The Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional (kɐ̃siuˈnɐjɾu ðɐ βiβliuˈtɛkɐ nɐsiuˈnaɫ, kaŋθjoˈnejɾo ða βiβljoˈtɛka naθjoˈnal, "The National Library Songbook"), commonly called Colocci-Brancuti, is a compilation of Galician-Portuguese

Galician-Portuguese

Galician-Portuguese or Old Portuguese was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages, in the northwest area of the Iberian Peninsula. It was first spoken in the area bounded in the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean and the Douro River in the south but it was later extended south...

 lyrics by both troubadour

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

s and jograes (non-noble performers and composers) . These cantiga

Cantiga

A cantiga is a medieval monophonic song, characteristic of the Galician-Portuguese lyric. Over 400 extant cantigas come from the Cantigas de Santa Maria, narrative songs about miracles or hymns in praise of the Holy Virgin...

s (songs) are classified, following indications in the poems themselves and in the manuscript tradition, into three main genres: cantigas de amigo (female-voiced love songs, about a boyfriend), cantigas de amor (male-voiced love songs) and cantigas de escárnio e mal-dizer (songs of mockery and insult).

The poems were copied in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 (presumably from a manuscript from Portugal or Spain) around 1525-1526 by the order of humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 Angelo Colocci (1467-1549), who numbered all the songs, made an index (commonly called the Tavola Colocciana [Colocci's table]), and annotated the codex. In the 19th century the cancioneiro belonged to Count Paolo Brancuti di Cagli, from Ancona

Ancona

Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region, in central Italy, with a population of 101,909 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region....

, in whose private library it was discovered in 1878. The count later sold the manuscript to Italian philologist Ernesto Monaci, who left it to his heirs on the condition that it not leave Italy. Nevertheless, the manuscript was acquired by the Portuguese government in 1924 and since then has been in the holdings of the Portuguese National Library

Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal

The ' is the Portuguese national library, fulfilling the function of legal deposit and copyright.-External links:*...

 in Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

. A closely related songbook (sister or cousin), kept in the Vatican Library

Vatican Library

The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

, is called the Cancioneiro da Vaticana

Cancioneiro da Vaticana

The Cancioneiro da Vaticana is a compilation of troubadour lyrics in Galician-Portuguese. It was discovered c. 1840 in the holdings of the Vatican Library and was first transcribed by Ernesto Monaci in 1875....

.

The Cancioneiro was copied by six different hands, according to the most recent analysis, using both gothic and cursive scripts. Of the original 1664 songs only 1560 remain. Some of the composers found in it are King Dinis of Portugal, D. Sancho I, D. Pedro, count of Barcelos, Pay Soares de Taveirós, Johan Garcia de Guilhade, Johan Airas de Santiago, Airas Nunes, Martin Codax

Martín Codax

Martín Codax or Martim Codax was a Galician medieval jogral , possibly from Vigo, Galicia in present day Spain. He may have been active during the middle of the thirteenth century, judging from scriptological analysis...

. All told there are about 160 poets.

External links

• Entry at the National Library, in Portugal