The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 27 (2021) No. 1

“Qu’une plus belle nüit ne pouvoit précéder le beau iour”: Musica e cerimonie nelle istituzioni religiose francesi a Roma nel Seicento. By Galliano Ciliberti. Aguaplano/biblioteca Studi 12. Perugia: Aguaplano, 2016. [388 pp. ISBN 978-88-97738-86-2.]

Reviewed by Michela Berti*

1.1 Although the title of Galliano Ciliberti’s book indicates that it deals with the seventeenth century, this volume often delves into the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries as well. The book is divided into two large sections. The first of these, “I francesi nell’Urbe: Musica sacra e istituzioni ecclesiastiche della Francia a Roma” (Frenchmen in Rome: Sacred music and French religious institutions in Rome), provides a framework for the political, cultural, and social milieu of French residents in the Papal city, addressing all French religious institutions one by one, except S. Luigi dei Francesi, to which the rest of the book is dedicated. The author reviews the principal historical details concerning the chapel of St. Petronilla in the Basilica of St. Peter at the Vatican, S. Ivo dei Bretoni, S. Giovanni in Laterano, the convent and church of the French Minims at Trinità dei Monti, as well as French establishments in the shrine of Loreto, S. Dionigi alle Quattro Fontane, S. Nicola dei Lorenesi, and S. Claudio dei Borgognoni. The first section concludes with a brief statement concerning the artistic patronage exercised by French ambassadors and other personages, followed by a long chronology of performances that were sponsored or hosted by these figures. The aim of this first section is to address the fragmented nature of the current historical record, reconstructing the French milieu in Rome, which, according to the author, comprised the church of S. Luigi, the embassy, and the other French churches.

1.2 This first section of the book provides basic information to contextualize the celebrations in French churches in Rome other than S. Luigi but does not go into great musical detail. Information regarding musical life is provided only for S. Ivo dei Bretoni, the church of the French Minims at Trinità dei Monti, and the Basilica of S. Giovanni in Laterano, which had been connected to the French crown since the sixteenth century. Regarding the latter institution, the author offers an analysis of the liturgy of the mass for S. Lucia, providing a complete chronology of services between 1605 and 1707, and listing the names of the maestri di cappella, payments for musical performances, the number of choristers, etc. The same details are also provided for the liturgy of the feast of S. Francesco di Paola at Trinità dei Monti, but the chronology, from 1595 to 1702, has many gaps.

1.3 The substantial second section is dedicated exclusively to the musical and ceremonial life of the most important French church in Rome, S. Luigi dei Francesi. The author considers documentation of various kinds, ranging from administrative and accounting records to bibliographical, iconographical, and musical sources. The importance of this study does not rest on new information emerging from archival research—the author presents only a few unpublished documents—but on the precise and intelligent correlation of numerous elements already known to us. The examination of three autograph volumes of music by Vincenzo Ugolini both completes and compensates for studies based solely on administrative documents. Ciliberti offers a hypothesis concerning the division of choirs in some musical events, reconstructing the spatial disposition of choirs in the church via comparisons between iconographical and administrative documents as well as previous research on performance practice in Roman churches during the Baroque era. He also makes connections, via artworks, between events in the life of the library and musical activity in the church: Caravaggio may have been inspired to create the painting I musici by a gift of music books to S. Luigi, as some musical volumes featured in the inventory of this gift have been identified in his works.

1.4 Ciliberti devotes great attention to reconstructing the historical inventories of music volumes from S. Luigi dei Francesi, the results of which make up one of the substantial appendices. The author has also undertaken the huge task of locating books of music from S. Luigi that are scattered among other library collections; he was able to identify various autograph manuscripts or copies cited in historical inventories from S. Luigi that are no longer found in the library or the archive of the church. On this matter, an inaccuracy should be pointed out: although the author locates the books of music he cites in either the library or the archive of the Pieux Établissements de la France à Rome et à Lorette, these volumes are in fact all preserved in the liturgical library of S. Luigi. The material in the library has recently undergone a thorough process of cataloging, making Ciliberti’s compilation of music volumes obsolete.^[1] The final stage of Ciliberti’s entire study is the reconstruction of vespers in S. Luigi between 1616 and 1703.

1.5 In this volume the author recreates the liturgical context in which sacred music is situated in an effort to fashion a historical reconstruction of religious ceremony. One perceives in this approach something of a rejection of the history of “extraordinary” performances, and an attempt instead to return music and liturgy to center stage by placing them once more in their institutional context. To this end, musical sources are directly related to religious ceremony, shedding light on a repertoire that would otherwise have remained buried. For example, Ciliberti reveals that some antiphons from the first vespers of the mass at S. Luigi were composed following not the Roman rite but rather the Gallican rite. This proves that in S. Luigi, liturgical traditions linked to French religious ceremony existed for a time alongside those of Counter-Reformation Rome.

1.6 The volume closes with several substantial appendices: in addition to the already-mentioned inventories, there is an exhaustive chronology of musical life at S. Luigi between 1536 and 1703, a listing of the composition of Corelli’s orchestras for the feast of S. Luigi in the years 1682–1708, and a catalog of the music published by S. Luigi’s maestri di cappella in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.