A Lovely Erotic Poem

There are several dozen manuscript leaves interleaved between the pages of "Tre MeridianI”, one of them, titled "Carmina caterinae", is accompanied by this poem:

Vénus des oliuӱers, Vénus du Piémont,

   Vénus à l’estoile, Vénus la merveigle,

   Vénus la si pasle, Vénus la uermeille,

   Vénus des oraiges, Vénus des vallons,

Vénus des frontӱères, Vénus des larrons,

   Vénus des hors-la-loi,  Vénus des malsains,

   Vénus des reschappés des prisons du destin,

   Vénus dans les umbres, Vénus du pardon,

Vénus qui soy penche me chuchoter à l’oreille :

   Ne t’en fais pas me dist-elle Ie veigle

   Sur ton resve, et mes lèures sur ton front.

Et saisissant mon bras, et sans mesme un son,

   Elle descouvrit d’abord l’un puis l’autre seing

   Et i posa délicatement ma main.

This might loosely translate :

Venus of the olive groves, Venus of the Piedmont,

   Venus of the star, Venus the marvel,

   Venus, so pale, Venus the blushing one,

   Venus of the storms, Venus of the valleys,

Venus of the frontiers, Venus of the thieves,

   Venus of the outlaw, Venus of the unwell,

   Venus of escapees of destiny’s prisons,

   Venus in the shadows, Venus of pardon,

Venus who bends down to whisper in my ear:

   ‘Don’t worry,’ she says, ‘I’m watching

   Over your dream, and my lips on your forehead.’

Seizing my hand, and without a sound,

   She uncovered first one then the other of her breasts, 
   And placed my hand delicately there

Quid Quaeritis Viventem transcription

...is nearly finished.

It is beautiful.

The Composer's Face, 1599

Many thanks to Mathieu, who found di Scadre in his old age, in a private collection in Perinaldo, Italy.

Killer pic!  What a face!

The Languages of Tre Meridiani

the text body: mostly middle French.
The music:

Latin, French, Italian, middle English.

Msgr di Scadre, age 19, portrait from 1534

"Presumed portrait of the composer.
Discovered in the wall of the castle at Kernuz (Finistère), where the young
composer had spent the year 1534 during his first exile, this portrait
allows us to imagine Di Scadre (born in 1515) at the age of 19 years."

Spoke with Max Stein

...who worked with Cochereau.  Di Scadre was indeed a Monseigneur, born in 1515, lived at least into his eighties.  Held prebends (stipends from the estate of a church) in both Nice--what would become Ste Réparate--and a church outside of Perinaldo (Italy), and may have had others.  An itinerant monk!

The page Max sent talks about an exile to Brittany in 1534--the year of the Affaire des Placards.  A closet Protestant?  A Catholic with Protestant leanings?

Quid Quaeritis Viventem Cum Mortuis (Chapel of the Holy [Trinity?], St. Honorat

First light: here is the first image of music... the voices are on facing pages: S[uperius/soprano] and tenor on the versos, alto/bass on the recto (facing page).

The text is simple: "Why seek ye the living among the dead?"  I thought it'd be a good place to start...

From the Composer's Preface

‎"20th March 1599

Could there be a greater waste of your precious time than to watch a grown man waste his prime of life, his pitiful fortune and the lamp oil of the Blessed Holy Church counterfeiting this collection of diverse songs and simply pleasant melodies? A cat has the common sense to get down from its perch after a night of meowing to dine on a rat or a fish. Nonetheless I, here at the end of my life it seems, cannot restrain my mind from the present task of setting down in writing my little ditties for the good of posterity--what vanity! I can think of nothing more hateful than the so-called critic who, once decided, will brave Hell itself to establish a work as a masterpiece. For him, no evidence, either positive or negative, can turn bold men from their enlightened mission of rescuing such and such a work from deserts of obscurity. Let us recall the famous Certon and his Parisian sorority of shrill theoreticians, who thieve forgotten works from the great libraries of France in order to hide them like squirrels in their own basements, only to sell them back to the Crown, onc their reputation has been established within Music (in boldface, as it must be!). Allegri himself (and I knew him) always sold his stocks at a higher price than the market could manage, having sidled up to the advisors/goat herders of the Vatican so much and so well that they forbade that his Miserere Nostri ever be..."

 

‎"...released from the Sistine, not a single note (not even a single sigh!), assuring its renown in our time and for centuries to come, benefitting not from his authority as a musician or scholar, but instead from his qualities as a businessman and merchant. Tallis, as for him, had the smarts to persuade the English Crown to accord him the exclusive right to sell staff paper. Londonian musical industry, whether it be Tallis or his fellow musicians, or his rivals, could do nothing but profit our man alone, without regard to his compositional talents. Well played, Thomas! Even the most infamous do-nothing could manage to collect an incalculable fortune under such occult conditions. I tremble with anger when I think of those charlatans at whom I bite my thumb, and challenge them to rescue THIS inept randomized stack from the abyss of oblivion, this stack you now hold between your hands. I could nonetheless not burn it like so much dry grass; they are, after all, passably useful songs for Divine Service and for minor comfort to the soul. I decided therefore to bury this collection under the phantasmagorical works of my friend, which I caused to be printed to this end since, knowing [that in] the old trivium and quadrivium of olden times, the pursuit of the polyphonic arts was nothing if not the study of simultaneities properly comparable to the discipline of the astronomer..."

"Liber quem si quis [abstulerit?], morte moriatur, in sartagine coquatur, caducus morbus instet eum et febres, et rotatur, et suspendatur. Amen."

"Whoever [takes away/steals?] this book, may they die the death, be cooked in a pan, get falling sickness and the fevers, and broken on the wheel, and hanged.  Amen."

I think I like this guy.

Wikipedia

...has never heard of a Msgr (=Monseigneur, Monsignor) D. di Scadre.

The bulk of the printed text is in French.  Transcription(s) forthcoming.

More pics

The cover, showing fairly advanced decay in the spine and binding:

Inscription in the flyleaf:

"Liber quem si quis [abstulerit?], morte moriatur, in sartagine coquatur, caducus morbus instet eum et febres, et rotatur, et suspendatur.  Amen."

"Tre Meridiani 

de Msgr. D. di SCADRE 

à Lyon

On les vend chez

Guichard Iullieron, & Thibauld Ancelin

M.D. XCIX

Avec Privilege" 

Where to start?

Oh, goodness.  This has been an interesting day so far!

I bought a book this morning; it was labeled 5 Euros, and in tatters.  "Tre Meridiani", by one Msgr (?) di Scadre.  Printed by a Lyonnese printer.

Oh, and did I mention it's from 1599?  And signed?  And... that it's full of sheet music?

So I didn't sweat the 5 Euros.  It's mine now.

More pictures forthcoming.