CORTONA | The museums and artifacts in the city

The Laudario Cortonese: the most ancient music collection in vernacular Italian

The Laudario from Cortona, is one of the most ancient and important music collection written in vernacular Italian. It was found in 1876 in bad conditions. Probably it was written between in 1270 and 1297. The Laudario belonged to the Fraternità di Santa Maria delle Laude, and it was kept inside the church of San Francesco, in the upper part of Cortona. The Laudario Cortonese is a parchment codex, and inside the codex there are 66 laudi. The peculiarity of this codex is that 46 laudi are written together with the corresponding musical notation, so it is an important example also of the music of that time. The laudi inside the Laudario have got a religious and Marian topic. Why the Laudario is so important? Because it was the first and more ancient witness of a new book genre, that spread all over the Italian and European confraternities during the middle age. Who wrote the Laudario? Probably the authors of the book belonged to the Lay People Confraternities that rose in Umbria and Tuscany during the XII century. Inside the text there are many peculiar rhetorical features and also the metric is very refined. In Cortona you will have many occasions to hear these beautiful melodies and songs. In fact, lots of this Laudi are sang during the religious services in the churches of Cortona. Moreover, in Cortona during all year, there are many concerts that take place, where lots of choirs sing the Laudi, and creating a peculiar and unique atmosphere. If you have the chance, when you will be in Cortona, go to one of these amazing concerts, and you will experience a special ambience.