The Greatest of Mediæval Hymns [pp. 28-40]

36 THE GREATEST OF MEDJ~vAL HYMArS. [Oct.,
taken possession of him at the period of its production we will
not be astonished at the results. Having accepted the position
of Intendant General de la Musique du Roi, et Inspecteur du
Chant en France, which yielded him an annual salary of twenty
thousand francs, with a guarantee, in case its functions ceased, of
a pen~on of six thousand francs, Rossini's greed of gain was in a
measure appeased. But the revolution of 1830 swept away his
office and threatened his pension. He was rich, however, in his
own right and in the fortune of his wife; in Bologna he owned
a splendid palace filled with the treasures of art. Nevertheless
he began a lawsuit, which continued six years, to secure the pension attached to his defunct office. In order to create sympa
thy anA win popular favor he simulated dire poverty and took
squalid apartments in the attic of the Italian theatre. Here, under the guise of a beggar, with deceit in his heart and on his lips,
he received his distinguished visitors, and here he essayed to
evoke in music the spirit of the hymn; but it deigned not to respond to the call of a mean and avaricious soul, and Rossini 5
"Stabat Mater" is what it is, the ignoble musical expression of a
gifted but ignoble man.
We do not advert to the English translations of the hymn,
much less do we here attempt anything like a critical examination of them. Another question of greater interest has naturally occurred to the mind of the reader: Who wrote the "Stabat Mater"? Since the pontificate of Benedict XIV. Catholic
writers have almost uniformly attributed the authorship of the
hymn to Pope Innocent III.; but before the former wrote his
treatise "De Festis" St. Gregory the Great and St. Bonaventura were numbered among its reputed authors.* In our
own times the best critical opinions appear to reduce the claimants to two-Innocent III. and Jacobus de Benedictis, or Jacopone, as he is more familiarly known. The late Cardinal Wiseman, in speaking of the former, remarks: "As a poet the two
unrivalled hymns,`Stabat Mater' and`Veni Sancte Spiritus,'
must sufficiently stamp his reputation"; ~ and the late Father
O'Brien, a recent wnter on liturgical subjects, says: "We follow the majority, however, in ascribing it to Pope Innocent
III." ~ The strongest argument against Jacopone's claims to its
authorship is that given in the Hi~torj' of the ~~ass, which cites
his hymn for Christmas morning modelled after the "Stabat
*Benedicti XIV O~era omnia, "De Festis," t. ix. 1. ii. cap. iv. 5, p 260.
t Essays, voL V. p. 275.
~ History of the Mass, fifth edition, p. 226.