"The Unexpected Song": An Early Italian Vernacular Poem, a Neumatic Notation, and How to Detect Their Interrelationships in the Ravenna Charter

In 1999, Alfredo Stussi discovered in Ravenna a love poem written on the back of a charter, now considered the oldest poem in an Italian vernacular. The charter containing it preserves also a series of signs written in adiastematic neumatic notation. The presence of fragmentary musical annotations raises the questions of whether the poetic text may have been set to music and, in such case, in what way. The essay examines how the arrangement of the neumes on the charter's verso follows the formal structure of the song and proposes a possible reconstruction of the original melody.