458 Mele
(El senyal del Judici) is still sung in Catalan on Christmas Eve. The Latin Iudicii
signum, from which it takes its origin, has been present in codices with neumes
since the tenth century.97
7 The Musical Heritage of the Middle Ages: Open Questions
During the Spanish age, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but with
antecedents dating back to the fourteenth century, institutional chapels in the
major cities (for example Cagliari and Sassari) and the brotherhoods were the
key avenues of musical transmission. The cultural and musical substrates of
such devotional companies in Sardinia, which functioned between orality and
literacy, remain to be examined in depth.98
In particular, after the Council of Trent (completed in 1563), the paraliturgi-
cal songs of Holy Week (in the Sardinian language: Chida Santa) developed
in the circles of the various confraternities, especially that of the brotherhood
of the Rosary, promoted by the Dominicans, and of the Holy Cross, which
was close to the Franciscans. The predominant context of worship was, as
it is today, the Sacred Triduum of the Holy Week, noteworthy for the parali-
turgical ceremonies of the raising of the cross (in the Sardinian language:
Incravamentu) and the “deposition” of Christ (in the Sardinian language:
Iscravamentu). Among the many towns and villages in which these rites are
still enacted, Santu Lussurgiu, Bosa, Cuglieri, and Castelsardo are remarkable
for their musical originality (the paraliturgical songs of Castelsardo focus on
Holy Monday, the Lunissanti). Many other centers, including Cagliari and
Alghero, also deserve to be mentioned.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mystery plays, written in
Sardinian and Spanish, flourished; they were sometimes connected with the
official liturgical chants (such as hymns and antiphons). A Sardinian manu-
script found in the monastery of Santa Chiara in Oristano and containing
a religious drama, La Passión de Nuestro Señor Jesu Christo, dating from the
first half of the eighteenth century, also includes older sections (treatises on
97 Higinio [Hygini] Anglés, La música a Catalunya fins al segle XIII (Barcelona, 1988 [1935]);
María del Carmen Gómez Muntané, El canto de la Sibila, 2 vols (Madrid, 1996–1997);
Giampaolo Mele, “Nota sul Cantus Sibillae e un testimonium recenziore del Senyal del
Judici (Alghero),” in “Quod ore cantas corde credas.” Studi in onore di Giacomo Baroffio
Dahnk, ed. Leandra Scappaticci (Vatican City, 2013), pp. 335–352.
98 Liturgia e paraliturgia nella tradizione orale: Santu Lussurgiu, 12–15 dicembre 1991, eds
Giampaolo Mele and Pietro Sassu (Cagliari, 1992).