Search - De Bon Parole Ensemble :: Il codice di guardiagrele - The Chorals of S. Maria Maggiore, 14th Centruy

The Codex of Guardiagrele includes several compositions by artists (from Abruzzo and other regions) that worked in Guardiagrele at the Santa Maria Maggiore church. These compositions show how rich the production of polyphonic music was in this region. As A. Ziino, G. Cattin and O. Mischiati explain: The Guardiagrele compositions are the evidence that polyphony was a common practice even in small towns of Abruzzo; they were the first real document of polyphonic music in the central southern Italy. The Codex includes several early XV century manuscripts of liturgic missals conserved until 1979 in Guardiagrele (in the Chieti provence). An ephigraph on the salterio assigns the original date to the manuscript: 1410 Incipit ordo Psalterii secundum ordinem sancte Romane Ecclesie pro ecclesia Sancte Marie de Guardia Grelis ad petitionem Simonis Cichi Jacobi Gentilis MCCCCX.