T191 Virgo praecellens

Tags: 
Verse
To/about Mary
Standardised text incipit: 
Virgo praecellens
Reference sources: 

Full text: MotettiC, No. 21, ff. 18v (S), 19v (A), 16r (T), 17r (B); I-Rvat CS 15, ff. 231v-232r
Translation: Eva Ferro

Full text: 

Virgo praecellens, deitatis mater, 
Nobis in terris hodie concedas 
Ut tibi puri resonemus omnes: 
Ave Maria.

 

English translation: 

Excellent virgin, mother of deity, do allow us on earth today that we all pure say aloud for you: Hail Mary.

Description: 

This text is a stanza from a Marian contrafactum of a Christmas hymn by Enea Silvio Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II).

Subject: 
BVM
Liturgical/devotional association: 
Correspondences in standard ref works: 

No direct correspondence in a standard ref work could be found.

Related texts in other sources: 

Compare the original poem on which the contrafactum is based (Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Metrum saphicum adonium de nativitate Domini, in Epigrammata), st. 1:
Rector astrorum deus et superne
Molis, in terris hodie videri
Passus, ut culpas veteris parentis
Demere posses,

A sixteenth-century tarsia in the choir of the church of San Domenico in Bologna shows a book with this stanza inscribed (provided with music notation), between musical instruments (see ALCE 1969, 331)
deitatis] dei mitis

Literature: 
ALCE 1969
, 331
Further notes: 

This text observes the form of the Sapphic stanza.
T192-195 are the continuation of this text (see the relevant records for a comparison of original and contrafacted stanzas).