Pietro Edo e un’inedita Annuntiatio Paschae in canto fratto

The Pordenone priest Pietro Edo (†1504) is a well-known poet and man of letters, but he is also recognised as a musician, having compiled, in two different manuscript versions, the laude of the fradese dei Battuti (a lay confraternity) of his native city in the final decade of the fifteenth century. This study offers an analysis of the texts and melodies written by Edo himself in MS Udine, Biblioteca Civica “Vincenzo Joppi”, Fondo principale 1325 (known as the Liber memorialis of the Congregation of San Marco of Pordenone), including a two-voice Benedicamus Domino and the Easter proclamation Plebs sancta Deo deserviens. Despite some significant musical differences, the latter is recognised as deriving from the Aquileian tradition. Particularly interesting is the notation of the proclamation, which employs the musical figures of white mensural notation, thus making the Plebs sancta of the Udine codex a significant example of cantus fractus from the area of western Friuli.