Laudario of the Compagnia di Santo Spirito (Florence Laudario, Banco Rari 18)
Laudario della Compagnia di Santo Spirito
Ave Maria, de grazia piena, / madre de Dio, gloriosa reina.
Our renderingHail Mary, full of grace, Mother of God, glorious Queen.
What it is
Preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence (Banco Rari 18), this is one of only two surviving medieval Florentine laudarios with musical notation, compiled c.1310–1340 for the laudesi company of Santo Spirito. It contains 97 Italian laude and 10 Latin pieces and was sung by candlelight at regular confraternal gatherings, primarily as Marian devotional music performed by laypeople. The laudesi tradition — congregational vernacular hymn-singing by urban lay confraternities — was the most widespread form of organised lay piety in medieval Florence, and the Medici participated in equivalent confraternities such as the Compagnia dei Magi. The manuscript is the earliest and most musically complete witness to this tradition.
Why it still matters
Many of these Marian laude can be sung today to their notated original melodies; the scholarly edition by Blake Wilson and Nello Barbieri (A-R Editions, 1995) provides full texts, translations, and transcribed music for practical liturgical or devotional use.
Kept alongside
Seven Penitential Psalms with Litany of the Saints
Psalmi Poenitentiales cum Litaniis Sanctorum
The Seven Penitential Psalms — Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143 — together with the ensuing Litany of the Saints form a discrete devotional unit present in every Book of Hours associated with the Medici queens: Smith-Lesouëf 42, NAL 82, and MS. Douce 112. In Smith-Lesouëf 42 this section is introduced by a full-page miniature of King David at prayer, linking royal penitence to its scriptural archetype. The Litany that follows invokes God's mercy through the intercession of apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, concluding with prayers for both the living and the dead. These texts served as the recognised penitential devotion for royal persons during periods of crisis, war, and personal bereavement.
Office of the Dead
Officium Defunctorum
A structured set of Vespers, Matins, and Lauds prayed for the souls of the departed, the Office of the Dead appears in all three manuscripts directly associated with the Medici queens. In Catherine de' Medici's Smith-Lesouëf 42, a binding error causes a quire of the Office to appear mid-manuscript within the Suffrages — confirmed by the New Liturgical Movement's detailed codicological analysis. Marie de' Medici's Walters prayer book (W.494) incorporates Office of the Dead miniatures recycled from an older Flemish manuscript of c. 1450, demonstrating how royal owners actively personalised their relationship to prayers for the dead. The central responsory 'Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna' gave the whole office its emotional keynote as a framework for royal mourning.
Laudario of Sant'Agnese (Compagnia di Sant'Agnese, Santa Maria del Carmine)
Laudario della Compagnia di Sant'Agnese
Commissioned c.1340 by the lay confraternity of Sant'Agnese meeting at Santa Maria del Carmine, this magnificently illustrated laudario is the finest surviving example of pre-plague Florentine devotional song. The manuscript was dispersed by the early nineteenth century; 28 leaves and fragments survive across 16 collections worldwide, with major holdings at the Getty Museum and the Morgan Library. The laude themselves are vernacular Marian petitions and meditations on the Passion, designed to be sung communally at confraternity gatherings. This manuscript represents the exact form of devotional singing practised in the lay pious circles from which Medici religious culture grew.