Page:The gloria d'amor of Fra Rocabertí (1916).djvu/7



the several important manuscript collections of Catalan poems of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which have not yet been published in toto, not the least important is the Cançoner d'Amor or Cançoner d'Obres Enamorades of the National Library in Paris. Of the works of some fifty poets contained therein, some indeed are already in print, such as the poems of Auzias March, those of Jordi de Sant Jordi, and a few others, as well as numerous selections from the remaining poets; but a complete edition of this famous manuscript is still a desideratum.

In the autumn of 1907, as I was about to enter upon my studies at the University of Paris, Professor H. R. Lang of Yale University called my attention to this manuscript and suggested that I should edit it. Following this indication I made a complete copy of the manuscript, and also began to prepare a glossary, which I was unable to finish during my stay in Paris. While in Europe again during the summer of 1911, I collated many of the poems of the Paris cançoner with those contained in other manuscripts, particularly in Barcelona. When, however, as a student in the Graduate School of Columbia University I resumed my work on the proposed edition, I soon realized that to edit the entire cançoner with adequate critical apparatus would be a task of several or even of many years, necessitating further sojourn abroad for the purpose of completing the collating of manuscripts and the gathering of material not otherwise available. For the present, therefore, without renouncing the plan of publishing eventually the entire manuscript, I have