Riflessioni intorno alle ballate di ser Pace

The paper’s argument is based on an analysis of the formal features and possible intertextual connections of the two ballads attributed to ser Pace notaro by ms. Banco Rari 217 (P110 and P111). Its aim is to locate the texts and the poet within the prestilnovist milieu and, more generally, in the history of the development of the ballad’s form for which the ninth fascicule of the Banco Rari is a fundamental step. In the first part of the paper some data are shown that allow to speculate on the possible proximity between Cavalcanti, ser Pace and the circle of poets (preserved in the same manuscript) whose leader can be identified in Pace. In the second part, some considerations are formulated regarding the ballads’ section of the Banco Rari as a model for Cavalcanti since his own ballad Fresca rosa novella. By highlighting the web of intertextual links uncovered in the texts of the ninth fascicule, we can point out the role of poets like Saladino and Pace – following the Bonagiunta-Guinizzelli line – in the history of the ballad in its precavalcantian phase. The conclusion outlines a profile of ser Pace as a collateral poet of Stilnovo. At the end of the essay the two ballads are published with an ample commentary.