El cançoner espiritual de Moliné i Brasés: una proposta de reconstrucció

Abstract

The 1913 issue of the Revue Hispanique included an article by Moliné-i-Brasés which, according to the author, contained “all the Catalan part of a peculiar volume we have just acquired from the little village of Sant Bartomeu del Grau”, consisting of a manuscript that had been purchased shortly before from an antiquarian and is now impossible to find, at least in its original state. The codex, according to Moliné himself, comprised 91 pages measuring 151 × 105 mm and “the watermark in the paper is undecipherable; against the light all that can be seen are fragments of drawings of rudimentary crossbows and columns”; in other words, it was practically impossible to use this distinguishing element as a way to identify the manuscript. Due to its clearly religious content, typical of a libellus precum, the publisher suggested it might have had its origins in some “consecrated hands” (Moliné, 1913: 397). These are important data, above all because the Sant Bartomeu manuscript itself has had, what we could call, a difficult life.

En 1913 apareixia, al volum corresponent de la Revue Hispanique, un article de Moliné i Brasés en el qual publicava −afirmava l’autor− «tota la part catalana d’un curiós volum qu’acabém d’adquirir procedent del petit poble de Sant Bartomeu del Grau», un manuscrit comprat molt poc abans a un antiquari i actualment introbable, si més no en el seu estat primitiu. El còdex, segons Moliné mateix, constava de 91 folis de 151 × 105mm. i «la filigrana del paper és indesxifrable; posantlo a contra-claror sols s’hi endevinen fragments de columnes y ballestes rudimentaries de dibuix»; és a dir, gairebé calia prescindir d’aquest element identificador a l’hora de caracteritzar el manuscrit. Pel contingut clarament religiós, propi d’un libellus precum, l’editor apuntava la possibilitat que tingués l’origen en algunes «mans consagrades» (Moliné, 1913: 397). Es tracta de dades molt importants, sobretot perquè aquest manuscrit de Sant Bartomeu ha tingut com a tal una vida diguem-ne complicada.