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Evidence for a revised dating of the anonymous 
fourteenth­century Italian treatise Capitulum de vocibus 
applicatis verbis
ELENA ABRAMOV­VAN RIJK

Plainsong and Medieval Music / Volume 16 / Issue 01 / April 2007, pp 19 ­ 30
DOI: 10.1017/S0961137107000599, Published online: 05 March 2007

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0961137107000599

How to cite this article:
ELENA ABRAMOV­VAN RIJK (2007). Evidence for a revised dating of the anonymous fourteenth­
century Italian treatise Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis. Plainsong and Medieval Music, 16, 
pp 19­30 doi:10.1017/S0961137107000599

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Plainsong and Medieval Music, 16, 1, 19–30 © 2007 Cambridge University Press
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Evidence for a revised dating of the

anonymous fourteenth-century
Italian treatise Capitulum de
vocibus applicatis verbis
ELENA ABRAMOV-VAN RIJK*

A B S T R A C T . No bibliographical information has survived regarding the anonymous treatise Capitu-

lum de vocibus applicatis verbis, the only treatise of the Trecento that provides a description of the
musical genres of Italian secular music. The problem of dating the Capitulum is the more challenging
for scholars, given the absence of unequivocal points of reference of known date (the presently accepted
dating, since Debenedetti’s first description of the source in 1906, is ‘between the years 1313–1332’).
The Capitulum and Antonio da Tempo’s Summa artis rithmici vulgaris dictaminis (1332), are
connected by the phrase ‘nova sunt pulchritudine decorata’, which appears in the final section of the
Capitulum and at the very beginning of da Tempo’s Summa. The original source of this phrase, which
does not appear in any other medieval source, is the Constitutio Omnem, a letter written by the
Byzantine emperor Justinian I (527–65) on 16 December 533. Antonio da Tempo, who was a judge in
Padua, was evidently the first to extract this quotation (with a slight change in the word order) from
Justinian’s Constitutio for use in his treatise on poetic forms. For his part, the author of the
Capitulum, apparently a simple teacher of grammar and music, took the statement ‘nova sunt’ not
directly from Justinian’s Constitutio, but verbatim from da Tempo’s Summa, a source that was closer
to his field of professional activity. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Capitulum was compiled not
at the beginning of the Trecento but after 1332, the year in which da Tempo completed his Summa.
Despite its modest size, the anonymous treatise Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis
occupies a position of the highest importance in the study of the music of the Italian
Trecento.1 It is the only music treatise of the period that provides a description of the

*vanrijk@mscc.huji.ac.il
I would like to thank Dr Dorothea Baumann for her valuable suggestions, Dr Avshalom Laniado for
his generous assistance with the legal material and Ms Liel Almog for her careful work on the English
text.
1
See Santorre Debenedetti, ‘Un trattatello del secolo XIV sopra la poesia musicale’, Studi medievali, 2
(1906–7), 57–82; Nino Pirrotta, ‘Una arcaica descrizione trecentesca del Madrigale’, in Festschrift
Heinrich Besseler, ed. Eberhardt Klemm (Leipzig, 1961), 155–61; Thorsten Burkard and Oliver Huck,
‘Voces applicatae verbis: Ein musicologischer und poetologischer Traktat aus dem 14. Jahrhundert’,
Acta Musicologica, 74 (2002), 1–34. The other sources of information about genres, such as the
madrigal and the ballata, are the literary treatises: Summa artis rithmici vulgaris dictaminis by Antonio
da Tempo (1332), De li rithimi volgari by Gidino da Sommacampagna ( c. 1384; Gidino da
Sommacampagna, De li rithimi volgari, ed. Carlo Giuliari (repr. Bologna, 1968), and the new edition:
Gidino da Sommacampagna, Trattato e arte deli rithimi volghari (photographic reproduction of Codex
20 Elena Abramov-van Rijk

musical genres of Italian secular music. Six musical genres are described here in the
following order: ballade; rotundelli; motteti; cacie sive incalci; mandrialia; soni sive sonetti.
Regarding two of the genres, ballata and sonus,2 it could be said that the author
scarcely touches on their musical aspects,3 but he does provide a quite detailed
description of their poetic structure. As for the motet, rotundellus, caccia and madrigal,
the Capitulum offers much more information about their purely musical characteris-
tics, especially the kind of polyphony used in them. The anonymous author’s inten-
tion to arrange the genres in a certain order, is also worth mentioning. The Aristotelian
background of such a hierarchical arrangement is evident, because the author refers to
Aristotle’s authority, as most writers would have done in this period.
The treatise was discovered by Santorre Debenedetti at the beginning of the twen-
tieth century in the codex Lat. cl.12, 97 (end of the fourteenth century) in the Biblioteca
Marciana in Venice and was first published in 1906.4 As preserved in the Marciana
manuscript, the text appears to be a single chapter extracted from a larger unknown
treatise that was apparently more musical than literary. It is appended to the main
treatise of the codex, Antonio da Tempo’s Summa artis rithmici vulgaris dictaminis
(1332). Possibly the scribe, Antonius de Bohemia,5 identified the passage as material
germane to the Summa and inserted the chapter where it is presently found.6
No bibliographical information has survived regarding the Capitulum de vocibus.
Neither the name of the author, nor the date of composition, nor the title of the treatise,
nor the title of the chapter (if it had one) is known. It was Debenedetti who gave it the
name Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis on the basis of its incipit.7

CCCCXLIV of the Biblioteca capitolare of Verona), ed. Gian Paolo Caprettini; introduction and
commentary by Gabriella Milan, with a foreword by Gian Paolo Marchi and a musicological note by
Enrico Paganuzzi (Verona, 1993), and Francesco da Barberino’s De variis inveniendi et rimandi modis
(1313), published in Oreste Antognoni, ‘Documenti d’Amore di Francesco da Barberino e un breve
trattato di ritmica italiana’, Giornale di filologia romanza, 4 (1882), 78–98.
2
The genre named sonus or sonetus constitutes in fact a variant of the ballata that is characterized by
larger structural units. Despite its name, it has no connection with the genre of the sonnet.
3
Regarding the musical theoretical aspects as they are presented in Capitulum, F. Alberto Gallo
observes that there is no ‘systematic exposition of the music theory’ (La teoria della notazione in Italia
dalla fine del XIII all’inizio del XV secolo (Bologna, 1966), 36). The only musical theoretical aspect
discussed in the sections on ballatas and soni is rhythm, that is, the use of the tempus perfectum or
imperfectum and of the aer italicus or gallicus in the different parts of their poetic form. See also F.
Alberto Gallo, ‘Die Notationslehre im 14. und 15 Jahrhundert’, in Geschichte der Musiktheorie 5: Die
musikalische Lehre von der Mehrstimmigkeit, ed. Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (Darmstadt, 1984), 311–12.
4
Debenedetti, ‘Un trattatello’, 80–2. For the modern edition with German translation, see Burkard and
Huck, ‘Voces applicatae verbis’, 14–19. The electronic version of the Capitulum is found under the
siglum ANOCAP at www.music.indiana.edu/tml/14th/ANOCAP_TEXT.html.
5
As Debenedetti notes, the name of the scribe, Antonius de Bohemia, appears both in the treatise title,
‘Antonius de Tempo. De Arte rythmica scriptum ad Antonio de Bohemia’ and at the end, ‘Antonii de
Tempo causidici patavini Summa ei Ars vulgaris Dictaminis rithmici – Explicit per me Antonium de
Bohemia mediantibus penna et attramento ad finem debite producta’ (Debenedetti, ‘Un trattatello’,
60–1).
6
Debenedetti observed that the whole codex was copied by the same hand. Only a few additional
corrections are supplied by another hand (ibid., 61).
7
In the most recent critical edition of the Capitulum, the editors and commentators, Burkard and
Huck, offer another title for this treatise, the Trattatello: ‘Da der Trattatello keinen Titel hat, versuchte
Debenedetti, ihn aus den ersten Worten zu gewinnen. Aufgrund des Verweises auf ein
 Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis 21

The problem of dating the Capitulum has challenged scholars from the moment of
its discovery and publication, given the absence of clear and unequivocal points of
reference that would establish a connection with any document whose date can be
established with certainty. Accordingly, arguments regarding the chronology of the
treatise rely on the state of the notation8 and the information about musical genres
as provided in the Capitulum. On these two bases, the presently accepted dating of
the Capitulum places it between the years 1313 and 1332.9 This timeframe can be
considered no more than hypothetical because of the lack of precise chronological
information about the evolution of the notation and the musical genres, which might
be able to provide a more or less solid basis for dating the treatise.
The question of whether or not the anonymous author of the Capitulum would have
been familiar with other relevant treatises, first and foremost da Tempo’s Summa,
becomes an issue of the greatest importance in establishing a chronology. Since
Debenedetti, it has been generally thought that any such connection was non-existent.10

vorhergehendes Kapitel gelangte er zu der Gattungsbezeichnung capitulum, wegen der Formulierung

zu der inhaltlichen Bestimmung de vocibus applicatis verbis, so dass er folgenden Titel vorschlug:
Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis. Diese Titelgebung ist insofern glücklich, als unser Anonymus
zwar auch die Instrumentalmusik behandeln will (folgt auf vocum applicatarum verbis noch et sine
verbis), dieses Versprechen aber in dem uns vorliegenden Text nicht einlöst. Der Nachteil von
Debenedettis Titel ist jedoch, dass er ohne gesicherte Grundlage Authentizität suggeriert.’ (The
Tratatello not having a title, Debenedetti tried to construct one from the first words. On the basis of a
reference to a previous chapter, he arrived at the genre nomenclature ‘capitulum’, because of the
formulation that designates the purpose of the contents: ‘vocibus applicatis verbis’. This suggestion
for the title is successful up to a point. When our anonymous author expresses his intention to deal
also with instrumental music (vocum applicatarum verbis is followed by et sine verbis), this promise is
not fulfilled in the text at our disposal. The disadvantage of Debenedetti’s title is, however, that it
suggests authenticity without any reliable foundation.); Burkard and Huck, ‘Voces applicatae verbis’, 3.
In fact, this assertion is quite reasonable. Yet Debenedetti’s old title is known to all and is already
rooted in Trecento research. There is therefore no harm in its continued use.
8
According to Gallo’s theory, the Capitulum preceded Marchetto’s Pomerium (c. 1320) by some years. It
described, therefore, an earlier stage of the development of notation in Italy. See F. Alberto Gallo, La
teoria della notazione in Italia, 36–8; idem, ‘Die Notationslehre im 14. und 15 Jahrhundert’, 308.
9
C. Matthew Balensuela, ‘Anonymous Theoretical Writings’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicans, 2nd edn, ed. Stanley Sadie, 29 vols. (London, 2001), 1:698. According to Nino Pirrotta (‘Una
arcaica descrizione trecentesca’, 158), ‘il Capitulum dovette essere scritto fra il 1313 e il 1332, e
probabilmente in un tempo più vicino al primo che al secondo termine’ (The Capitulum must have
been written between 1313 and 1332, and probably closer to the first date than to the second). Burkard
and Huck (‘Voces applicatae verbis’, 3) note that ‘für die Datierung des Textes schlägt Wolf das dritte
Jahrzehnt, Debenedetti die Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts vor. Gallo ordnet den Text in eine teleologische
Geschichte der Notation ein und datiert ihn daher vor Marchettos Pomerium auf 1315–1320; Pirrotta
datiert auf 1313–1332 mit der Begründung, die Ausführungen zum Madrigal beschrieben ein Stadium
zwischen Francesco da Barberino und Antonius da Tempo.’ (As for the date of the text, Wolf suggests
the third decade, and Debenedetti the middle of the fourteenth century. Gallo arranges the text
according to its teleological history and on this basis he dates it before Marchetto’s Pomerium, 1315–
1320; Pirrotta arrives at 1313–1332, his reason being that the performances of the madrigal represented
a stage between Francesco da Barberino and Antonius da Tempo.); Burkard and Huck, ‘Voces
applicatae verbis’, 3.
10
‘L’autore del Capitulum con tutta la propabilità non conobbe la Summa e certamente non fu guidato dallo
scopo di completarla’ (The author of the Capitulum most probably did not know the Summa and
obviously he had no intention of inserting additional information in it); Debenedetti, ‘Un trattatello’, 63).
The same view is voiced by Burkard and Huck (‘Voces applicatae verbis’, 3–4): ‘zu vermuten ist zwar, dass
22 Elena Abramov-van Rijk

Nonetheless, there is one detail that hints at a connection between the Capitulum
and da Tempo’s Summa. This is the phrase ‘nova sunt pulchritudine decorata’, which
appears in the final section of the Capitulum as follows:

Sunt etiam alie plures compilaciones
verborum ad sonos, et possunt esse ad
quas inveniendas studens in musica
debet subtiliari, quia nova sunt
pulchritudine decorata, sed sufficit
nostro tractatui sive compendio de istis
universalibus tractavisse, quia, testante
Philosopho in Dyalectica, scientia est de
universalibus et finitis.11
There are many other types of
compilations of words for sounds, and
indeed there can be several, and
therefore he who wishes to invent them
must be subtle in regard to music,
because new things are decorated with
beauty. Nonetheless, for our treatise, or
compendium, it will suffice to have
dealt with those universal principles,
because, as the Philosopher claims in his
Dialectics, knowledge is of universals
and of finite things.

In this passage the author observes that there are other types of verse-music
combinations not discussed in this chapter, and he advises students to be careful when
composing words and music in these genres. He justifies this recommendation that
special attention be paid to these forms with the explanation that ‘nova sunt pulchri-
tudine decorata’ (new things are decorated with beauty), though such an explanation
might seem somewhat contrived.
Surprisingly, the same expression ‘nova sunt pulchritudine decorata’ is encoun-
tered in the first sentence of the Proemium of Antonio da Tempo’s Summa artis rithmici
vulgaris dictaminis:

Lege testante, omnia nova sunt According to law, all that is new is
pulchritudine decorata, Iustinianaque decorated with beauty, and the
sanctio manifestat naturam deproperare Justinianic sanction declares that nature
edere novas formas.12 hastily creates new forms.

Da Tempo’s statement is composed of two parts, the second of which does not
appear in the Capitulum. The occurrence of the first part of the statement, ‘nova sunt
pulchritudine decorata’, in both treatises does not seem to be mere coincidence. On
the contrary, it is a clear indication of a connection between the two treatises. The style
of this phrase suggests a quotation, and a very unusual one at that. After a careful

der Autor des Trattatello [i.e., Capitulum] weder das Pomerium noch Summa artis rithimici vulgaris
dictaminis kannte, eine Chronologie ist damit aber nicht zu begründen’ (it must be acknowledged
however, that the fact that the author of the Trattatello [i.e., Capitulum] was not familiar with either the
Pomerium or the Summa artis rithmici vulgaris dictaminis does not provide any basis for a chronology).
11
Debenedetti, ‘Un trattatello’, 80.
12
Summa artis rithmici 2, Proemium, ed. Richard Andrews, Summa artis rithmici vulgaris dictaminis: Antonio
da Tempo, Collezione di opere inedite o rare 136 (Bologna, 1977), 4.
 Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis 23

examination of all relevant sources (musical treatises13 as well as other writings), the
singularity of the phrase ‘nova sunt’ becomes evident: apart from its appearance in the
Summa, it is found only in the Capitulum. This may explain why it so far has not been
identified as a quotation by other scholars. As for the philological research, suffice to
point out that, even in the modern critical edition of Antonio da Tempo’s Summa by
Robert Andrews, the phrase is not identified as a quotation. This is reason enough to
search for the source of this phrase.
As mentioned previously, the Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis twice cites
Aristotle and supplies references to where the ideas are found in his works.14 Here, on
the other hand, the author himself gives no indication that the phrase ‘nova sunt
pulchritudine decorata’ might be a quotation. Had the author of the Capitulum taken
the phrase from the original source, or from another one containing clear bibliographi-
cal references, we might assume that he would have noted the source, as he did in the
two instances of quotations from Aristotle. If our anonymous author was ignorant of
the source of this statement, he probably drew the quotation in the Capitulum from an
intermediate source which did not clearly specify the original source. Indeed Antonio
da Tempo did not provide a clear bibliographic reference for this statement, saying
only ‘lege testante’ in the first part and ‘Iustinianaque sanctio’ in the second part.
However, these expressions point to the legislation of the Byzantine emperor
Justinian I (527–65), and thus lead into an area different from that of music and poetry:
that of jurisprudence, and more exactly, Justinian’s legislation project known as
Corpus iuris civilis.
The Corpus iuris civilis consists of four parts: (1) the Institutiones, a short legal
textbook; (2) the Digesta, a compilation of Roman legal literature made in 534; (3) the
Codex, containing laws of Roman emperors from the reign of Hadrian (117–38); (4) the
Novellae, the new laws promulgated by Justinian.15 There are additional items related
to the Corpus iuris civilis, among them two Constitutiones, i.e., general laws in the form
of a letter by Justinian, which have the same date: 16 December 533. These Constitu-
tiones were a kind of administrative correspondence that accompanied the publication

13
Scanning of the Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum (TML) site (www.music.indiana.edu/tml/start.html)
produced no results with regard to this phrase.
14
The first quotation appears at the beginning of the Capitulum: ‘sicut dicit Philosophus in principio
Phisicorum: Cognicio nostra incipitur a notioribus’ (as the Philosopher says at the beginning of the
Physics: our knowledge begins with better known things ( Physics, 184a 16–18)) (Debenedetti, ‘Un
trattatello’, 79); and the second at the end: ‘testante Philosopho in Dyalectica, scientia est de universalibus
et finitis’ (as the Philosopher claims in his Dialectics, knowledge is of universals and finite things) ( ibid.,
80). Interestingly, the first quotation from Aristotle was cited by Dante in the Convivio, in his presentation
of the principles of interpretation and the ways to understand his canzoni: ‘Sı̀ come dice lo Filosofo nel
primo de la Fisica, la natura vuole che ordinatamente si proceda ne la nostra conoscenza, cioè pro-
cedendo da quello che conoscemo meglio in quello che conoscemo non cosı̀ bene’ (Convivio, II. 2). (As the
Philosopher says at the beginning of Physics, nature wants [knowledge] to proceed into our conscious-
ness in an orderly fashion, i.e., proceeding from what we know better to what we know less well.) As for
the second quotation, it was evidently compiled from a number of Aristotle’s maxims. See Burkard and
Huck, ‘Voces applicatae verbis’, 33–4.
15
See also Herbert F. Jolowicz, Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law, 2nd edn (Cambridge,
1965), 488–509, and Ars cantus mensurabilis mensurata per modos iuris: A New Critical Text and Translation,
ed. Matthew Balensuela, Greek and Latin Music Theory 10 (Lincoln, Nebr., 1994), 18.
24 Elena Abramov-van Rijk

of the second part of the Corpus – Digesta. The first, known as Constitutio Omnem, is
addressed to viri illustres, law professors in the schools of Constantinople and Beirut.
It deals with the new programme of legal education, pursuant to the promulgation of
the Digesta. The second constitution, known as Constitutio Tanta or De confirmatione
digestorum, addressed to the Senate and people (‘ad Senatum et omnes populos’),
confirms the Digesta as an active and binding law throughout the Empire.
The first part of the statement, as presented in da Tempo, ‘omnia nova sunt
pulchritudine decorata’, occurs in the Constitutio Omnem, albeit with a slight inversion
of the words: ‘sed eosdem libros de iudiciis vel de rebus totos et per suam consequen-
tiam accipiant, nullo penitus ex his derelicto: quia omnia nova pulchritudine sunt
decorata, nullo inutili, nullo desueto in his penitus inveniendo’.16
The second part of da Tempo’s statement is found in the Constitutio Tanta –
‘naturam deproperare edere novas formas’ – but again in a somewhat different order:
‘sed quia divinae quidem res perfectissimae sunt, humani vero iuris condicio semper
in infinitum decurrit et nihil est in ea, quod stare perpetuo possit (multas etenim
formas edere natura novas deproperat), non desperamus quaedam postea emergi
negotia, quae adhuc legum laqueis non sunt innodata’.17
The phrases in question do not appear in a place that would immediately catch the
reader’s eye. On the contrary, they are hidden within very long texts. The first, ‘omnia
nova . . .’, occurs in the middle of the Constitutio Omnem (§3), and the second, ‘. . .
novas formas’, is found near the end of the Constitutio Tanta (§18). Consequently, to
extract them, one would have to be familiar with the complete text.
In order to make the legislative material more accessible for use, it was common
practice for medieval jurists to circulate among their colleagues various compilations
of legal maxims (i.e., laconic formulations of the rules of law) from the Corpus iuris
civilis, as well as comments on them (glossaries).18 Kenneth Pennington observes that
some legal maxims did cross over from legal practice and became an integral part of
general medieval thought,19 so that some of them are found in non-juridical writings
of the period in question.20
Unlike the Corpus itself, the two Constitutiones (Omnem and Tanta), being a form of

16
Theodor Mommsen and Paul Krueger, Corpus Iuris Civilis, Iustiniani digesta, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1954), 1:11.
17
Ibid., p. 21.
18
Manlio Bellomo writes that ‘the gloss is a brief annotation composed and written to explain a text and
addressing either its terminology and its exterior trappings or its animating spirit and its underlying
principles. . . . The glosses of innumerable masters remain in the hundreds of extant manuscripts
of Justinian’s Corpus iuris civilis, or the libri legales’ (The Common Legal Past of Europe: 1000–1800
(Washington, DC, 1995), 130).
19
Kenneth Pennington, ‘Maxims, legal’, Dictionary of the Middle Ages, 13 vols., ed. Joseph R. Strayer (New
York, 1982–9), 8:232.
20
The treatises on various moral and philosophical topics by Albertano da Brescia (c. 1190–after 1250), who
was a judge and a highly erudite man, provide a good example of the citing of legal maxims from the
Corpus iuris civilis. His writings (three treatises and five sermons) contain an abundance of quotations
from various Latin sources, but not from the Constitutiones Omnem and Tanta. For the complete edition
of Albertano da Brescia’s works (with the critical apparatus for his quotations), see http://www.fh-
augsburg.de/wharsch/Chronologia/Lspost13/Albertanus/alb_intr.html. See more in James M. Powell,
Albertanus of Brescia: The Pursuit of Happiness in the Early Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1992).
 Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis 25

the administrative Byzantine court correspondence, did not serve any practical use in
the fourteenth century.21 They might, nevertheless, have been well known to pro-
fessional jurists, who were drawn to the history of law, and in general had broader
interests. Antonio da Tempo, judex paduanus22 and the author of the treatise on
vernacular poetry Summa artis rithmici vulgaris dictaminis, would have fitted that
description perfectly.
The role of the lawyer in the formation of Italian poetry since the thirteenth century
is well known.23 It was not unusual for a jurist such as Antonio da Tempo to compile
a treatise dealing with the poetic genres and the technique of versification. In order to
determine whether Antonio da Tempo was the first to extract this quotation from
Justinian’s Constitutiones, we have to learn more about his background and his
personal manner of working.
Antonio da Tempo, born in Padua, was the son of a judge, and belonged to an
aristocratic family.24 He was heavily involved in political life and shared a similar fate
with many other such activists, being banned at least twice from his native city.25 He
was apparently appointed a judge in 1329, and, significantly as will be shown below,
in this same year or shortly afterwards he started to compile this treatise on vernacular
poetry, his main work, which was completed in 1332. Pasquale Stoppelli observes that

21
Even if they could be defined as maxims, the two phrases extracted from the Constitutiones, that is,
‘omnia nova sunt pulchritudine decorata’ and ‘naturam deproperare edere novas formas’, have no
legislative meaning.
22
‘Ego Antonius de Tempo iudex . . . parvus paduanus’ (I, Antonio da Tempo, a simple judge from
Padua’) (Summa artis rithmici 2, ed. Andrews, 4).
23
For example, one of the first poets with whose name the origins of the sonnet are associated was Jacopo
da Lentini (1210–60), whom Dante called ‘il Notaro’ ( Divine Comedy, Purg. 24.56), a notary at the court
of Federico II. There are many studies on this issue beginning with that by Giosuè Carducci (Intorno ad
alcune rime dei secoli XIII e XIV ritrovate nei Memoriali dell’Archivio notarile di Bologna (Imola, 1876). For
the connection between laymen and music in Italy, see two articles by Alessandra Fiori, ‘Pratica musicale
a Bologna nelle testimonianze di alcune fonti processuali dei secoli XIII e XIV’, Studi musicali, 19 (1990),
203–57, and ‘Ruolo del notariato nella diffusione del repertorio poetico musicale nel medioevo’, Studi
musicali, 21 (1992), 211–35.
24
There are two biographies of Antonio da Tempo, one by Giusto Grion ( Delle rime volgari: trattato di
Antonio da Tempo (Bologna, 1869), 7–12) and the other by Pasquale Stoppelli (‘Da Tempo, Antonio’, in
Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome, 1960–2005), 33:13–15). Grion claims that Antonio’s name was
registered in the Matricola de’ Dottori (a list of members of professional corporations in the Middle
Ages) on 2 April 1275. Assuming that da Tempo would then have been at least twenty years old, the year
of birth suggested by Grion (1275) seems highly unlikely. Stoppelli, however, believes that he was much
younger, born towards the end of the thirteenth century. This confusion could occur because of the
family custom to use the same names, Antonio and Buzzacarino, and to practice the same profession of
lawyer for many generations.
25
Grion quotes a section from the chronicle of a certain Nonio who, in the year 1370, wrote: ‘Illi qui a
Tempo [sic] praenominantur, fuerunt homines populares et omnes foeneratores. Antonius de Tempo,
dives foenerator, homo placibilis et alacer, genuit Buzzacarinum (et) Panevinum; qui tres pulcras domos
muratas post viridarium Episcopalis Ecclesiae possidebat; sed eo tempore, quo Paduani rebellaverunt
Imperatori, fuit cum omnibus filiis expulsus de Padua’ (And those who were called Tempo, were
popular persons and all were money-lenders. Antonius de Tempo, the very wealthy money-lender, a
very placid and cheerful fellow, was the father of Buzzacarinum (and) Panevinum. He was the owner of
three beautiful houses surrounded by fences immediately behind the garden of the bishop’s church; but
during the time when the Paduans rebelled against the Emperor, he was exiled from Padua with all his
sons) (Grion, Delle rime volgari, 7).
26 Elena Abramov-van Rijk

for da Tempo, as for many other jurists of the time, the practice of his profession was
accompanied by a strong interest in literature, vernacular poetry in particular.26 In
addition to the sonnets included in the Summa, Antonio da Tempo left eight sonnets-
letters addressed to his colleagues – all of them notaries, judges or doctors of law.27
Therefore, the Summa, which was dedicated to the patron of Padua, Alberto della
Scala, might have been intended mainly for this circle of colleagues.28
Da Tempo presents the seven principal poetic genres in the following order:
sonettus, ballata, cantio extensa, rotundellus, mandrialis, serventesius and motus confectus.
In his treatise we also find an interesting and important, albeit according to his own
word ‘dilettantish’, description of the musical aspect of the madrigal,29 in particular of
its polyphonic arrangement.
As Stoppelli observes, the Summa is all the more singular and original, considering
that da Tempo worked in the absence of any model of a compilation for a text on the
subject of vernacular poetry.30 He could not have known about Dante’s treatise De
vulgari eloquentia, because it was not published until the fifteenth century.
In fact, the Summa does contain many quotations from various sources. All of them,
except for Justinian’s, are found in the section dedicated to the sonnet genre, and
served the author as a basis for composing poems in sonnet form. He writes:

Et primo de sonetis in quorum And first [I shall discuss] the sonnet,

qualibet copula aut versu apposui
exterius quasi in modum glossae
quamdam auctoritatem alicuius sancti,
aut prophetae aut doctoris aut poetae
vel alicuius sapientis; quae omnia sunt
aut verba sancta aut moralia vel
notabilia. Ita quod soneti omnes
infrascripti super huiusmodi
auctoritatibus fundati reperiuntur; quia
where I put separately, almost as
glosses, for every couple [of verses] or
for a single verse of it, various
authoritative statements of various
saints, or prophets, or scholars, or poets,
or of various philosophers, that are all
either sacred words or moral ones or
important ones. So, all the sonnets came
out as being based upon statements of

26
‘Ma come fu per molti altri giudici e notai del XIII e del XIV secolo, l’esercizio della professione si
accompagnò in lui a uno spiccato interesse per le lettere e soprattutto per la poesia in volgare’ (Stoppelli,
‘Da Tempo, Antonio’, 14).
27
Ibid., 14.
28
The treatise enjoyed a very fortunate destiny: it became the most important manual of versification for
the novice poets during the two centuries following its publication. See Franco Alberto Gallo, ‘Sulla
fortuna di Antonio da Tempo: un quarto volgarizzamento’, in Ars Nova Italiana del Trecento, 5 (Palermo,
1985), 149–57.
29
See more in Elena Abramov-van Rijk, ‘Parlar Cantando: The Practice of Reciting Verses Aloud as a
Background for the Unwritten and Written Italian Musical Tradition since the Trecento’, Ph.D. diss.,
Tel-Aviv University (2005), 91–103.
30
Stoppelli, ‘Da Tempo, Antonio’, 14. In terms of comprehension and utility, there is absolutely no
comparison between the Summa and the so-called glossae by another early Trecento author, Francesco da
Barberino De variis inveniendi et rimandi modis, written in 1313 as notes to his own Documenti d’Amore
(Oreste Antognoni, ‘Documenti d’Amore di Francesco da Barberino e un breve trattato di ritmica
italiana’, Giornale di filologia romanza, 4 (1882), 78–98).
 Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis 27

quasi de verbo ad verbum auctoritates this kind, because I compiled [my

in rithimis compilavi, quod meo parvo
intellectui fuit valde difficile, quod forte
alias non fuisset difficile nisi ipsos ex
auctoritatibus compilassem.31
verses] in rhyme [form], [using] those
statements almost word for word. [Such
a task] was quite difficult for my small
intellect, which would not have been the
case if I had not composed them on [the
basis of the] authoritative statements.

So, da Tempo explains that he found the task of presenting the phrases from
auctoritates in literal translation in the vernacular in rhyme quite difficult, and, as we
can understand, this specific method was of course not necessary for composing
poems in the genre of sonnet.32 For each sonnet da Tempo provides the sources of the
quotations: the name of the author and the Latin original. The number of quotations is
impressive: a total of 175 phrases from forty-three different sources,33 on average six to
eight quotations for each of the twenty-seven sonnets.
Each sonnet is dedicated to a specific topic and therefore da Tempo had to select a
number of relevant sentences for every poem. For example, sonnet II, Sì come l’altrui
laude non fa iusto,34 speaks of the wicked tongue, the value of silence, and other similar
issues.35 The following auctoritates were used in this sonnet: Hieronimus, Seneca,
Sixtus, Jacobus, Tullius, Augustinus, Cato and again Augustinus (in da Tempo’s
spelling). As we see, the range of auctoritates in this sonnet is very extensive: Church
Fathers (Jerome and Augustine), ancient Latin writers (Seneca, Cicero and Cato),
New Testament (Jacobus) and also a very specific source (Sixtus).
Robert Andrews was able to identify some of da Tempo’s quotations, but not all of
them. Regarding this sonnet he identified Jacobus as the Apostle James (Epistle 1:19),
and Cato as a citation from Disticha Catonis (I, 3).36 As for the other sources, not all of
them are easily identifiable because of frequent confusions in the text.

31
Summa artis rithmici 2, ed. Andrews, 6.
32
It is interesting that in the late Trecento vernacular translation of the Summa made by Gidino da
Sommacampagna and titled De li rithimi volgari (c. 1384), all of da Tempo’s sonnets were replaced by
Gidino’s own, but Gidino, unlike da Tempo, did not base them on the auctoritates (Gidino da Som-
macampagna, De li rithimi volgari).
33
The books from the Old and New Testaments were counted separately, as da Tempo himself dis-
tinguished between them.
34
Summa artis ritmici 2, ed. Andrews, 11–12.
35
There are several sonnets on this topic in da Tempo’s Summa. The possibility cannot be excluded that da
Tempo was influenced by the treatise Ars loquendi et tacendi (1245), composed by the already mentioned
Albertano da Brescia. Richard Hazelton observes in his article ‘Chaucer and Cato’ (Speculum, 35 (1960),
357–80) that ‘it is quite likely that Albertano’s treatise served as a source-book for amplifications of the
topic; the tractatus [de arte loquendi et tacendi] was widely influential in its original form and later though
its inclusion in the Tresor of Brunetto Latini’ (p. 377).
36
Ibid., 12. Interestingly, this maxim from Disticha Catonis, ‘Virtutum primam puto compescere linguam’ (I
consider restrained language the first of virtues), was also used in the madrigal by Jacopo da Bologna.
Prima virtut’ è constringer la lingua / cantasi in Cato ch’è perfecto autore (The primary virtue is to hold the
tongue / [as] is sung in Cato, who is a perfect author). See Giuseppe Corsi, Poesie musicali del Trecento,
Collezione di opere inedite o rare 131 (Bologna, 1970), 45.
28 Elena Abramov-van Rijk

However, it is important to show that some additional identifications can be

made. For example, Tullius in da Tempo, ‘Nam quo brevior eo dilucidior et cognitu
facilior narratio fiet’, is clearly taken from Cicero’s Retorica (or De ratione dicendi) ad
Herennium (I, 15).37 The identification of the two statements by Seneca and Sixtus is a
more intriguing question. Apparently, Seneca’s verse in da Tempo’s formulation, ‘Nil
peccant oculi, nisi oculis animus adquiescat’ was paraphrased from the verse ‘Nil
peccant oculi, cum animus oculis imperat’ (378)38 from the Sententiae (a collection of
moral maxims) by Publilius Syrus, a Latin writer and comic actor who flourished in the
first century BC. The verse from Sixtus, ‘Lingua maliloqua est indicium malae mentis’,
is obviously no more than a slight alteration of the sentence ‘Lingua est maliloquax
mentis indicium malae’ (187),39 which nowadays appears in the so-called Sententiae
falso inter publilianas receptae. The verse ‘Lingua maliloqua est’, is thus, also somehow
linked to Publilius Syrus,40 but this maxim is presented by da Tempo as a quotation
from Sixtus.41 It is the only quotation from this author in da Tempo’s treatise.
In his comprehensive study on education in medieval and Renaissance Italy,42
Robert Black analysed the textbooks for teaching grammar and rhetoric in this period,
examining more than 300 manuscripts. There was a canon of authors for studying
Latin, frequently reported in such collections. The majority of the names of the Latin
authors, indicated in this study, are to be found in da Tempo’s inventory. But some
authors, among them Sixtus, who are present in da Tempo’s Summa, do not appear in
the manuscripts examined by Black.43 We can learn from the explications above that
da Tempo also used uncommon, or even rare, sources in his search for auctoritates.
And, what is important, there are no purely juridical sources either among da
Tempo’s auctoritates for sonnets or among those cited in Black’s study. We can
suppose then that such sources were not in use for general study; and the phrase from
Justinian’s Constitutio Omnem, ‘nova sunt pulchritudine decorata’, apparently was
not familiar to educated persons of the time.
The following precious observation of Robert Black can facilitate our understand-
ing of the rationale behind da Tempo’s specific effort to base the composing of sonnets
on auctoritates: ‘Although often well advanced in Latin, pupils reading the authors in
the grammar schoolroom still glossed their texts in the vernacular . . .’.44 There was
37
Today Cicero’s authorship of Retorica ad Herennium is considered doubtful.
38
Cf. Publilii Syri Mimi Sententiae, ed. Otto Friedrich (Hildesheim, 1964), 59.
39
This verse is absent in Friedrich’s edition, but it is found in the edition by Eduard Wölfflin, Publilii Syri
Sententiae ad fidem codicum optimorum (Leipzig, 1869), 126.
40
Da Tempo uses a number of quotations that he ascribes to Seneca, but which are today found in Publilius
Syrus’ collection (both those verses unequivocally attributed to him and the doubtful ones); however,
his treatise makes no mention of Publilius. We find the same attribution of Publilius’ moral maxims to
Seneca in the treatises of Albertano da Brescia (see note 20).
41
We know that Sixtus (or Xystus) was a Hellenistic Pythagorean philosopher, who later on was confused
with Pope Sixtus I (c. 116–c. 125).
42
Robert Black, Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 2001).
43
The name of Publilius Syrus does not occur among the authorities cited in Robert Black’s study.
44
Ibid., 275. Here is an example from Black’s study: ‘Flos et fructus emunt<ur>, hic nitet, ille sapit’=’El fiore
e’l fructo si aquistano al favore rieprende’ (ibid., 277) to compare with da Tempo’s: ‘Fundamentum enim
religionis est bona taciturnitas’=‘di fede fondamento è ’l buon tacere’ (Summa artis rithmici 2, ed.
Andrews, 11–12).
 Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis 29

therefore a widespread tradition of paraphrasing Latin texts in the vernacular, to

make them easier to learn. Da Tempo himself indicates this: ‘quasi in modum glossae’.
But it was obviously his original idea to convert this school custom into a creative act.
Quite clearly da Tempo does not hesitate to tackle an even more difficult task, to
search for rare quotations or to paraphrase the Latin texts and change them into
vernacular rhymes.
Now that we have an idea of how da Tempo worked with the sources, it is time to
turn to the context in which the phrase ‘nova sunt’ appears. It is intriguing that at the
very beginning of his treatise da Tempo indicates his professional rank of judge three
times: in the title, ‘Summa . . ., composita ab Antonio de Tempo iudice cive paduano
. . .’; in the dedication to Alberto della Scala: ‘suus minimorum minimus subditus
atque servitor Anthonius de Tempo iudex qualisqualis paduanae civitatis filius . . .’;
and in the Proemium, after the phrase ‘nova sunt’: ‘ego, Anthonius de Tempo iudex
parvus civis paduanus’.45
Antonio da Tempo had just been appointed to this position when he began work on
the Summa.46 Evidently, it was very important for him to emphasize his new status of
judge. Both phrases – ‘nova sunt pulchritudine decorata’ and ‘naturam deproperare
edere novas formas’ – taken from the legal sources, which generally were not used for
quotations, could therefore be seen as a demonstration of his professional position, of
his high education and of his excellent ability, confirmed later in the sonnet section as
well, to find and combine quotations. He extracted these quotations from the two
Constitutiones for use in his treatise on poetic forms, perhaps because they were
aphoristic, aesthetic and suitable for texts dealing with poetry.
In view of the foregoing, the question arises about how the anonymous author of
the Capitulum de vocibus could have discovered a quotation from such an elitist and
restricted sphere as the Constitutiones of Justinian? Nino Pirrotta defines our unknown
author, perhaps with some exaggeration, as ‘un gran povero diavolo di grammatica’47
(a poor devil of a grammarian), because of his not particularly elegant and rather
lowbrow Latin. It is improbable that Justinian’s Constitutiones were accessible to the
general public, that is, to simple teachers of grammar and music.
We can suppose that the author of the Capitulum took the statement ‘nova sunt’
from a source that was closer to his field of professional activity.48 At present we have

45
Summa artis rithmici 2, ed. Andrews, 3–4.
46
We do not know da Tempo’s age at that time. According to Grion’s unlikely assumption, he might have
been already a very old man, more than seventy years old, and if so, he received this long-awaited post
towards the end of his life. If Stoppelli’s data are correct, da Tempo was still a quite young man of about
thirty years. In either case, his pride in the position would be quite understandable.
47
Nino Pirrotta, ‘Una arcaica descrizione trecentesca del Madrigale’, 156.
48
There exist a number of studies concerning the connection between medieval legal thought and practice
and music theory of the time. However, in his introduction to the critical edition of the late Trecento
Italian treatise with the telling title, Ars cantus mensurabilis mensurata per modos iuris, Matthew Balensuela
states that ‘actual quotations of legal texts in Medieval or Renaissance music treatises, such as appear in
the Ars cantus mensurabilis, are rare’ (Ars cantus mensurabilis, 22). See also Balensuela’s ‘Law as an
Intellectual Source for Music Theory in the Middle Ages and Renaissance’, in Proceedings of the Tenth
International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Syracuse, New York, 13–18 August 1996, ed. Kenneth
Pennington, Stanley Chodorow and Keith H. Kendall, Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C: Subsidia 11
30 Elena Abramov-van Rijk

no knowledge of any other source that might have transmitted the expression ‘nova
sunt pulchritudine decorata’ from the world of jurisprudence into that of Italian
literature and music, except for da Tempo’s treatise. Significantly, the quotation in the
Capitulum repeats the inverse formulation found in the Summa, not the order in
Justinian’s text, i.e., ‘sunt pulchritudine decorata’, not ‘pulchritudine sunt decorata’.49
Therefore we can assume with near certainty that da Tempo’s Summa was the source
for the anonymous author’s citation.
In the light of the above discussion we may revise our understanding of the
production of the Capitulum as follows: the treatise was compiled not at the beginning
of the Trecento but after 1332, which is the year when da Tempo completed his Summa.
Furthermore, we may assume that the anonymous author of the Capitulum was so
impressed with the Summa that he even quoted a sentence from it. Since da Tempo
preceded the sentence ‘omnia nova sunt pulchritudine decorata’ with the words ‘lege
testante’, the author of the Capitulum considered it to be an idiomatic statement. With
this statement he could explain why he did not attend to poetic musical forms that
demanded musical experience and subtlety, focusing on the universal principles
rather than on new and less stable forms.
The year 1332, therefore, has to be considered as terminus post quem for the treatise
Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis.50 With this it becomes quite clear that the
Capitulum was not contemporary with either Francesco da Barberino’s De variis
inveniendi et rhimandi modis (around 1313) or Marchetto’s Pomerium (around 1320),
but was composed at least some ten or twenty years later, and in any case after da
Tempo’s Summa. Therefore, the position of the Capitulum in the history of musical
genres in Italy as well as its significance for the development of notation51 should be
revised according to this new information.

(Vatican City, 2001), 840–59. It is worthy to note that in Marchetto’s Lucidarium (c. 1318/19) we find an
interesting comparison between the two pairs: musicus-cantor and judex-praeco: ‘Est itaque musicus ad
cantorem, sicut iudex ad praeconem: nam iudex ordinat, et per praeconem praeconizari mandat; sic et
musicus ad cantorem’ (Thus the musician is to the singer as the judge to the herald. The judge sets things
in order and commands the herald to proclaim them. So it is with the musician and the singer.) The
English translation is by Jan W. Herlinger, The Lucidarium of Marchetto of Padua: A Critical Edition,
Translation, and Commentary (Chicago and London, 1985), 549–51.
49
The word ‘quia’ (because) that appears in Justinian’s text and is absent in da Tempo’s appears also in the
Capitulum but in this case it derives quite clearly from the syntactic structure of the sentence.
50
Burkard and Huck, in discussing the dating of the Capitulum, refer to the mention of a treatise in Italian,
unfortunately lost, by a certain Jacopo de Cairo, in the library inventory of Tomaso Parentucelli (the
future Pope Nicholas V), ca. 1453. The treatise was apparently none other than an Italian translation of
the Capitulum, which they therefore date before 1350. See also Remo Giazotto, La musica a Genova nella
vita pubblica e private dal XIII al XVIII secolo (Geneva, 1951), 98–101.
51
On Gallo’s theory of the development of notation in Italy see notes 3 and 8. As for the history of Italian
musical forms, see the recently published book by Oliver Huck, Die Musik des frühen Trecento
(Hildesheim, Zurich and New York, 2005), in particular the section ‘Das Capitulum de vocibus applicatis
verbis und das System der musikalischen Gattungen’ (pp. 13–18). The author, though he does not stress
his own opinion about the dating of the Capitulum, places it ‘some years later than 1300’: ‘Unter Rekurs
auf die Autorität des Aristoteles nehmen um 1300 Johannes de Grocheo und einige Jahre später der
anonym gebliebene Autor des Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis eine empirische Bestandsaufnahme
der in Paris bzw. Italien gebräuchlichen Musik vor’ (p. 13).