CURSUS

CURSUS. — In delivering their speeches, the ancient orators were accustomed to modulate the endings of their sentences in order to bring out their cadence and prepare the pause. This inflection of the voice rested upon special combinations of short or long, unstressed or stressed syllables. The oratorical period thus assumed the form of a free strophe and was divided into members of greater or lesser length, which the Greeks called cola and commata and the Latins membra and incisa.

To indicate the rhythmic flow of speech, which facilitated its melodious recitation and reading aloud, Cicero sometimes uses the word c. (c. orationis: De orat., II, 10, 39; 19, 82; Orat., 58, 198, etc.; c. verborum: De orat., I, 35, 161; III, 33, 136, etc.); Quintilian (IX, 4, 70) and Aulus Gellius (XI, 13) also use c. in this sense. The medieval teachers of ars dictaminis use the word c. to indicate both the rhythmic flow of the entire period and the sonorous cadences at the close of sentences. In the latter case, the classical rhetoricians prefer the word clausula. Modern scholars have called the cadences based on the quantity of syllables metrical or quantitative clausulae, and those based on the accent of words rhythmic or accentual clausulae.

The rhythmic structure of the period with harmonious clausulae was a spontaneous phenomenon among the great Greek and Latin orators, because the ear naturally prefers certain cadences and avoids others; but the rhetoricians soon began to establish rules both concerning the rhythmic structure of the period and concerning the clausulae. These rules were derived from the usage spontaneously made of them by the great orators. Taught in the schools and recommended by the teachers, these rules were applied with greater or lesser strictness by the great majority of Greek and Latin prose writers. Thus, what had initially been a spontaneous and aesthetic phenomenon became a conscious and literary practice.

Isocrates, in particular, cultivated the harmony of his periods with meticulous precision. He himself says that, having abandoned forensic eloquence, he wishes to compose speeches resembling works of art that accompany music. He desires his speeches to be capable of being read and reread and, without calling upon the devices used by poets, to provide readers with a delight equal to that experienced in reading beautiful verses. At Rome, Cicero, following in the footsteps of Isocrates and cultivating, with knowledge and love, the musical element inherent in the language, perfected Latin periodic style. The principal clausulae used by him in his orations and rhetorical and philosophical treatises are:

Form 1: cretic-trochaic
Form 2: double cretic
Form 3: dichoree
Form 4: catalectic trochaic tripody

Zielinski grouped these clausulae in a concise manner, maintaining that they are formed from a cretic base and a trochaic, catalectic, or complete cadence:

Base Cadence

If this theory were correct, the third and fourth forms should always be preceded by a cretic: this often happens, but not always. Sometimes, especially in the first form, a long syllable is resolved into two shorts; more rarely, the cretic is replaced by the molossus and the dichoree by the dispondee.

Ciceronian periodic style, harmonious and architectural, with its broad developments and sonorous cadences, did not immediately enjoy much success. The declaimers, Seneca, Tacitus, Fronto, and Apuleius, favored brief and concise expression. Sharp and witty conceits, brief and incisive maxims, poetic and glittering phrases, and piquant and sparkling witticisms then came into fashion. Yet Cicero also had followers and admirers, such as Quintilian and Pliny. In the 3rd century there was a kind of compromise between the two opposing literary currents: a style rich in incisive phrases, assonances, and sharp turns, highly expressive, was joined to a rhythmic periodic style with parallel or antithetical members ending in harmonious clausulae. Indeed, Ciceronian variety was replaced by a monotonous chant of a few cadences, chosen from among the most sonorous. From the 3rd century onward, nearly all prose writers, both pagan and Christian, adopted this periodic style.

Indeed, when the Christian doctors addressed themselves not only to the humble populace but also sought to win the educated classes to the new religion, they were compelled to use the literary language taught in the schools. In the prayers of its liturgy, in the homilies of its bishops, and in the works of its finest champions, the Church employed, with a wise adaptation to the changed circumstances, rhythmic periodic style with its harmonious cadences.

The first work in which the clausulae are applied with scrupulous precision is the Octavius of Minucius. It has only the appearance of a dialogue; but a free and incidental conversation immediately turns into two harangues, one against and the other in defense of the new religion. The refined harmony of the periods of St. Cyprian was recognized by pagans and Christians alike. The same clausulae that he employs when writing from Carthage to the Roman clergy are also employed by Novatian when replying to him from Rome. Arnobius, a rhetorician and an African, is one of the writers who pays the greatest attention to clausulae; his disciple Lactantius is less enslaved to them: here too the influence of Ciceronian imitation is revealed.

The great Christian polygraphs Tertullian, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine are freer and more varied in their use of clausulae. Although they know the school rules concerning prose rhythm, they are not enslaved to them. In the works he addresses to the learned, such as De civitate Dei, St. Augustine employs literary-rhythmic language; in the sermons and other works of a popular character, rather than clausulae, he uses rhymes and assonances to lend sonority and harmony to his speech. In the fragments of certain Manichaean works preserved for us by Augustine, in the pamphlets of Caelestius and Pelagius, in the treatises of Julian of Eclanum, and in the letters of the principal correspondents of the bishop of Hippo, one observes the same more or less strict application of the rules concerning clausulae.

The Panegyrics and Symmachus may be taken as models of declamatory language with beautiful cadences. Firmicus Maternus, both in the astrological work written as a pagan and in the pamphlet De errore profinarum religionum, composed after his conversion to Christianity, employs oratorical periodic style. In the Iberian Peninsula, the rules concerning clausulae are applied in the letters of Potamius, bishop of Barcelona; in the treatises of Pacianus; in those attributed to the heretic Priscillian; in the works of Paulus Orosius and those of Gregory of Elvira; and in what remains to us of the monk Bachiarius, of Severus, bishop of Majorca, and of Martin, bishop of Bracara.

Where the clausulae became best acclimatized was Gaul, especially through the flourishing schools of rhetoric. Ausonius is as perfect as one could wish; following him are Cassian, Hilary of Arles, Vincent of Lérins, Faustus of Riez, Prosper of Aquitaine, Valerian, Salvian, Sidonius Apollinaris, Gennadius of Marseille, and Caesarius of Arles. Less careful are Paulinus, bishop of Nola, Hilary of Poitiers, Victricius of Rouen, and Phoebadius of Agen. Sulpicius Severus, whereas in his other works he submits to the rules of the clausulae, abandons them in the Chronica, because he is inspired by a different literary ideal; the same is true of other historians: Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, etc.; but the finest historian of the fourth century, Ammianus Marcellinus, observes them carefully. Although the works of Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, Philaster, bishop of Brescia, and Victor, bishop of Capua, are not very carefully composed with regard to the clausulae, the treatises and sermons of Zeno, bishop of Verona, Peter Chrysologus, bishop of Ravenna, Gaudentius, bishop of Brescia, and Maximus, bishop of Turin, are good. Among the minor writers, clausulae are found in the works of the younger Arnobius, and of the African bishops Aurelius, Quodvultdeus, Deogratias, and Eugenius; in the writings of Optatus, Vigilius of Thapsus, Eustathius Afer, Victor of Vita, Fulgentius of Ruspe, and Ferrandus; and in the biographies of St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine, written by the deacons Pontius, Paulinus, and Possidius. It is noteworthy that in the works of an Easterner who lived in Italy, Dionysius Exiguus, the clausulae are used both in his original works and in his translations from Greek.

The writings of Cassiodorus, Ennodius, and Boethius show how carefully Roman men of letters, despite the deep sadness of the times, cultivated eloquence and beautiful cadences. The clausulae even triumph in the imperial chancery, appearing not only in the rescripts transmitted by the Gregorian and Theodosian Codes, but also in the edicts and laws of Diocletian, Galerius, Constantine, and his successors.

The effective work of the Roman schools of rhetoric continued even after the Western Empire had fallen. The acts and laws of the Ostrogothic kings in Italy, of the Burgundians and Merovingians in Gaul, of the Visigoths in Spain, and of the Vandals in Africa are always composed in clausulated prose.

From the imperial chancery, the use of oratorical prose with its harmonious cadences passed to the papal chancery. In the letters of the pontiffs Liberius and Siricius, in the letters and decrees of Innocent I, Zosimus, Boniface I, and Sixtus III, as well as in those of Hilary, Simplicius, Felix III, Gelasius I, Symmachus, and Hormisdas, the clausulae are almost always regular. The same result is obtained by examining the collection of papal decretals from Siricius to Anastasius, compiled by Dionysius Exiguus, and the decrees of the Roman synods and of the African, Spanish, and Gallican councils.

The most important result arising from the study of the clausulae in ancient Christian writers has been to show that the Latin they used is not incorrect, popular, or vulgar Latin, but a literary language formed especially in the schools of rhetoric and law, and used in writings, correspondence, and conversation among educated people. This language is not only a literary language but also a highly expressive and concise one. It naturally reflects linguistic evolution and changed political and cultural conditions, but these writers cannot be faulted for employing lexical, morphological, and syntactical forms current in their own time, although no longer conforming to Ciceronian usage. Linguistic evolution brought about the predominance of stress over syllabic quantity.

The Ciceronian clausulae are based on quantity: although stress exerted a certain influence upon them, it was entirely secondary. Later, linguistic evolution caused the relationship to be reversed: stress prevailed and quantity weakened. In the rapid phonetic and linguistic development that Latin underwent during the centuries of the Empire, when it changed from the dialect of Latium into the language spoken by millions of people differing in race, customs, civilization, and language, the sense of quantity weakened, while stress prevailed and became, as the grammarians say, the soul of the word and of music. School instruction and literary tradition tended to restrain this decline; but by then, especially in Africa, speakers’ ears no longer distinguished long syllables from short ones. Among the various types of clausulae, preference initially began to be given to those in which the metrical ictus coincided with the stress.

Christian writers from the third to the sixth century, in the great majority of cases, take account of both quantity and stress. If one considers stress alone, the clausulae preferred during these centuries may be reduced to four principal types which, following the terminology of the medieval dictatores, have been called:

1. C. planus, stress on the second and fifth syllables counting from the end: régna caelorum, spiritus vénit. - 2. C. tardus, stress on the third and sixth syllables: esse cognócimus, differunt génere. - 3. C. velox, stress on the second and seventh syllables: Dóminum con-

fitémur. - 4. C. trispondaicus, stress on the second and sixth syllables: térra venerátur.

These c. derive from quantitative clausulae. The c. planus derives from the classical clausula, a cretic followed by a trochee or spondee. It was used especially in two forms, either with the caesura after the first short syllable: régua caelórum, or with the diaeresis after the cretic: spíritus vénit. In these two forms, by the law of Latin accentuation, the metrical ictus coincides with the stress. In the c. tardus, two quantitative clausulae came to merge, the double cretic and the cretic followed by a tribrach. Here too, the preferred forms were those with the caesura after the first short syllable: ésse cognócinus, or the diaeresis after the cretic: differunt génere.

The c. velox derives principally from the most harmonious of the quantitative clausulae, the dichoree preceded by a cretic: apóstolis conferátur; but, as stress prevailed, the dispondee and the first epitrite were also used in place of the dichoree, and the cretic was replaced by any proparoxytone word. In Christian authors, the accentual c. velox may be produced by the following quantitative clausulae:

begin{array}{c} --- \ --- \ --- end{array}

The c. trispondaicus derives from the quantitative clausula consisting of a first paeon plus a trochee: ésse videátur.

The Christian writer in whom the rhythm of the period reaches its greatest perfection is St. Leo the Great, who, for his concinuitas and sonorous clausulae, may be considered the Cicero of Christian times. The works of this great pontiff are distinguished by greater classicism and correctness in the use of the literary language, by a finer good taste in the handling of rhetorical and expressive devices, and by harmonious fluency in rhythmic periodic composition. His periods unfold in parallel or antithetical members, closed by a clausula that observes both the rules of stress and those of quantity. St. Leo, with great stylistic skill, succeeds in giving a rhythmically perfect form to his letters and sermons. In him, rhythm and clausulae are not something mechanical and external, but spring spontaneously in intimate union with thought.

To give an idea of the use of Leonine clausulae, the results are presented of an examination of the clausulae in the periods of the sermons and epistles. If stress is considered, the following clausulae are found:

Of these clausae, the great majority are regular also in terms of quantity. Indeed, they present the following quantitative forms:

In Western Europe, literary and rhythmic culture and language suffered a severe blow from the barbarian invasions, from the fall of North Africa and Spain under Arab rule, and from the raids of the Saracens.

The last writers in Spain who show knowledge of the rules concerning clausae, applying them with greater or lesser regularity, are Isidore of Seville and his disciple Braulio, Bishop Eugenius III, and the learned Archbishop Julian. Their contemporaries St. Fructuosus and the abbots Evantius and Valerius likewise used the literary-rhythmic language.

In France, during the sixth and seventh centuries, culture experienced a severe stagnation; nevertheless, the documents issued by the chancery of the Merovingian kings and the so-called «formulas of Marculf» show that the sense of rhythmic writing had not been entirely lost.

The letters of the popes, among which those of Gregory the Great, Honorius I, and Adeodatus deserve mention, reveal that in Italy, despite so many calamities and devastations, the tradition of rhythmic periodic composition had not been entirely lost. The rules of c. are found applied in the formulas of the Liber Diurnus, in the letter that the Milanese priest Damian addressed to the Fathers gathered at the Synod of 679, in the prose prologue to his treatise on medicine in verse by Benedict Crispus, Bishop of Milan, and in the prologue that Felix, Bishop of Ravenna, prefixed to a collection of sermons by St. Peter Chrysologus.

The Irish writers were a kind of early humanists. They did not continue the tradition of the Roman schools of rhetoric. Literary-rhythmic Latin, despite everything, was a living language that had acquired its own characteristics. The Irish were classicists, but they replaced a living language with a dead one. Through the influence of Irish and English writers, c. lost ground; only a few writers, such as Lupus, Abbot of Ferrières, seem not to have forgotten the traditional rules concerning the rhythmic arrangement of words in clausae. In general, the writers of the Carolingian renaissance did not follow the laws of c. These survived feebly in the schools of the Benedictine monasteries of southern and central Italy, and especially at Montecassino. When, in the ninth century, Rome and Naples obtained a little respite, c. also flourished again, because the tradition of literary-rhythmic Latin had not been entirely extinguished there. Two good writers, Giovanni, a Neapolitan deacon, and Giovanni, a Roman deacon, wrote prose that was rhythmically almost perfect. Other minor prose writers gathered around them, often rewrit ing in ornate form passions of martyrs and legends of saints. C. is present in the Micrologus of Guido of Arezzo, in the works of Peter Damian, and in the epistles of Gregory VII. Pope Urban II brought the young Giovanni Gaetano with him from Montecassino so that he might progressively improve the chancery Latin of the Roman curia by applying to it the rules of Leonine c. Another pope, Gregory VIII, set forth, in a Summa dictaminis, some of the most ancient rules that had previously been transmitted orally. Once the rules for rhythmically shaping sentences had been established, and the cadences to be used at their ends in the three forms c. planus, tardus, and velox had been determined, the prose thus elaborated and cadenced took the name of the style of the Roman curia. Under the protection of the sacred name of Rome, this style spread first through Italy, then through France, Germany, England, and Spain. The rules of c. were taught in the university schools of ars dictaminis and in the schools of the new religious Orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans. It would be too lengthy to cite all the writers of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries who followed the rules of c.; it will suffice to recall the papal letters and bulls, especially those of Alexander III and Innocent III, the epistles of Dante and Cola di Rienzo, the documents of the papal and Angevin chancelleries, and many Franciscan and Dominican legends.

The humanists despised medieval Latin and sought to revive Ciceronian Latin; consequently, they attempted to replace the rules concerning c. of the artes dictandi with those concerning the numerus set forth by Cicero and Quintilian. The last great writer to apply c. with a certain regularity was Baronius, who showed a great predilection for the cadence of c. velox.

The literary-rhythmic language, with the many cadences of c., is not always suitable for extensive doctrinal treatments, where a simpler progression and a more discursive, didactic tone would be desirable; it is better suited to short compositions: sermons, imperial constitutions, and papal epistles. But where it proves especially effective is in liturgical prose, particularly in texts intended for singing and declamatory recitation. The concinnitas of the period, which assumes the movement of a free lyric strophe, with members and clauses ending in beautiful cadences that now intertwine symmetrically and now correspond harmoniously, seems created precisely for such texts. Form conforms to content, and what in other compositions may appear to be mere literary exercise here becomes art. In the liturgy of the first Christian centuries, the lyrical element is often joined to the oratorical: prayer is wedded to song, praise to exhortation and moral instruction. The Christian soul, before the wonders of creation and the infinite majesty of the heavenly Father, contemplating the immense love of the Son in his work of redemption and admiring the heroic virtue of the martyrs, cannot help but pour forth its emotion lyrically. At the same time, however, it wishes everyone to share in its sentiments, and thus oratory is joined to lyricism. Rhythmic prose and c., more than verse and poetic numerus, lend themselves to the lyrical-oratorical expression of the liturgy. The liturgical compositions in which the union of lyrical outpouring and eloquent exhortation is best revealed are the oremus and prefaces of the ancient sacramentaries. Strophic periodic composition, the cadences of c., and song give them a form that is at once artistic and popular. Here thought, rhythm, and song merge into a homogeneous and harmonious whole.

The oldest and most venerable collection of liturgical prayers and prefaces, that is, of that part of the Mass which the priest recited alone, is contained in the so-called Leonine Sacramentary. It is of Roman origin. The affinities of thought, language, and style between some of these prayers and the sermons of St. Leo are evident, and some of them may well be the work of this pontiff or of his chancery; others are later, but many, rhythmically perfect, may even date back to the third and fourth centuries.

At the end of the liturgical formulas of the Leonine Sacramentary are the following rhythmic clausae:

Considering the quantity of these endings, one finds the following metrical clausae:

The great majority of the clausae, namely 96 percent, conform both to the rules of quantity and to those of accent; the few exceptions are explained by the linguistic evolution of those centuries.

Some prayers of the Leonine passed into the other sacramentaries, and one of them also passed, with additions and revisions, into the present Roman Missal: the Preface of the Ascension derives from the union of two Prefaces of the Leonine; but, more often than not, the adaptations were not improvements; they frequently distorted the text, destroying its cursus and disfiguring its primitive simplicity and beauty. The artistic composition of the prayers of the Leonine Sacramentary derives not only from the cursus but also from the concinnitas of the period, which is revealed especially in the balance of the various members, corresponding symmetrically to one another in thought, form, and cadence. The period unfolds organically and harmoniously without falling into monotonous uniformity. Unity and simplicity are characteristic of many Leonine prayers. Disagreements among the faithful are always deplorable: let us now see with what efficacy and brevity the following prayer invokes from the Lord the spirit of charity and devout concord among those who have partaken of the same Eucharistic bread:

« Spiritum nobis, Domine, tuae caritatis infundē, — et quos uno caelesti pāne satiasti, — una facias pietate concōrdes ».

It is a small stanza of three cola, with one trispondaicus cursus between two planus clausulae.

The Prefaces are more complicated and elaborate; yet they too are shaped according to a simple and uniform scheme. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is a sacrifice of thanksgiving; in the Preface or anaphora, the celebrant invites the faithful to give thanks to the Lord (Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro), and the people reply that this is worthy and right (Dignum et iustum est). After this dialogue between the people and the celebrant, the latter suggests to the faithful the reasons why they ought to give thanks to the Lord. These reasons are expressed by a relative or causal proposition, or by a participle or infinitive, and are drawn either from the feast being celebrated or from the saint being honored, as well as from particular civil and ecclesiastical circumstances. We give two examples, choosing them among the shortest. « Qui non solum peccata dimittis, — sed ipsos etiam iustificas peccatores, — et reis non tantum poenas relaxas, — sed dōnas et praēmia ».

It is a stanza of four cola ending with two planus, one velox, and one tardus clausulae.

The following Preface was certainly composed when disputes concerning Grace were raging with the Pelagians: « Maientatem tuam suppliciter implorantes, — ut sicut ex Te habemus esse quod sūmus, — sic per gratiam tuam et bene velle sumamus, — et bonum posse quod volēmus ».

It is a stanza of four cola: two planus cursus between one velox and one trispondaicus. Furthermore, in liturgical prose texts, such as the first part of the Te Deum, the Quicunque, and the Exultet, the rules of the cursus are applied with great artistry. The Exultet is perhaps the liturgical composition in which the union between lyrical outpouring and eloquent exhortation, between prayer and mystical inspiration, and between sonorous cadence and song is best achieved.

In the prayers of the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries, accentual clausulae begin to prevail; these are the only ones used by liturgical composers in the centuries of the Middle Ages. In some medieval liturgical writers, especially French, German, and Irish ones, rhyme and assonance replace the cadences of the cursus. This practice subsequently gave rise to prayers and offices composed of rhymed cola. In certain prayers of the Carolingian age, the commatic style prevails: the period is divided into many small members, and the prayer consequently assumes an almost litanic form. The rules of the cursus were no longer observed by the humanists. Nevertheless, in the seventeenth century, good oremus were composed by scholars who, through long familiarity with the ancient ecclesiastical writers, had preser-

In recent years, efforts have been made, in composing liturgical prose, to take account of the rules governing the cursus of the ancients. This is absolutely necessary if such prose is to flow harmoniously and the singing is to prove easy and pleasing. Indeed, it is impossible to apply the ancient melodies of Gregorian chant to a modern liturgical composition unless it has been rhythmically constructed. In every discourse delivered aloud, as in every well-executed reading, there is a latent song: cantus obscurior, says Cicero. In the first centuries of Christianity, the reading of the Pauline epistles and the Gospels, the recitation of the prayer of the Pater, of the orations, and of the prefaces was a kind of declaimed discourse, which assumed the form of a very simple melody. The prayers recited by the bishop during the Eucharistic Sacrifice were pronounced in a loud and solemn voice, with a clearly marked melodic intonation, while retaining their recitative character, since they had to be understood by the faithful. Among the Jews, too, the readings performed during divine worship had something of the character of song. The rhythm of ancient Gregorian chant arose from and was shaped by oratorical rhythm. Gregorian chant is a kind of recitation with determinate

melodic cadences. The melody and rhythm of these cadences reveal the ancient metrical clausulae on which they were formed. Just as, in the declamation of an oratorical period, rhetoricians distinguished the initial rhythm, the medial rhythm, and the clausula, so, in the recitation of psalmody, there were the initium, the tenor, and the final cadence. Most of the chants of the Sacramentary, the Gradual, and the Responsorial unfold according to melodic cadences that respect both the accent of the words and the cadences of the cursus. In particular, the planus and the velox cursus exercised a great influence on the formation of these melodies. In certain liturgical compositions, such as the Exultet, this is especially evident. This is why, whereas the ancient liturgical proses are so easy to sing, modern ones often prove unsingable. Among the ancients, whoever composed an oration intended for singing composed it while singing, even when adapting to it a melody already in use; consequently, thought and word, rhythm and song, flow together in harmonious union. Modern composers have too often sought to stuff their compositions with theological formulas, more or less historical reminiscences, and linguistic embellishments, while paying little attention to the rhythmic flow intended to facilitate their melodic recitation. For this reason, whereas the singing of the deprecations of the so-called Litanies of the Saints is smooth, solemn, and moving, that of the Litanies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, composed without such inspiration, is difficult and harsh. What offends and disturbs in certain modern oremus is not only the absence of rhythmic clausulae, which produces broken cadences and halting utterances, but also the lack of balance among the various stichs, so that extremely brief members, sometimes consisting of a single word, alternate with very long members that proceed breathlessly.

Moreover, the discovery of the laws of the cursus has greatly benefited the criticism of ancient texts, since these laws help to distinguish, among the various manuscript readings, the authentic one. They have also led to the discovery of glosses and later additions, and have provided useful contributions toward deciding whether or not an ancient work is authentic.

Among the numerous studies on clausulae and the cursus, the principal ones are listed here; further bibliographical references may be found in them: L. Havet, La prose métrique de Symmaque et les origines du c., Paris 1892; A. Mocquereau, Le c. et la psalmodie, in Paléographie musicale, Solesmes 1895; W. Meyer, Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur mittelalterischen Rhythmik, Berlin 1902; A. De Santi, Il c. nella storia letteraria e nella liturgia, Rome 1903; Th. Zielinski, Das Clauselgesetz in Ciceros Reden, Leipzig 1904; F. Vacandard, Le c., son origine, son histoire, son emploi dans la liturgie, in Revue des questions historiques, 78 (1904), pp. 59-102; F. Blass, Die Rhythmen der asiatischen und römischen Kunstprosa, Leipzig 1905; L. Ceci, Il ritmo delle orazioni di Cicerone. La prima Cutilinaria, Turin 1906; F. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, Leipzig 1909; C. Zander, Eurythmia vel compositio rythmica prosae antiquae, I, Leipzig 1910; II, there 1913; III, there 1914; F. Di Capua, De numero in vetustis sacramentariis, in Ephemerides liturgicae, 26 (1912), p. 459 ff., 591 ff.; P. Ferretti, Il c. metrico e il ritmo delle melodie gregoriane, Parma 1913; Th. Zielinski, Der constructive Rhythmus in Ciceros Reden, Leipzig 1914; F. Di Capua, Il c. nel «De consolatione philosophiae» e nei trattati teologici di Sev. Boezio, in Didashaleion, 3 (1914), pp. 269-303; A. W. De Groot, A handbook of antique Prose-Rhythm, Groningen 1918; A. Copelli, Il c. nelle prefazioni della Messa ambrosiana, in Athenaeum, 10 (1922), pp. 126-35; G. Rejnold, The clausulae in the «De civitate Dei» of s. Augustine, Washington 1924; L. Laurand, Etudes sur le style des discours de Cicéron, Paris 1927; F. Di Capua, Il ritmo nella prosa liturgica e il Praeconium paschale, in Didashaleion, new series, 2 (1927), pp. 1-21; id., Il ritmo prosaico in s. Agostino, in Miscellanea agostiniana, Rome 1931, pp. 607-64; H. Hagendahl, La prose métrique d'Arnobe, Göteborg 1937; F. Di Capua, Il ritmo prosaico nelle lettere dei papi e nei documenti della cancelleria pontificia, I, Rome 1937; II, there 1939; III, there 1946; M. G. Nicolau, L'origine du c. rythmique et les débuts de l'accent d'intensité en latin, Paris 1938. The Catholic University of Washington is publishing a series of studies on clausulae in the Fathers of the Church.

Francesco Di Capua