Ars Nova Database

European Ars Nova, ERC Advanced Grant 2017, Multilingual Poetry and Polyphonic Song in the Late Middle Ages

The ArsNova Database intends to address the absence of basic resources and research instruments to ensure the reliability of the results of the three research lines. It is hosted by the portal «MIRABILE. Digital Archive of Medieval Culture» and consists of three sections:

Catalogue of Ars Nova Manuscripts, Authors and Texts
(CANT)

Corpus of Poetic and Musical Texts
(ANT)

Repertory of Metrical and Musical Structures
(ANS)

ARSNOVA IN MIRABILE
CANT
The CANT contains records of each composition, which comprehend all available information regarding poetical and musical sources as well as bio-bibliographical data on poets and musicians and secondary literature, including editions and studies. Records are accessible through a specific search function, allowing several query types (poet name, composer name, incipit of the text, manuscript index, etc.). The indicative chronological span for authors and anonymous compositions ranges from 1309 (transfer of the Papal see to Avignon) to 1417 (resolution of the Western Schism). The CANT does not include Machaut’s works, nor compositions on liturgical texts. It is implemented in collaboration with the Ezio Franceschini Foundation.
ANT
The ANT is constituted by two archives, separate but interconnected: one for poetic texts and one for musical compositions. The implementation of these two archives implies a philological revision of existing editions through their comparison with primary sources. The project also envisages the possibility of obtaining multilingual concordances, useful for the study of the lexicon and to identify intertextual relations between texts written in different languages. The ANT is implemented in collaboration with the CNR-Opera del Vocabolario Italiano.
ANS
The ANS hosts information regarding poetic and musical formal features. Each poetic text record shows syllabic and rhyme scheme, number of stanzas and number of verses per stanza, rhymes and technical rhymes, formal genre, thematic genre. Musical texts records contain the following data: number of voices, Textierung, voice range, finales (also pertaining to internal sections), key and accidentals, notational system, musical genre, compositional techniques. The records also contain a schematic representation of the musical form and an analysis of the relationship between the rhythmic accents of poetry and the spatial-temporal organization of music.