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Ad regias Agni dapes. Latin, Roman Breviary, 1632.
This is the 1632 Roman Breviary version of an anonymous Ambrosian hymn, 'Ad cenam Agni providi'*. For the two texts, see Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus I. 88.
A&M, from the First Edition onwards, included a translation of 'Ad regias Agni dapes' by Robert Campbell*, from his Hymns and Anthems for Use in the Holy Services of the Church within the United Diocese of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane (Edinburgh, 1850), beginning 'At the Lamb's...
Aeterne rerum conditor. Ambrose of Milan* (339/340-397).
This hymn is accepted as the work of St Ambrose. It is mentioned as one of Ambrose's hymns by Augustine of Hippo* and Bede* (see JJ, p. 26). Its use was widespread. It is found as the matins/nocturns hymn in the Old Hymnal and Frankish Hymnal (rarely), and as the hymn for Sunday Lauds in winter in the New Hymnal (see Medieval hymns and hymnals*). It continued in use throughout the Middle Ages in the various regional practices of the...
MANZONI, Alessandro. b. Milan, 7 March 1785; d. 22 May 1873. Born into a distinguished family, he was educated at Milan and briefly at the University of Pavia; academically he was undistinguished, but he produced his first poem, 'Il Trionfo della Liberta' as early as 1801. After the death of his father in 1805, he lived for two years with his mother at Auteuil, Paris, where he met French writers and encountered the anti-church ideas of Voltaire. In 1808, however, back in Milan, he married...
LIGUORI, St Alphonsus (Alphonso Maria de'). b. Marianella, near Naples, 27 September 1696; d. Pagani, near Salerno, 1 August 1787. Born into an ancient and noble family, he studied law at a very young age at the University of Naples (1708-13). He became a lawyer at Naples, but following what he saw as unjust practice he left the law in 1723 to study theology. He was ordained in 1726, and became Bishop of Castellamare di Stabia in 1730. There he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Saviour...
AMBROSE of Milan. b. Trier, 339 (or 340); d. Milan, 4 April 397. Born into a Roman Christian family, Ambrose pursued the cursus honorum (the ladder of advancement within the Roman public hierarchy) and became governor of the province of Emilia-Liguria in 370, moving to Milan. On the death of the Arian bishop, Auxence, Ambrose was chosen by the people as their bishop, was baptised and, one week later, was consecrated (1 December 373 or 7 December 374). During the 23 years of his episcopate, he...
BIANCO da Siena. b. date unknown; d. 1434. Little is known of his life. He was born at Anciolina, a small village north-west of Arezzo, Tuscany. In 1367 he joined an Order of Lay Brothers, the Jesuates, established by the Blessed John Colombinus of Siena (the Order was abolished by Pope Clement IX in 1668). He is said to have lived in Venice for some years, and to have died there.
His hymns remained in manuscript until they were published by Telesforo Bini, entitled Laudi Spirituali del Bianco...
BOETHIUS, Anicius Manlius Severinus. b. ca. 475-77; d. ca. 524. Born into an aristocratic family, the Anicii, Boethius was adopted into an even more illustrious family, the Symmachi, following his father's death. In his twenties he married his adopted father's daughter, Rusticiana, and began a project to write books on the four mathematical sciences or quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy – his writings on only the former two survive). His rapid political rise, marked by...
Bonaventura da Bagnoregio (Giovanni di Fidanza) b. Bagnoregio, Italy, ca. 1217; d. Lyons, France, 14 July 1274. The rise of St Bonaventura from young scholar to prominent theologian and mystic, minister general of the Order of Friars Minor, prelate, and advisor of popes is one of the remarkable stories of the Middle Ages. There is no contemporary source of biographical information about Bonaventura. The earliest are a 15th-century biography by Mariano of Florence and a Chronicle of the...
Cantico di frate sole. St Francis (ca. 1181/2-1226).
This hymn, 'Canticle of brother son, praise of all creation', ('laude della creatur') is believed to be the earliest Italian Laude spirituale. It may have been written over a period of time, and finished (with the reference to death) in 1225, at a time when St Francis was suffering greatly in mind and body. It has affinities with Psalm 148, but adds its own uniquely affectionate wording, praising the elements of the creation in terms of...
Deus Creator omnium. Ambrose of Milan* (339/340- 397).
This hymn is accepted as certainly by Ambrose. It is the hymn quoted by Augustine of Hippo* in his Confessions, Book 9, chapter 12, as comforting him after the death of his mother, and is quoted several other times in the same work (4:10, 10:34 and 11:27). He also writes of singing it in De musica.
It was used for daily Vespers in the Old Hymnal, and (rarely) in the Frankish Hymnal. Through the middle ages, it was almost always a Vespers...
GIARDINI, Felice. b. Turin, Italy, 12 April 1716; d. Moscow, 8 June 1796. He was a chorister in Milan Cathedral and was a pupil of Paldini before studying the violin under G. B. Somis. It was as a violinist that he became well known, both as an orchestral player and a soloist, particularly for his prowess as an embellisher of melody. After a period at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, he travelled throughout Germany and France before arriving in London where, according to Charles Burney, he made...
Fortem virili pectore. Silvio Antoniano* (1540-1603), translated by various hands.
This was from the revision of the Roman Breviary, commissioned by Pope Clement VIII, and published in Venice in 1603, the year of Antoniano's death. It was included by John Henry Newman* in Hymni Ecclesiae (1838), for the many virtuous women, who were neither virgins nor martyrs ('Commune Sanctae Martyris Tantum, et nec Virginis nec Martyris') as a hymn for Vespers. It was translated by Edward Caswall* and...
FULBERT of Chartres. b. ca. 960; d. 10 April 1028. Born possibly in Italy, he studied in Rome and later in Rheims. Between 984 and 987 he was at the court of the Frankish king. He moved to Chartres ca. 992, where he held a teaching office and that of singing-master. He was consecrated bishop of Chartres in 1006. He did much to enhance the spiritual and temporal power of the French bishops, and he began the rebuilding of the cathedral after the fire of 1020. The hymns ascribed to him are found...
PALESTRINA, Giovanni Pierluigi da. b. Palestrina, Italy, between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526; d. Rome, 2 February 1594. In 1544 Palestrina was appointed organist at the cathedral in the town of Palestrina (near Rome) where he served until 1551. His subsequent appointments all were in Rome. In September 1551 he was appointed to the Cappella Giulia (founded in 1513 at San Pietro by Pope Julius II), first as magister cantorum, subsequently as magister cappellae. From January until...
GREGORY the Great. b. probably in Rome, ca. 540; d. Rome, 12 March 604. Born into a noble Roman family, Gregory was well educated. He became a monk in Rome, having founded a monastery there as well as six in Sicily. Gregory was sent to Constantinople with a diplomatic mission where he remained as 'apocrisiarius' ('ambassador'), and became very popular, from 579 to 585. He was recalled to Rome, and was elected Pope Gregory I in 590. Gregory is said to have seen Anglo-Saxon children in the slave...
Innario christiano (2000). Published in Turin, this is the third edition of the hymnbook used by Protestant churches in Italy, the Federazione delle chiese evangeliche in Italia (FCEI). It is the successor to the editions published in Florence in 1922 and in Turin in 1969. It was edited by a committee (Bruno Rostagno, Alberto Taccia, Franco Tagliero, under the chairmanship of Flavio Gatti, with Ferruccio Corsani as music editor). The introduction draws attention to particularly notable features...
Intende, qui Regis Israel. Ambrose of Milan* (339/340-397).
This is the first stanza of the Christmas hymn usually known by its second stanza, 'Veni, redemptor gentium/omnium'. It was found with this first stanza in the Old Hymnal (see 'Medieval hymns and hymnals*), but the New Hymnal began the hymn with stanza 2. See Milfull, 1996, p. 202. Analecta Hymnica 50. 13-14 prints the full text, with the first stanza as follows:
Intende, qui Regis Israel,
Super Cherubim qui sedes,
Appare Ephrem coram,...
[This entry is in two parts: the first by Blake Wilson, the second by Marzio Pieri]
Lauda (plural Laude)
The origins of the Lauda* are bound up with the literary origins of the Italian language itself. The roots of the tradition can be traced to the 'Cantico di frate sole'* ('Canticle of the Sun') by St Francis of Assisi (ca. 1181/2-1226), beginning Altissimu, onnipotente bon Signore/tue so le laude, la gloria, et l'onore. Francis urged his followers to 'go through the world preaching and...
JACOPONE da Todi (BENEDETTI, Jacopo). b. Todi, Italy, ca. 1236; d. Collazzone, 25 December 1306. The Franciscan poet Jacopo Benedetti was born to a noble family. He signed his name Jacobus Benedicti de Tuderto; chroniclers refer to him as either Jacobus Tudertinus or Jacobus de Benedictis. The name Jacopone (something on the lines of 'Big Jim') may refer to his physical stature, for he was a tall man. More importantly, it was the common and, ironically, belittling name, unbefitting his...
Milanese hymns. The hymns of Ambrose of Milan* were sung in the Milanese Church from the end of the 4th century onwards, and were quickly diffused in the West (cf. AVG. conf. 9,7,15 ; PAVL. MED. vita Ambr. 13), but nothing leads one to suppose that a Liber hymnorum was compiled during Ambrose's lifetime. The oldest preserved witnesses of the Milanese, or 'Ambrosian', hymnal are no older than the last third of the 9th century. These are the psalter-hymnals Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibl., Clm....
O salutaris Hostia. Thomas Aquinas* ( ca. 1224/5-1274); English translation by Edward Caswall* (1814 -1878).
The Latin text of this hymn is from Aquinas's 'Verbum supernum prodiens, nec Patris linquens dexteram'*. It forms the last two stanzas of that hymn. These stanzas are widely known as a devotional text in both Latin and English.
O salutaris Hostia, quae caeli pandis ostium, bella premunt hostilia, da robur, fer auxilium.
Uni trinoque Domino sit sempiterna gloria, qui vitam sine...
O Sanctissima
This is a hymn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, of uncertain date and origin. It is believed to have been sung by Sicilian fishermen at the end of each day. The first known printing seems to have been in a London periodical, The European Magazine (1792) as part of a series whimsically called 'Drossiana' contributed by the anecdotist William Seward (1747-1799), a benevolent but odd member of the literary circle around Dr Samuel Johnson, whose epitaph he helped to compose. The original...
Paul the Deacon [Paul of Friuli]. b. ca. 730; d. Montecassino ca. 799. Of noble Italian birth, Paul the Deacon was educated at the court of King Rachis at Pavia before becoming attached to the court of Duke Arichis of Benevento. He entered the monastery of Montecassino after the Carolingian conquest of Italy (773-4). His letter (782) to Charlemagne, petitioning for the release of his brother Arichis, a Lombard prisoner, brought him to the attention of the Frankish king, who summoned Paul the...
PETER Damian. b. Ravenna 1007; d. Faenza, 22-23 February 1072. Peter Damian entered the hermitage of Fonte Avellana in 1035, and had become prior of the community by 1043. He was interested in church reform, both of his own community (combining elements of eremitic and coenobitic monasticism) and of the wider church. He was made Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia in 1057 and was made a Doctor of the Church in 1828.
The clear attestation of Peter Damian's hymn texts and their diffusion in common with his...
[This entry is in two parts. The first, by Joseph Dyer, discusses Roman hymnody from its beginnings to the 15th century. The second, by Daniel Zager, details 16th-century developments.]
Early and Medieval hymnody
Rome proved very reluctant to introduce the singing of hymns in the Divine Office. They were accepted by the papal court and the major basilicas only towards the end of the 12th century. In this they probably differed from the urban monasteries that followed the Rule of Benedict*, but...
ANTONIANO, Silvio. b. Rome, 31 December 1540; d. Rome, 16 August 1603. He was educated at the University of Ferrara, before being appointed by Pope Pius IV as Professor of Belles-Lettres at the Sapienza University in Rome. He was ordained as a priest in 1568, and became Secretary of the College of Cardinals; he held various posts in the Curia under successive Popes (Pius V, Sixtus V, Clement VIII). He had a particular interest in education, and published Tre Libri dell' Educazione Christiana...
Splendor paternae gloriae. Ambrose of Milan* (339/340-397). This hymn on the splendour of the Father's glory is accepted as the work of Ambrose of Milan. It is a morning hymn, 'Ymnus ad Matutinam' (Milfull, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 142), a companion or sequel to 'Aeterne rerum conditor'*. See also Analecta Hymnica 50. 11-12 and AH 2. 29-31. It was ascribed to St Ambrose by early writers such as Fulgentius, Bede* and Hincmar. In the Old Hymnal it was sung daily at Lauds, and in the...
Tantum ergo sacramentum. Thomas Aquinas* ca. 1224/5-1274).
This two-stanza hymn consists of stanzas 5 and 6 of the great hymn by Aquinas, 'Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis mysterium'* (cf. The similar use of 'O salutaris Hostia'* taken from 'Verbum supernum prodiens, nec Patris linquens dexteram'*). It is sung in the office of the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, or during Mass at the Elevation of the Host (JJ, p. 878):
Tantum ergo sacramentum veneremur cernui:et antiquum documentum novo...
THOMAS of Celano. b. Celano, ca. 1190; d. 4 October 1260. Because his biographies offered the world the first accounts of the life of St Francis of Assisi, the works of Thomas of Celano are considered vital tools for the interpretation of Franciscan Spirituality (see Franciscan hymns and hymnals*). Born into the noble family of the Conti di Marsi, Thomas of Celano would have had access to the best sort of education available in central Italy. His brilliant literary skills bear witness to a...
Veni Redemptor gentium. Ambrose of Milan* (339/340-397). This Christmas hymn is sometimes prefixed by 'Intende, qui regis Israel'*. First mentioned in Augustine*'s Sermon 372, it is universally accepted as the work of Ambrose (Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus IV. 4-6 (1845) also mentions other sources confirming the authorship).
'Intende qui regis Israel' is found in the Old Hymnal and the Frankish Hymnal (see 'Medieval hymns and hymnals'*) as a Christmas hymn. In the New Hymnal it generally...
See 'Veni Redemptor gentium'*
Verbum supernum prodiens, nec Patris linquens dexteram. Thomas Aquinas* (ca. 1224/5-1274).
As with 'Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis mysterium'*, St Thomas was here taking an earlier text, 'Verbum supernum prodiens,/ a Patre olim exiens'*, and making it his own. It was written ca. 1263 for use on the Feast of Corpus Christi. It is printed in Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus I. 254, entitled 'De eadem festivitate ad Laudes' ('On the same festival at Lauds') thus linking it with St Thomas's other...
Verbum supernum prodiens,/ a Patre olim exiens. Latin, probably 10th century.
This is found in Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus I. 77, entitled 'De Adventu Domini', in two texts, one from a Rheinau Codex (TH IV. 144), the other from the Roman Breviary (1632), with line 2 as 'e patris aeterno sinu', and other variations from the original text. In Analecta Hymnica 2. 35, it is printed from a 10th-century hymnal of the Abbey of Moissac ('Das Hymnar der Abtei Moissac'). It is found in many medieval...
The Waldensians take their name from Peter Waldo (ca. 1140- late 12th century), a wealthy son of a merchant of Lyon, France, who followed the instructions of Jesus Christ to sell all he had and give to the poor. He translated the New Testament into Provençal: he and his followers led lives of poverty and simplicity. They regarded themselves as orthodox Catholics, and were represented at the Third Lateran Council (1179) under Pope Alexander III. Their independent teaching, including the...