446 Mele
work of skillful poets, familiar with the versification techniques of European
literary culture, can especially be recognized in certain hymns, such as the leo-
nine verse to Saint Saturninus of Cagliari Christe patris uerbum, qui regnum rite
supernum.56
Unfortunately, the passiones are nearly devoid of neumes. Among the few
exceptions are the hymns in leonine verse, the antiphons, and the responsories
for Saint Antiochus, which contain neumes from Tuscany that date back to the
twelfth century, in imperfect diastematic musical notation on a red line indi-
cating the F. These chants, which contain the Passio and the office of the saint
from Sulcis, are transcribed in an apographal paper codex dating from 1621,
and are preserved without any shelf marks in the Chapter Archives of Iglesias.57
Such liturgical-musical traditions (mostly hagiographic)—between orality
and literacy—came out of the monasteries and cathedrals through cultural and
social channels that were not always perspicuous, involving the faithful and
pilgrims in moments of enculturation that are arduous to reconstruct. In the
microcosm of the giudicati, the days were punctuated by sounds, voices, and
noises of various kinds, such as the “public announcements” the court dis-
closed in the curatorias, and the toll of the bells at the condaghi, of which some
news has been preserved.58
56 Motzo, Studi sui Bizantini, pp. 184–186; Piras, Passio Sancti Saturnini, pp. 108–113: Hymnus
de S. Saturnino martyre (BHL.S 7491b).
57 Giampaolo Mele, “La ‘Passio’ medioevale di Sant’Antioco e la cinquecentesca ‘Vida y
miracles del benaventurat sant’Anthiogo’ fra tradizione manoscritta, oralità e origini
della stampa in Sardegna,” Theologica & Historica 6 (1997), pp. 111–139; Motzo, Studi sui
Bizantini, pp. 225–255; in particular (for the hymns): on the Cantica pangite (with music
in the manuscript), see pp. 230–231; on the Christe, tuum famulum (without music in the
manuscript), see pp. 231–232; on the O nimium dilecte Deo (without music in the manu-
script) see p. 237; on the Gloria cum summo (without music in the manuscript), see pp.
240–241; on the Nunc libet versibus (without music in the manuscript) see pp. 247–248;
on the Summa Deo Gloria (without music in the manuscript), see pp. 251–254. A musical
transcription of Cantica pangite in Luigi P. Delogu, “L’Ufficio di Sant’Antioco a Iglesias.
Ricostruzione di un’ufficiatura medievale,” Laurea specialistica diss., University of Pavia,
2009–2010, p. 5. See the facsimile (fols. 1r–26v): Libro Officij Sancti Antiochi Prothomartiris
Sulcitanen(sis). Ufficio liturgico e Passio di Sant’Antioco Martire Sulcitano del 1621 (Cagliari,
2015), with an essay by Cecilia Melis (pp. 9–12), Antonio Piras (pp. 13–18), Luigi Pancrazio
Delogu (pp. 19–22). See also Giacomo Baroffio and Eun Ju Kim, La liturgia di sant’Antioco
e di santa Chiara (Cagliari, 2015), music: pp. 19–24 (hymn Cantica pangite, f. 1r: pp. 19–20).
In the 1980s we had the opportunity to examine, in a private library, an unpublished four-
teenth-century parchment fragment of the Passio Antiochi in Gothic minuscule textualis.
58 Paolo Merci, Il Condaghe di San Nicola di Trullas (Sassari, 1992), sheet 252, p. 162; Mele,
I condaghi,” p. 150.