Salv'a lo vescovo senato

"Salv'a lo vescovo senato", also known as the "Cantilena giullaresca", because it was written for performance by a jongleur, or "Ritmo laurenziano", because it was found in a codex (Santa Croce XV, IV) of the Biblioteca Mediceo Laurenziana in Florence, is a lyric poem in the Tuscan language. It was probably composed in the third quarter of the twelfth century (1150–71) by a Tuscan poet. It is the earliest surviving piece of poetry in an unmistakably Italian dialect.

"Salv'a lo vescovo senato" comprises twenty monorhyming "ottonari". In the same manuscript is found a martyrology. Two internal references in the poem constrain its dating: a mention of Galgano Inghirami, Bishop of Volterra from 1150 to 1157 and to Grimaldo, Bishop of Osimo from 1151 to 1157. Bruno Migliorini writes:

"Il giullare si rivolge a un vescovo (Villano, arcivescovo di Pisa, secondo l'ipotesi del Cesareo, accolta dal Mazzoni) facendone lodi sperticate e pronosticandogli nientemeno che il pontificato, con la speranza di ottenere in dono un cavallo: se lo ottiene, lo mostrerà al vescovo di Volterra, Galgano". [Bruno Migliorini (1971), "Storia della lingua italiana" (Florence: Sansoni), p. 104.]
The jongleur addresses a bishop (Villano, Archbishop of Pisa, according to the hypothesis of Ceareo, following Mazzoni) making drawn-out praises and go so far as to predict for him a pontificate, in the hopes of of obtaining a horse: if he obtains it, he will show it to the bishop of Volterra, Galgano.

External links

*Giuseppe Bonghi, [http://www.classicitaliani.it/intro/intro038.htm Introduzione ai "Ritmi delle Origini della Letteratura italiana" (Duecento)]
* [http://www2.fh-augsburg.de/~Harsch/italica/Cronologia/secolo12/Laurenziano/lau_ritm.html Text at Bibliotheca Augustana]

Notes