STABAT MATER. - A sequence known in many versions, from missals and liturgical books (about thirty between the mid-14th and the end of the 15th century) and from manuscripts; to these must be added, for their antiquity and authority, two texts: one in prose in the Annales Genuenses by Giorgio Stella (14th century) and one found in the Rosarium Sermonum by Bernardino de’ Busti (15th century).
The first problem, then, is that of the critical reconstruction of the text, whose solution will be difficult to achieve if one presumes to reach the original text: even the few versions compared by Tenneroni and Ermini (less than a dozen) vary between forty and a hundred verses. One must consider, as Ermini rightly writes, that in the Middle Ages liturgical literature was rarely connected to its authors, and that often a famous sequence is nothing more than a skilful variation or reduction of one or more earlier sequences, composed by a writer of original poetic talent*, and in turn subject, without interruption, to later variations and reductions. Such is precisely the case of the S. M.; in practice, however, the
STABAT MATER - *Ante crucem virgo stabat*, a sequence recalled among the sources of the current text of the S. M. Cod. Vat. lat. 2423, f. IV (13th-14th century) - Vatican Library.
liturgical tradition, which the people themselves helped to establish, has on its side evident reasons of antiquity, conciseness, stylistic and formal coherence. It is represented by the version that Benedict XIII wished to be included, in 1727, in the Roman Missal: and it is, with the Veni Creator, the Lauda Sion, the Victimae paschali and the Dies irae, the fifth of the sequences that remain in it, and compared with analogous or closer versions, it lends itself to very few conjectural emendations, and always of secondary importance.
As for the author, among the many to whom the S. M. has been attributed (John XXII, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, Innocent III, Gregory IX) only the author (v.) collected by Todd has, thanks especially to Ermini, a considerable number of supporters among scholars, also because two 14th-century manuscripts and the Brescia edition of 1495 are attributed to him. However, stylistic comparisons with the other poems of Jacopone have proved rather uncertain and debatable, and perhaps for this reason the most recent and qualified scholars of Jacoponic lyric (such as M. Casella, N. Saponaro, L. Russo) do not pronounce on the attribution of the S. M. or mention it only in passing. In any case, it is undeniable that the general tone and the feeling expressed in the sequence correspond to those of various poems and expressions of the poet of Todi, and that it would well suit, from a psychological point of view, the last years of his life (1303-1306).
It is above all undeniable that the S. M. harmoniously fits 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 deal with the Compassio Mariae), synthesizing 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 combine a simple, flowing language, yet dense with well-placed scriptural reminiscences. The simplicity of the language corresponds to that of the metre: the six-line stanza, called *versus caudatus tripertitus*, composed of two parallel members, each of two even octosyllables and a dactylic hexameter, rhyming aab, ccb.
This is a development and simplification of the Latin trochaic catalectic tetrameter, very widely used in the Middle Ages in sacred and profane compositions, which first broke into two lines (because of the strong medial caesura that characterized it), in the manner of the Pange lingua (scheme ab ab ab, where b always represents the dactylic line), and 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 descending rhythm, with stress on the odd beats, as was that of the classical trochaic tetrameter.
To the unity of the rhythmic period there corresponds, in the S. M., the unity of the logical period: that is to say that the thought is presented, in each stanza, harmoniously developed and concluded in itself, though with a most effective gradual transition from the opening, in which representation prevails (sts. 1-4), to the central part, in which the poet ardently invokes, with expressions overflowing with affection and mystical fervour, to be made a partaker of the passio Unigeniti and the compassio Mariae (sts. 5-18), and to the concluding part, in which he implores the salvation of his own soul (sts. 19-20). A composition, in short, of high lyrical and religious value, which the Church officially made its own, accepting not only a liturgical tradition already long established and widespread (though with notable variants, the S. M. is found inserted in Franciscan missals from the beginning of the 14th century, in the York Missal of 1390 and in that of Breslau of 1414), but also the desire of the faithful, who had made of that song one of the most sincere and moved expressions of their love and devotion towards the Mater dolorosa.
Ruggero M. Ruggeri