DIES IRAE, DIES ILLA
LANCELLA, Marco.
Espositione dell’hinno che la S.R.C. canta per commune suffragio de’ fedeli defonti Dies irae, Dies illa, soluet seclum in fauilla, teste David, cum Sibilla, &c. Dechiarato, e letto publicamente in Napoli nella regal chiesa di San Domenico.
Vico Equense, Giovanni Giacomo Carlino and Antonio Pace, 1598.
4to, pp. [8], 333, [3]; woodcut arms of the dedicatee Cardinal d'Avalos printed in red and black to title, woodcut headpiece, woodcut and factotum initials throughout; minor worming sometimes touching a couple of letters but not affecting legibility, some light foxing, marginal dampstain to lower corner of first and final quires; withal a good copy in contemporary vellum, spine lettered in ink, edges gauffered, spine lined with printed waste; vellum a little contracted and almost detached from textblock, chipped at foot of spine, somewhat worn and cockled with a few stains; near-contemporary ink ownership inscription ‘Ad usū frīs Michaelis Mariae de Vico Ords Pred’ to title.
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Espositione dell’hinno che la S.R.C. canta per commune suffragio de’ fedeli defonti Dies irae, Dies illa, soluet seclum in fauilla, teste David, cum Sibilla, &c. Dechiarato, e letto publicamente in Napoli nella regal chiesa di San Domenico.
First edition, very rare, of an early meditation and full commentary on the text of the ancient sequence Dies Irae, provincially printed at Vico Equense, near Naples.
This is the only published work of the Dominican theologian and preacher Marco Lancella, who held public readings of his meditations in the church of St Dominic in his native Naples, the place of repose of several aristocrats including the ancestors of the dedicatee. Such readings had the purpose of honouring the dead, but also of inducing repentance in the living through the uses of stark poetic imagery. The Dies Irae sequence, a metric description of the Last Judgment, vividly conjures the trumpet summoning souls before the throne of God, where the saved will be delivered and the unsaved cast into eternal flames. It is attested in manuscript since the thirteenth century and has been attributed to either Franciscan or Dominican authors, although it may be much older, and was incorporated in the Requiem Mass.
No copies recorded in the UK or US. OCLC finds only two copies, both in Italy (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Rome and Casanatense), to which USTC adds one copy in Spain.
See M. Corso, ‘To cast a stone and unburden the soul: The experience of deliverance from sin in rituals of indulgence in early sixteenth-century Italy’ in Memini 28 (2022).
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