Facsimile Edition). Ars Nova 2. Lucca: LIM (Libreria Musicale Italiana), 1992. ISBN 88-7096-033-1
- Tiziana Sucato, Il Codice Rossiano 215: Madrigali ballate, una caccia, un rotondello. Diverse voci 1. Pisa: Edizione ETS, 2003. ISBN 88-467-0600-5
- "Sources, Italian Polyphony 1325-1400", in Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed December 8, 2005), (subscription access)
