The Corpus Rhythmorum Musicum Opportunities and perspectives of a digital critical edition

Abstract

The Corpus Rhythmorm Musicum (CRM) is a project created by Francesco Stella; here there are the critic editions of rhytmhi – Medieval Latin poems based on syllables and stretches – written from iv to ix century and provided at least with one melody transmitted by the manuscript tradition. After the first volume and CD-ROM publication (Florence, SISMEL, 2007), containing songs from non-liturgical sources, Luigi Tessarolo has reprogrammed the database for the web on 2011. In the database, freely accessible online (<http://www.corimu.unisi.it/>), for every rhythmus, in addition to the digital edition of poems and music (edited by S. Barrett), you can view all the collated manuscripts and their descriptions; the transcriptions of poems and melodies (together with the alphanumeric ones and the musical performances directed by G. Baroffio, who also found the modern transcriptions); the introductions with historical, literary and ecdotic profiles, the tabs Versi and Lingua. From these originate the linguistic tables edited by C. Cenni, F. Sivo, P. Stoppac- ci, the lexical statistics, a repertoire of rhythmic forms edited by E. D’Angelo and C. Pérez González and a search menu that allows you to ask complex questions to the database. Here we present the analysis possibilities offered by the CRM and we investigate the role played by the melodic element in the formation of these compo- sitions. Finally, we indicate some studies arisen thanks to the database, as well as the ongoing projects: the edition of the rhythmi computistici – on calendar, astronomy and method for calculating Easter – and the rhythmic hymns.