STABAT MATER. - A sequence known in many redactions, from missals and liturgical books (about thirty between the mid-14th century and the end of the 15th) and from manuscripts; to these must be added, for antiquity and authority, two texts, one inserted in the Annales Genuenses of Giorgio Stella (14th century) and one that is read in the Rosarium Sermonum of Bernardino de' Busti (15th century).
The first problem, then, is that of the critical reconstruction of the text, to whose solution it will be very difficult to arrive, if one presumed to reach the original text: even just the few redactions compared by Tenneroni and by Ermini (fewer than a dozen) oscillate between about forty and a hundred verses. Let one consider, moreover, as Ermini rightly writes, that in the Middle Ages writings of liturgical literature were very rarely connected to their authors, and that indeed often «a famous sequence is nothing but a skilful variation or reduction of one or more earlier sequences, carried out by a writer of original poetic genius», and subject in turn, without break in continuity, to later variations and reductions. Such precisely is the case of the S. M.; in practice, however, the liturgical tradition, which the people themselves have helped to establish, has on its side evident reasons of antiquity, of concision, of stylistic and formal coherence. It is represented by the version that Benedict XIII wished to have received, in 1727, into the Roman Missal: and it is, together with the Veni Creator, the Lauda Sion, the Victimae paschali and the Dies irae, the fifth of the sequences that have remained there and, compared with analogous or closer versions, lends itself to very few conjectural emendations and always of secondary importance.
As for the author, among the many to whom the S. M. is attributed (John XXII, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, Innocent III, Gregory IX) only Iacopone (v.) da Todi has gathered, especially through the merit of Ermini, a notable number of supporters among scholars, also because, among others, two codices of the 14th century and the Brescia edition of 1495 attribute it to him. However, stylistic comparisons with the other poems of Iacopone give rather uncertain and debatable results, and perhaps for this reason the most recent and qualified scholars of Jacoponic lyric poetry (such as M. Casella, N. Sapegno, L. Russo) do not pronounce on the attribution of the S. M. or mention it only in passing. In any case it is undoubted that the general tone and the sentimental attitude of the sequence correspond to that of various poems and expressions of the poet of Todi, and that it would suit well, from the psychological point of view, the last years of his life (1303-1306).
It is undoubted, above all, that the S. M. fits harmoniously into a long and rich tradition (from the collections of Blume, Dreves, Mone, Daniel, Chevalier no fewer than 134 hymns have been pointed out that have as their subject the Compassio Mariae), synthesizing it and sublimating it with the seal of the art of a poet who to sincere and profound emotion, not far, at times, from the rapture of mystical contemplation, has known how to join a simple, flowing language, yet dense with well-placed scriptural reminiscences. To the simplicity of the diction corresponds that of the meter: the hexastic stanza, called versus caudatus triperitus, composed of two parallel members, each of two plain octonarii and a proparoxytone senarius, rhyming aab, ccb.
It is a development and a simplification of the Latin catalectic trochaic tetrameter, very widely used in the Middle Ages in sacred and profane compositions, which, having first broken into two verses (because of the strong medial caesura that characterized it), on the model of the Pange lingua (scheme ab ab ab, where b always represents the proparoxytone verse) could then offer the opportunity for other combinations, one of which, and among the most fortunate, is that of the S. M., which now observes the new laws of rhythm of the descending type, with percussion on the odd positions, as was that of the classical trochaic tetrameter.
To the unity of the rhythmic period corresponds, in the S. M., the unity of the logical period: that is to say, the thought presents itself, in each stanza, harmoniously developed and concluded in itself, albeit with a most effective gradual passage from the opening, in which representation prevails (st. 1-4), to the central part, in which the poet ardently implores, with expressions overflowing with affection and mystical fervor, to be made a partaker of the passio Unigeniti and of the compassio Mariae (st. 5-18), and to the concluding part, in which he implores the salvation of his own soul (st. 19-20). A composition, in short, of high lyrical and religious value, which the Church officially made her own, receiving not only a liturgical tradition already long established and widespread (albeit with notable variants, the S. M. is found inserted in the Franciscan missals of the beginning of the 14th century, in the Missal of York of 1390 and in that of Wrocław of 1414), but also the desire of the faithful, who had by then made of that hymn one of the most sincere and moving expressions of their love and their devotion toward the Mater dolorosa.
Bibliography6 works
Ruggero M. Ruggieri