A conductus query: Does anyone know whether the following two likely references to Classical Latin sources in the conductus Nobilitas animi have been identified previously?
For lines 1-3: "Nobilitas animi / sola est ac unica. / Virtus dolet opprimi." See Juvenal, Satires, 8,20: “/ ... nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus. /” This expression gained further currency thanks to its inclusion in the twelfth-century Moralium dogma philosophorum, where Juvenal’s phrase was filled out – and reconfigured – as “nobilitas animi sola est atque unica virtus” to restore it as a dactylic hexameter.
For line 4: "Fuit, fuit publica." Although the sequence “fuit fuit” here may seem to be an error, AH, 21:131, no. 187, retains the reading as it stands, which made me wonder. Against Anderson’s corrections to “olim” (NDRC: Opera omnia, 5:viii) one should note the demonstrable correspondences to Cicero’s first oration against Catiline (around the third or fourth paragraph as it is usually presented), where the repetition serves for rhetorical emphasis: “Fuit, fuit ista quondam in hac re publica virtus, ut viri fortes acrioribus suppliciis civem perniciosum quam acerbissimum hostem coercerent.”
Please do email me in addition to posting here if you have information or further thoughts. Many thanks, all.
Replies
Thank you. I have it and will consult it on this specific question. Your input is appreciated.
You might be interested in Jacopo Mazzeo's PhD thesis about “The Two-Part Conductus: Morphology, Dating and Authorship” (University of Southhampton 2015):
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/389789/1/Jacopo%2520Mazzeo%2520PhD%2520...
But the author is rather interested in conterfacture or musical borrowings the poetic intertextuality.
Looks like a common case of philological domestification in that case. Thanks for pointing it out!
None that I know of. It was a completely editorial decision on Anderson's part, as he says in his edition, vol. 5, p. 113.
In that case, I just do ask myself which source testifies the olim-version.
I am sure he would have, but this particular composition (at least as far as we know) is preserved only in F.
Well, Anderson should have listed all the sources in the apparatus where “olim” replaced the first “fuit”, but F is very likely the earliest!
Thank you, Olivier,
Yes, I realize the repetition of "fuit" is necessary. I was merely arguing for its legitimacy ut stat, since Anderson's edition (which is followed by the CPI website) changed the first "fuit" to "olim." I have checked Ludwig, and his remarks on the 7th fascicle of F, are rather short; and this is a uniquely transmitted piece. Thank you so much for your answer, and if you ever learn of anyone else who has identified these references, please do not hesitate to let me know.
Oliver Gerlach said:
F (fol. 317r) has definitely the repetition of "fuit" (“fuit fuit publica modo sola relinquitur” the first part corresponds melodically to “sola est ac unica”, also for reasons of meter and rhyme)!
In case of doubt I would recommend to check with Friedrich Ludwig "Repertorium... conductorum et motetorum vetustissimi stili". He was usually quite fit to recognise such references.
A further thought:
Most interestingly, Brunetto Latini brings the Juvenal and Ciceronian references together in his Li Livres dou Trésor, (2,114,2-3). In this passage, Latini notes that those who like to call attention to their noble heritage, but who act without virtue, bring shame upon themselves; he then follows soon thereafter with the example of Cataline, who touted his pedigree as he planned his conspiracies against Rome. Furthermore, almost immediately thereafter, Latini invokes the saying of Juvenal that appears in Nobilitas animi, but ascribes it here to Horace.