- Context
Europe in the 13th century had seen great changes and new discoveries, the Crusades continued, coal was mined for the first time in England, people begin to learn and transition to reading and writing Arabic numerals and cotton cloth began to be manufactured in Spain (Smitha, 2004) . The city-states of Italy in the later part of the century were the center of some of their own historic events. In 1271 after the longest conclave of three years, French and Italian cardinals elected Pope Gregory X (Timeline- Italy, 2011) . While 1282 saw the beginning of the long War of Sicilian Vespers by rebels, in the Kingdom of Sicily (History, 2011) . In 1284 the city-state of Genoa defeated its rival Pisa in a naval battle of Meloria, ending Pisa’s reign as a marine power (Facts, 2005) .
There was also another great achievement that is not recognized in history books that occurred in the year 1291, when a monk named Simon from Genoa, copied a breviary for the use of his brothers in a monastery high on the hills of the Casentinesi forest (Genoa, 1291) .
Over 700 years later and thousands of miles traveled, the manuscript from the monastery of Camaldoli now sits in the holdings of the Hargrove Music Library in Berkeley, California (Emerson, 1988) . The acquisition of the manuscript, known a MS 752, was most likely completed between 1947- early 1980’s, by Vincent H. Duckles, University of California at Berkeley’s specialist in collection and service development for their music library (Roberts, 1998) .
- The Monastery
Located in the now recognized National Park of the Casentinese Forests, Monte Falterona and Campigna, in the Tuscan region of Italy (Boscagli, 2011) (Lucchesi, 2009) , the Camaldoli Monastery was founded by St. Romuald, a monk from the abbey of St. Apollinaris in Classe at Ravenna, Italy between the years 1024-1025 (Camaldoli, The beginnings, 2002) .
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| Casentinese Forest |
The monastery was founded on the ancient monastic traditions of the East and the Benedictine traditions of the West. Camaldoli combined the communal and solitary dimensions of the Holy Hermitage and the Monastery to form one community (Camaldoli, Camaldoli today, 2002) .
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| Camaldoli Monastery |
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- The Manuscript
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| MS 752 |
MS 752, or the Camaldoli manuscript as it will be called for this study, is a chant book and breviary, written in Latin and contains within it cover:
· a ferial psalter
· a Camaldolese liturgical calendar (January through December)
· Winter and Spring temporal from Advent 1 to Whit Saturday, with a sermon of St. Augustine, a part of a St Bernard sermon, and a extended series of Camaldolese liturgical ordines. inserted between Ember Saturday and Christmas.
· Twenty-five Sundays after Pentecost
· Trinity Sunday
· A supplement of Marian prayers without music, which includes “Ave” psalters, litany, orations, an Office, and “Gaudia S. Mariae”
The manuscript is dated September 18, 1291 and was copied by Simon of Genoa, the Recluse (Emerson, 1988) .
- Creator
Simon of Genoa, the scribe of the Camaldoli manuscript, remains a monk of mystery. Researching this manuscript revealed nothing about Simon, the Recluse, but it did reveal a lot about his surroundings, his monastery, and what life might have been like during the late 13th century.
Simon was from Genoa, an independent seaside town in northwestern Italy. The town was in constant battle with surrounding city-states over ports and control of the Tyrrhenian Sea (Facts, 2005) .
Becoming a monk meant partaking on a spiritual journey of seeking the Lord and a conversion that leads to inner reunification by following and emulating Jesus (Camaldoli, Monastic offering, 2002) . Having heard the call to join the brotherhood of the Church, Simon was assigned to the Camaldolese monastic Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict located about 200 miles south of Genoa.
Travel in Simon’s time would have been done, by boat, horse, or foot (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2010) . Being from a port city Simon may have taken part of his trip by boat and then walked or rode a horse or a cart pulled by a horse the rest of the way up the hills to the monastery. The trip by foot would have taken about 3 or 4 days to complete under good conditions. A journey including a boat may or may not have been faster, as conditions and availability would have been large contributing factors.
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| The present day route from Genoa to the Camaldoli Monastery |
It is hard to know about Simon the monk, but in general a Benedictine monk lived by the tradition of “Ora et labora”, prayer and work, and Simon would have lived day by day in monastery following this idea (Camaldoli, Monastic offering, 2002) . As a scribe, Simon would have done his work in the Scriptorium, which was located above the chapter house. The room would have been filled with carrels being used by other scribes. He wrote for six hours a day, the hours that were not devoted to liturgical duties, and only during hours of daylight, as candle light was a hazard. Simon would have worked in silence, and if he needed additional materials, he would let the armarius, the monk in charge of the scriptorium, know by using use hand signals (Avrin, 1991) . The Camaldolese community believed that a monk would gain insight from the ability to move between the monastery and hermitage freely, an allowance Simon may have partaken in after he had completed copying his manuscript (Camaldoli, Monastic offering, 2002) .
The life expectancy of a man in 13th century Europe was around 40-45 years, therefore Simon should have been born around the years 1251-1271, making him anywhere from 20-40 years old when he copied the manuscript (Field, 2004) .
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A Camaldoli monk |
- Photo(s)
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| "Sacred [book] of the Camaldoli" |
