The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 31 (2025) No. 1

Music and Worship in Mantua: Gonzaga Patronage and Monteverdi’s Role as maestro di cappella; an Investigation and a Rebuttal to Roger Bowers

Jeffrey Kurtzman and Licia Mari*

Abstract

This study responds to two articles by Roger Bowers on Monteverdi as maestro di cappella at the Gonzaga court in Mantua. Focusing on the fifteenth through the early seventeenth centuries, it shows the Gonzaga rulers’ direct interest in and patronage of ecclesiastical institutions beyond the ducal palace—especially the Cathedral of San Pietro, the Church of Sant’Andrea, and the Jesuit Church of the Santissima Trinità—as well as the palace churches of Santa Croce and Santa Barbara and the Oratorio of Santa Croce. It clarifies the location, size, use, and history of the Church of Santa Croce, as well as the accuracy of the plans of Mantua by Gabriele Bertazzolo.

Evidence for Monteverdi’s duties at court relevant to sacred music is often indirect but suggestive. Nonetheless, evidence from the history of polyphonic psalmody demonstrates Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 to be a complete polyphonic liturgical service for practical use. On the basis of biblical exegeses, we suggest that the five sacri concentus, as non-liturgical interpolations, serve as a progressive theological program that functions as an interpretative whole within the Vespers, associating the liturgical response, psalms, hymn, and Magnificats textually with the Virgin Mary, their sacred dedicatee.

1. Preface

PART 1. THE GONZAGAS AND SACRED MUSIC IN MANTUA

2. Overview

THE GONZAGAS AND CHURCHES OUTSIDE THE DUCAL PALACE

3. The Cathedral of San Pietro

4. The Church of Sant’Andrea

5. The Jesuit Church of the Santissima Trinità

6. Other Churches

CHURCHES AND CHAPELS (ORATORIOS) WITHIN THE PALACE

7. The Church of Santa Croce in Corte: Documentary Evidence

8. The Church of Santa Croce in Corte: Visual and Architectural Evidence

9. The Church of Santa Croce in Corte: The First Oratorio Described in the Petruzzi Visitation Report of 1576

10. The Magna Domus in the corte vecchia

11. The Church of Santa Barbara

CHAPELS WITHIN THE DUCAL PALACE

12. Overview of Spaces for Private Devotion and Services

PART 2. MONTEVERDI AS CHURCH MUSICIAN IN THE GONZAGA COURT, 1590–1612, AS REFLECTED IN THE MASS AND VESPERS OF 1610

13. Performing Forces for the Mass and Vespers of 1610 in Contemporaneous Context

14. The Mass and Vespers of 1610: The Organization of the Amadino Print

15. Italian Psalm Cursus Settings (1): The Manuscript Tradition of the Fifteenth and First Half of the Sixteenth Centuries

16. Psalm Cursus Settings (2): Psalm Prints of the Second Half of the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

17. Monteverdi’s Mass and Vespers of 1610: Ave maris stella and the five sacri concentus

18. Liturgical Books, the Caeremoniale Episcoporum, and the Performance of the Liturgy

19. The Use of Motets and Instrumental Music in the Performance of the Liturgy

20. Criteria for Motet Texts Used in the Liturgy

21. Duo Seraphim and the Sanctissima Virgine

22. The Five sacri concentus: Do They Constitute a Theological Program?

23. Conclusions Regarding the Vespers

Acknowledgments

Appendices

Examples

Figures

Tables

References

1. Preface

1.1 In 2007, in a chapter entitled “Monteverdi at Mantua, 1590–1612” in The Cambridge Companion to Monteverdi, Roger Bowers, seeking the location within the Gonzaga Palace complex for the performance of liturgical services by the court cappella, declared that it must have been the Church of Santa Croce, located in the complex of buildings known as the corte vecchia of the palace.^[1] But the remnants of the former church, drastically remodeled and repurposed by the Austrians in the late eighteenth century, are quite small. Considering this structure “far too small to have accommodated the grand liturgical occasions known to have been conducted within S. Croce church,”^[2] Bowers claimed that to accommodate such occasions, involving the court’s full cappella, the church was actually located in the adjacent Magna Domus, a much larger building fronting on the present-day Piazza Sordello (Piazza di San Pietro in Monteverdi’s time).

1.2 However, there is no evidence whatsoever of “grand liturgical occasions” being celebrated in Santa Croce—to the contrary, there is indisputible evidence that the church was much too small for such celebrations, and a fundamental reason for Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga constructing in the decade 1562–72 the largest palatine chapel in Europe. The Church of Santa Barbara was conceived precisely to have enough space for such grand liturgical occasions as well as daily services provided by a college of clerics resident in the palace complex itself (see par 7.7).

1.3 Two years later Bowers published in Music & Letters a much longer article entitled “Claudio Monteverdi and Sacred Music in the Household of the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua, 1590–1612,” expanding dramatically his thesis regarding the Church of Santa Croce—which he described as slightly larger than the Sistine Chapel—and covering many other topics only adumbrated in his 2007 essay.^[3] Readers well-versed in the history of the palace were alarmed by Bowers’s radical claim and its appearance in a major musicological journal. The present authors were also disturbed by the manner in which Bowers pursued his arguments. We determined to challenge Bowers’s primary thesis, and in 2014 presented a joint paper at the Sixteenth International Biennial Conference on Baroque Music in Salzburg, demonstrating the misrepresentation of source materials about the functions of Santa Croce, as well as the lapses of logic and the self-contradictions in Bowers’s arguments.^[4]

1.4 In the course of our research in preparation for this paper, it became clear that it was not just Bowers’s claims about Santa Croce church, but numerous other assertions on other subjects that were problematic in their methodology, logic, and reliability. Taking our cue from the practice of investigators in the physical and biological sciences to report on their inability to replicate the results of experiments or studies published in major professional journals, we feel compelled to report on what we consider the invalidity of Bowers’s methods, arguments, and conclusions. We take no pleasure in doing so—indeed, the task is onerous—but we are additionally impelled by the fact that other scholars appear to have been influenced by Bowers’s conclusions (on the assumption that he has handled his sources responsibly and argued his points logically), and we are concerned that students and general readers will be misled, especially since his chapter and article were published in such a prominent anthology and in such a prestigious international journal.

1.5 Bowers’s Music & Letters article, in fact, stands as the most extensive and recent single article published on Monteverdi in many years. It is copiously footnoted, giving the impression of comprehensive scholarship, but only occasionally actually quotes the sources cited. Repeatedly, we found that the sources did not say what Bowers declares they do, and frequently were in direct contradiction to his representations. Furthermore, his narrative includes numerous unsupported “statements of fact,” which are not factual at all. These are not the occasional mistakes that all of us make in reading and interpreting documents or overlooking important sources, but something more systemic.

1.6 In the process of critiquing Bowers’s articles, we have had to access and carefully consider not only the voluminous sources cited by Bowers, but also many others predating his articles that he ignores, especially those that contradict his conclusions. In order to be transparent about the sources we cite, it has been essential to quote and often translate these sources with passages long enough to make clear their context. Readers may decide for themselves if we have fairly or exaggeratedly criticized Bowers’s scholarship by comparing his contentions with the original sources and our translations.

1.7 While this project began as a rebuttal of Bowers’s articles, we felt it important also to provide as much accurate and new information as we could about the issues and subject matter brought forth in Bowers’s essays. This involved exploring historical developments that long preceded the time frame of Bowers’s articles and extended beyond the precincts of the Mantuan ducal palace as a means of understanding the broader context and our own critique. As a result, we offer summaries of accumulated information, including interpretations and insights from relevant primary and secondary sources that, when combined and collated, yield broader perspectives on the issues considered. In this way, we hope to provide our readers with something new and unfamiliar rather than merely a list of criticisms.

1.8 Preliminary readers of our efforts have had difficulties with the merging and interweaving of the two processes, even though our own contributions to new information and outlooks grew directly out of our responses to Bowers’s arguments. The sequence of issues, following that of Bowers’s Music & Letters article, required the reader to be familiar with his article in order to find our own narrative readily coherent. As a consequence, we have decided to separate the two—new information and perspectives on the one hand and our rebuttal on the other—insofar as possible. Therefore, the main text of our essay seeks to inform the reader of the results of our research, even though the topics are prompted by Bowers’s claims, while we pursue the critique of Bowers’s articles primarily in a large appendix (App. 1), often linked from relevant topics introduced and discussed in the principal section, but also readable as a stand-alone text. At times, however, it has been necessary, in our presentation of new information and analyses, to illustrate simultaneously how they differ from Bowers’s points of view. Nevertheless, the reader can focus principally on new perspectives on the topics subsumed under our title and choose when or whether to divert to our critiques of Bowers’s commentaries, arguments, and conclusions.

1.9 The main text of our article is divided into two large sections, intended to cover three principal topics: (1) Gonzaga support of ecclesiastical institutions and sacred music in both the city and the court, particularly during the reigns of Dukes Guglielmo and Vincenzo; (2) Monteverdi’s role in sacred music in the city and the court; and (3) specific issues regarding Monteverdi’s Mass and Vespers of 1610. To understand better the wide context in which sacred music accompanied Gonzaga worship and ceremonies in various churches, the history of these institutions and the immediate, sometimes extraordinary extra-musical settings are described. Music was only one feature of these observances, and the elaborateness and magnificence of multiple artistic aspects of these ceremonies serve to suggest how elaborate and impressive the music must also have been when we do not have direct, detailed descriptions. Unfortunately, it is much easier to recount the actions, prayers, and orations in a ceremony, the vestments worn, and physical structures and decorations designed for that ceremony, than to describe the music. But understanding the role of sacred music, not as an isolated topic, but as an integral part of an entire religious culture requires acquaintance with that culture from many different perspectives, including its support by the ruling family. In fact, the support of religious institutions in Mantua and its environs by the Gonzagas was quite extraordinary—to the best of our knowledge, more extensive than that of any other ruling family in Italy. We have therefore tried to convey a sense of just how remarkable that involvement in many different religious institutions was. Nevertheless, of necessity, ours is not a comprehensive history of that religious culture, which can only be gathered from the many studies and sources cited here, other studies on these and related topics, and studies yet to be written.

1.10 It is easy to forget that Gonzaga financing of the construction, renovations, and repairs of ecclesiastical buildings, the support of ongoing expenses, as well as the commissioning of furnishings, such as choir stalls, choir lofts, and organ lofts, is inevitably also patronage of music, even if that music is confined to plainchant sung by clergy, or by a college of monks or a cloister of nuns. The sung liturgy turned daily services into musical events. As music historians, we tend to be drawn more to polyphony and instrumental music performed by professional musicians or well-trained specialists from the clergy or a monastery, but most music, even in churches with a staff of professional musicians, was still plainchant. Recognition of this fact enables us to understand better how the involvement, both political and spiritual, of the Gonzagas in many different ecclesiastical institutions is inevitably inseparable from their support of music.

1.11 The role of Monteverdi as a composer and performer of sacred music in Mantua is not well documented and has given rise to much uncertainty and, in our view, misapprehension regarding the scope of his activities in the field of sacred music at the court and beyond. We inquire into what evidence there is regarding his role and what it may have included. In addition to remarks at various points in the main text, some relevant discussion appears in Appendix 1, as part of our response to Bowers.

1.12 The most important evidence we have regarding Monteverdi’s activities as a composer of sacred music during his years in Mantua is, of course, his publication of the Missa in illa tempore together with the Vespro della Beata Vergine in 1610. Kurtzman has written extensively about this publication and its relationship to contemporary Italian sacred music, such that there is no need to repeat many of those findings here; rather, we address in several final chapters new thoughts on Monteverdi’s five sacri concentus and Bowers’s arguments about many of the issues that Monteverdi’s print has raised over the years, arguments with which we disagree both in their fundamentals and in many details.

1.13 The scope of our study may reach at times as far back as the early fifteenth century, but we conclude most of our discussion in 1612, with the dismissal of the Monteverdi brothers from court service in July by the new young duke, Francesco IV, who died himself unexpectedly in December of that year. This is certainly not the end of sacred music at the Gonzaga court and Gonzaga patronage of sacred music elsewhere in the city, both of which continued under the new duke Ferdinand and his successors until the end of their branch of the dynasty in 1627. It was the end of that dynasty that prompted the invasion and sack of Mantua by Imperial Troops, fighting over succession of the dukedom and introducing the great plague of 1629–31 to northern Italy. Because of the departure of Monteverdi and a number of other court musicians in 1612 as a cost-cutting measure after the profligacy of Duke Vincenzo I, music at the Gonzaga court to 1627, whether secular or sacred, has drawn less attention from scholars. For those who are interested in this period, we cite a few scholarly studies that include or focus on the post-Monteverdi era until 1630 and the sack of the city, with the loss, undoubtedly, of a large quantity of manuscripts of Monteverdi’s music.^[5]

PART 1. THE GONZAGAS AND SACRED MUSIC IN MANTUA

2. Overview

2.1 A principal thesis of Bowers, in both his Monteverdi Companion and Music & Letters articles, is that “it was the duty of the personnel of the duke’s cappella, as officers of his household, to conduct divine service not at large in city churches or elsewhere, but exclusively  [emphasis ours] on his premises and in a physical proximity to his person sufficiently close to enable him to be in attendance at any time of his choosing.”^[6] (For Bowers’s arguments and our critique, see App. 1, par. 1.1–1.9.) As adumbrated in our preface, the Gonzaga dukes and their families by no means limited their attendance at and sponsorship of divine services to the court, but regularly supported ecclesiastical institutions throughout the city and even in the countryside beyond. And there is ample evidence that the duke’s cappella and individual singers from it performed in some of these venues. The most important churches frequented by the Gonzaga dukes were the Cathedral of San Pietro, directly across the Piazza Sordello from the ducal palace, Leon Battista Alberti’s Church of Sant’Andrea, and the Jesuit Church of the Serenissima Trinità, the latter two also in close proximity to the palace. Others of particular significance to the Gonzagas included the Convent and Church of Corpus Domini, also known as Santa Paola; the Convent and Church of San Francesco; and the Franciscan Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie at Curtatone. Both Santa Paola and San Francesco served as burial sites for members of the Gonzaga family. But many other institutions also received significant support from the Gonzagas: those within the city and close by are listed in App. 2, and most are visible on the 1628 Mantuan map of Gabriele Bertazzolo (Fig. 1).^[7]

[click image to enlarge]

2.2 Divine services at court took place in a variety of small chapels scattered among the various buildings, with chapels being repurposed and new chapels being constructed from time to time, as well as in the early fifteenth-century Church and Oratory of Santa Croce in the corte vecchia, and the large palace Church of Santa Barbara, constructed in the period 1562–72.

2.3 The history of Gonzaga involvement in these institutions both inside and beyond the palace has been the subject of many detailed studies in recent decades, which reveal much about the role of religion in the consciousness of the family and the importance they placed in publicly demonstrating that consciousness through the construction and reconstruction of buildings, their support of various aspects of the interiors of these buildings (chapels, choir lofts, choir stalls, organs, paintings, decorations, etc.), and their personal presence at services in them, in addition to their choice of particular ones as burial sites. Numerous Gonzaga women professed as nuns in some of the female convents, and some Gonzaga widows retired to convents. Inevitably that support includes music, whether the unadorned liturgy in plainchant or more elaborate celebrations involving polyphony as well as instruments.

2.4 Drawing on such recent studies and archival documents, we have sought to expand the focus of our commentary beyond the sacred spaces in the ducal palace to this much wider sacred landscape, both in the immediate vicinity of the palace and the much larger geographic area of the city and its neaby environs. Our summary of Gonzaga involvement in these institutions is meant to give readers a reasonably comprehensive idea of how broadly and deeply the influence of the Gonzagas permeated their city’s religious establishments as well as to clarify the role played by chapels and churches within the palace grounds themselves. In the course of this exploration various activities of the court cappella and the court composers Giaches de Wert, Benedetto Pallavicino, Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, and Claudio Monteverdi in these institutions will also emerge.

THE GONZAGAS AND CHURCHES OUTSIDE THE DUCAL PALACE

3. The Cathedral of San Pietro

(See Figs. 2 and 3; and see the cathedral’s location on the linked map: Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 104.)

[click image to enlarge]

[click image to enlarge]

3.1 The Gonzagas had a special relationship with the Cathedral of San Pietro from the very beginning of their dynasty in 1328. Numerous members of the ruling family were buried there from shortly after their takeover of the government of Mantua.^[8] At the end of the fourteenth century, Francesco I Gonzaga commissioned the reconstruction of the temple. During the tenure as bishop of Mantua of another Francesco Gonzaga (1466–83), Pope Sisto IV, in a bull of 23 June 1472, named the Gonzaga family the jus patronati of the church.^[9] After Bishop Francesco’s death, Ludovico Gonzaga, already nominated to the post by the dying Francesco, was elected bishop (1483–1511), though on account of Gonzaga family strife, he only became the administrator of the diocese and was never consecrated to perform sacred rites in the cathedral and never lived in the city.^[10] At the end of 1510 or the beginning of 1511, Marquis Francesco II Gonzaga (1484–1519) established at court expense a chapel of singers at San Pietro who also sang at court, initiating a long tradition of the movement of musicians back and forth between the cathedral and the court, though no later musicians were simultaneously appointed to both. This group had been preceded at San Pietro by a chapel of eight singers financed by the cathedral chapter. But upon the foundation of the new chapel by Francesco II, these cathedral chapter singers were reduced by half to four, and on 25 August 1511, the remaining chapter singers were dismissed without replacements.^[11]

3.2 Upon the death of Bishop Ludovico Gonzaga, also in 1511, his rival Sigismondo Gonzaga was elected Bishop, serving until his resignation in 1521. By this time, “ruling the diocese of Mantua had … become the standard responsibility of the younger sons of the Gonzaga dynasty.”^[12] This tradition, combined with the resignation of Sigismondo, led to the sixteen-year-old second son of Francesco II and Isabella d’Este, Ercole Gonzaga, becoming the administrator and subsidiary legate of the diocese. After the death of Cardinal Sigismondo Gonzaga in 1525, Ercole was promoted to the cardinalate on 4 October 1526, taking Sigismondo’s place in the curia.^[13] In the period 1540–56 he served as regent to Dukes Francesco III and Guglielmo during their minorities, only being ordained a priest upon Guglielmo’s attainment of his majority in April of 1556. Thus, for more than a decade-and-a-half, Ercole functioned simultaneously as the  head of the cathedral and the head of the government but was unable to perform priestly functions. He only received his episcopal ordination in 1561.

3.3 In 1526 Ercole had hired a singer for his chapel, and in 1531 added another two. From 1548 onward, additional singers joined the “capella dell’Illustrissimo et Reverendo Cardinale,” which also functioned as the cathedral choir, apparently at the full expense of the cardinal himself, since no records of expenditures exist for the ensemble at the cathedral.^[14] In 1539 Giachettino di Mantova (Jachet of Mantua, i.e., Jacobus Collebaudi) joined the chapel, listing himself as maestro di cappella (“Chori Sancti Petri urbis Mantuae Magister”) on the title page of his publications.^[15] Whereas Francesco II had utilized his chapel in both the church and at court, Ercole denied his singers simultaneous employment at court, and Jachet’s work list includes a very limited number of secular compositions: eleven Latin tributes to individuals, and three “profane” texts, one in Latin, one in French, and one in Italian.^[16] Nevertheless, the absence of simultaneous employment does not imply that the choir or individuals from the chapel never performed at court on particular occasions, whether for sacred services in a court chapel or secular entertainment.

3.4 In the middle of Ercole’s stewardship, the interior of the cathedral was destroyed by fire. In 1545 the cardinal assigned its reconstruction to Giulio Romano. The restoration included the completion of a chapel, originally initiated by Bishop-elect Ludovico Gonzaga in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century but left incomplete upon his death in 1511, and the addition of a new organ.^[17]

3.5 After Ercole’s death on 2 March 1563, his body was returned to Mantua from Trent, where he had been a papal legate at the Council of Trent, and buried in San Pietro.^[18] At some point the cathedral became the parish church of the court, possibly after the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent in November 1563, which considered the financial relationship between cathedrals and parish churches and also addressed what was seen as the problem of administration of sacraments to anyone who asked for them. At the end of Chapter XIII of its canons and decrees the Council declared:

The holy council commands the bishops that, for the greater security of the salvation of the souls committed to them, they divide the people into definite and distinct parishes and assign to each its own and permanent parish priest, who can know his people and from whom alone they may licitly receive the sacraments, or that they make other, more beneficial provisions as the conditions of the locality may require.^[19]

3.6 The “more beneficial provisions as the conditions of the locality may require” clearly included the ability of the Gonzaga palace’s chapels and churches, even after the construction of Santa Barbara, to serve as venues for members of the family and other court residents to attend mass and receive the sacraments (see par. 3.10, chapters 7–9, and par. 12.9 below).

3.7 After the death of Ercole, Pope Pius V, shortly after his succession, sought to curtail the influence of Duke Guglielmo over the cathedral by revoking the Gonzaga jus patronatus over the church and the right of the duke to nominate the bishop.^[20] In 1567 Pius named Gregorio Boldrini as bishop, interrupting the sequence of Gonzagas in that office. But after the passing of Pius in 1572 and the death of Boldrini in 1574, the bishopric returned to the Gonzaga family with the assumption of Marco Fedele Gonzaga to the post in 1574, serving to his death in 1583.

3.8 The line of Gonzagas was again interrupted by Andrea Andreasi, whose death on 23 March 1593 led to another Bishop Francesco Gonzaga (the third by that name), who left his bishopric in Pavia through the intervention of Duke Vincenzo, becoming the new Bishop of Mantua. The forcefulness with which the Duke pressed his wishes on the pope to have Francesco as the new bishop, against the will of the Pavesi, bears witness to how deeply he was willing to be involved in the affairs of San Pietro.^[21] After the death of Francesco in 1620, it was another fifty-one years before another Gonzaga, Ferdinando Tiberius, was appointed Bishop of Mantua, the last of the long line.

3.9 Not only had the Gonzagas been principal benefactors of the cathedral and most of the bishops between 1466 and 1620, but the church itself was the scene of numerous important Gonzaga ceremonies. Ferrante Gonzaga (died 16 November 1556), a famous condottiere, was buried in the sacristy of the cathedral after “sumptuous obsequies as befitted such a prince.”^[22]

3.10 On 27 April 1561 Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga married Eleonora of Austria with a week of lavish and expansive celebrations attended by an enormous entourage of princes, ambassadors, nobility, and ecclesiastical officials. After a massive entrance of dignitaries into the city on 26 April, the wedding party was solemnly welcomed in San Pietro where the choir of clerics sang, and they heard various orations and received a benediction.^[23] On the twenty-seventh the principal attendees heard a Mass sung in the “ornatissima capelletta” of the castle (Castello San Giorgio) by the priest and two members of the cathedral choir.^[24] After lunch, the wedding ceremony itself took place in the duke’s own chamber, officiated by Cardinal Madruccio, followed by a ball in the grand hall of the duke’s apartment.^[25] On 1 May the royal couple and other princes and dignitaries went to hear Mass at the Church of San Giacomo, returned to the castle for lunch, and after lunch attended Vespers in San Pietro.^[26]

3.11 After the death of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga in 1563, Cardinal Federico Gonzaga, brother of Duke Guglielmo, received the mitre in Rome from Pope Pius IV as the new Bishop of Mantua. Shortly before his arrival from Rome, the prince Vincenzo (born 22 September 1562) was baptized in late April at San Pietro by Monsignor Rossi, assisted by visiting Cardinal Morone.^[27] Upon Federico’s return to Mantua on 1 May 1563, he was “received with great festivity.”^[28] The funeral of Cardinal Federico, who died less than two years later (22 February 1565), was celebrated with “great sorrow” and “pomp” in San Pietro.^[29] San Pietro was the venue for the marriage on 1 May 1582 of the princess Anna Caterina Gonzaga, daughter of Guglielmo, to Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, for whom the Duke of Bavaria stood as proxy.^[30]

3.12 On 29 April 1584, Prince Vincenzo Gonzaga married Eleonora de’ Medici. Donesmondi notes only in passing that for “eight days the entrance of the most serene Eleonora Medici into Mantua was celebrated with royal pomp.”^[31] The activities and ceremonies likely equaled in splendor and display the extraordinary celebration of his father’s wedding in 1561, described in so much detail in Andrea Arrivabene’s commemoration book for the event.^[32] Although Donesmondi says nothing further about Vincenzo’s wedding, with eight days of festivities planned for what must have been a large contingent of distinguished visitors, it seems impossible that the cathedral was not the scene of at least one liturgical service. Unfortunately, no detailed account of the wedding survives.

3.13 In August of 1587, Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga took sick and died on the fourteenth of the month. Since he had gone to escape the summer heat to the castle of Goito outside the city, his body was carried to and placed in the courtyard of Santa Croce in the corte vecchia, before his funeral and burial in Guglielmo’s palace Church of Santa Barbara.^[33] Following official funeral services for Guglielmo on 16–18 September, Vincenzo was crowned in San Pietro on 22 September “in conformity with ancient custom.”^[34] Donesmondi declares that the cathedral had been “decorated appropriately for such an event,” and the coronation was performed “with royal pomp … after the Mass of the Holy Spirit had been sung.”^[35] Federico Follino, court chronicler and organizer of events, describes in minute detail all the individuals and groups in attendance with particulars of their individual costumes, as well as the decorations and preparations inside and outside the cathedral. “The singers were positioned with their ensembles of trombones, cornettos, and voices,” facing the duke “in a beautiful configuration.” The service began with a most solemn Mass of the Holy Spirit sung by the bishop, “Monsignor Reverendissimo di Mantova,” during which Vincenzo was honored by dignitaries, both religious and lay, enclosing him in a circle.^[36] The bishop’s role in the Mass must have been to sing most of the proper portions in plainchant and recite the Gospel and the Epistle, as well as the consecration; the 0rdinary had been composed polyphonically by Giaches de Wert, maestro di cappella of the ducal chapel, and was performed by the abovenamed ensembles. During the Offertory, while many individuals were each being separately incensed, the ensemble of musicians (instrumentalists) performed to alleviate the tediousness of the ceremony “as they were accustomed to do at the hour of the Offertory on the most solemn days.”^[37] Once the Mass was completed, the singers and ensembles were quickly dismissed while the attendees left the church.^[38] The actual coronation ceremony took place outside, in front of the main door of the cathedral in view of the entire populace. At the duke’s pronouncing his oath on the Evangelist to abide by the ducal decree, a “harmonious consort of trombones” played from the balcony above the main door, and the air echoed “louder than ever” with the “sound of trumpets and drums, joyful voices, the neighing of horses, and so many bells” that “one person could not understand the voice [a word] of another.”^[39]

3.14 On 30 May 1593 Bishop Francesco Gonzaga, whose appointment had been fervently pursued by Vincenzo Gonzaga as described above, entered Mantua, which was prepared “to receive him with every possible grandeur and demonstration of love.”^[40] As he progressed beyond the Porta Predella, clerics intoned the Te Deum and other spiritual hymns; after the cathedral chapter had placed him on a white horse also dressed in white, he was received under a rich baldacchino, whereupon there was a grand artillery salute accompanied by ringing of all the bells of the city. As he  made his way slowly to the cathedral he passed various pious displays to the sound of “dolci concerti musicali.”^[41] On 11 February 1594 the bishop celebrated with “solemn display” the consecration of the cathedral, which had never been performed after Ercole Gonzaga’s restoration of 1545.^[42] At the beginning of April in the same year, Francesco instituted in San Pietro an annual oration of the Forty Hours, comprising forty sermons the first two days of Holy Week, attended by the entire city.^[43]

3.15 The next year Franceso began several physical improvements in the cathedral, including a new altar near the organ and the construction of a new choir “much grander and magnificent” in the apse.^[44] Among his projects was a series of frescoes in the dome, the transept, and the apse between ca. 1599 and 1607. Two dates of completion are painted on an arch in the transept: 1605 and 1607. Antonio Maria Viani (ca. 1555/1560–1630) and Orazio Lamberti (1552–1612) were occupied with a cycle of musical angels in the dome, while the Mantuan Ippolito Andreasi (1548–1608) painted narrative scenes in the transept as well as the four Evangelists on the pendentives at the base of the apse.^[45] Particularly noteworthy in our context is the nature of the instrumentarium depicted in the hands of the angels—all instruments that formed part of the ducal chapel: lutes, harp, cornettos, transverse flute, possibly a lira da braccio, possibly a viola da gamba, and a short straight trumpet, which is held but not played. Together with the angelic choirs, the emphasis is on the glory of God and the Church, and the strength and mercy of Franciscan spirituality. Absent are trombones and sounding trumpets typically associated with triumph and the Day of Judgment.^[46]

3.16 In 1598 Margherita of Austria passed through Mantua on her journey to Spain for her wedding to King Philip III. In San Pietro she heard sung “a motet harmonized with voices and various instruments distributed among several choirs.”^[47]

3.17 Perhaps the most famous festivity of the Gonzaga court was the 1608 celebration of the wedding between Prince Francesco and Margherita of Savoy, which included the well-known musical contributions of Monteverdi in the form of the opera Arianna, Il Ballo delle Ingrate, and one of the intermedi to Giovanni Battista Guarini’s comedy L’Idropica.^[48] But such an event also entailed religious ceremonies, the first of which took place in San Pietro. Upon her entry into Mantua on 24 May 1608, Margherita was conducted to San Pietro where she was brought into the richly decorated cathedral to the sound of the organ accompanied by “un dolcissimo concerto di musici.” As she adored the Holy Sacrament and the body of Saint Anselmo, the choir sang a motet with the text Veni Sponsa drawn from the Song of Songs.^[49]

3.18 These major ceremonies reveal how frequently and intimately the Gonzagas were involved in the cathedral and used it as the venue for important family celebrations apart from their dominance of the bishopric itself. Moreover, they reveal explicitly in the case of Vincenzo’s coronation how the duke’s cappella, and its maestro, participated outside the palace precincts in such grand ceremonies. In fact, the relationship between the choir of the cathedral and the Gonzaga ducal chapel requires further commentary.

3.19 Pierre Tagmann has traced the development of the musical chapel at San Pietro from the beginning of the sixteenth century to 1627, including its relations to the Gonzaga court.^[50] His work has been amplified by William Prizer^[51] and more recently Licia Mari.^[52] The cathedral had the continual services of an organist from 1480, and in 1484 one of the mansionaries became responsible for teaching singing to the clerics.^[53] In the late 1490s and into the first decade of the sixteenth century, both the absent bishop, Ludovico Gonzaga, and Marquis Francesco II Gonzaga gradually built up a professional chapel in the cathedral, as noted above, reaching eight singers in 1509, but rapidly decreasing to only four in 1510, one of whom was responsible for teaching the boys who sang in the chapel.^[54] Bishop Ludovico died on 19 January 1511, and later that year, on 25 August, as we saw, the remaining singers were dismissed (see par. 3.1). The fate of the early San Pietro cappella was clearly impacted by Francesco’s successful efforts from 1510 to recruit a large number of professional singers and instrumentalists for the court, including Marchetto Cara, Francesco da Milano, Giovanni Angelo Testagrossa, Bernardo Piffero, Bartolomeo Tromboncino, and others.^[55] Many of these musicians came from the dissolution of the Ferrarese court chapel under financial stress.^[56]

3.20 It is clear that Francesco also intended his ducal chapel to provide services in the cathedral, as already indicated (par. 3.1); as the costs of his recruiting efforts mounted, he wrote to his son in Rome on 10 December 1511, asking him to seek benefices from the pope to support the “heavy expense” of his “excellent new chapel.”^[57] In fact, he had tested out his new cappella with a Mass of the Madonna in San Pietro on 12 January 1511, a week before the death of Bishop Ludovico, as well as Vespers at San Francesco on the same day.^[58] Prizer, indeed, credits the success of the performance of the duke’s chapel on 12 January with the dismissal of the remaining cathedral singers on 25 August of that year.^[59] Francesco continued to seek benefices for his singers, but both Pope Julius II (1503–13) and Pope Leo X (1513–21) themselves soon began recruiting singers away from the marquis’s chapel. Nevertheless, Francesco’s new chapel seems, at least until 1521, to have performed regularly at the cathedral.^[60] By 1517, the choir of the cathedral itself, made up of clerics after 1511, had increased from a handful to thirteen by 1517, eighteen by 1528, gradually reaching thirty-two in 1565, plus an unknown number of boys, who were all taught both chant and canto figurato by a choir teacher, who often functioned as, or was eventually named, maestro di cappella.^[61] After the death of Francesco in 1519, the court chapel declined substantially under Federico II Gonzaga (1519–40), while his brother Ercole, as bishop of Mantua, cultivated the cathedral choir (see par. 3.3).^[62] Explicit documentation of the court chapel performing in San Pietro after 1521 is lacking until the coronation of Vincenzo (see par. 3.13).

3.21 Given the long-standing patronage of San Pietro by the Gonzagas, it is not surprising  that  Marquis Francesco II had been an active participant in the early development of a professional chapel/court choir. Even though he ceded financial support and governance of the chapel to the cathedral once the choir became only clerical, and there was henceforth never any overlap between the clerical singers and those paid as court singers, the Gonzagas, and eventually even the musical style of the court, continued to exert influence over music at San Pietro.^[63] This was particularly evident when court musicians, including instrumentalists (the cathedral did not have instrumentalists on its payroll), supported or even supplanted altogether the cathedral singers for important events celebrated by the Gonzagas in San Pietro, as we have seen in the coronation of Vincenzo and other events cited above (see par. 3.13–3.17). As Tagmann notes, the Gonzagas used San Pietro to celebrate important family occasions that also functioned as political events designed to project the wealth and power of the Gonzagas to other princes, their ambassadors, and their entourages, just as they staged celebratory secular events for the same purpose.^[64] The splendor of these manifestations vied with those of other courts, especially in northern Italy, in an effort to secure or bolster alliances in a land riven by long-standing internecine competition and strife.

3.22 The clerical chapel of San Pietro was apparently well-trained enough to sing the four-, five-, and six-voice polyphonic motets and double-choir psalms of its first official maestro di cappella, Jachet of Mantua (1537–59),^[65] and his successors, but without instrumentalists and professional singers the clerics themselves would have been incapable of providing the level of magnificence required for such events, including funerals, to glorify the Gonzagas. Entrances into Mantua of the betrothed for their weddings with dukes were particularly lavish, lasting for days. We learn about one such wedding from two letters of Adrian Willaert, revealing that on 21 October 1549, for the entrance of Catherine of Austria for her marriage to Duke Francesco III, Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga had assembled an ensemble of musicians that included two contrabassists and a contralto sent by Willaert from Venice to Mantua. An agent of Willaert’s, Benedetto Agnelli, writes the cardinal that “there are an infinite number of Venetian gentlemen and ladies from Venice who are making arrangements to come to see the ceremonies in Mantua, including the Procuratore Vettore Grimano with his wife and a large company of the principal ladies of Venice.”^[66] We have already presented Donesmondi’s and Follino’s accounts of several major Gonzaga ceremonies. Donesmondi, unfortunately, rarely provides information, and that only quite general, about music in these festivities. Yet we know not only from Follino’s valuable and detailed recounting of Vincenzo’s coronation, but from the records of other courts, such as Ferrara, Parma, Florence, and Urbino, with which the Gonzagas competed for recognition and influence, how important musical splendor in consort with visual magnificence was to the prestige and political jockeying of all these ruling families.

3.23 As noted above (par. 3.21), there is no evidence that the cathedral choir ever employed instrumentalists other than the organists. But Follino’s narrative of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga’s coronation explicitly mentions cornettos and trombones as well as singers (gli cantori con suoi concerti di tromboni, cornette & voci).^[67] The term concerto can have a variety of meanings in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; Follino’s “concerti” clearly signifies mixed ensembles, which differ from the cathedral choir of clerics that sang polyphonic masses and motets with or without the organ, but apparently without the benefit of other instruments. Typically, when referring to the clerics who formed the cathedral choir, Follino and Donesmondi use the term chierici.

3.24 The distinction between cantori and voci is also important. The cantori must have been solo singers from the duke’s chapel, while voci could refer to other supporting singers either from the ducal cappella or from the Duomo choir.

3.25 Another testament to instruments and voices in San Pietro is the report of the multi-choir motet, with voices and instruments, heard by Margherita of Austria in 1598 (see par. 3.16). In the description of Margherita of Savoy’s appearance in the cathedral in 1608 (par. 3.17), Follino reports that “the sound of the organ was accompanied by a sweet concerto di musici.”^[68] Here again, he is using the term concerto to refer to a mixed ensemble of some sort. Donesmondi also uses the word concerto in a few instances. Describing the death in 1569 of the exceedingly pious nun, the beatified Paola Gonzaga, Donesmondi declares that “at the hour of her death the other sisters heard choirs of angels sweetly, and in concerto, sing and play musical instruments, [and] it seemed precisely because of the sweetness of the melody that Paradise opened up.”^[69] Less precise is his similar account of the death of the blessed Luigi de i Rosatti of Bergamo in 1468: “He too was called by God to the blessed life; a sign of which was the wondrous shaking of his room: and shortly thereafter was heard a concerto of angels, full of grace, celebrating his ascent into Heaven, singing Euge serve bone, & fidelis.”^[70] Other instances of Donesmondi’s usage suggest either a mixed ensemble or a composition for mixed ensemble. During the entrance of Bishop Francesco into Mantua in 1593, “dolci concerti musicali” were heard, which could refer to ensembles, the compositions they played, or both. On the other hand, Donesmondi recounts Margherita of Savoy’s entrance into San Pietro in 1608 to the sound of an organ accompanied by “un dolcissimo concerto di musici,” which can only allude to an ensemble. In this period concerto is a word equivocal in meaning, since it often refers either to a mixed ensemble or to a composition for such an ensemble.

3.26 Musici is another term that we find used ambiguously. It is often contrasted with cantori in the phrase cantori e musici, which clearly means “singers and instrumentalists,” but musici is also sometimes used more inclusively, as encompassing both singers and instrumentalists. It is less common for musici to refer to singers alone.^[71] Again in 1608, as in Vincenzo’s coronation, Follino is not describing the cathedral’s clerical choir, but musicians drawn from the ducal chapel—in the case of the coronation, obviously led by the duke’s maestro di cappella, composer of the mass ordinary performed on that day.^[72] The polychoral motet for Margherita of Austria, performed in the cathedral during her 1598 visit, must also have involved singers and instrumentalists drawn from the ducal chapel; it may have been written by any of the duke’s major composers: Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, Benedetto Pallavicino, or Claudio Monteverdi. Tagmann infers that on other major state events in San Pietro, such as the wedding of Guglielmo Gonzaga and the wedding of Vincenzo, singers and instrumentalists from the ducal cappella must also have participated, either to supplement the cathedral’s clerical choir or replace it altogether.^[73]

3.27 Not only did the court musicians perform in San Pietro, but members of the cathedral choir sometimes performed in the court. As mentioned above (see par. 3.10), during the wedding of Guglielmo Gonzaga and Eleonora of Austria in 1561, Mass was sung in the small chapel of the castle by the “most Reverend Soffraganeo and two musicians (musici) from the Duomo.”^[74] On 8 February 1568 the duke provided a concert of eight voices for friends; among the performers was the maestro di cappella of San Pietro, Giovanni Maria di Rossi, who is also recorded as a singer in the court chapel in 1565 and 1567.^[75] Giovanni Maria even accompanied Giaches de Wert and other musicians on a voyage to Venice for a theatrical performance there in 1567.^[76] Similarly, the cathedral organist Paolo Cantino, participated in the intermezzo of a comedy in 1581.^[77] In the winter of 1576–77 Duke Guglielmo on behalf of Prince Vincenzo requested the use for several months of the cathedral’s organist, Annibale Coma, and sent Ruggiero Trofeo, organist at Santa Barbara, to San Pietro in exchange.^[78] In addition, musicians that at one time served at San Pietro were later employed in one capacity or another at court: Giulio Cesare Monteverdi (organist), Stefano Nascimbeni, and Simpliciano Mazzucchi.^[79] Nascimbeni’s appointment was as maestro di cappella at the palace Church of Santa Barbara, which will be discussed below.

3.28 San Pietro also figures in a letter from Monteverdi of June 1610 to Duke Vincenzo, who was away at his villa at Maderno on the shore of Lago di Garda. Monteverdi reports on auditioning a contralto who traveled from Modena to Mantua seeking employment; as soon as the singer arrived, Monteverdi took him to San Pietro to “sing a motet to the organ”;^[80] Monteverdi clearly felt quite comfortable co-opting the facilities at San Pietro if it suited him. After all, there was also the Antegnati organ in Santa Barbara where he presumably could likewise have auditioned the singer.^[81]

4. The Church of Sant’Andrea

(See Figs. 4–6; and see the church’s location on the map: Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 105.)

[click image to enlarge]

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4.1 Sant’Andrea was another church close by the court with which the Gonzaga family was intimately intertwined and that was of considerable significance to them as the venue for major celebrations as well as a burial site.

4.2 Sant’Andrea derived its importance from its singular relic, a drop of the blood shed by Christ on the Cross when wounded by a Roman lance. Donesmondi published an outline of his early seventeenth-century understanding of the adventurous history of this relic in his Cronologia d’alcune cose più notabili di Mantova of 1616, which, of course, would have agreed with the history of the relic as understood by the Gonzagas and their court.^[82] The story Donesmondi tells begins with Longinus, the Roman soldier, who pierced the side of the dying Christ and collected the blood and water that flowed from it:

Longinus, Isaurican soldier, present at the death of Christ, wounded him in the rib, from which flowed royal blood with water that was collected by him. He brought it to Mantua in 36 AD and buried it where the Church of Sant’Andrea now stands. In 804, at the time of Charlemagne, this Most Holy Blood was discovered through a revelation, whereby Pope Leo III came to Mantua and, having verified it, took a small portion to Charlemagne as a gift. In 923 the Mantuans, for fear of the Hungarians, who were devastating Italy, buried part of the Most Holy Blood in Sant’Andrea, and part in [the Church of] San Paolo, where all memory of it was lost. In 1048, through a revelation given by Sant’Andrea the Apostle to the Blessed Adelberto, the Most Holy Blood was again found in Sant’Andrea, and because of the “infinite” number of miracles that followed, Pope Leo IX came to Mantua and having approved it, took another small part back to Rome for display.

In 1055, [Holy Roman] Emperor Henry III came to Mantua specifically to adore the Most Holy Blood; he took a small part to Bohemia and buried the remainder, fearful of the continual infestations of the barbarians in Italy. In 1298, Bardellone Bonacolsi, ruler of Mantua, opened the place where the Most Holy Blood [had been buried] and had it carried in procession with great solemnity through the entire city, where countless miracles occurred, after which he reinterred it where it had been.

In 1354, Emperor Charles IV came to Mantua, secretly opened the same place where the Most Holy Blood was kept, and adored it with great devotion; then he arranged everything as before [and] fourteen years later granted a great many privileges to the Church of Sant’Andrea which are still valid.

In 1402, Francesco Gonzaga, the fourth Vicar of Mantua [Fourth captain of the people], had the aforementioned place opened and took a small part of that Most Holy Blood to Pavia as a gift for the second Duke of Milan, Giovanni Maria Visconti, to make peace. In 1459 Pope Pius II came to Mantua to celebrate a Council, at the end of which, in his presence, the veracity of the Most Holy Blood was disputed (since there were some who denied it) and it was concluded to be true and from the side of Christ. Whereby the pope ordered that every year it be shown in public, as is done.^[83]

In 1479 the small part of the Most Holy Blood was found in San Paolo where it had remained there for 556 years; and this retrieval resulted in numerous miracles, whereupon it was afterwards always preserved in San Pietro. In 1521, Duke Federico [II] organized a most beautiful procession to carry the Most Holy Blood from Sant’Andrea to Santa Paola in order to console his sister, the daughter of Marquis Francesco [II], who had never seen the Most Holy Blood, who was making her profession as the Blessed Sister Paola Gonzaga in [the convent of] Santa Paola. There it was adored by all the sisters and revered devoutly the whole day by the city.^[84] [Original text in App. 6.] 

4.3 The first church actually dedicated to Sant’Andrea arose on the site in 1054, next to a Benedictine monastery constructed in 1037. In 1470 Marquis Ludovico III Gonzaga commissioned Leon Battista Alberti to design a large church as a grand reliquary for the Holy Blood, and in 1472 Pope Sixtus IV granted permission to the marquis to demolish the old church and to set Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at the head of the new college to run the church.^[85] Thus, just as with San Pietro, the Gonzagas took control of the site of Mantua’s most important relic.^[86] Alberti died in 1472, and others moved forward with the construction of the church based on the architect’s designs and model, a process that was only completed in the nineteenth century. The crypt, built between 1597 and 1600 by Antonio Maria Viani, was conceived by Vincenzo Gonzaga as a mausoleum for members of the Gonzaga family.^[87] Both he and his wife were buried there.

4.4 After the conclusion of the Council of Mantua (1459–60) and the decision that the Holy Blood was genuine, Pope Pius II celebrated First Vespers in Sant’Andrea, along with Mass the next day after a grand public procession in which the blood was displayed, and then Second Vespers. He commanded that the Blood should be displayed annually on the Feast of the Ascension.^[88] The pope then ordered three (annual) processions on the three Rogation days preceding the Feast of the Ascension, the third of which was to be to Sant’Andrea, where Mass was to be sung by the bishop or someone deputized by him. At First Vespers on the vigil of the Ascension,

in the presence of the bishop pontifically prepared, with all the officials of the cathedral and the princes of the city and an infinity of the populace, a friar from the Carmelite order, by ancient custom introduced at the time of Marchese Lodovico (although sometimes interrupted), gives a discourse to the people, part in Latin (because of those from beyond the Alps, who used to convene there in great numbers in those early times) and the rest in the common tongue. After which, Monsignor the bishop celebrates a most solemn Vespers: and then displays this Holy Blood to the people (the prince and other persons holding the baldacchino) and he blesses it at a prominent place prepared for this act. The next morning there is a most beautiful procession from the cathedral to Sant’Andrea by laymen only, among which are the city magistrates, with all the doctors, physicians, procurators, and notaries; then all the arts in order under their chosen banners … after the procession is finished, Mass is sung by the bishop and as before the most precious blood is displayed, always with the assistance of the princes and principal gentlemen of the city. At the obligatory hour Vespers is again solemnized in the same manner, and the divine liquid having been displayed, it is returned to its original location, under the sancta sanctorum, with the greatest reverence.^[89]

4.5 Thus, from 1460, Sant’Andrea became the scene of a great annual celebration for the city and court on the Feast of the Ascension, with the Gonzagas playing a major participatory role, still continuing in 1611 when Vespers by Monteverdi were performed there. By at least the late sixteenth century, the feast was accompanied annually by a major spring festival, with a fair and elaborate processions that drew visitors from distant locations.^[90]

4.6 Just as San Pietro served as the venue for important occasional events for the Gonzagas, so did Sant’Andrea, especially in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Moreover, because of its famous relic, notable visitors were typically taken there by Marquis Federico—later Duke Federico (having been promoted by Charles V in 1530)—to view and venerate it, without a liturgical service necessarily being conducted as part of the visit. Thus, in 1532, the Emperor Charles V, traveling to Spain by way of Genoa from having defended Hungary against Suleiman the Magnificant, visited Mantua. Arriving on the Feast of Saint Catherine, he was invited by Duke Federico to winter there. Charles stayed for three continuous months, lodging in the Convent of Sant’Agnese (see the convent’s location in Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 110) because of the pleasure he took in conversing there with the Padri Eremitani of Sant’Agostino, and visiting the Holy Blood several times as well as the Santa Casa della Madonna delle Grazie.^[91]

4.7 In 1548 Charles’s nephew Maximillian, son of younger brother Ferdinand, both future emperors of the German and Eastern empire, and his son Philipp, the future King of Spain, also came to Mantua to adore the Holy Blood in Sant’Andrea.^[92]

4.8 On Tuesday, 22 October 1549, Catherine of Austria made a grand entrance into the city in preparation for her wedding to Duke Francesco III Gonzaga, a marriage that lasted only four months, cut short by the death of the duke on 21 February 1550. After witnessing a mock naval battle on the lake, Catherine’s first stop was in Sant’Andrea, where she was ceremoniously received by the Bishop of Alba and heard a Te Deum, intoned by the bishop and completed by the singers, after which she received the usual benediction and went to the palace. Her wedding was on the next day.^[93] As noted above, Cardinal-Bishop Ercole Gonzaga had assembled an elaborate ensemble of musicians for the festivities.^[94]

4.9 According to Ippolito Donesmondi, a visit to the Holy Blood was an important feature of a “tourist” stop on 13 July 1585 of three [recte four] young Japanese nobles representing three Japanese kings, who had come to visit Italy. They traveled to Mantua on their return journey after having paid obeisance to the Pope in Rome. The nobles were “sumptuously received and royally treated, and religiously visited the Holy Blood of Christ and the Santa Casa della Madonna delle Grazie to their great satisfaction, after which they continued their journey.”^[95]

4.10 Leaving aside the annual Ascension Day celebration, Duke Vincenzo was clearly more invested in Sant’Andrea than his father Guglielmo, for it is during Vincenzo’s reign that a number of major family events took place in Sant’Andrea; indeed, Vincenzo was particularly devoted to the Holy Blood.^[96] The birth of Prince Francesco on 7 May 1586 prompted three days of “exceptional manifestations and magnificent celebrations,” including three days of processions to San Giuseppe, Sant’Andrea, and Santa Barbara, the last being the site of Francesco’s baptism.^[97] At each church there would have been a major liturgical ceremony, quite possibly involving the court cappella in addition to any musicians employed at Sant’Andrea or the small cappella of Santa Barbara.

4.11 Sant’Andrea was the scene three years later (1589) of Vincenzo’s investiture on the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin (2 February) in the prestigious Order of the Toson d’Oro, founded in 1430 by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.^[98] Vincenzo had received the necklace of the order from Philip II of Spain. The ceremony, conducted in the name of King Philip by the Governor of Milan in the sumptuously adorned church, conferred on the duke the title of Cavalier of Sant’Andrea of Burgundy.^[99]

4.12 More than a century ago, Vincenzo Errante published a lengthy article regarding Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga’s third expedition to Hungary to fight the Turks (1601), in which he also chronicled Monteverdi’s participation in an earlier military expedition to Hungary in 1595.^[100] A Mass in Sant’Andrea preceded the duke’s departure on this earlier expedition, most likely directed by Giaches de Wert, the court maestro di cappella, and also likely including Monteverdi as either a viol player or singer along with other court musicians.^[101] Citing Errante’s documents, Licia Mari summarized Monteverdi’s role in the expedition itself as “maestro di capella for an ensemble that said Mass four or five times per day, probably in plainchant, and sang Vespers on major feast days, probably in polyphony, accompanied by an organ.”^[102] Upon his return to Mantua, the Duke heard Mass again in Sant’Andrea on 30 October.^[103]

4.13 Vincenzo went on yet another expedition in support of the Emperor against the Turks, leaving on 28 July 1597, “after having made the usual Christian preparations,” which included a Mass and benediction, again in Sant’Andrea. Before leaving he ordered the resumption of construction of the choir of Sant’Andrea according to the designs of Marchese Ludovico II (i.e., the designs of Alberti), which began on 27 August.^[104] Vincenzo returned from Hungary on 26 November, and once again his homecoming would have been celebrated with a Mass.^[105] We have no information about music during this journey nor whether Monteverdi again accompanied the duke as his maestro di cappella. For a third time, in 1601, Vincenzo answered the call of the emperor to fight against the Turks in Hungary. There is no record of “Christian preparations” for the departure on 18 July 1601, but upon Vincenzo’s return on 18 December the duke gave thanks for his homecoming in Sant’Andrea and “added twelve more priests to the usual number who continually stood in honor and service to the Holy Blood and to pray for his person and all his invincible family.”^[106] It is clear, however, from Monteverdi’s letter to the duke of 28 November 1601, written while the duke was on his journey back to Mantua, that Monteverdi was not a member of this expedition.^[107]

4.14 Monteverdi did accompany Vincenzo on a healing excursion to Spa in Belgium in 1599.  Since any such distant journey and lengthy absence inevitably entailed a variety of dangers, there was likely again a public Mass in Sant’Andrea prior to departure. There would, of course, have been no reason for the duke to include Monteverdi in his entourage in 1599 other than to provide both secular and sacred music, perhaps again as maestro of a small cappella of court musicians. Unfortunately, we don’t have the names of the other musicians who must have accompanied him, and the only indication of his activities is the series of rhetorical questions posed by his brother Giulio Cesare Monteverdi in his 1607 response to the attacks on Claudio by Giovanni Maria Artusi.^[108] The duke returned to Spa for similar healing in the summer of 1608, after the completion of the wedding festivities between Prince Francesco and Margherita of Savoy.^[109]

4.15 On 5 August 1594 Eleonora of Austria, mother of Duke Vincenzo, died. Her body was brought to Santa Croce in Corte for three days of viewing, after which it was carried in solemn procession to the Jesuit Church of the Holy Trinity, which she had patronized and whose transept was not yet completed. There the usual Office for the Dead was solemnly performed, and she was buried in front of the high altar. It was immediately ordered that regal obsequies be held in Sant’Andrea as the place most suitable to raise a magnificent catafalque. The catafalque, described in detail by Donesmondi, was an enormous square structure reaching up to the vault, with four facades, each with a doorway, and in each corner four great columns in a square. The entire structure was surmounted by a spacious cupola surrounded by a high balcony and topped by a large cross, the whole supported in the manner of a tabernacle by four angels. The spaces in the facades were filled with fifty angels and other smaller figures representing various members of the House of Austria, each with a its own most prominent virtue and motto. Under the central cupola an effigy of Eleonora, dressed as a widow, was placed on a bier, around which were multiple eagles that appeared to be of bronze, and other figures as well as various crests of the Austrian and Gonzaga families with their mottos. The pedestal had four large steps by which one could walk around the structure, adorned with ornaments and a large quantity of candlesticks holding very large torches. The entire church inside and out was draped in black, painted with white and dark depictions of acts of Christ imitated by Eleonora. Four large statues representing Mantua, Casale (Monferrato), the Po, and the river Mincio were placed in the entrance. It took until the end of September to design and bring the project to fruition, at the cost of several million scudos. Donesmondi’s description gives us an idea of what he could mean by his use of the term suntuoso or sontuoso apparato, though elsewhere the apparati he mentions, but doesn’t describe, were probably not quite this lavish.^[110]

4.16 The actual obsequies took place on 1 October, with the Primicerio singing a pontifical Mass, assisted by the Abbot and officials of Santa Barbara, as well as the abbots of six other churches. Also present were the principal friars of all the religious orders in Mantua, the canons of the colleges, Duke Vincenzo, Don Ferrando di Guastalla, the Gonzaga family, and many ambassadors of various princes. The ceremonies were discharged with incredibil grandezza and included an oration on the merits and pietà of Eleonora by a friar brought especially from Padua for that purpose. On the third day afterward, the ceremonies were repeated in the same manner, though with a different speaker praising the deceased.^[111]

4.17 The presence of the Holy Blood, and the attention of Vincenzo to Sant’Andrea, resulted at the beginning of 1607 in Pope Paul V granting perpetual indulgences, and among others, a plenary indulgence on the feasts of Sant’Andrea and the Ascension, and on Good Friday. On all other Fridays of the year, along with other feasts, the indulgences were limited but generous.^[112]

4.18 1608 was a highlight year for the Gonzagas and Monteverdi, centered around the grand festivities celebrating the wedding of Francesco Gonzaga and Margherita of Savoy, which put an end to squabbles by the dukes of Savoy and Mantua over control of Casale Monferrato. What is best known about these festivities are the theatrical events composed by Monteverdi, Il Ballo delle Ingrate, the opera Arianna, and his lost intermedio to Giambattista Guarnini’s play L’Idropica. But the Church of Sant’Andrea played a significant role as well. After a solemn Mass in a highly decorated Santa Barbara on Pentecost Sunday and the subsequent luncheon, the noble guests went to Sant’Andrea where Vincenzo founded his new Order of the Redeemer, a knightly order with his son Francesco as its first head. The choice of Sant’Andrea for the event was obvious because of the Holy Blood, which played a part in the ceremony on 25 May 1608 and was symbolized in the pendant of the chain worn by the members. The church was, of course, specially decorated for the ceremony, which took place on a platform erected for it on the left side of the nave. The ceremony’s principal function was for each new inductee to swear to uphold the constitution of the order, which included defending the Catholic Church, the pope, and the prince (Vincenzo) from their enemies, saying Mass every day, attending meetings and festivities of the Order, and defending the honor of widows, orphans, and wards.

4.19 After Prince Francesco was inducted as the leader of the new order, fourteen others, named by Follino and Donesmondi (six of whom had the surname Gonzaga), were similarly sworn to the constitution. Each was fitted with a cloak and the necklace of the Order, displaying on a pendant a medallion with the image of the tabernacle in which the Holy Blood was kept.^[113] Once the ceremony was completed, the Te Deum was sung, and after the bishop, pontifically dressed, who had come with his entire chapter and clerics in procession, pronounced an oration, Vespers was sung. At the conclusion of Vespers, the ceremony of displaying the Holy Blood took place, raising it from the high altar to which it had been transported from the sanctuary where it was conserved, and placing it on a platform prepared for it under a baldacchino held aloft by four of the newly inducted knights, all of them members of the Gonzaga family. At the end of this ceremony the duke led a procession to the door where all took off their cloaks, but keeping their necklaces, mounted their horses and returned to the court.^[114] Five days later, on 30 May, Sant’Andrea also hosted the wedding guests at Mass with an exhibition of the Holy Blood.^[115]

4.20 Sant’Andrea also drew worshippers for other types of events. For example, not long after the guests had departed following the wedding ceremonies of 1608, the much-beloved Bishop Francesco Gonzaga fell ill from too much exertion in the summer heat, provoking prayers throughout the city for his health. On 25 July a general procession from the cathedral to Sant’Andrea culminated in a sung Mass in honor of the Holy Blood and prayers for the bishop, and on the next day the priests of the cathedral made the same procession to hear another Mass and offer their prayers. The day afterward the bishop’s recovery became manifest, and on 30 July another barefoot procession of the city went to the Madonna delle Grazie di Curtatone to sing a Mass of Our Lord in gratitude.^[116]

4.21 On the vigil of Pentecost 1610 (30 May), an impressive funeral was held in Sant’Andrea for Giulio Cesare Gonzaga, Prince of Bozzolo, who had died a short time before. Because he had been the first Cavalier of the Order of the Redeemer to perish, on the next day there were created other new cavaliers with the same ceremonies in Sant’Andrea.^[117] The newly appointed governor of the church was Lodovico Gonzaga, son of Marchese Prospero Gonzaga, on whom Pope Paul V had recently conferred the title of Primicerio of Sant’Andrea. Lodovico solemnly took his post just five days later “to the joyful applause of everyone.”^[118]

4.22 During the night of 1 February 1611, Eleonora de’ Medici, the wife of Vincenzo, suffered a debilitating stroke, causing the cessation of Carnival festivities throughout the city and prompting a solemn Mass to the Holy Blood in Sant’Andrea every Friday during Lent.^[119]  Eleonora lingered on through the spring and summer, but died on 9 September. Donesmondi described what followed:

Vincenzo was away in Casale Monferrato and receiving such bad news lamented sorely; he ordered that the funeral and burial not take place until he returned, which he did at the beginning of October. Meanwhile a splendid catafalque was raised in Sant’Andrea, and then on 8 October, in the evening, she was buried with regal obsequies in a small, separate chamber in the sanctuary where the Holy Blood was preserved. In the following days Divine Offices were said for her with much pomp.^[120]

4.23 Donesmondi does not provide any further description of the “superbissimo catafalco.” Whether it approached the size and elaborateness of that of Vincenzo’s mother, Eleonora of Austria, described above (see par. 4.15), we do not know.

4.24 It was only a year after Eleonora’s stroke, when her husband, Duke Vincenzo, developed a fever, pains, and a serious catarrh on 1 February 1612, bringing him close to death in three or four days and leading to public prayers in Sant’Andrea, where the Holy Blood was exposed to the populace on the altar. In other churches of the city, and particularly the cathedral, the Holy Sacrament was also exposed and orations delivered, upon which the duke’s fever and its effects subsided. But after a brief respite, the fever returned and Vincenzo died on 18 February.^[121] His body was first brought to the Church of Santa Croce in Corte, “as was customary for embalmed princes,” and after several days of public visitations, carried to Santa Barbara, then on 10 March to Sant’Andrea where, as in earlier Gonzaga funerals, it was placed on a high, magnificent catafalque. After the bishop had performed the obsequies, he was buried in the same small chamber where his wife Eleonora had been laid to rest the previous October.^[122]

4.25 On 8 June 1612, much more elaborate funeral obsequies in Vincenzo’s honor were celebrated with royal magnificence and a large display (nobilissimo apparato) in Sant’Andrea.^[123] Around the royal catafalque were eleven large paintings depicting the principal acts of the eleven Gonzaga princes who had preceded him. Under each painting was a representation of the tomb of each prince with an effigy of each in fake marble. Alternating with these were another eleven paintings of the accomplishments of Vincenzo, parallel to each of those of his predecessors, illustrating that he had incorporated in himself all the heroic virtues of his antecedents combined. Donesmondi describes the construction as “the most elaborate in a long time in the city of Mantua, built at incredible cost, drawing many visitors from beyond Mantua to see it.”^[124] A sketch preserved in the Vatican Library shows the position of civil and religious authorities during the ceremony, an issue that generated concerns about priority in seating. The singers were situated in the apse, and the Holy Blood was exposed to the public.^[125] We find it highly probable that the ducal chapel, including Monteverdi as its maestro di cappella, were the principal musical forces for the services in Sant’Andrea, even if the musical chapel of Sant’Andrea also took part.

4.26 Offices were also planned for the following day, but not performed; the apparatus was taken down because of the Feast of Pentecost (10 June, with vigil on 9 June), where the Holy Blood was displayed.^[126] In contrast to Vincenzo’s coronation, held in the cathedral “in conformity with ancient custom,”^[127] his heir Francesco, because of the Pentecost celebrations, was crowned privately in the Castello followed by a public ceremony of gratitude in Santa Barbara and the casting of coins among the populace before the new duke returned to the Castello.^[128]

4.27 Francesco also appears to have favored Sant’Andrea in his short reign. In early September 1612, the new duchess, Margherita of Savoy, gave birth to a daughter, who must have been sickly from the outset, for contrary to custom she was immediately baptized and shortly thereafter died.^[129] She was buried in Sant’Andrea with a “funeral like no other”:

The duke had ordered that in addition to the priests of the church, all the poor children of the orphanages of Mantua, along with other Mantuan children, numbering over 500, were invited and dressed in black, covered with a small surplice, as if they were so many clerics, who accompanied the wake in the early evening with burning torches, singing the psalm Laudate pueri Dominum.^[130]

4.28 At the end of November, Francesco’s son and heir, Prince Lodovico, who had just passed 18 months of age, became feverish; he died of smallpox on 3 December. He was buried three days later in Sant’Andrea with ceremonies similar to his sister’s. He was followed in death less than three weeks later by his father Francesco, on 22 December, also struck down by smallpox. His brother Cardinal Ferdinando buried the duke in Santa Barbara, and his funeral was celebrated there a few days later with proper display.^[131]

4.29 The first indication we have of a choir in Sant’Andrea appears in a letter describing the first performance of Marquis Francesco II Gonzaga’s new musical chapel in San Pietro. This letter, published by William Prizer in 1977, makes it clear that in 1511 there was a choir in Sant’Andrea, familiar to the public (see par. 3.20). The letter evaluates the duke’s newly acquired chapel, noting that the general populace preferred that of Sant’Andrea: “In accordance with a great desire to hear these singers, who, even though they were truly equal to the best in their profession, the populace nevertheless praised much more the singers of Sant’Andrea; and there were many who [despite our inferior numbers] liked much more our voices.”^[132]

4.30 The loss and destruction of documents relating to the cappella of Sant’Andrea has been so extensive, that there are very few firm points of reference to help us understand anything about the chapel. The earliest extant pay register demonstrates that in 1597–98, Benedetto Pallavicino was compensated from church funds as maestro di cappella at the same time as he served as maestro di cappella of the duke’s musical chapel, after succeeding Giaches de Wert in that capacity. Giaches had also functioned as maestro di cappella at Santa Barbara until the late 1580s, when Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi took over that role (see the discussion below under “The Church of Santa Barbara,” par. 11.15–11.18). It is possible that Wert had also served for a time as maestro at Sant’Andrea, since Pallavicino took over both the church and court positions after Giaches’s death on 6 May 1596.

4.31 The discovery of Pallavicino’s dual role and the possibility that Wert had also fulfilled this double role in the years prior to his death raises an interesting possibility regarding Monteverdi’s petition to Duke Vincenzo to be appointed “master of music for both the chamber and church” after Pallavicino’s death on 26 November 1601. Duke Vincenzo was just then enroute home from a military campaign in Hungary against the Turks when Monteverdi penned his first surviving letter, on 28 November, in which he requested “the title that formerly Signor Giaches [de Wert] had over the music.” Monteverdi, in fulsomely obsequious language, declares that he would be negligent as a devoted servant of the duke not to seek “the post now vacant in this part of the Church” (our emphasis) and therefore requests to be “master of music for both the chamber and the church” (on the meaning of this sentence and Wert’s role at court, see below under “The Church of Santa Barbara”).^[133] It may be that “this part of the Church” refers specifically to Sant’Andrea, whose leadership was vacated by Pallavicino’s death just two days previously. We have no documentation of Monteverdi assuming that particular position, and a register of 1605 names Pietro Antonio Mazzucchi as the maestro di cappella there, succeeded the next year by Giulio Cesare Antonelli. Nevertheless, it is possible that Monteverdi’s appointment as “mastro e de la camera e de la chiesa sopra la musica,” did include the position of maestro di cappella in Sant’Andrea. If so, other arrangements had already been made by 1605, perhaps to relieve Monteverdi of responsibility for daily services at Sant’Andrea because of the incessant demands of Duke Vincenzo for new music for the chamber and responsibilities for sacred music for special ceremonies, whether in Sant’Andrea, the cathedral, even Santa Barbara, or other churches where the duke needed more musical resources than the church’s own musicians could supply. Another possibility, of course, is that Vincenzo took advantage of the passing of Pallavicino to reorganize his maestro di cappella’s responsibilities from the very beginning of Monteverdi’s appointment, giving up the formal position at Sant’Andrea so that the maestro could function more generally in the sacred realm as “the only one who could direct solemn ceremonies under the duke’s aegis,” wherever outside of Santa Barbara that might have been.^[134]

4.32 Further information about musicians at Sant’Andrea is sparse. A new organ was built in 1604–5 by the Vitani brothers of Pavia. One of the witnesses to the contract was Stefano Nascimbeni, since 1600 maestro di cappella at the Cathedral of San Pietro. At the beginning of January of 1605, payment was made to several singers and eight cappellani for services during the Christmas season, suggesting that the festivities required more singers than the salaried choir of Sant’Andrea could provide. On 10 June 1605, trombetti were paid for the Corpus Christi procession the previous day. As one learns from Donesmondi, practically every major procession required trumpets and drums. In July of 1605, the primiciero paid two singers, Spinazino del Gallo and Stanghelino, for services obviously beyond what the Sant’Andrea singers could provide themselves.^[135]

5. The Jesuit Church of the Santissima Trinità

(See Fig. 7; and see the church’s location on the map: Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 121.)

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5.1 A third church in the vicinity of the palace, of considerable importance to the Gonzagas at the end of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth, was the Jesuit Church of the Holy Trinity, quite new, in contrast to the ancient churches of San Pietro and Sant’Andrea.

5.2 Consideration of inviting the Jesuits to open a school in Mantua began in 1559 with communication between Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, seeking ways to improve Catholic education in the city, and the Jesuit superior general, Diego Laínez. Ercole had been impressed by an explanation of the Jesuits and their accomplishments in a meeting with one Antonino Gaietano and a group of young men enroute to Rome to join the order. However, others he consulted gave unfavorable reports of the order. Only after several years was Ercole convinced that the Jesuits should indeed be established in Mantua and open a school there. Ercole’s brother, Duke Guglielmo, however, was reluctant, and the school did not open until 1584, over twenty years after Ercole’s death and just three years before the passing of Guglielmo.^[136]

5.3 The Jesuits were first given the existing parish Church of San Salvatore, but that having quickly proven inadequate, negotiations commenced and plans were laid for building a new church for the order. Construction of the Church of Santissima Trinità began in 1587, and it was still unfinished when Eleonora of Austria, wife of Guglielmo and a principal benefactor of the Jesuits, was buried there in 1594 (see par. 4.15). It was another two years before construction was brought to a conclusion.^[137]

5.4 Apart from Eleonora, the costs of building the Jesuit college and subsequently the church were borne by several other members of the Gonzaga family. Of particular importance was the 1563 testament of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, willing 4000 scudi in anticipation of the introduction of the order into Mantua.^[138] Other key supporters were Ludovico Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers; Don Fernando Gonzaga, Prince of Molfetta; Cardinal Giovanni Vincenzo Gonzaga; Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga (once he had admitted the order); and Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga.^[139] In 1605, two major Gonzaga events took place in the Church of the Holy Trinity. The first, on 5 June, was the installation of three paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, one of them depicting Guglielmo and Vincenzo Gonzaga and their wives Eleonora of Austria and Eleonora de’ Medici, worshipping the Holy Trinity.^[140] This installation may have been the genesis of Monteverdi’s Trinitarian motet for three virtuoso tenors, Duo Seraphim, published later in the 1610 Vespers.^[141]

5.5 Another Gonzaga event for which that motet may possibly have been composed, or simply re-performed, occurred at the end of that year. It was the fruit of Vincenzo’s efforts to achieve canonization, or at least beatification, of Luigi Gonzaga, a member of the Jesuits who had died in Rome in 1591 caring for the sick.^[142] Beatification was approved by Pope Paul V with the unanimous consent of the college of cardinals on 1 December 1605, and on 21 December, a solemn procession, “accompanied by the whole city and the court,” marched from the cathedral to the church.^[143] There they heard an oration by a Capuchin monk from Saint Peter’s in Rome in praise of Luigi, calling for his addition to the other three patrons of Mantua: Sant’Anselmo, whose body was entombed under the cathedral’s high altar, San Giovannibuono, and the blessed Osanna. At the beginning of 1606 the bishop erected an altar to Luigi before which hung a continuously lit lamp.^[144] Whatever event may have been the origin of Duo Seraphim, it cannot be entertained that Monteverdi’s motet would have been premiered there or elsewhere by anyone other than the ducal chapel’s virtuoso tenors, or without the presence of the maestro.

5.6 In 1609, the Jesuit fathers, in enlarging the church, moved back the main altar at first without moving the body of Eleonora of Austria, but after raising her body up the steps of the new altar, invited Vincenzo to come see how the corpse of his mother remained uncorrupted fifteen years after her burial.^[145]

6.  Other Churches

6.1 Another church of importance to the Gonzagas was the Church and Convent of San Francesco, whose construction was completed in 1304. (See Figs. 8 and 9; and see the church’s location on the map: Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 109.)  By the 1370s, the Gonzagas had begun burying their dead there in the chapel of San Ludovico di Tolosa, also known as the capella de li Signori. The numerous internments included, among others about whom there are uncertainties: second Captain of the People Guido Gonzaga (d. 1369); third Captain of the People, Ludovico I Gonzaga (d. 1382); Ludovico’s wife, Alda d’Este (d. 1381); Margherita Malatesta, second wife of Francesco I (d. 1399); fourth Captain of the People, Francesco I Gonzaga (d. 1407); Marquis Gianfrancesco Gonzaga (d. 1444); Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga (d. 1483); Marquis Federico I (d. 1484); Bishop Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, Conte di Ródrigo (d. 1496); Marquis Francesco II (d. 1519); and lastly, Francesco II’s brother Giovanni (d. 1523).^[146] There are no records of further Gonzaga burials in the church after Giovanni’s. By 1576 the chapel was in very poor condition according to the apostolic visitor Angelo Peruzzi, who declared the need for a major restoration, which was never accomplished.^[147] Duke Vincenzo, who had significant antagonisms toward his parsimonious father, shortly after receiving his crown in November 1587, commissioned the architect and engineer Bernardino Facciotto to design a new mausoleum at San Francesco to serve himself and his family in place of the Santa Barbara crypt Guglielmo had recently constructed as a new site for Gonzaga burials.^[148] However, Facciotto’s San Francesco mausoleum was never built and both Vincenzo and his wife Eleonora de’ Medici were ultimately buried in Sant’Andrea, as we have seen (par. 4.22 and 4.24).^[149]

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6.2 The Church of Corpus Domini (see Fig. 10), constructed in the early decades of the fifteen century, was also known as Santa Paola, after its founder Paola Malatesta, wife of Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, Fifth Captain of the People (1407–33) and Marquis (1433–44). Located on the outskirts of the city, along the River Mincio, the church was administered by a convent of Franciscan nuns of the order of Saint Claire of Assisi, to which numerous members of various branches of the Gonzaga family, at least fifteen, belonged over its first two centuries. As noted above in recounting Donesmondi’s history of the Holy Blood, in 1521 Paola Gonzaga, daughter of Isabella d’Este and sister of Duke Federico II, professed at Santa Paola, to which the Holy Blood had been carried in procession from Sant’Andrea, to be revered by the nuns and citizenry the whole day.^[150] Roberto Brunelli suggests that the name Corpus Domini may have been chosen for the church to link it to Sant’Andrea as a pair commemorating the body and blood of Jesus.^[151] The church became the burial place of numeous Gonzagas, including Paola Malatesta (d. 1449), Isabella d’Este (wife of Francesco II, d. 1539), her daughter Livia (also known as Paola), Duke Federico II (d. 1540), Duke Francesco III (d. 1550), and Margherita Paleologo (wife of Federico II and mother of Francesco III and Duke Guglielmo, d. 1566). Fourteen Gonzaga suore, including Paola, are reputedly buried there.^[152] Donesmondi reports that Duke Guglielmo, who died in August 1587, had previously moved the bodies of Federico II and Francesco III Gonzaga from Santa Paola to his new crypt in Santa Barbara.^[153]

6.3 Whether polyphonic music was performed as part of any of the funeral and burial services in these two churches is unknown, but if it were, then members of the marquis’s or duke’s cappella, or the entire cappella, would surely have been involved. In 1598 Margherita of Austria visited the Convents of Santa Paola and San Vincenzo, in close proximity, where the nuns delighted her by singing and playing the organ.^[154]

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6.4 A few kilometers beyond the city to the west and alongside the lago superiore of the Mincio River is another church long associated with the Gonzagas, the Sanctuary and Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie di Curtatone (see Figs. 11, 12a, 12b). The sanctuary featured an image of the Madonna and Child that was often visited by boatmen transporting goods on the river.^[155] According to Gianfranco Ferlisi, the eleventh-century parish church, Santa Maria di Roverso, was rebuilt in fulfillment of a vow in response to a devastating plague (1383–99) by Francesco Gonzaga, Fourth Captain of the People of Mantua, beginning in 1399. From 1390, it had already been called the Madonna delle Grazie.^[156] The new church was reconsecrated in 1406 and transferred from the Padri Minori Conventuali to the Minori Osservanti who built a monastery adjacent to it. According to Donesmondi, there was an organ that in his day was situated above the main entry of the church.^[157]

6.5 The Compendio storico del tempio della B.V. Maria lists numerous visits to Santa Maria delle Grazie by popes, emperors, and other illustrious individuals beginning in 1414.^[158] Margherita of Austria, stopping for three days in Mantua on her way to Spain for her marriage to Philipp III, took communion and confessed in the church on 24 November 1598, accompanied by numerous  German, Spanish, French, Flemish, Polish, and Italian princes, including Vincenzo Gonzaga.^[159] The Gonzaga dukes often visited the church to raise their prayers to the Virgin in times of urgent need.^[160]

6.6 We have already mentioned the church three times in connection with specific visits: (1) the multiple visits of Emperor Charles V to the church during his three-month sojourn in Mantua in 1532,^[161] (2) the visit of the four Japanese princes to the church on 13 July 1585,^[162] and (3) the barefoot procession of the city to the church on 30 July 1608 to celebrate a thanksgiving Mass for the recovery of Bishop Francesco Gonzaga.^[163] If polyphonic music had been performed at the thanksgiving Mass for Bishop Francesco, it may have been provided by the cappella of San Pietro. But as with the Gonzaga funerary chapels, if polyphonic music had been part of any of these other major festivities at the sanctuary, the court cappella may well have been involved, especially when the guests were as high ranking as popes and emperors. Several of the reports of visits to Santa Maria delle Grazie also mention visits to Sant’Andrea to see the Holy Blood. Pilgrimmages to the two churches seem to have been, in terms of pious devotion, on a par.

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6.7 Another ecclesiastical institution supported by the Gonzagas, which eventually proved to be of musical interest to the court, was the Servite Convent of San Barnaba, but in the direction of musical activity flowing from the convent to the court in reverse of the usual direction from the court cappella to the church or convent. The convent had been established next to the late thirteenth-century Church of San Barnaba and entrusted to the Servites through the strong support of Marchese Francesco I Gonzaga in 1397. (See Figs. 13 and 14; and see the church’s location on the map: Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 133; the convent is located at no. 112).^[164] The church’s first organ was installed in 1455; prior to that, an organ had been borrowed for the annual Feast of San Barnaba. A new organ replaced the existing instrument in 1513.^[165]

6.8 During the 1598 visit to Mantua of Margherita of Austria, Duke Vincenzo mounted one of several performances of Battista Guarini’s play Il pastor Fido, together with intermedi by Giaches de Wert, Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, and Claudio Monteverdi, and possibly other performances as well. The number of singers required must have outstripped the capacities of the court, for on 22 November, the court official Francesco Ongarino wrote to the Prior of the Convent of San Barnaba informing him that all the musicians that were taking part in the pastorale were to meet in Santa Barbara immediately after the duke had dined, and requesting that the prior command all his padri who were participating in the concerti to appear on time.^[166] The convent obviously had musicians among its monks fully equipped to sing polyphony and possibly play instruments as well. Two singers among its members, Antonio da Colonia and Doroteo da Venezia are named in a document of 1607.^[167]

6.9 Earlier, in 1592, the thirteen-year-old Amante Franzoni had become a cleric at San Barnaba where he apparently completed musical studies, going on to become maestro di cappella in Forlì and subsequently, in October 1612, at the Mantuan palace Church of Santa Barbara, just a few months after the dismissal of the Monteverdi brothers in July of that year by the new young Duke Francesco IV.^[168]

6.10 Yet another church, Santa Maria Annunziata (see the church’s location on the map: Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 113), also known as Santa Maria del Carmine once the Carmelites took possession of it in 1376, owed its reconstruction, completed in 1485, to the support of Gian Francesco Gonzaga and his wife Paola Malatesta, as well as the bishop Giovanni degli Uberti.^[169] Music was important enough to the padri of the convent to have commissioned an organ from Costanzo Antegnati sometime prior to 1608. Such an instrument would have required a significant sum to construct; thus, it is possible that a subvention from the duke or another member of the Gonzaga family facilitated its installation. The organ, along with the choir seats, was moved to Sant’Andrea upon the suppression of the church and convent in 1783. One of the Carmelite’s frati toward the end of the sixteenth century was the castrato singer, composer, and theorist Teodoro Maria Bacchino, who in August of 1594 joined the service of the duke and was one of the five musicians who accompanied Monteverdi on Vincenzo’s expedition against the Turks in Hungary in 1595.^[170] Vincenzo had also commissioned for the church a marble monument with musical instruments and weeping putti in honor of the deceased Catarina Martinelli (d. 1608), the young student of Monteverdi who had been destined for the role of Arianna in the opera of that name before she died suddenly of smallpox.^[171]

6.11 There were nearly fifty churches, monasteries, oratorios, and hopitals (ospedali) that benefitted from Gonzaga interest and support from the time the family came to power in 1328 until 1627, when the principal family line expired.^[172] A list, drawn from Le chiese della città di Mantova nel ’700: Repertorio, Quaderni di San Lorenzo 17, may be seen in App. 2. This list illustrates further how closely the family was intertwined with the religious life of the community beyond the palace, and, in addition to the natural interest of the Gonzaga bishops in their diocese, how important their relationships to many different ecclesiastical institutions were to them personally and in their capacity as rulers of the state. The support of these institutions inevitably meant the support of their music, if only in the form of plainchant, but as we have seen in the several instances for which we have documentation, the most prominent churches in close proximity to the palace, the Cathedral of San Pietro and the Church of Sant’Andrea, profited from the resources of the ducal cappella in the performance of elaborate polyphony. Others may have done so on particular occasions as well, though we have no records of such performances at our present state of research. We do, however, have limited documentation suggesting polyphony in a few churches with organs or well-trained singers, but no records suggesting polyphony in the vast majority of the ecclesiastical institutions supported by the Gonzagas. Nevertheless, the examples of the musicians of the Convent of San Barnaba, the castrato Bacchino in the Convent of Santa Maria del Carmine, and the presence of organs in Santa Maria delle Grazie di Curtatone and Santa Maria Annunziata, attested by only a few documents, should caution against coming to the conclusion that there were not other churches and convents that had in their own institutions the capability of performing polyphony.

6.12 We know very little about stable cappelle musicali in other churches beyond San Pietro and Sant’Andrea, though the example of San Barnaba suggests there may have been more. When the court visited venues without their own singers capable of polyphony and wished for music more elaborate than plainchant, court singers, perhaps an organist and other instrumentalists, would have had to accompany the duke or other members of the Gonzaga family to these sites. As shown above, it is manifest that Bowers’s fundamental, unsupported, declaration, that “It was the duty of the personnel of the duke’s cappella … to conduct divine service not at large in city churches or elsewhere, but exclusively [our emphasis] on his premises” is untrue. While it was frequently the case that the cappella or some of its members performed “in a physical proximity to his person sufficiently close to enable him to be in attendance at any time of his choosing,” we note that Guglielmo Gonzaga resided for extended periods at his castle in Goito (where members of the cappella may have at times been at his disposal), and Vincenzo was away frequently on long trips outside Italy, elsewhere in Italy, or at various ducal retreats outside Mantua (on which he also may have brought along a few members of his chapel, as in the case of Monteverdi’s journeys abroad in the company of the duke).^[173] During these absences—when he left his wife Eleonora in charge of the court—the cappella, or the majority left behind, could still have performed at major liturgical functions in San Pietro, Sant’Andrea, or elsewhere. The liturgical calendar did not stop at the duke’s departure, though there are recorded instances when celebrations of major feasts or other events were delayed for his return or some other reason.^[174] It is highly implausible that the cappella and its maestro remained idle in either the secular or sacred realm during the many long absences of the duke.

CHURCHES AND CHAPELS (ORATORIOS) WITHIN THE PALACE

7. The Church of Santa Croce in Corte: Documentary Evidence

7.1 We have at the outset of this article noted Bowers’s description of the Church of Santa Croce as slightly larger than the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. We begin by turning our attention first to the written documentation we have regarding the church.

7.2 Santa Croce, constructed in the corte vecchia of the palace sometime in the period 1420–25, was not the first by that name in Mantua, nor the first associated with the Gonzagas. A Church of Santa Croce is recorded as early as 1151, not far from the cathedral, which appears to have been a parochial church and may have served the Bonacolsi (the Gonzagas’ predecessors as rulers of Mantua, driven out in 1328) as their palace church.^[175] The building, located in a place described as “low, humid, and rheumatic,” in the space that later became the Giardino Pensile of the palace, was first authorized for demolition by Pope Boniface IX in 1394, to be replaced by another church with the same name, in a concession reconfirmed by Pope Martin V in 1421, using much the same text as Boniface.^[176]

7.3 During the same period, the Gonzagas held the right of jus patronati of another Church of Santa Croce outside the palace in via Nievo, constructed according to the wishes of Agnese della Mirandola, wife of Guido Gonzaga, Second Captain of the People, the first notice of which dates from 1389 (see the church’s location on the map: Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 180).^[177] In that year, according to an eighteenth-century Prontuario della certosa, Francesco Gonzaga I gave the church to the Congregation of San Pietro.^[178] Subsequently, a bull of Pope Martin V dated 8 April 1425 mentions the transfer of the church to the Certosan monastery, “on condition that it is ceded by the rector of the aforesaid Church of Santa Croce to that monastery, or in case of his death.”^[179] According to Donesmondi, the church was given in 1427 to the Certosan monks as a local seat for their members when working in the city.^[180] On 8 May 1467, a notarial document attests that the keys to the church were turned over to the Certosans.^[181] However, these actions apparently did not formally yield the jus patronati of the Gonzagas over the church, for only on 4 November 1473 did Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga decree the donation by Marquis Ludovico III of the privilege of jus patronati of Santa Croce to the Certosans.^[182]

7.4 Returning to the Church of Santa Croce in Corte, a document dating from 1422 mentions one Bartolomeus, formerly archipresbyter of the cathedral, as the rector and administrator of Santa Croce, suggesting perhaps that the new Santa Croce in Corte had been completed as early as one year after Pope Martin confirmed Francesco I’s right to demolish the old one.^[183] More substantial evidence is a record of the loan of silver liturgical objects to the Santa Croce chapel for the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross on 2 May 1425.^[184] Donesmondi, writing nearly 200 years later, however, dates the construction of the church to 1444:

The marquis began to construct in the corte vecchia, a small, but very noble church with the title of Santa Croce (which he completed the following year [1444]) … and so that it not be lacking devoted officiants on the feasts of Santa Croce every year, he wanted, with goodwill toward all of the religious orders of the city, that they themselves by turns officiate perpetually, as is until this day the custom, each convent sending there two friars, to whom, once the Office was finished, was given abundant corporeal [in contrast to spiritual] food in the court itself by the devoted princes.^[185]

7.5 The discrepancy in dating might stem from the fact that in 1444 Marquis Gianfrancesco I had left to the new church the paintings, restored, from the old one.^[186] Installing them would have been an important event, records of which Donesmondi may have mistaken for the construction of the church itself. However, it is also worth noting that 1444 is indicated only in Donesmondi’s marginal note, and it is not uncommon for these marginal notes to have erroneous dates. For example, the first marginal note to the funeral of Eleonora of Austria reads 1597, while the note two pages later correctly identifies it as 1594.^[187] The art and architectural historian Stefano L’Occaso suggests that Gianfrancesco and his wife Paola Malatesta lived at a right angle to the church, opposite the Magna Domus in the apartments that later became known as those of the widow Isabella d’Este, where remains of paintings from ca. 1420 still survive.^[188]

7.6 Toward the end of 1521, we learn of the consecration of the large altar in Santa Croce at the command of Isabella d’Este. A record of 17 November of that year orders the payment by a “messer Negro” to Don Petro Antonio, Isabella’s chaplain, for two torches, two large candles, and [some other] candles, for the purpose of consecrating the large altar in the Church of Santa Croce in the corte vecchia.^[189] Another, of 30 December, indicates an additional payment to the same Don Antonio for four large candles for the consecration of the church.^[190] Why these consecrations were necessary in a church in use already for nearly one hundred years is not explained. Most likely they refer to a new altar replacing an earlier one and perhaps other renovations sufficient to require reconsecration of the church itself.

7.7 Much closer to his own time than 1444, Donesmondi explains the reasons that Duke Guglielmo began erecting the Church of Santa Barbara in 1561:

The most religious Prince Guglielmo; both because of his devotion and also for the convenience of the most Serene Eleonora, Archduchess of Austria, his consort, and for the desire that both had to attend the divine hours every day, because of the sung music (for which the small church of Santa Croce was insufficient), he initiated in this same year [1562, recte 1561] the sumptuous fabrication of the most noble temple of Santa Barbara (see App. 1, par. 2.1).^[191]

As before, Donesmondi uses a single word to describe Santa Croce: picciola (small).^[192]

7.8 Fourteen years later, and three years after the completion of Santa Barbara, we learn how infrequently the Church of Santa Croce was used, from a letter of 6 November 1575 from the ducal secretary, Don Aurelio Zibramonti, subsequently Bishop of Casale Monferrato, to Anselmo Mondino, a gentleman of Duke Guglielmo in Rome:

Don Massimigliano Ferrari, a parishioner of San Pietro, being in such condition that the doctors don’t think he will last until midnight, and maintaining the church of Santo Croce, not as a parishioner of the aforementioned parish, but as Don Massimigliano, which brings him five or six scudi per year, and in it [the Church of Santa Croce], as you, sir, must know, there is no care of souls, or anything else, but [it] is simple; and he is obligated to arrange it only two times per year on the Feast of Santa Croce in May and in September, on which days are sung there the Divine Offices.^[193]

7.9 From a letter to Duke Guglielmo written in Rome on 21 December 1575, possibly by the same Anselmo Mondino who six weeks previously had been the recipient of the letter describing the illness of Don Massimigliano Ferrari, we learn that the duke was sometimes so indisposed by pain tormenting his side (Guglielmo was a hunchback) that he couldn’t attend Divine Offices in Santa Barbara. Instead, on such occasions, he wished to hear them in Santa Croce and its other chapel (the “oratorio sopra Santa Croce,” to be discussed below). However, indulgences had been granted by the pope to the Abbot of Santa Barbara on behalf of those attending Divine Offices in Santa Barbara; such indulgences were not available in Santa Croce. To resolve this difficulty the pope was being solicited on behalf of Duke Guglielmo to invest the Abbot and other officials of Santa Barbara with the same right to grant indulgences in Santa Croce as they enjoyed in Santa Barbara. Guglielmo’s representative reassured the pope that since several officials at Santa Barbara had the right to grant indulgences, Santa Barbara itself would not suffer the loss of its normal indulgences when the Abbot was absent from there while conducting services for Guglielmo in Santa Croce. The pope agreed, indicating that he believed the duke would utilize this capacity only when he couldn’t go to Santa Barbara.^[194]

7.10 This letter is a clear indication that sometime in the previous few months, Guglielmo had relocated his residence from the Castello to the corte vecchia, since Santa Barbara was much closer to the Castello than the Church and Oratorio of Santa Croce. Guglielmo would not have sought indulgences at Santa Croce when he found it painful to walk if he had still been living in the Castello.^[195] The letter also testifies that after the construction of Santa Barbara, beyond Santa Croce’s assigned feasts of the Holy Cross, Duke Guglielmo attended services there only under special circumstances, such as those described in the letter, and that the Church of Santa Croce had not enjoyed the papal indulgences that had been granted to Santa Barbara, likely another factor in its reduced use. It is worth re-emphasizing that the request in the letter refers to two locations in the corte vecchia: the “chiesa di S. Croce” and “nell’altra cappella di lei,” i.e., the other chapel directly above the Church of Santa Croce.

7.11 A much more extensive description of the church and account of its activities is found in the report of an apostolic visitation dated just six weeks later, on 6 February 1576, by Angelo Peruzzi (on Bowers’s reading of Peruzzi’s report, see App. 1, par. 2.2–2.3):

I visited the church with the title Santa Croce, situated in the city of Mantua, in the Old Court of the most serene Guglielmo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua and Monferrato, in which, having first humbly addressed prayers to the highest Lord, I found a single altar located at the head of the church in a straight line to its doors, under an arch, or stone vault …

The altar, however, had at one time been consecrated with a seal; but is now unconsecrated, having been split with an enormous crosswise crack as long as a braccio and a half.^[196] I therefore ordered the stone to be strengthened, by setting underneath a wall of brick, since the stone is rather large and fine, and in the place of the seal, which is in the middle, where the altar is still unbroken, or near it, a groove to be made to accommodate a portable altar stone of eight unciae in length and six in width, wrapped in a waxed cloth.^[197] [I also ordered] that the aforesaid altar not be used to celebrate the Mass until it is repaired unless a portable altar is placed on top and then consecrated, over which it may then be permitted to celebrate the Mass, and not otherwise. Or the whole altar stone may be entirely replaced and consecrated; or is modified to accommodate the portable altar as indicated above.

I saw the bell tower with its bells, but deformed in the higher part of its pyramid by the force of lightning sent from heaven, which is quite difficult to repair, since similar stones cannot be found. For it had been made with brick stones, but of diverse colors, which cannot be found at the present time, since they are not in use; nevertheless, it has stood erect for many, many years.

In the aforesaid church the rector does not celebrate except on the feasts of the Holy Cross, or when called because of some princes or official [foreign?] dignitaries [who are] guests in that court, and commanded by the most serene duke, he [the rector] celebrates in the presence of the said princes and dignitaries in the aforesaid church for the convenience of those mentioned dignitaries.^[198] On these solemnities, two mendicant friars come from any order [Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Carmelites] for celebrating Mass, and for First and Second Vespers, for the Hours, and for sung Masses, sometimes ten or twelve from one of those orders, sometimes from another, to whom alms are bestowed by the aforesaid most serene [duke].

I did not find the new missal [Missale Romanum of 1570], but I heard it was brought [there] as necessary. However, in the presence of the most serene duke, the chaplains use the missal of Santa Barbara, but rarely does he [the duke] have it celebrated in the aforesaid church.

On both sides of the altar are cracks that disfigure the area of the altar; I ordered that they be repaired. The church is otherwise well decorated with beautiful pictures inside, and outside wholly red, and with images sculpted in stone. The double doors of the aforesaid church are ornamented at great expense, with a sculpted cross high over the doors signifying the name of the church, and on the right a sculpted image of angels, and on the left the Virgin Mary at the moment of the Annunciation with an image of God the Father below and the Holy Spirit above, all with engraved sculptures out of very precious stone, which showed by their size and value, that this was not the effort (opus) of poor priests, as they [actually] are, but of powerful and rich princes. The doors are protected and kept locked by very strong bolts and keys.^[199]

7.12 To summarize Peruzzi’s comments on Santa Croce, he found the single altar broken and in need of repairs or to be replaced altogether. Cracks on either side of the altar made the area around it unsightly. He ordered that Mass not be said until such repairs or replacement be completed and the altar re-consecrated. The bell tower had been deformed for many years by a lightning strike. The rector only celebrates there on the two annual feasts of the Holy Cross (in conformity with the 6 November 1575 letter of Aurelio Zibramonti quoted above (see par. 7.8) and the description by Donesmondi, also quoted above (par. 7.4), or when the duke asks the rector to celebrate for the convenience of important visitors (the report does not say that the duke or any members of his family were present on such occasions). For the two feasts and occasional visitors, two mendicant friars come from one of the Mantuan orders (as also described by Donesmondi) to perform the Mass, Vespers, and other Offices. When sung Masses are performed, ten or twelve friars come from one of the orders. The new Roman missal of 1570 was not found in the church, though Peruzzi heard it had been brought there when necessary. When the duke celebrated Mass there, which was rarely, the missal of Santa Barbara was made available.

7.13 Despite the damage and infrequent use, the church still contained ecclesiastical objects of silver, gold, and brass as well as beautiful paintings and very ornate doors and expensive sculptures on the exterior surface. Donesmondi had appropriately characterized the church as picciola, ma molto nobile, though by 1575–76 many facets of that nobility had clearly deteriorated.

7.14 The visitation report also briefly describes three oratories in the corte vecchia. We will return to consideration of these after pursuing further written documentation regarding Santa Croce.

7.15 Federico Follino, the Mantuan chronicler, describes the funeral ceremonies in 1587 for Guglielmo Gonzaga, who had died outside the city in the castle at Goito on Friday, 14 August. The body was brought in procession the next evening to Mantua, arriving at night, at which point it was placed on a catafalque in Santa Croce:

And the body, disembarked here, accompanied by this entire party, and carried into the small church of Santa Croce, situated under the rooms where His Highness formerly usually lived, [the body] placed upon a catafalque, adapted to the narrowness of the space … was left here under the custody of some of the Religious of Santa Barbara and a part of the bowmen’s guard. The body was visited by various fine painters and sculptors who clandestinely wished to make images of the duke, who had refused to allow such images when alive.^[200]

7.16 Once again, the word picciol is used to describe the Church of Santa Croce, and the catafalque was constructed to fit into the narrow space (conveniente alla strettezza del luogo). Only on Tuesday, 18 August, was the duke’s coffin placed on top of a much larger catafalque in the courtyard in front of the Church of Santa Croce for four hours to allow the clergy to pay their last homage. The body was then carried in procession out into the piazza (Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 2) and on to Santa Barbara.^[201] It is worth noting that Santa Croce is described as “under the rooms where the duke used to live.” These apartments were in the space renovated in the period 1578–82 to become the Sala dei Fiumi and the rooms at a right angle to it, above the former apartments of Isabella d’Este opposite the Magna Domus.^[202]

7.17 In mid-May of 1592, the two-year-old third son of Duke Vincenzo, Guglielmo Domenico, died while the duke was away. The funeral, which took place on 18 May, was described in a letter to the duke by Follino, who had organized the event:

The body, as written [in the letter], was placed in the Church of Santa Croce in Corte where, continually guarded for six days by religious from Santa Barbara, it was preserved so well that he seemed to have died just then. [The body was surrounded by silk and live flowers, the church was adorned throughout with golden drapery and filled with perfumes.] … Then, the hour for the obsequies arriving, I had the entire court appear in the courtyard in front of the church … then I had the small body placed upon a small, but greatly adorned bier.… The bier, placed as high as possible in that same church, was surrounded by various torches at 21:00 [ca. 16:45 CET each day] so that it could be seen by the populace, who during the past [six] days had thronged with great frequency in such large numbers in that period that it was a marvel.^[203]

7.18 The continuation of the funeral rites for this small child are worth quoting to give an idea of the relationship between the Gonzaga court in such a moment of grief and the Gonzagas’ subjects, both religious and secular, as participants in the life of their lord and his family:

At sunset at the stroke of 24:00 [19:15 on the day of burial] the great bell of the cathedral began to sound for a quarter of an hour, as was done at Santa Barbara and San Francesco … because the first [the cathedral] was not only the parish church of the court, but also the church of the city’s bishop, who would come to raise the body; the second [Santa Barbara] as the place of the burial; the third [San Francesco] since the boy had been dressed in the Franciscan habit before he had died. At 24:30 [19:45] there sounded another signal [bell ringing] for a quarter of an hour, after which all these men and others of the ducal family with many gentlemen gathered in some rooms prepared [for the occasion] near the body, to await the time to accompany it [the body] to the burial. And suddenly at 1:00 [20:15] the aforementioned bells began to sound again for the third time, which then continued until the body was buried.

At the same time as the bells began, the friars also began to exit from the cathedral, at the head of whom went the principal standard of the procession. These [friars] went very orderly and quietly into the court through the larger gate of the corte vecchia [Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo, no. 20]. As they approached the new rooms of the grotto [Bertazzolo, no. 18], they were given lit torches into their hands, and then in their file, singing, they went out through the large courtyard of the corte vecchia [Bertazzolo, no 2] along the Via di Santa Barbara [to the courtyard of Santa Barbara, Bertazzolo, no. 106]. The clergy of Santa Barbara followed in their own order the friars, and then came that [the clergy] of San Pietro with the Monsignor Reverendissimo Bishop; as soon as he had appeared in white Pontificale vestments, twelve pages exited their rooms with their lit torches in their hands, and walked before him up to the bier where the body was [in Santa Croce]. He and his ministers having arrived and having said some prayers while having sprinkled the body with holy water, left the church. And immediately the bier was raised up by six squires [each named], who, appointed to that [role] carried the body most solemnly. Upon arrival at the Church of Santa Barbara, one saw placed in the middle a catafalque of four levels, completely covered with beautiful carpets at the top of which was a receptacle in the shape of an arc, also covered with golden brocade, upon which these men placed the bier in the middle of many torches that burned all around, where it remained until the Divine Office, instituted for the burial of children, had been recited pontifically. Then, again raised up by the same [squires] and carried to the door of the tomb …^[204]

7.19 Two years after the funeral of Guglielmo Domenico, on 5 August 1594, the Duchess Eleonora of Austria, widow of Duke Guglielmo, died (see par. 4.15). As with Duke Guglielmo, the body, after embalming, was brought by the clergy of San Pietro to Santa Croce for three days of viewing before it was taken on 9 August in a large procession to the Jesuit Church of Santissima Trinità for funeral rites and burial.^[205]

7.20 When Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga died on 18 February 1612, he too was brought to Santa Croce for a few days of public viewing, after which his body was carried in procession to Sant’Andrea and placed on a high, grandiose (pomposo) catafalque for the obsequies (see par. 4.24). It is noteworthy that Donesmondi specifically mentions that it was the custom for embalmed princes (conforme all’uso de’ Prencipi imbalsimato) to be brought to Santa Croce in Corte for public viewing, as we have seen in these several examples.^[206]

7.21 Thus, Donesmondi’s reports illustrate that apart from the feasts of the Holy Cross, occasional use by visitors and guests of the court, and rare appearances by the duke, Santa Croce had become the traditional locus for public viewing of the bodies of deceased members of the royal family. Its small size, with a larger courtyard outside, lent itself to placing the body in an intimate space, but one accessible to large numbers of people who could file in controlled fashion from the courtyard of Santa Croce through the front entrance, by the coffin, and out the side door. The courtyard itself was also readily accessible from the Piazza San Pietro through the principal entrance to the corte vecchia, which was protected by a guardpost. There was space for people to gather in the courtyard, and it was even possible for larger crowds to assemble in the Piazza San Pietro awaiting their turn to enter into the courtyard. However, these cortèges of viewers, and the benedictions over the bodies before they were removed to other churches, cannot qualify as Bowers’s “grand liturgical occasions.”^[207]

7.22 As remarked earlier, the 1576 visitation report by Angelo Peruzzi also mentions three oratories in the corte vecchia; their location is not entirely clear from the report alone, but they appear to be named in order of their proximity to the Church of Santa Croce (see discussion of oratorios below). Here we need to rely not only on the visitation report, and other documents, but also on detailed studies of the remnants of the church by architectural historians.^[208]

8. The Church of Santa Croce in Corte: Visual and Architectural Evidence

8.1 As mentioned in the preface (par. 1.1), Bowers argues that Santa Croce was located in the large building called the Magna Domus. Here he cites visual images and architectural diagrams, starting with aerial perspectives of the city of Mantua, engraved on copper by the engineer Gabriele Bertazzolo, the first from 1596 (see Figs. 15a and 15b below), and the second the more detailed and improved version of 1628 to which we have already referred: see Urbis Mantuae Descriptio – Gabriele Bertazzolo.^[209] But Bowers’s arguments here do not pass muster (see App. 1, par. 2.10–2.11).

8.2 Aerial cityscapes like these were produced primarily by individuals ascending to the tops of the highest towers available and drawing what they could see. The drawings then served as the bases from which woodcuts or engravings were made. The degree of accuracy depended on what the viewers could see, on the accuracy of the original drawings, and the accuracy with which those drawings were transferred to the woodblock or the copper engraving plate. But the purpose of these cityscapes was not to be precise surveys of a city. They served as the means for locating and identifying streets, waterways, gardens, buildings, towers, gates, and other features of the city for those who needed the information, and for others as reminders of the urban environment in which they lived, or as souvenirs of places they had visited.

8.3 Bowers takes the 1628 engraving as if it were indeed an accurate image of the city of Mantua. But it is far from that. While the city has changed much from 1628, the palace buildings remain largely the same except for subsquent constructions, and by comparing the 1596 and 1628 engravings with photographs of the palace and the actual positions of buildings, it is clear that Bertazzolo’s renditions are no more than schematic, and sometimes downright inaccurate depictions of several particulars of the palace, including the Church of Santa Croce.

[click image to enlarge]

[click image to enlarge]

8.4 In the 1596 plan, the tall, thin steeple with cross on the summit, circled on Fig. 15a (no. 102 on the plan), belongs to Santa Croce. The church can be seen snug against the northeastern corner of the courtyard (corte vecchia), with the Magna Domus barely visible on the westerly side, the latter fronting on the Piazza San Pietro (Piazza Sordello).^[210] The Cathedral of San Pietro (no. 39) is directly across the piazza from the Church of Santa Croce. There are no bays to be seen at the base of Santa Croce, and its campanile and steeple are far taller than in other, more realistic contemporary images. There are other architectural features of this engraving also worth examining (see Fig. 15b; refer to the compass on Fig. 15a). Directly below the Church of Santa Croce, there is a small tower with dome lantern (circled in Fig. 15b) atop the northeastern corner of the building that encloses the northerly end of the garden (Giardino Pensile). Looking further to the southeast of that small tower, one sees the campanile of Santa Barbara abutting the Church (demarcated by the rectangle in Fig. 15b). The campanile had originally been spatially isolated from the church, but the church was connected to the campanile by as early as 1581, as can be seen in the partial palace plan drawn up by the engineer and architect Bernardino Facciotto (Fig. 16, letter G). This plan,with its spaces conveniently labeled by Paolo Carpeggiani, dates from before November 1581, according to Carpeggiani’s estimate based on what is included and what is absent in the plan.^[211]

[click image to enlarge]

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8.5 Bertazzolo’s more detailed image of 1628 (see Fig. 15c) is not a mere reproduction with greater clarity than that of 1596. If we look at the same buildings, there are significant differences in the details. The Church of Santa Croce (no. 179, marked by an arrow) is now located in the northwestern quadrant of the courtyard and has two external bays in front of the bell tower, which is at the northwestern end of the courtyard; the church’s entire structure is flanked by the Magna Domus on its westerly side. While the church originally had two bays—one the location of the altar—only one bay was likely external to the campanile (see the diagram by Stefano L’Occaso, Fig. 29, to be discussed below). Bertazzolo’s two external bays may have been meant to illustrate schematically the two bays of the church, one of which actually lay under the campanile, not in front of it. Other than the number 179 identifying the Church of Santa Croce, the only identifying number we see on the map relating to the Santa Croce complex is number 20, situated in the external courtyard diagonally opposite the steeple of the church of Santa Croce; the legend identifies it as the entrance to the internal courtyard and its surrounding buildings (Porta di Corte Vecchia).

8.6 The 1628 version (Fig. 15c) reflects Guglielmo Gonzaga’s enlargement and addition of the garden portico on the easterly side of the Santa Croce courtyard, located opposite the Magna Domus (the portico indicated by the thin red line on Fig. 15c), but these structures are not present in the 1596 plan (Fig. 15a and Fig. 15b), even though the construction had been completed by 1582. The lantern on top of the triangular staircase adjacent to the northeastern corner of the Giardino Pensile, below the Santa Croce courtyard on the 1628 map, is also somewhat differently located on the 1596 map (compare the circled images in Figs. 15b and 15c). The campanile of Santa Barbara is likewise differently placed—isolated from the flank of the church and out in front of it in the piazza in the 1628 version (see rectangle in Fig. 15c), but, as already noted, correctly located adjacent to the corner of the church in the 1596 engraving (see rectangle in Fig. 15b).

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8.7 Both engravings also depart in various other particulars from the actual structures and their positioning in the palace complex. Bertazzolo’s 1628 design of the campanile of Santa Barbara (Fig. 15c), comprising five levels beneath the bell housing itself, is not at all in accord with the actual structure (Fig. 17). It appears to be more accurate in the 1596 version, though the clarity of the image leaves much to be desired. In 1596 the Giardino Ducale (Cortile d’Onore, also known as the Giardino dei Quattro Platani), just beyond the tip of the red arrow in Fig. 15b, is accurately represented as rectangular, but in the 1628 version (Fig. 15c, where it is overlooked by no. 8, the Loggia della Città, on its southerly side) the northwest corner on the opposite side of the cortile does not appear to be enclosed, and the extension of the large building housing the Sala dei Fiumi on the southerly side of the Giardino Pensile (just below the Church of Santa Croce), in reality along the same plane as the Loggia della Città, is askew, creating an open-cornered trapezoid of the Cortile d’Onore. The easterly side of the cortile, in reality directly parallel to the Magna Domus and Piazza San Pietro, is likewise askew in the 1628 plan, and therefore not parallel to the eastward Domus Nova (Fig. 15c, no. 14, Galleria delle cose naturale, just above the Santa Barbara campanile on the map), to which it is in reality directly parallel (as one can see in Fig. 16, where the quadrangular Cortile d’Onore is letter N). There are also major discrepancies in the corte vecchia between Facciotto’s architectural plans of 1578–81 and Bertalozzo’s engravings, to the detriment of the latter.

8.8 Recently, it has been discovered that a copy of Bertazzolo’s 1628 plan, now at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, while published in that same year, is actually a later state of the engraving, with many differences from the copy in Mantua.^[212] The versions in Mantua and Paris were both completed sometime before 1620; both show remnants of this date as the original intended date of publication. The relationship between them is complicated and not always capable of resolution at present, but many features of the version in Paris are corrections of errors or improvements in detail, not only of the earlier state of the 1628 plan but of the 1596 version as well, while the original 1596 view represents other features more accurately, if more crudely, as in the differences already noted above.^[213] Among the divergences between the two 1628 versions is the representation of the Santa Barbara campanile, which follows Bertani’s original design and its ultimate realization in the version in Paris, while the one in Mantua, as already indicated, is inaccurate and fanciful in its structure. Both, however, display the same erroneous positioning of the tower. The differences between the two 1628 versions do not affect the corte vecchia, which is represented in both rather poorly and identically, differing from the 1596 version as described above.

8.9 These differences and erroneous features demonstrate that Bertazzolo’s engravings are unreliable for making assertions about architectural details of the palace. They give only a general schematic idea of the location and basic shape of structures. Moreover, we find it impossible to justify by any of the engravings what Bowers claims they show: that “the church [Santa Croce] … is clearly depicted as having occupied the greater part of the … Magna Domus.” In all three engravings it appears as a distinct structure.

8.10 Ironically, another engraving by Bertazzolo, illustrating the naumachia, or mock naval battle, that took place on the lake during the Gonzaga wedding festivities of 1608 (Fig. 18), depicts both the Santa Barbara bell tower (Fig. 17 above) and the Santa Croce campanile considerably more realistically.

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8.11 The same is true of a painting by Francesco Borgani entitled “San Francesco intercede presso la Madonna con Gesù Bambino” from ca. 1615, in the Ducal Palace, cited by Bowers (see Fig. 19).^[214] The campanile of Santa Croce is depicted in this painting directly above Saint Francis’s right hand, but either restored from its deformation by a lightening strike as described in the 1576 visitor’s report, or simply represented as fully upright by Borgani despite its actual condition.^[215]

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8.12 Architectural drawings and sketches from the late sixteenth century and beyond consistently identify the actual location of the Church of Santa Croce. We have already presented the detailed plan of the entire palace complex at the level of the piano superiore by Bernardino Facciotto, the engineer and architect who had been brought from Casale Monferrato to Mantua in 1580, to work on major projects in the ducal palace. (See Fig. 16, where Santa Croce is no. 8.) In 1590 Facciotto returned to Casale Monferrato to work on the citadel, where he died in 1592.^[216] During his stay in Mantua, he labored on a number of major projects, building new buildings, geometrically rationalizing spaces, and joining separate elements of the palace complex into a more connected whole. The designs he left behind, dating from the period 1580–82, give us an accurate idea of spaces in the palace grounds during that period.^[217]

8.13 Facciotto rarely labels his designs; it will be recalled that the legend on Fig. 16 was provided by the scholar Paolo Carpeggiani. Where we do find spaces specifically labeled are in the 1773 architectural drawings by the theater painter Gaetano Crevola, in furtherance of a projected reconstruction of parts of the palace for use by the Austrian government. Crevola’s plan of the ground floor of the existing structure (Fig. 20) shows the Magna Domus divided into separate spaces by walls (nos. 38–40). Crevola identifies the space at the northeasterly end of the cortile Santa Croce (Fig. 20, no. 34) as “Pantry, formerly the small chapel (capellina) of Santa Croce.”^[218] Crevola’s plan of the piano superiore (Fig. 21), identifies the space directly above the “Pantry” (dispensa) as “Small chapel above that of Santa Croce” (no. 81). This plan shows walls and separate rooms in the same positions as in Facciotto’s plan of almost 200 years earlier. Moreover, Crevola’s piano superiore walls are in the same position as in his ground floor plan, as would have been structurally necessary (Fig. 21, nos. 74, 77). Thus, both Facciotto’s and Crevola’s plans of the Magna Domus depict the walls of several separate rooms on both floors rather than Bowers’s several bays of a single-nave church. Crevola’s project also called for subdividing some of the original two levels into three as shown on his third plan (Fig. 22), whose legend for this space (number XVIII) reads: “Rooms for the pantry, which will be reduced [in size] by another level that can serve as residence for the family.”^[219]  (See App. 1, par. 2.12–2.16, for Bowers’s arguments pertaining to the Facciotto and Crevola plans, and their relationship to the Church of Santa Croce and the oratorium secretum in the 1576 visitation report.)

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8.14 A few of the remnants of the church can be seen from both the inside and the outside of the existing structure. Fig. 23 shows an arch of the original structure, cut off by the reconstruction described by Crevola. The two branches of the arch originally joined in the open space above. In Fig. 24 we can see the outline of the upper half of a large circular window with a smaller circular outline inscribed within it near the summit of the structure, filled in presumably at the time of the other Austrian renovations. The smaller circular outline suggests a separate window within the larger one. Fig. 25 is the underlying brick facade, shorn of its surface facing, but still showing the position of an original large circular window near the top and the original pilasters or half-columns running up the full height of the church on either side. The position of the original door is revealed by the interruption at the center of the plinth at the foot of the building. The back side of the building also was open to the courtyard behind prior to the construction of the large hall that became the Sala dei Fiumi. A stone rosone still rests in its original location there (see Fig. 26).^[220]

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8.15 On the basis of his studies of the remnants and details of construction of the picciola Church of Santa Croce, Stefano l’Occaso was able to hypothesize, quite convincingly we believe, what the design and shape of the Church of Santa Croce originally was. Fig. 27 offers a bird’s-eye view of the ground floor, housing the church itself, with the main entry door at the bottom.

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8.16 As shown in Fig. 28, by projecting the continuation of the remains of the original gothic arches supporting the ceiling (see Fig. 23), L’Occaso was able to determine the original height of the lower level of the church (at the peak of the arches) and estimate the height of the floor of the oratorio (ipotetica quota originaria del pavimento piano oratorio), which had been removed in the Austrian recconstruction. Together with his studies of the exterior remnants of the building as well as documentary descriptions, he has been able to sketch a reconstruction of the original Church and Oratorio of Santa Croce (Fig. 29). In these sketches we can see a structure that conforms to all of the descriptions of the church we have cited (including the 1576 visitation report on which Bowers leans so heavily), the structure that remains to this day, and all of the evidence from architectural investigations of that structure, including how it was altered and what it must have looked like in the late sixteenth century. These sketches are the result of detailed studies and careful evaluation of evidence, which Bowers has dismissed out of hand, without providing any critique of them to justify doing so. He has instead placed the church in a different location, for which there is no evidence, and which actually contradicts all the evidence in the sources he himself cites.

9. The Church of Santa Croce in Corte: The First Oratorio Described in the Petruzzi Visitation Report of 1576

9.1 We continue now with a discussion of the first of the three corte vecchio oratorios mentioned in the 1576 visitation. The report on the first oratorio follows immediately after the completion of the commentary on the church: “At [or near] the same church, I visited a separate [or private] oratory of the most serene duke, in which, [the service] is still celebrated on feasts of the Holy Cross.”^[221] This must be the space labeled “Oratorio superiore” in L’Occaso’s reconstruction of the church, Fig. 29 above. The introductory apud in the quoted sentence is one key to the location of this oratory. The word can mean both “near” and “at”; the latter will be familiar to anyone who has studied sixteenth- and seventeenth-century music prints, for it is the standard means by which prints in Latin identify the publisher: e.g.,“Venetijs, Apud Ricciardum Amadinum,” on the title page of Monteverdi’s 1610 Mass and Vespers. Bowers, however, interprets it erroneously as “in the close vicinity of” (see App. 1, par. 2.14).^[222]

9.2 Just like the consecrated church space beneath it, the oratory was used particularly on feasts of the Holy Cross. It is important to note here the frequently ambiguous meaning of the term ecclesia. It can refer to the entire building, as when the visitor Peruzzi writes about its campanile, but can also refer to the space actually consecrated as a church, which was the ground level. By the same token, the word cappella is sometimes used to refer to the oratory and sometimes to the ground-floor church. It is the context that identifies which space is meant.

9.3 By 1578, some two years after the visitor’s report, remodeling and redecorating of Duke Guglielmo’s apartments  in a series of rooms above the former residence of Isabella d’Este on the easterly side of the Santa Croce courtyard was underway, which generated a large quantity of documents and some architectural drawings of the corte vecchia as well, especially by the engineer and architect Bernardino Facciotto, who (as mentioned above) had moved to Mantua from Casale Monferrato in 1580.^[223] In these documents are several references to the “oratorio sopra Santa Croce.” By the autumn of 1579, work on the oratorio sopra Santa Croce had been completed.^[224] But additional decorations were also undertaken the next year. On 12 September 1580, Teodoro Sangiorgio wrote to Bernardino Brugnoli about constructing a compartment for a painting (un compartimento di pittura) in the “oratorio sopra Santa Croce.” The next day he wrote again, requesting accurate measurement of tapestries that were (had been?) in the capeletta sopra Santa Croce and in the sala nuova (Sala dei Fiumi). He also wrote later that same day to Federico Donati, after hearing the response of the duke to what Donati had written about the tapestries, that Guglielmo did not want to hang tapestries with figures, but brochette that were lovely and good and not shabby (brochette che siano belle et buone et non fruste). It was necessary to write to Venice to see if they could be obtained there. Donati, together with the architect Facciotto, was to take accurate measurements of the pieces that were to go in the oratorio (in detta capeletta) and send a list to the person who would try to find them.^[225]

9.4 On 17 September 1580, Sangiorgio wrote to Brugnoli that “the duke did not want the bench [support] of the altar in the oratorio sopra santa Croce to extend beyond the [line of] points that you will see in the diagram I am sending you.”^[226] According to Berzaghi, redecoration of the oratorio sopra S. Croce was finished in the autumn of 1580.^[227]

9.5 On 7 January 1582, Facciotto wrote to Duke Guglielmo regarding the construction of a staircase leading from the Corte Santa Croce to the reconstructed Sala Nuova (Sala dei Fiumi). In this letter Facciotto refers to “the design of the staircase that can be used to ascend to the cappella without impeding the passageway that is required between the large room and the staircase that runs from the courtyard to the Sala Nuova (Sala dei Fiumi). This [the new staircase] will work because I found that the vault of this staircase is a little less than three braccie lower than had been thought.”^[228] From Facciotto’s description it is clear that the projected staircase would be used to ascend to the cappella. Cappella here must refer to the oratorio sopra Santa Croce, for the church itself was on the ground floor level of the courtyard.

9.6 Further evidence of the location of this oratory above the church is found in an oration preached by the friar Serafino Collini at the funeral of Eleonora de’ Medici in 1611. After citing many pious deeds of Eleonora, Collini begins his list of ecclesiastical spaces she had supported with the “most precious oratorio built over the church of Santa Croce” where she found “tranquility of spirit.”^[229] According to Berzaghi, the oratorio had been remodeled during the reign of Duke Vincenzo.^[230] In 1619 it is mentioned again as the “capella di Santa Croce di sopra in Corte” in an inventory of the goods of Paolo Emilio Gonzaga as the location of the original of an altarpiece by Rubens of which Paolo Emilio owned a copy by Francesco Marco Leone.^[231]

9.7 The original function of the space was still clearly recognizable a century and a half later in an inventory of 10 April 1763 by one Giuseppe Bianchi, who described the space as “Church, or chapel above that of Santa Croce, built with a dome-shaped vault …”^[232] The same location is designated as “Luogo in ora, ad uso di Dispensa” in an architectural plan of the piano nobile by Giuseppe Bisagni of 1772;^[233] as we have seen, “dispensa” is also the term used for the area immediately beneath it in Gaetano Crevola’s 1773 ground plan for the reconstruction of the corte vecchia (Fig. 20, no. 34). Crevola’s plan of the piano nobile identifies the upper-level space as “a small chapel above that of Santa Croce.” (See Fig. 21, no. 81.)^[234] Crevola’s project for reconstruction of spaces in the corte vecchia called for subdividing the two levels into three as shown on his third plan, whose legend for this space and adjacent rooms in the Magna Domus (all numbered XVIII) reads: “Rooms for the pantry, which will be reduced [in size] by another level that can serve as residence for the family” (see Fig. 22, nos. XVIII).^[235] It was this subdivision of two levels into three that obscured the continuation of the gothic arches of both original levels of Santa Croce that are still partially visible today.

9.8 A 1781 report on an inventory of 2 May 1775 of the furnishings (mobile, e suppellettili) of the ducal palace, compiled by the deceased master of the guardarobba, one Giuseppe Ever, includes, among the rooms inventoried, the Capellina superiore di Santa Croce, using the same formula as Crevola in 1773 (see Fig. 21, no. 81).^[236]

10. The Magna Domus in the corte vecchia

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10.1 Since Bowers is insistent, without evidence, that the Magna Domus housed his putative large Church of Santa Croce, it is worthwhile to explore briefly in more detail the history of this building and its functions, as well as its context and relationship to the Church of Santa Croce in the corte vecchia. See Fig. 29a.

10.2 The history of the Magna Domus is less well understood than that of other parts of the corte vecchia because of an absence of the kind of extensive documentation occasioned by reconstruction before the interventions by the Austrians in the 1770s. At that time much of its earlier interior was altered, especially the functions of various spaces. Nevertheless, as we have already demonstrated, the interior divisions of the building, as shown by walls in the plan of Bernardino Facciotto from somewhere between 1580 and 1582 (Fig. 16) and the plans of Gaetano Crevola in 1773 (Fig. 20, Fig. 21, Fig. 22) are almost identical. Since there is no record of major reconstruction in the Magna Domus in the sixteenth century after the establishment of the widowed Isabella d’Este’s apartments in the corte vecchia in the 1520s, there appears to have been no significant changes in the basic structure of the building beyond relocating the principal entrance until the Austrian renovations of the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

10.3 The origins of the Magna Domus are thought to be near the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth; the building and the adjacent Palazzo del Capitano were acquired sometime after 1299 by Guido Bonacolsi, who became captain of the commune in that year. The two buildings became the seat of power in Mantua as the Bonacolsi strengthened their control over the city.^[237] Until 1308, the Magna Domus seems to have consisted of what is now the main part of the building and a tower adjacent to but separated from it. In 1308, Guido Bonacolsi, who lived in the Magna Domus, enlarged it with the aid of Comune funds, apparently by connecting it to the tower that lay at the southern end of the Magna Domus and adding a continuous portico across the facade of both.^[238] The interior of the palace itself was from its inception divided into the two levels still seen in the Crevola plans of 1773.

10.4 In 1328 Ludovico I Gonzaga overthrew the Bonacolsi and seized the captaincy of the city. There are conflicting theories regarding when the Gonzagas occupied the Magna Domus as their residence. Documents from 1332 and 1335 suggest that Ludovico and his three sons, Guido, Filippino, and Feltrino, resided in the building from immediately after Ludovico’s coup in 1328.^[239]  Another document may refer to cession of the Magna Domus to the Gonzagas in 1357.^[240] However, whether the “domo magna” mentioned in the 1357 document was actually the Magna Domus or some other “large house” previously owned by the Bonacolsi has been questioned.^[241] The Church of Santa Croce mentioned in the same document of transfer is the older Bonacolsi church, torn down in the early fifteenth century and replaced by the new one as described above (see par. 7.2–7.7). During the early years of the Gonzaga reign, the family was active in acquiring a number of existing buildings in the vicinity of the Magna Domus and Palazzo del Capitano. According to Giovanni Rodella, these purchases ceased in the early 1360s, and by 1370 Ludovico II Gonzaga had acquired all of the land and buildings in the old city (civitas vetus).^[242]

10.5 Modifications of the portico of the Magna Domus and significant enlargement of the Palazzo del Capitano, including joining the two buildings together despite the difference in the angle of each vis-à-vis the Piazza San Pietro (Piazza Sordello), were undertaken by the Gonzagas probably not long after their accession to power.^[243] The resulting attachment of the two buildings, because of the misalignment of their structures, resulted in a trapezoidal shape for the Magna Domus itself and of the rooms at the extreme southwestern end of the Magna Domus on both the ground floor and the piano nobile. These trapezoidal spaces and the other interior rooms on both the ground floor and the piano nobile are visible not only in the Facciotto plan of 1580/81 (Fig. 16), but also in the 1773 plans of Gaetano Crevola (Fig. 20, Fig. 21, Fig. 22) made in preparation for major Austrian renovations, testifying to the continuity of the interior structure on both levels.^[244] The late gothic windows just under the roofline at the southwestern end of the building, matching the similar, larger windows on the secondo piano of the Palazzo del Capitano, were also added in the first half of the fourteenth century.^[245]

10.6 In contrast to the limited reconstruction of the Magna Domus after the Gonzaga takeover, the Palazzo del Capitano underwent major expansion and renovation, probably in the early years of Gonzaga rule, including its portico and the attachment to the former tower previously incorporated into the southwestern end of the Magna Domus.^[246] For our interests, the most important interior structure created at this time was the large chapel (cappella magna), with frescoes dated ca. 1340, on the piano nobile in the middle of the expanded Palazzo del Capitano, above the ground floor passageway leading through the building into the piazza behind.^[247] This is the chapel that may have served important public functions as well as those of the family (see par. 12.5).^[248]

10.7 No major changes in the Magna Domus are recorded in the fifteenth century, but between 1520 and 1524 both the ground floor and primo piano were incorporated into the apartments of Isabella d’Este, who remodeled the ground-floor structures on the easterly side of the courtyard of Santa Croce, and possibly those behind the church itself and both levels in the Magna Domus as well, in order to relocate from the Castello to the corte vecchia after the death of her husband, Marquis Francesco II, in 1519. The entire complex, including the Magna Domus, was known as the Appartamento di Santa Croce. Isabella herself inhabited the rooms on the opposite side of the courtyard from the Magna Domus, which were ready for her occupancy in 1520.^[249] She also remodeled a southeastern wing between the Cortile d’Onore (Cortile di Quattro Platani) and the Piazza Pallone (Piazza della Lega Lombarda, Cortile di Corte Vecchia [M] on the Facciotto plan, Fig. 16), known as the Appartamento della Grotta (see Fig. 15b). It was to this part of the palace she transferred her famous studiolo from her former residence in the Castello and installed her grotta, a secret garden, and rooms for her collections of paintings, sculpture, gems, reliefs, and antique coins.^[250]

10.8 According to an inventory of 4 May 1542, Isabella herself had occupied nine rooms in the corte vecchia, while her ladies-in-waiting had inhabited another eleven, principally in the Magna Domus (a few rooms, especially behind the Church of Santa Croce, have since disappeared because of later construction). Some of the rooms occupied by the ladies-in-waiting were on the ground floor and others on the piano superiore (nobile). Given the quantity of such rooms, her entourage must have occupied virtually all of the Magna Domus (see Fig. 30).^[251] Further evidence of the location of her ladies in the Magna Domus is in a letter from Mario Equicola to Duke Federico II, of 20 August 1521, describing an incident in which the ladies (donzelle) were watching from the windows fronting on the Piazza di San Pietro (alle fenestre che respondono alla piazza) as German soldiers were passing by. A number of the soldiers stopped to gaze at the ladies and four or five of the most presumptuous entered into the courtyard, one even threatening a servant by the name of Isabella, but they were finally restrained and led back outside the court.^[252] Isabella d’Este lived in her new apartments with her entourage until her death in 1539.

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10.9 The separate rooms in the apartments of Isabella d’Este, on both levels of the Magna Domus in the early sixteenth century—later confirmed as unchanged in their basic structure by the architectural plans of Facciotto of 1580/1581, Bisagni in 1772, and Crevola in 1773—make it impossible for the Magna Domus ever to have contained a church of a single nave larger than the Sistine Chapel. The apparent occupation of the Magna Domus by Isabella’s daughter-in-law Margherita Paleologa in the mid-sixteenth century, and evidently by Eleonora of Austria in the later sixteenth century, perhaps extending into the Appartamento di Guastalla in the Palazzo del Capitano, confirms the continuity of the Magna Domus as a royal residence. In none of the documents pertaining to the renovation and occupation of the Magna Domus is there any indication of a large chapel.

10.10 The Church of Santa Croce and the Magna Domus form only part of the complex of buildings known as the corte vecchia (see Fig. 30 above), several of which underwent extensive renovation and reconstruction not only in the early sixteenth century on behalf of Isabella d’Este, but also in the later sixteenth century for the residential use of Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga (see par. 9.3). These reconstructions bear further on the history of the oratorio sopra Santa Croce and other chapels which will be discussed later (see chapter 12 below).

10.11 After the passing of Isabella, the corte vecchia was inhabited by various court officials (signori consiglieri) according to a letter of 11 August 1546 by Ludovico Gattico to Sabino Calandra concerning the expense of potential modifications to the corte vecchia, designed by Giulio Romano. Gattico was worried about projected changes to the two-hundred-year-old guardhouse that occupied the base of the original tower between the Magna Domus and Palazzo del Capitano, which he and others thought would render it inadequate to protect the area, occupied by all the household officials, the linen and clothing storage, and Isabella d’Este’s grotto (“tutti li officiali del vivere, la drapparia, et, che più, la Grotta di madama illustrissima”).  The guardsman saw who came and went when the gate was open, sometimes even to the second, third, or fourth hour of the night (after sunset), especially when there were visiting foreigners (“forestieri”), after which he closed both gates, which remained closed all night so that no one could enter or leave. Gattico and others thus complained loudly (“n’habbiamo gridato assai … nostro strillare”) about the proposal. Gattico adds that he would also have voiced his concern over unnecessary expenses if he hadn’t thought that the location would be much lovelier and more comfortable for another Madama Illustrissima when it would become necessary for her to avail herself of the corte vecchia (Margarita Paleologa, widow of Duke Federico II and co-regent of Mantua from 1540 to her death at the end of 1556).^[253] Margarita was still co-regent to her minor sons when she died, never having moved to the corte vecchia.

10.12 A couple of weeks later, on 28 August, Emidio Calandra wrote to his brother Sabino, the recipient of the previous letter, about further plans for the space contiguous to the tower. Emidio also mentions the guardpost, but without the worry expressed by Gattico:

I have not written in my other [letter] of the construction in the corte vecchia, which I haven’t discussed with Messer Giulio [Romano], who says that everyone is more a master over the project than he is; that neither it nor the costs had been proposed by him, but having been told to do it, it seemed to him from then on that the money be spent well and honorably. And since, according to his [Giulio Romano’s] judgment, those rooms that are being refurbished will be the most beautiful in all the city and perhaps will serve li signori over time, and on that account he attached [in his design] the ceiling to the wall of the ceiling of the gate to the corte vecchia, which will result in a marvelous large chamber. The chamber that was there is still standing and will be left there, but he knows for certain that if our lady the duchess sees it, she will have it torn down to make that beautiful large chamber, nor does the design leave the gate without a guard nor the place where he ought to be, as he says is there underneath the ceiling of the staircase, a place larger and better, where the guardsman could stay more comfortably. Nevertheless, he will leave that [the guardpost] standing, and beg the duchess not to have a bad opinion of him, since he would have proposed that expense himself if he had thought about the matter, but when he had been ordered himself to spend [the money], he sought only to see that the expense was properly made and should i signori ever wish to, they could make good use of these rooms.^[254]

10.13 It is apparent that supervision over the project had been chaotic and that Giulio Romano, who had not been part of the planning, was expected to execute it and wished to spend the budgeted funds well and honorably. These letters make clear the intention of Margarita Paleologa to move into a refurbished corte vecchia sometime in the late 1540s. But other than the attachment of the ceiling of the camerino to the wall of the ceiling of the gate of the guard post to make a “beautiful large chamber,” there is no indication of any actual or projected reconfiguration of the interior walls of the Magna Domus and no evidence of any large church within the building.

10.14 In the period from 1576 to 1582, Duke Guglielmo, following Isabella’s precedent in relocating from the Castello to the corte vecchia, renovated the rooms on the piano superiore above those formerly occupied by Isabella on the opposite side of the courtyard from the Magna Domus. His renovations also included the large, long room behind the Church of Santa Croce, the Sala del Refettorio or Sala Nova (Sala dei Fiumi): see Fig. 21, no. 84. Clifford Brown has suggested that Isabella’s former rooms on the ground floor were used for visiting foreign princes or officials (such as those mentioned in the pastoral visit of 1576 for whose benefit the duke would summon the rector to celebrate Mass and Offices in Santa Croce).^[255] Duke Guglielmo’s wife, Eleonora of Austria, seems to have lived in the former apartments of Isabella d’Este on the piano superiore of the Magna Domus from about 1575 until her death in 1594 (see par. 4.15 and par. 12.3–12.12).  Those rooms were labeled Appartamento di S.A.R. Arciduchessa on the Crevola plan of 1773 (Fig. 21, nos. 76) and Appartamento dell’Imperatrice from 1815 onward.^[256]

11. The Church of Santa Barbara

(See Figs. 31–33 here, and 34–36 below.)

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11.1 The other church, much more recent, with which the Gonzagas were most closely engaged, was, of course, the palace Church of Santa Barbara, built by the pious Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga between 1562 and 1572, to designs of Giovanni Battista Bertani.^[257] The construction of Santa Barbara proceeded in three phases: the first, beginning in 1561 and completed in 1562, resulted in its first liturgical ceremonies in that year. But Guglielmo was dissatisfied and had Bertani begin immediately on a major enlargement in late 1562 or early 1563. In October 1564 the new construction was consecrated, though it was not completed until November of 1565. During the period 1564 to 1567, the campanile was built, and the sacristy was completed in 1571. Further enlargement took place in the area of the presbytery, including the addition of the crypt between 1569 and 1572. After 1580 the sacristy was replaced by another at a 45-degree angle to the first. Guglielmo intended the church to serve as a mausoleum for the Gonzaga family and had the remains of his father, Federico II, and his brother Francesco III, who had been buried in the Church of Santa Paola, moved to the crypt in Santa Barbara. He likewise had the remains of family members buried in the Gonzaga chapel at San Francesco moved to the new crypt.^[258] However, as previously noted, neither Guglielmo’s wife, Eleonora of Austria, nor his son Vincenzo was buried there (see par. 4.22, 4.24, and 6.1). The church was run by a college of canons, the initial group of whom came from San Pietro after negotiations over their benefices. In 1587 Guglielmo constructed a residence for the canons on the palace grounds.

11.2 On 14 October 1564 Pope Pius IV had authorized the institution of the collegiate church and the appointment of officials to administer it. Presiding over the church and canons were an abbot and four other officials, who, with no connection to the diocese, were directly under the authority of the Holy See, not the Bishop of Mantua.^[259] In actual daily practice, of course, the abbot and the other officials were responsible to the duke. Still in 1564, Guglielmo established a cohort of a dozen regular canons (canonici ordinari), six supernumeraries, four mansionaries, four chaplains (cappellani), two masters of ceremonies, a sacristan, a master of clerics (maestro de’ chierici), two deacons, two subdeacons, an organist, singers, and others (altri tali), apart from the five principal dignitaries, to whom were added a Primicerio and a Prior, for a sum total of 64 individuals, all led by the abbot, who took his post on 15 February 1565.^[260] The 1568 Constitutiones of the church established several musical positions: a prefect of the choir (praefectus chori), a master of the choir (magister cantorum), an organist (magister organorum), two associate prefects of the choir (socii praefecti chori), and four mansionaries (mansionari). The prefect led the choir, aided by two assistants who alternated weekly in the office; the master of the choir was responsible for training the clerics in the Santa Barbara plainchant that Guglielmo had personally been involved in reforming; the organist played for the feasts specified in the Constitutiones, and the four mansionaries not only sang, but were well-trained in the Gregorian modes, humanistic letters, and the significance of the liturgical rubrics and the texts of the Mass and Office.^[261] The reformed chant was central to Guglielmo’s conception of the efficacy of the liturgy, and these chants were also to serve as cantus fermi in polyphonic compositions. Guglielmo’s direct involvement in the music for the church extended as well to playing a major role in selecting the musicians who were to perform it.^[262]

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11.3 The church was designed with three fixed spaces for music: the semicircular apse for the clerics to sing plainchant, an organ loft (cantoria, see Fig. 34) on the right (from the perspective of the entrance) in the first bay from the altar, with a small space for a few singers and/or instruments, and a much larger loft across the entire width of the entrance to the church for performance by the professional choir and added musicians from the duke’s cappella (see Fig. 35).^[263] There was also a small cantoria on the wall opposite the organ loft that may also have been used by musicians. But these fixed locations didn’t prevent music from being performed elsewhere within the church. A 1587 print by Gastoldi dedicated to Guglielmo Gonzaga includes madrigals on several saints who had altars with relics in Santa Barbara. The madrigals were evidently each to be sung in front of the altar and relic of the saint named.^[264] The Diary of Santa Barbara describes a triple-choir performance with the musicians on a raised platform in front of the altar of San Silvestro on 3 December 1596, the vigil of the Feast of Santa Barbara (see par. 11.20).

11.4 As with the Cathedral of San Pietro, Pierre Tagmann is the author of the most thorough documentation regarding the musical chapel of Santa Barbara. While the registers of Santa Barbara are not as complete as those of San Pietro, they are nevertheless extensive enough to provide a useful picture of the cappella, particularly when the names remain the same for long periods of time.^[265]

11.5 Soon after the initial consecration of Santa Barbara in October 1564,^[266] liturgical music performance at the basilica commenced, involving musicians from the cathedral, such as Giulio Bruschi and Giovanni Contino, both of whom composed for Santa Barbara, and Guglielmo’s court musicians, especially when large-scale polyphony was concerned.^[267] At the beginning of 1565 Giaches de Wert became maestro di cappella and likely soon began his contribution to the basilica’s polyphonic repertoire.^[268] There has been both controversary and confusion regarding Wert’s responsibilities and title at both Santa Barbara and the court cappella. Anne-Marie Bautier-Regnier cites a letter of 19 September 1565, stating “With the coming of Messer Jacomo, maestro di capella, I send to Your Highness a letter, I think, of Luigi Gonzaga.”^[269] Yet this designation as maestro di cappella has not been universally accepted. The term maestro di cappella could be ambiguous in this period, designating not only the official leader of a musical chapel, but also any musician within it who was a maestro of his art.^[270] (See App. 1, par. 3.1, for Bowers’s position regarding Wert’s relationship to Santa Barbara and the court cappella.)

11.6 However, a pay register, dated by Fenlon as coming from the period 1566–70, lists musicians, some of whose compositions (including Wert’s) are preserved in the Santa Barbara library, with Wert at the top, named explicitly as “Mastro di Cappella” and paid more than three times everyone else.^[271] In this context there can be no question about the function he fulfilled at the basilica. The report of the episcopal visitation in 1576 mentions at Santa Barbara a “Master of the choir [i.e., maestro di cappella] … quite expert in the art of music and very famous.”^[272] This can only refer to Wert. According to a letter of 12 May 1579 to the Mantuan court official Cavalier Strozzi in Rome regarding information he should pass on to the pope, Guglielmo had to that point “sent his maestro di cappella, his organist, and his singers continually to Santa Barbara without any expense to its chapter.” Nor did Guglielmo think it convenient and “secure” that his [court] singers “should have to leave the prince’s service in order to attend to the church.”^[273] This letter, which confirms that Wert functioned as maestro di cappella and Rovigo as organist both at court and at Santa Barbara, was written in the context of Guglielmo’s seeking benefices from the pope to meet the expenses of Santa Barbara that the duke was covering. Only in April of 1582 does the first payment for a professional singer appear in registers from Santa Barbara itself.^[274] A letter of 7 April 1582 to Prince Vincenzo from Luigi Fantone, administrator and keeper of the accounts (massaro) of the chapter of Santa Barbara, mentions a financial issue important to Wert in which the writer explicitly identifies him as maestro di cappella of the Church of Santa Barbara.^[275] On 3 December of the same year, a letter referring to inquiries by Carlo Borromeo regarding possible recruitment of Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi for Milan also describes Wert as maestro di cappella of Santa Barbara.^[276]

11.7 Nevertheless, some confusion about Wert’s roles at court results from the fact that until 1582, the professional musicians performing in Santa Barbara were paid from the court treasury.^[277] Thus, court registers from 1577 and 1580 likewise list Wert as maestro di cappella, paid more than three times anyone else except for the Santa Barbara and ducal chapel organist Francesco Rovigo, whose salary was less than half that of Wert (see Figs. 37 and 38).^[278] Also included in these lists are two other musicians of the Santa Barbara cappella, but since we do not have a complete list of singers at Santa Barbara for this period, it is impossible to know whether the entire list comprised part of the musical chapel of the basilica.

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11.8 As far as Wert’s connection to the ducal chapel is concerned, he was already performing a leading function in secular music at the court by 1567, when, as noted above, he led a group of musicians on a voyage to Venice for a theatrical performance there (see par. 3.27).^[279] Wert belonged to an academy responsible for animating court festivals, banquets, balls, and masques. On 11 January 1568 Wert organized a comedy at Novellara for which he had written the music. He took part in a concert for several of Duke Guglielmo’s friends on 8 February 1568, and two days later another concert organized by the academy. A letter of 11 February describes these events: “All the musicians of our academy are preparing a musical concert.… Here there are continually maschere and tournaments so lively and marvelous that it’s incredible.”^[280] These activities only commenced after Wert’s arrival in Mantua, leading Bautier-Regnier to conclude that they were initiated by Wert himself.^[281] Court pay records from 1589/90 and 1592/93, the last available during Wert’s lifetime, again name him as maestro di cappella, or, in the latter list, place him at the top with the highest individual salary.^[282] These records are clearly those of the ducal cappella under Vincenzo. Thus, we may conclude that Wert functioned as and was widely known to be maestro di cappella of Santa Barbara from 1565 until 1588, at which time Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi assumed that position (see par. 11.13), and that Wert also served as maestro di cappella for the court from 1565 until his death in 1596. (See App. 1, par. 3.2–3.4, for Bowers’s comments on personnel, and related comments on liturgy, at Santa Barbara.)

11.9 Before 1573 there is insufficient documentation to determine the number of musicians employed at Santa Barbara, nor what roles anyone played.^[283] The first records of responsibilities within the Santa Barbara chapel date from September 1579. The next year Pope Gregory XIII approved, after much lobbying, Guglielmo’s special rite for Santa Barbara, represented in its unique breviary and missal published with the approval of Pope Sixtus V in 1583.^[284]

11.10 Musical instruction of the clerics was divided between two individuals, one of whom taught them to sing chant—the reformed chants of the Santa Barbara rite—and the other who taught the young clerics “canto figurato e contrapunto.”^[285] The chants had been of particular importance to Guglielmo, who spent years reforming and purifying them. Guglielmo was also involved in the years-long revision of texts. A part of his unfinished breviary was published in 1571, but it engendered papal objections regarding details; nevertheless, the pope confirmed the private use of this breviary, and further revisions and negotiations continued along with those of the missal until subsequent papal approval in August 1580, followed by further corrections and final papal approval in November 1583.^[286] Two editions of the breviary appeared in 1583: one in a small format by Giunta in Venice (though the colophon says 1581), and the other by Domenico Nicolino in Venice. A third edition was published in Mantua in 1585 by the ducal printer Francesco Osanna.^[287] The chant revisions finally reached completion in 1584. The Church of Santa Barbara thus became the only church in Europe with its own liturgy that had not been in traditional use for more than two hundred years, as required by the Council of Trent.

11.11 Polyphony had also been important to Guglielmo from the earliest liturgical functioning of the church in 1564, when Giaches de Wert had been hired and Giulio Bruschi and Giovanni Contino had begun contributing new compositions to the church. Guglielmo himself was a composer who sought critiques for his works from Palestrina and commissioned Palestrina to compose for Santa Barbara.^[288]

11.12 As noted above (see par. 11.7), until 1582 the musical expenses of the church were paid from the court treasury. It was only in 1582 that a pair of singers were first paid by Santa Barbara itself, followed by an organist in 1585, forming the early ensemble of the basilica, which continued to require participation of members of the court chapel.^[289] It appears that between 1582 and 1585 Guglielmo began to establish an ensemble distinct from the cathedral and court, though some court musicians were apparently involved in Santa Barbara on various occasions. Some of the Santa Barbara musicians, such as Wert and Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, functioned in both realms. The separation of payrolls may have been principally an effort to bring the growing income of the basilica to bear on the mounting costs of the music there without having much to do with who actually performed in the basilica, especially when larger forces were needed (see par. 11.16–24). At times musicians were also hired from outside. Vespers (Vespro pontificalissimo) on the vigil of the Feast of Santa Barbara, 3 December 1583, featured the young sopranos Lucia and Isabetta Pelizzari, hired from Vicenza, who sang “un concerto sopra l’organo, and at the window near the choir [loft] on the side of the organ there was also a concerto for trombones and regal.” One or two trombones were probably played by the sisters, who were also instrumentalists. At Terce on the day of the feast, the sisters again sang sopra l’organo.^[290]

11.13 Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, who had sung in the church since he was a boy, moved up the ecclesiastical and musical ladder at Santa Barbara until he began substituting for the ailing Giaches de Wert in 1582, eventually replacing him as maestro di cappella in 1588 when Wert’s role was limited to maestro di cappella of the recently crowned Vincenzo Gonzaga’s rapidly growing court chapel.^[291] Gastoldi had been maestro di contrappunto between September 1579 and August 1587, but after Guglielmo’s death in August of the latter year, Vincenzo quickly abolished the role in favor of eventually supplementing the singers of Santa Barbara with musicians of his court chapel for the performance of large-scale polyphony (see par. 11.16–11.24).^[292] From the standpoint of payroll accounts, all musicians during Vincenzo’s reign were officially employed by either Santa Barbara or the court, but that does not mean that court musicians could not be required to perform in Santa Barbara as part of their obligations to the duke, or that musicians employed at Santa Barbara couldn’t also be utilized at secular courtly functions. It is obvious from Gastoldi’s many publications of balletti, madrigals, canzonettas, and concenti musicali con le sue sinfonie published in Italy between 1581 and 1604 that he played a very active role in the secular life of the court as well, even if his salary seems to have come entirely from Santa Barbara.

11.14 Gastoldi continued serving as maestro di cappella in Santa Barbara until his own death on 3 January 1609. After his demise, Antonio Torone occupied the position of maestro temporarily between January and April 1609, after which Stefano Nascimbene was appointed and served until July of 1612, by which time the newly crowned Duke Francesco, finding the treasury empty from Vincenzo’s profligacy, had dismissed approximately a quarter of his musical staff, including the Monteverdi brothers.^[293] Tarone again occupied the position for a brief period until October 1612, when Amante Franzoni succeeded to the post, surviving until the fall of Mantua to imperial forces in 1630.^[294] Pay records of Santa Barbara, beginning in 1592, by which time Vincenzo had reformed the vocal ensemble at Santa Barbara with completely new personnel, reveal that the singers salaried by Santa Barbara at no time during the reigns of Vincenzo or Ferdinando (who succeeded his brother Francesco after the latter’s sudden death in December 1612) numbered more than five or six except in 1593 (eight) and 1595 and 1601 (seven). Some pay periods report only three or four singers.^[295]

11.15 It isn’t necessary for us to illustrate the Gonzagas’ activities in Santa Barbara, whether baptisms, funerals, coronations, or other family events, as it is for churches outside the palace, but the formation of its musical chapel and ways in which it interacted with the duke’s cappella, as well as ways the chapel and clergy of Santa Barbara participated in ceremonies with other churches and religious orders are indeed relevant to our understanding of the Gonzagas’ relationship with the churches of Mantua. This relationship flowed in two directions, for the Church of Santa Barbara was not just the palace church where its canons celebrated the Mass and Office on a daily basis, but also a church regularly open to the public, whose ceremonies often drew large crowds of the civic populace into the palace precincts and the church. Neither Guglielmo Gonzaga nor his successors ever considered Santa Barbara to be a church for the court alone.^[296]

11.16 It appears that during Guglielmo’s reign, the small professional choir and the chapter of Santa Barbara were capable of handling not only plainchant, but also relatively undemanding polyphony such as that commissioned by Guglielmo from Wert and Palestrina. A note of the ordinary annual expenses of Santa Barbara in 1588 includes the statement: “and if the singers are few, they are supplemented by the cappellani, ordinati, et chierici, since all sing with knowledge of music.”^[297] Indeed, as already noted (par. 11.14), the professional singers were few, comprising only two between 1583 and 1587, growing to as many as eight under Vincenzo in 1593, but then declining to no more than five or six at most from 1594, with the exception of seven in only 1595 and 1601.^[298] In 1587, immediately after his accession, Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga eliminated the position in Santa Barbara of the maestro di contrappunto, the very individual who had been responsible for inculcating that “knowledge of music” of which the 1588 document speaks.^[299] At that time the maestro di contrappunto had been Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, who in 1588 became maestro di cappella in Santa Barbara. The elimination of the role of the maestro di contrappunto the year before would have had the effect of gradually decreasing the number of Santa Barbara personnel, especially youths, with musical skills beyond plainchant and simple falsobordone. We have no information about boy sopranos and altos, but after 1587 instruction in counterpoint was in any case no longer available at Santa Barbara. The only alternative for the performance of sophisticated music in canto figurato, like that described below in the Diario of Santa Barbara, would eventually be supplementation by singers from Vincenzo’s ducal chapel, since the number of professional singers at Santa Barbara is not known to have exceeded the limits described above between 1594 and 1630. Moreover, the use of instruments in Santa Barbara (see par. 11.18, 11.23–24) would have required performers from the ducal cappella, since no instrumentalists other than the organist are recorded as having been on the payroll of Santa Barbara itself.^[300]

11.17 The anonymous Diario of Santa Barbara, penned by a priest who was a member of the chapter at the Cathedral of San Pietro but also clearly served at Santa Barbara, informs us of a number of aspects of musical performance in the basilica.^[301] Indicative of the attractiveness of services in the church to the general population is the entry on the feast day of Saint Catherine, 25 November 1596, when there was such a large crowd of the populace that the organist, unusually, accompanied the plainchant Mass, apparently so the music could be more readily heard.^[302]

11.18 The Feast of Santa Barbara was obviously of paramount significance at the eponymous palace church, and music on the feast was often quite elaborate, encompassing all the Office hours as well as the Mass. In 1572, at None the Office was said by the Monsignor Arciprete with singers and organ; at Vespers all the psalms were sung with the organ, and a concerto was played at the opening and at the Magnificat.^[303] The instrumentalists who performed the concertos would, of course, have had to come from the duke’s court cappella.

11.19 From an entry on the vigil of the feast, 3 December 1587, we learn of the performance of Vespers in the presence of the entire royal family, with the psalms sung in falsobordone, the prayers in canto figurato, and all the antiphons with counterpoint.^[304] At Matins there was only the dowager duchess Eleonora of Austria and the populace. The invitatory and hymn, the Benedictus, and the Te Deum were sung in canto figurato. At Lauds the psalms were sung as at Matins (in falsobordone) and their antiphons with counterpoint, while the hymn and Benedictus were in canto figurato.^[305]

11.20 At Prime and Terce on the day of the feast (4 December) in 1595, the singing was in canto figurato with the organ. Vespers is described as “long and most beautiful.”^[306] The next year, on the vigil of the feast, the pontifical First Vespers was sung with “new music for three choirs,” performed by many singers accompanied by an organ from a platform in front of the chapel of San Silvestro. Matins was delayed an hour and a half, waiting in vain for the arrival of Duke Vincenzo. Prime and Terce on the day of the feast were sung “as usual” in canto figurato and Sext was sung solemnly; Mass had to wait a long time for the arrival of the duke.^[307] The diarist also notes on the vigil of the feast in 1597 Vincenzo’s absence for most of the services after Matins and his and his family’s considerable tardiness before Mass on the feast day itself, as well as the duke’s presence for only half of Second Vespers.^[308]

11.21 Santa Barbara in 1596 had only seven singers, wholly insufficient to sing music for three choirs. For such important celebrations as the annual Feast of Santa Barbara, there must have been many large-scale musical performances, which, given the consistently small numbers of singers on the Santa Barbara payroll, as we have already suggested, must have involved singers from the court chapel, just as any instrumentalists would have had to have been provided from it as well.^[309]

11.22 The Diary of Santa Barbara also describes in detail the music during the funeral rites for maestro di cappella Giaches de Wert on 7 May 1596, the day after he died. Half of the singers were at the front of the initial procession and half in the rear, singing the Miserere, Venere Santo, and De profundis in canto figurato. Once they had entered Santa Barbara, they sang the responsory in falsobordone and polyphony[?] (musica) at the verse Suscipiat te Christus and the Requiem. After the body was raised and the office finished, the singers sang the Libera me Domine with the versets Requiem and Kyrie in canto figurato. After the versets and prayer by the priest, the singers sang In Paradisum with the antiphon Ego sum resurrectione et vita and Benedictus, after which they repeated the antiphon.^[310]

11.23 During the visit to Mantua of the Cardinals Montaldo and Monte in June of 1598, the diarist reports on a solemn Mass with music of trombones and cornettos on 24 June.^[311] Again, these instrumentalists would have had to come from the ducal chapel.

11.24 On the vigil and Feast of Santa Barbara in 1600 the diarist reports on previously unknown interpolations into services during the feast. At First Vespers on the vigil, intermedi were interposed, though we have no further details, as if they were not particularly unusual for such an important celebration.^[312] On the feast day itself a Mass with intermedi was performed after None, and at Second Vespers intermedi were again interpolated into the service.^[313] Such intermedi may have reflected the theatrical interests and bent of Vincenzo, incorporated in some fashion into the liturgy. The Santa Barbara diary itself ceases in 1602, unfortunately giving us no information about performances in the basilica during a period when some of the music of Santa Barbara on the most important feast days likely reflected both the modern stylistic tendencies rapidly spreading in sacred music in northern Italy by 1600 and Vincenzo’s own penchant for splendor and display, for which his court cappella and its virtuoso singers and instrumentalists were ideally suited. Just six weeks after Vincenzo’s death on 9 February 1612, the famous virtuosa Adriana Basile and her sister Vittoria sang in Santa Barbara su l’organo on the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March) and then again during Lent on 14 April.^[314] As we already saw with the Pelizzari sisters in 1583, the Gonzagas did not hesitate on occasion to use exceptional female singers in their palace church, where even the public could hear and view them.^[315]

11.25 In 1968, Knud Jeppesen had raised the issue of the lack of any evidence of Monteverdi’s involvement at Santa Barbara.^[316] Guglielmo Barblan, in his catalogue of the Santa Barbara collection, discussed the matter again, but with a more nuanced approach.^[317] Barblan considered the possibility that music of Monteverdi may be included among the seventy-four anonymous manuscripts and four anonymous prints in the Santa Barbara library collection. One print, originally comprising four four-voice imitation masses, but devoid of its first mass and all publication information, was even published by Universal Editions in 1974 as masses of Monteverdi, under the editorship of Don Siro Cisilino, who curated the music section of the Cini Foundation in Venice.^[318] The rationale Cisilino gave for attributing these masses to Monteverdi relied on his own extensive transcriptions of contemporaneous masses as well as certain alleged affinities with Monteverdi’s madrigals from the third book onward. But it also included some quite bizarre explanations for the missing Missa Sancta Maria and the large quantity of parallel fifths in the part-writing. We know of no Monteverdi scholar who has accepted the attribution of these pieces to Monteverdi. More recently, as a consequence of further research into the Santa Barbara musical archive, Paola Besutti has come to the conclusion that the collection does not survive intact and that some music is indeed missing.^[319] (For Bowers’s approach to the question of Monteverdi’s involvement with Santa Barbara, see App. 1, par. 3.5–3.7.)

11.26 The question of possible Monteverdi compositions for Santa Barbara remains open for lack of evidence. A letter of Monteverdi’s to Prince Francesco in Casale Monferrato, dated 26 March 1611, listing three pieces the composer was sending to the prince, promises madrigals “once Holy Week is over” (passata la Settimana santa), an indication of the maestro di cappella’s  annual responsibilities.^[320] We do not know where this Holy Week music would have been performed. Music for the Triduo and for Easter Sunday could even have been performed in different locations in any given year, and in different churches from one year to another. The principal candidates, of course, are San Pietro, Sant’Andrea, and Santa Barbara, but not Santa Croce, as our discussion of that church (chapters 7–9) amply demonstrates.

11.27 Apart from composing for Santa Barbara, there is the separate question of Monteverdi conducting and/or performing there. Once more, it is true that we have no record of Monteverdi participating in services at Santa Barbara, but neither do we have much specific record of other members of the ducal chapel performing there, despite the clear evidence that the Pellizari sisters and the Basile sisters did (see par. 11.12). Again, the absence of evidence does not constitute the evidence of absence. It does seem unlikely that Monteverdi would have taken over the direction of large-scale performances from Gastoldi, a highly valued musician, though we cannot rule out this possibility entirely.^[321] It is also possible that in large-scale multi-choir compositions, which often required more than one conductor for coordination of ensembles, he could have served in this capacity. On the other hand, as a player of the viuola da brazzo and a singer as well, it is highly probable that Monteverdi performed at times in Santa Barbara when members of the ducal chapel were required to supplement the meagre resources of the church itself.

CHAPELS WITHIN THE DUCAL PALACE

12. Overview of Spaces for Private Devotion and Services

12.1 We have already discussed the oratorio, often called capella (the two terms are used interchangeably), above the Church of Santa Croce, a description of which is contained in Peruzzi’s 1576 Visitation Report. The report also goes on to comment on two other oratorios in the corte vecchia.

12.2 The second oratory discussed in the visitor’s report appears to be that situated to the easterly side of the church, at an intermediate level, connected to the northwestern corner of Duke Guglielmo’s corte vecchia apartments and named the Oratorio “del Rosario” in Gaetano Crevola’s 1773 plan of the piano superiore (Fig. 21, no. 83).^[322] As described in the visitation report, “I visited the oratory of this same most serene duke in the aforesaid old court near the great hall, still not painted since it was newly readapted.…”^[323] The “great hall,” in the process of reconstruction, is cited as the “Sala Nuova” in a document of 1580 and, after the painting and decorations had been completed, renamed the “Sala dei Fiumi” (see Fig. 21, no. 84, for its location and its eighteenth-century name and purpose).^[324]

12.3 The third oratory was in or near the apartments of the duchess: “In the same old court I visited the oratory of the sublime Lady, our Lady the Duchess, maintained by her chaplain, and closed with bolts.…”^[325] In 1576 celsitudinis dominae dominae duchissae can only refer to Guglielmo’s wife, Eleonora of Austria, known both as the Archduchess and the Empress, on account of her descent from Ferdinand I, who was both the Habsburg archduke of Austria and, from 1556 (five years before Eleonora’s marriage to Guglielmo), Holy Roman Emperor. The date of the pastoral visitation to the corte vecchia, 21 February 1576, indicates that by this time Eleonora of Austria had moved, probably along with Duke Guglielmo in the late summer or early autumn of 1575, from their former apartments in the Castello to the corte vecchia, even though the remodeling of Guglielmo’s apartments, above those of Isabella d’Este on the easterly side of the Santa Croce courtyard, were not begun until 1578 and completed only in 1582.^[326] If Eleonora was living in the corte vecchia by February 1576, then possibly the duke and she had both settled there before the beginning of winter 1575, shortly before Peruzzi made his pastoral visit to the palace. Where Eleonora resided is unclear. It could have been in the rooms formerly occupied by Isabella d’Este herself on the easterly side, ground level of the Santa Croce courtyard, or in those on the piano superiore of the Magna Domus facing the Piazza San Pietro (Piazza Sordello), which had also constituted part of Isabella’s apartments and had been refurbished in the 1540s (see par. 10.7–10.8). These latter rooms at some unknown time took on the appelation stanze or appartamento dell’arciduchessa or delle imperatrici.^[327]

12.4 The location of this third oratory remains unidentified, though L’Occaso suggests that the oratory above the Church of Santa Croce may have been reserved for Eleonora of Austria, Eleonora de’ Medici, and Catherine de’ Medici.^[328] Renato Berzaghi also regards that oratorio as the “oratorium celsitudinis dominae dominae ducisse.”^[329] We find these suggestions problematic, however, for they collapse the three distinct oratorios named by Peruzzi into two. In the visitor’s report, the oratorium secretum, where feasts of the Holy Cross are celebrated, is specified as serenissimi ducis, and its description differs from that of the oratorium celsitudinis dominae.^[330] The report, however, only reflects each space’s use in 1576, and a later reassignment of the function of the ortorium secretum was clearly the case, since it is identified in Collini’s funeral oration of 1611 as the space remodeled by Eleonora de’ Medici, wife of Duke Vincenzo.^[331] Duke Vincenzo had already constructed a chapel in the Domus Nova as part of his own apartments. Guglielmo Gonzaga, whose residence in the corte vecchia began, as noted, as early as the late summer of 1575^[332] and lasted until his death in August of 1587, may have surrendered the oratorium secretum to the use of his wife, Eleonora of Austria, sometime after 1576, or it may have devolved to her after Guglielmo’s passing. Her daughter-in-law Eleonora de’ Medici, who was responsible for refurbishing the oratorio “over the Church of Santa Croce,” as described in the oration by Serafino Collini cited above,^[333] occupied an apartment in the Palazzo del Capitano, known as the Appartamento della Guastalla, which was redecorated for her beginning in 1595.^[334] Thus, the oratorio could indeed have been “reserved for Eleonora of Austria, Eleonora de’ Medici, and Catherine de’ Medici” as L’Occaso suggests, but at a date later than the 1576 visitor’s report.

12.5 The question still remains, however, regarding the location of the “oratorium celsitudinis dominae dominae ducissae.” There were other chapels in the corte vecchia. One was the small chapel on the primo piano of what was originally the tower (the room was later known as the Sala di Sant’Alberto or the Sala dei Fiamminghi) off the southern end of the Magna Domus before being attached to the Magna Domus in 1308 (see par. 10.3). Another small chapel (cappella parva) of Saint Francis is also mentioned in a document of 1393 and in an inventory of the adjacent Palazzo del Capitano at the death of Marquis Francesco I in 1407.^[335] These chapels were likely for private use of members of the Gonzaga family, even of specific individuals. A third chapel is the large one located above the arched entrance to the courtyard in the middle of the Palazzo del Capitano now known as the Piazza della Lega Lombarda (see par. 10.7). This one, elaborately decorated, may well have served not only for private, familial use, but also on solemn occasions of public import.^[336] There was apparently yet another chapel in the corte vecchia, mentioned in a document of July 1579 regarding the reconstruction of the corte vecchia, which speaks of a “chapel to be torn down.” This seems likely to have been the cappeletta in the Camera dei Cani (Camera dello Zodiaco), which disappeared in the remodeling of the space.^[337] The two small chapels, the one in the Sala di S. Alberto and the other, the “cappella parva Sancti Francisci,” of unknown location in the corte vecchia complex, are both candidates for the oratorium celsitudinis dominae, in part because of their proximity to the Stanze dell’Imperatrice of the Magna Domus, formerly part of the apartments of Isabella d’Este and subsequently the probable residence of Federico II’s widow, Margherita Paleologa, and then Guglielmo’s wife Eleonora until her death in 1594 (see par. 10.9). There also may have been at this time a small chapel in the southerly wing loggia of the building that housed Isabella d’Este’s studiolo and grotto, as illustrated on the 1773 ground plan of Gaetano Crevola (see Fig. 20). This chapel is mentioned in the same year in an inventory of Giuseppe Antonio Bianchi.^[338] Whether this chapel dated as far back as 1576 is unknown. We also cannot exclude another chapel close to, or within Eleonora’s apartment of which we have no record. On the other hand, the large chapel in the Palazzo del Capitano seems to us less likely to have been a very private place, bolted shut, and served by Eleonora’s chaplain, as described in the visitor’s report.

12.6 As noted above, another capella was constructed in the corte vecchia in the apartments of Duke Vincenzo toward the end of the sixteenth century or the first few years of the seventeenth, first documented in an inventory of 1614, two years after the death of Vincenzo.^[339]

12.7 Apart from the corte vecchia, three chapels are documented in the Castello San Giorgio in the period of our discussion. One is an oratorio with sacristy constructed by Andrea Mantegna in 1459, situated within the apartments of Isabella d’Este prior to her removal to the corte vecchia.^[340] Another is the Oratorio della Paleologa, constructed in 1531 for Margherita Paleologa.^[341] A third is a chapel, probably designed by Bertani, on the upper floor and constructed in the early 1570s.^[342]

12.8 The Castello capelletta described briefly in conjunction with the wedding of Guglielmo Gonzaga in 1561 (see par. 3.10) cannot correspond to the chapel in Isabella d’Este’s Castello apartments, since the latter was accessed by descending a staircase, with no adjacent space for witnesses to gather as in the description of the 1561 event. Whether it was the Paleologa chapel is unclear. Nor can we exclude the possibility of a no-longer-extant chapel. The history of the palace is one of frequent reconstruction and repurposing of spaces according to the changing needs and wishes of the family members occupying them.

12.9 With regard to Gonzaga worship, these chapels served principally as private spaces for prayers and devotions of individuals, or small groups, but also for private liturgical services, as evidenced by both the description quoted in note 24 and the presence of a sacristy for clerical vesting adjacent to Isabella’s chapel. For the Gonzagas, the daily expression of religious belief and attendance at Mass or Vespers could thus take place in private without having to exit the palace grounds or even the environs of one’s own apartments. The canons of Santa Barbara performed the Office and Mass daily in the palace church, but Santa Barbara was also open to the public, so thanks to these small private chapels, members of the family could perform their daily devotions whenever they wished and without having to appear in Santa Barbara, which was a much more formal atmosphere where they could be viewed by courtiers and the public.

PART 2. MONTEVERDI AS CHURCH MUSICIAN IN THE GONZAGA COURT, 1590–1612, AS REFLECTED IN THE MASS AND VESPERS OF 1610

13. Performing Forces for the Mass and Vespers of 1610, in Contemporaneous Context

(See App. 1, par. 4.1, on the history of scholarship regarding Monteverdi as a composer of sacred music at the Gonzaga court. See App 1, par. 4.2–4.10, for Bowers’s argument, and our critique, regarding the composition, organization, and functions of the ducal cappella.)

13.1 In an attempt to explain why the only surviving sacred music by Monteverdi from his Mantua period are those pieces published in the Mass and Vespers of 1610, Bowers adduces several arguments in a claim that Monteverdi “was able to compose music whose performance few other institutions in Italy or anywhere else could realistically contemplate. Commercially, its publication was therefore not a viable proposition; there was simply no sufficient number of potential buyers.” Bowers’s emphasis is on the outstanding capacities and large quantity of performers that Monteverdi had at his disposal, the absence of which he considers an obstacle not only to the performance of Monteverdi’s Mass and Vespers of 1610, but also to the publication of Monteverdi’s other sacred music (see App. 1, par 5.1–5.2).

13.2 While it is obvious that Monteverdi had superior performers, required particularly for the virtuosic ornamentation of such pieces as Duo Seraphim and the two Magnificats, as well as for the instrumental demands of the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria and the Magnificat a7, there were many other musicians throughout Italy and the rest of Europe capable of performing this music. Testimony to the virtuosity of vocal and instrumental performers are the large number of ornamentation treatises published in Italy as early as Sylvestro Ganassi’s Fontegara of 1535 and Regola Rubertina of 1542 through Francesco Rognoni’s Selva di varii passaggi of 1620. These treatises instruct in levels of virtuosity matching the most that Monteverdi demands.^[343] This was also the period in which virtuoso castrati became widespread in Italy as performers of both secular and sacred music. Moreover, even larger numbers of singers, though not necessarily instrumentalists, were common in festal sacred music from the mid-sixteenth century onward. Monteverdi, however, in no single piece of his published repertoire, ever required more than ten voices, six strings, and five winds (some players doubling on more than one instrument), all in the 1610 Vespers.

13.3 As early as 1555, Nicola Vicentino had recommended that to make a large sound in spacious churches and other large places, “one can compose masses, psalms, and dialogues and other things to play with various instruments mixed with voices; and to make a greater sound, one can even compose for three choirs.”^[344] In 1558, Gioseffe Zarlino also mentions Venetian coro spezzato psalms for three choirs.^[345] The period from the end of the Council of Trent until the plague of 1630–31 witnessed a massive increase in the quantity of sacred music publications, ranging from motets for one to sixteen voices and masses and psalms for three to twenty voices.^[346] We have only a few indications of what sacred music Monteverdi composed during this period other than the Mass and Vespers of 1610, but there is no reason to believe it would have been so outside the scope of the wide range of contemporary sacred repertoire to have been commercially impractical. Much more likely is that in the limited time Monteverdi had to organize and publish his music, the interests of Duke Vincenzo and Prince Francesco in publications dedicated to them led him to focus mainly on the new styles of madrigals and the opera L’Orfeo, unique in Italy, that they had commissioned and supported.^[347]

13.4 The contemporaneous repertoire of sacred music published in Italy reveals numerous prints requiring larger numbers of singers than Monteverdi’s 1610 print. We offer only a few examples from a large repertoire, listed here in chronological order. The number of surviving copies (drawn from RISM, ser. A/1: Einzeldrucke vor 1800) and their location give some hint as to how large a print run and how widespread the distribution of each of these prints was, though the accidents affecting collections, their movements, and their survival don’t allow us to infer anything more than the broadest generalities—e.g.,the continent-wide enormous popularity of the Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli collections of 1587 (no. 2) and 1597 (no. 7), the latter with many pieces requiring larger performing forces than the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610:

1. Camatero, Ippolito. Li Magnificat a otto nove & a dodici voci, Vineggia, appresso l’haerede di Girolamo Scotto, 1575. RISM C281. One copy survives in Spain, two in Italy.

2. Gabrieli, Andrea and Giovanni. Concerti … continenti musica di chiesa, madrigali, & altro, per voci, & stromenti musicali a 6. 7. 8. 10. 12. & 16. Venetia, appresso Angelo Gardano, 1587. RISM SD 1587¹⁶. The music of the Gabrielis circulated widely in Italy and north of the Alps, with many imitators in northern and eastern Europe. Copies, complete and partial, survive in seventeen different libraries in Austria, Germany, Spain, England, Italy, the Czech Republic, and the United States.

3. Ingegneri, Marc’Antonio. Liber sacrarum cantionum quae ad septem, octo, novem, decem, duodecim, sexdecim voces choris & coniunctis & separatis commode etiam cum varijs musicis instrumentis concini possunt. Venezia, Angelo Gardano, 1589. RISM I47. Seven copies, all but two complete, survive in three German libraries, three Italian libraries, and one in Sweden.

4. Asola, Giovanni Matteo. Vespertina omnium solemnitatum psalmodia, canticum B. Virginis duplici modum … Salve Regina, Missa, et quinque divinae laudes, omni duodenis vocibus, ternis variata choris, ac omni instrumentorum genere modulanda. Venetiis, apud Ricciardum Amadinum, 1590. RISM A2581. Four copies survive in Italy.

5. Merulo, Claudio. Sacrorum concentuum octonis, den. duoden. & sexdenis vocibus modulandorum. Venetijs apud Angelum Gardanum, 1594. RISM M2365. Four copies survive in Germany, three copies in Italy, one in Sweden.

6. Corsi, Bernardo. Missa Cantica B. M. Virginis ac Sacrae Cantiones Octonis, Duodenis, ac Sexdenis vocibus concinendae. Venetiis, apud Ricciardum Amadinum, 1597. RISM C4134. One copy survives in Italy.

7. Gabrieli, Giovanni. Sacrae Symphoniae … Senis, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15 & 16, tam vocibus, quam instrumentis. Venetiis, apud Angelum Gardanum, 1597. RISM G86. Fifteen copies, complete and partial, survive in ten libraries in Austria, Germany, Spain, England, Italy, Slovenia, and Poland (the last formerly in Berlin).^[348] The library at the Bischöfliche Zentralbibliothek in Regensburg has five separate complete and incomplete copies.

8. Asola, Giovanni Matteo. Completorium Romanum Beataeq; Virginis Laudes … Omnia duodenis vocibus ternis variata choris, ac omni instrumentorum genere modulanda. Venetijs, apud Ricciardum Amadinum, 1599. Not listed in RISM Einzeldruck vor 1800. One copy survives in Poland (formerly in Berlin).

9. Mortaro, Antonio. Messa, salmi, motetti et Magnificat a tre chori. Milano, erede di Simone Tini, & Francesco Besozzio, 1599. RISM M3741. One copy survives in Spain, two in Italy. Of the 1608 reprint, RISM M3742, four copies survive in Italy and one in Sweden.

10. Radino, Giulio. Concerti per sonare et cantare … cioè canzone, & ricercari a quattro, & otto, mottetti, messe, salmi, & Magnificat a cinque, sei, sette, dieci & sedici voci. Venezia, Angelo Gardano & Fratelli, 1607. RISM R29 (SD 1607⁸). One copy survives in Poland (formerly in Berlin) and one in Sweden.

11. Giacobbi, Girolamo. Prima parte de i salmi concertati a due, a piu chori … commodi da concertare in diverse maniere. Venezia, appresso Angelo Gardano, & Fratelli, 1609. RISM G1821. Giacobbi’s preface recommends various forms of performance involving “un corpo d’instrumenti.” Two copies survive in Italy, two in Poland (one of them formerly in Berlin).

12. Villani, Gasparo. Missa, psalmi ad vesperas, et motecta sexdecim vocibus concinenda. Venetiis, apud Angelum Gardanum, & Fratres, 1610. RISM V1551. One copy survives in Germany, one in England, and two in Italy.

13. Villani, Gasparo. Ad Deum Opt Ma. ad Deiparamque Virginem … Gratiarum actiones, viginti vocibus concinendae. Venetijs, apud Angelum Gardanum & Fratres, 1611. RISM V1556. One copy survives in England, one in Italy, and one in Poland (formerly in Berlin).

14. Viadana, Lodovico. Salmi a quattro chori per cantare e concertare. Venezia, appresso Giacomo Vincenti, 1612. RISM V1400. Viadana’s preface calls for cornettos, violins, and trombones in the third and fourth choirs. One copy survives in Belgium, one in Germany, one in England, four in Italy.

15. Giovanni Gabrieli, Symphoniae sacrae … liber secundus senis, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 & 19. Tam vocibus, Quam instrumentis … Gardani Venetiis, 1615. RISM G87. Gabrieli’s massive collection survives in eleven libraries in Belgium, Germany, England, Italy, Poland (one copy formerly in Berlin), and Sweden.

13.5 This sampling of surviving sources, which could be significantly expanded, reveals that Monteverdi’s Mass and Vespers did not require resources unavailable elsewhere. All of these prints include compositions demanding larger vocal forces than Monteverdi’s 1610 print, and many of them anticipate the use of sizeable numbers of instruments as well. Not all copies are complete, but each is a remnant of a once complete copy. The number of extant copies varies from one to seventeen and the geographical range over which they are currently found encompasses not only northern Italy and Spain, but a good part of northern Europe except for France.

13.6 The majority of libraries represented, especially in Italy, are church libraries and archives, and many of the collections residing in university, royal, and civic libraries found their way there from former ecclesiastical libraries. We also have to recognize that many eastern European libraries have yet to be catalogued and that the published repertoire almost certainly represents less than 10% of the repertoire actually composed and used in churches throughout Europe. Moreover, the expense of printing such large collections with so many partbooks, with their concomitant retail cost, would have been an obvious deterrent to publishing such large compositions and collections in contrast to settings for many fewer parts. But what is clear from these large prints that do survive is that the range of performing resources Monteverdi had available at Mantua could be assembled at enough churches and courts throughout Europe to have supported such a sizable quantity of publications for very large ensembles from as early as 1575. The demand for such publications was also increased by the common practice of hiring additional singers and instrumentalists for particularly sumptuous celebrations, whether of the Virgin or a church’s annual patronal feast and sometimes other locally important feasts as well.

13.7 Monteverdi’s own 1610 print survives in eight copies, the same number as the Claudio Merulo print (no. 5), more than any other in our list except for the Gabrieli prints. Eight is also the number of surviving copies of the first seven editions of Lodovico Viadana’s Cento concerti ecclesiastici (1602–1610), specifically designed for use at churches with very limited musical resources.

13.8 We know the provenance of four of the five complete or almost complete copies of Monteverdi’s print—all four from large, important churches: San Michele in Lucca (now at the Seminary in Lucca), two copies at the cathedral in Brescia, and one from the Protestant Church of St. Elizabeth in Breslau, Poland (now in the University Library in Wrocław). All five of these copies contain performance corrections and annotations, testifying to practical use. Three exemplars of single partbooks are recorded by RISM, two in Italy and one in Sweden. We also know that the maestro di cappella of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Brescia, Giovanni Cavaccio, purchased a copy of Monteverdi’s print in 1611.^[349] The study of early modern church library inventories is in its infancy, so further indications of purchases of Monteverdi’s print may well emerge with time. Monteverdi’s 1610 print was clearly commercially viable as a source for actual service music, especially in Italy.

14. The Mass and Vespers of 1610: The Organization of  the Amadino Print

14.1 Bowers makes multiple assessments about specific pieces from Monteverdi’s Mass and Vespers of 1610, beginning with the Missa in illo tempore (see App. 1, par. 2.2–2.3, 5.3–5.5), as well as additional arguments regarding the collection of pieces as a whole, which prove fallacious (see App. 1, par. 5.3–5.11).

14.2 He argues that the music in the portion of the print following the Missa In illo tempore is nothing more than “an ordered aggregation of discrete items,” a “miscellany … [a] loosely methodical ordering … conveying no suggestion at all of the presence of any internal pattern of coherence, either ecclesiastical or aesthetic.” Moreover, he claims that “from the invaluable and exhaustive researches of Jeffrey Kurtzman it is possible to conclude that up to 1610 composers had as yet engendered no regular practice whatever of issuing music to be either perceived or received as constituting a specific and self-contained menu for the performance of a single service of any class of festal Vespers.” Such a statement might prove flattering except that Bowers’s conclusion is exactly the opposite from what those exhaustive researches actually demonstrate, as will be shown below (see chapters 15–16, with a definitive conclusion regarding the content and organization of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 in par. 16.18).

14.3 Understanding the contents of Monteverdi’s print and its organization requires first recognizing that the three elements (title page, index, sequence of pieces in partbooks) in a print of Vespers music, or the Vespers section of a print containing other liturgical genres, such as a mass, falsibordoni, hymns, canzonettas, etc., each serve a different purpose. The function of the title page is to identify for marketing purposes what types of pieces one may find in a print—in this case, a mass, music for Vespers, and sacri concentus. Monteverdi also provides indicators of style: ad ecclesiarum choros for the mass (in the uniquely different Bassus Generalis title), and ad Sacella siue Principum Cubicula accommodata for the Vesperae and the sacri concentus (see Figs. 39 and 40).^[350]

[click image to enlarge]

[click image to enlarge]

14.4 The latter rubric (“suitable for chapels or princely chambers”), rather than limiting the Vesperae and sacri concentus to particular classes of venue, indicates a musical style suitable for such venues—i.e., a concertato style with all the variety that the word concertato implied in the early seventeenth century, whether large-scale pieces with variation in numbers of voices, musical style, and use of instruments within a composition, or few-voice works for solo voices accompanied by some kind of continuo instrument. All of this information was useful to a potential purchaser.

14.5 The other indicator of contents in a print is the index (see Fig. 41). The purpose of the index is to assist the user in finding specific compositions. Some indices follow the order of pieces in a print, but some don’t. The latter is particularly true in motet collections, where the index is sometimes alphabetically ordered by text incipit—on the assumption that many users would recognize the orientation and potential function of a motet from that information. Nevertheless, some motet prints also identify a feast for which a text is appropriate.^[351]

[click image to enlarge]

14.6 The third element cited above is the order of the pieces in the print itself. Here the purpose is to make usage of the print as convenient as possible for the singers and choirmaster. In the case of the Monteverdi Mass and Vespers, the order of the pieces in the index and within the print is the same. The ordering of pieces in a print is key to understanding how Vespers prints are organized for practical use from their first appearance in 1550 through Monteverdi’s 1610 publication and beyond, throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

14.7 To understand this order of service, it is essential to know how the psalms of the Vulgate are distributed, often sequentially, among the Vespers offices each week. For this purpose it is fundamental to separate the psalms used on less important days, principally ferial days, from psalms for the more important feast days: Sundays, feasts of Christ, feasts of Mary, feasts of saints according to the Proprium Sanctorum, feasts of saints according to the Commune Sanctorum, and certain individual feasts such as Pentecost, Holy Trinity, the Finding and Exaltation of the Cross, All Saints, and others—feasts for which polyphony might be used in place of plainchant. To these feasts of higher rank, only sixteen psalms are assigned at First and Second Vespers, the Offices most often featuring polyphony (see Table 1). Of these feasts of higher rank, there are three categories that are most frequently celebrated throughout the course of the year: Sundays (the most frequent feasts), feasts of male saints from the Proper and the Common (the second most frequent feasts), and feasts of Mary and most other female saints from the Common (the third most frequent feasts). Each category has a single cursus of five psalms.^[352] Sunday psalms (the “Sunday cursus”) are Dixit Dominus (psalm 109), Confitebor tibi (psalm 110), Beatus vir (psalm 111), Laudate pueri (psalm 112) and In exitu Israel (psalm 113). The strict numerical sequence of Sunday psalms suggests that in the early years of the formation of the Office, this was the first psalm sequence to be assigned. Next in frequency, feasts of Christ and male saints (the “male cursus”), in some cases for First and Second Vespers, in others for First Vespers only, comprise four of the same psalms as Sundays and a different fifth psalm: Dixit Dominus, Confitebor tibi, Beatus vir, Laudate pueri, and Laudate Dominum (psalm 116).^[353] The cursus for feasts of Mary and female saints from the Proper and Common (the “female cursus”) comprise two of the same psalms as the previous feasts, and three others: Dixit Dominus, Laudate pueri, Laetatus sum (psalm 121), Nisi Dominus (psalm 126), and Lauda Jerusalem (psalm 147).^[354] These three categories of feasts, therefore, require only nine of the sixteen psalms (see Table 1).

14.8 The next most frequently celebrated category of feasts comprises Second Vespers on feasts of apostles and evangelists from the Proper and the Common, encompassing the psalms Dixit Dominus, Laudate pueri, Credidi propter quod (psalm 115), In convertendo (psalm 125), and Domine probasti me (psalm 138),^[355] which, together with the psalms already named, number twelve of the sixteen psalms. Other feasts with different cursus insert individual psalms into sequences familiar from the more frequent categories. The cursus for Second Vespers at Christmastide, which includes St. Stephen, St. John Apostle and Evangelist, and the Holy Innocents, includes Dixit Dominus, Confitebor tibi, and Beatus vir from the male cursus together with De profundis (psalm 129) and Memento Domine David (psalm 131). The Corpus Christi cursus is a mixture of Dixit Dominus, Confitebor, and Lauda Jerusalem as the first, second, and fifth psalms, with Credidi propter quod and Beati omnes (psalm 127) inserted as the third and fourth psalms. Of all the psalms not included in the most frequent nine, Credidi propter quod is the one that appears most often: as the third psalm in Corpus Christi, the fifth psalm in the otherwise male cursus on Second Vespers for a few male saints;^[356] and as the third psalm in the sequence on Second Vespers for Apostles and Evangelists. Finally, the least frequently used psalm is Confitebor tibi … quoniam (psalm 137), which constitutes the fifth psalm at First Vespers on the Feast of St. Gabriel the Archangel, and at Second Vespers on the Feasts of St. Raphael the Archangel, the Dedication of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, and Holy Custodian Angels.^[357]

14.9 In the next two chapters we shall examine the history of Italian psalm cursus settings, in order to contextualize Monteverdi’s choice and order of psalms in the 1610 print.

15. Italian Psalm Cursus Settings (1): The Manuscript Tradition of the Fifteenth and First Half of the Sixteenth Centuries

15.1 Since 1993 (and thus well before Bowers’s Music & Letters article of 2009), Kurtzman had been demonstrating how specific sequences of Vespers psalms govern the manner in which such prints are systematized for the convenience of singers. But even before the advent of printed music for Vespers, the convenience of singers in performing the liturgy was considered by the scribes and compilers of manuscripts, illustrating practical concern for the order of service from the very outset of polyphonic settings of Vespers psalms and Magnificats (the latter often subsumed under the rubric “salmi” in prints).^[358]

15.2 Many fifteenth-century manuscripts of polyphonic sacred music include music for Vespers, but almost exclusively Magnificats and hymns, with a scattering of antiphons. Nevertheless, in a large late-fifteenth-century manuscript from Naples, MS Montecassino 871, we encounter for the first time polyphonic Vespers psalms. Only one section (originally an independent manuscript) contains polyphonic musical compositions. At the beginning of a sub-section devoted to Vespers music appear five Vespers psalms with doxologies, followed mostly by a sizeable number of hymns and a few Magnificats. The psalms are all for two texted voices in parallel sixths, with all verses in polyphony after the opening intonation, but in a variety of psalm tones. The two voices were probably intended to be completed by a third in fauxbourdon.^[359] What is of particular interest in our context, however, is that these five psalms, obviously conceived as a set musically, constitute the sequence of five psalms for feasts of Christ and male saints, the male cursus. Here, in the earliest known source of polyphonic Vespers psalms, the scribe has grouped in their proper liturgical sequence a complete set of polyphonic psalms for a single category of service, all in the same style and probably written by the same composer, for the obvious convenience of the singers who would perform them in succession. The only other psalm in the source is a single setting of the Sunday psalm In exitu Israel, situated by itself earlier in the manuscript.

15.3 More Vespers psalms are found in the manuscript Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare 759, from ca. 1500, which may be fairly described in its repertoire as a miscellany, comprising ten fascicles of masses and individual mass movements, Magnificats, hymns, a few motets, and Vespers psalms, each genre roughly gathered in three sections of the manuscript.^[360] Of 89 items in the manuscript, nos. 72–84 comprise Vespers psalms with several in multiple settings. But again, what is of interest to us here is the specific ordering of the psalms. The sequence of nos. 72–75 (fols. 79v–84r) is Dixit Dominus, Confitebor tibi, Beatus vir, and Laudate pueri, all odd verses, principally for four voices with some verses a3, by one or more anonymous composers.^[361] These four psalms constitute the first four for Sundays and the male cursus. Only the fifth psalm for each category is missing. The next grouping, nos. 76–80 (fols. 84v–88r), encompasses Dixit Dominus, Laudate pueri, Laetatus sum, Nisi Dominus, and Lauda Jerusalem, i.e., the entire Marian and female cursus, all even verses, for three voices, and again anonymous.^[362]After these two sequences come two-voice settings of odd verses of Credidi propter quod and Beati omnes (nos. 81–82, fols. 88v–89r), the two psalms inserted into the middle of the Corpus Christi cursus after Dixit Dominus and Confitebor tibi, and before Lauda Jerusalem.^[363] The final two psalms of this section of the manuscript (nos. 83–84, fols. 89v–91r) are anonymous three-voice settings of Laetatus sum and Nisi Dominus, the third and fourth psalms of the Marian and female cursus.

15.4 Altogether, the manuscript contains settings of nine of the sixteen psalms required for major feasts of the liturgical year, most of them in two versions. But this section of the manuscript and sequence of psalms is by no means a “miscellany.” The sequences themselves reveal a very specific organization, designed to make the manuscript convenient for singers to use. The first four psalms comprising in order the Sunday and male cursus allow the singers to perform them in succession in their proper liturgical sequence without having to thumb through the manuscript to find the next psalm in the sequence. The next five psalms, constituting the entire Marian and female cursus in their liturgical order, likewise allow for singing the complete sequence of a service for one of these feasts without having to search anywhere else in the manuscript for any of the psalms. The next two psalms, Credidi propter quod and Beati omnes, are paired, so that for a performance on the annual Feast of Corpus Christi, the singers would have to do some thumbing through the manuscript, but as minimally as possible. They could sing the Dixit Dominus and Confitebor tibi from fols. 79v–82r, then turn to the Credidi/Beati pair on fols. 88v–89r, and finally revert to fols. 87v–88r for the final psalm, Lauda Jerusalem. The final two psalms of the manuscript, Laetatus sum and Nisi Dominus, were likely included as settings the compiler had available and placed there as a pair that could be used in a service whose other psalms were sung in plainchant or as improvised fauxbourdon.

15.5 We have no idea who the composers of these psalms were and whether the sequences were composed as a set by the same person or assembled as such by the compiler. The Marian/female cursus psalms are not unified in style; the first three are in three-part counterpoint, while the last two employ improvised continental fauxbourdon (“a fauls bordon” in the manuscript) for the middle voice of the three. But even if they were not composed as liturgical sequences, the compiler of the manuscript has clearly inserted them as such, to enable singers to perform them conveniently within a single liturgical celebration. Such a purpose, however clear, does not preclude any choirmaster from choosing to perform only a single psalm or a selection of psalms from the manuscript in a service with one or more psalms in plainchant (recall the missing fifth psalm from the Sunday and male cursus), fauxbourdon, or from some other polyphonic source. There is an important distinction to be made here between the purpose of the ordering of the psalms, and the potentially divergent uses of that ordering.

15.6 Similar criteria are evident for the ordering of the psalm sections of early sixteenth century manuscripts. A manuscript of four-voice psalms, lamentations, and Magnificats (two of which are a5) willed to the Church of San Petronio in Bologna by Giovanni Spartaro in 1527 (Bologna, Archivio Musicale di San Petronio, MS A. XXXXVI) commences, according to its original index, with the five psalms of the female cursus (odd verses), and after the odd verses of the canticle Benedictus and the hymn Te Deum, continues with the five psalms of the male cursus (odd verses) and the three additional psalms needed to complete the female cursus (odd verses)—i.e., without having to go back to the beginning of the manuscript. The psalm portion of the index continues with Memento Domine David, In exitu Israel, Credidi propter quod, and De profundis (all odd verses) in random order, followed by the Lamentations for Holy Week. The index concludes with a large quantity of Magnificat settings and the Missa Baysem [sic] moy. The actual surviving manuscript has inserted after the opening female cursus sequence another setting of Dixit Dominus (all verses except first) and all verses of Laudate Dominum (except intonation), both likely later insertions, while the lamentations intervene after In exitu Israel and the mass is missing the last two movements, which are found in another of the Spartaro manuscripts.^[364]

15.7 Three manuscripts compiled and written by Gaspar de Albertis, many of whose pieces are by Gaspar himself, survive from the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. Albertis was commissioned to copy two music books in 1524, and two or more in 1541, giving us an approximate time frame for the introduction and use of the surviving manuscripts in the period leading up to the first publication of Vespers psalms (by Willaert and Jachet of Mantua) in 1550.^[365] These manuscripts contain a variety of liturgical genres and motets in what appears to be a somewhat random order—with the exception of the psalm sequences in each manuscript. Manuscript BergBC 1208 contains on fols. 16v–33r, separated at their beginning and conclusion from the rest of the compositions by blank folios,  the following sequence of compositions: Dixit Dominus, Laudate pueri, Laetatus sum, Nisi Dominus, Lauda Jerusalem, and the hymn Ave maris stella, the psalms all setting even verses for four voices augmented to six by canons at the end, and all composed by Albertis, while the unattributed hymn sets odd verses, and is projected by David Crawford and Scott Messing as also by Albertis.^[366] This sequence, of course, constitutes the psalms and hymn for the major feasts of the Virgin, the psalms composed by one person, with the alternatim hymn probably also composed by him, but in any event, all compiled as a sequence by him, in his role as the copyist of the manuscript. That Albertis has arranged these so that singers can perform them in sequence as part of a single service is unequivocal. Following the blank folio at the end of this sequence are two more psalm settings, both by Albertis, Memento Domine David and In exitu Israel, and three Magnificats, two by Albertis and one by Jachet of Mantua, all of which are for even-numbered verses only.^[367] It would have been a simple matter for the singers of Santa Maria Maggiore, once they had completed the cycle of psalms and hymn for a Marian feast, to advance several folios through the manuscript to conclude the service with one of the three Magnificats. That Albertis conceived of this manuscript as providing in sequence the key elements of particular services is demonstrated by his inclusion of two sets of the Lamentations of Jeremiah for the last three days of Holy Week.^[368]

15.8 Manuscript BergBC 1209, on fols. 111v–119r, also contains a sequence of five psalms, Dixit Dominus, Confitebor tibi, Beatus vir, Laudate pueri, and Laudate Dominum, all for the even-verse choir of coro spezzato settings, two of which were composed by Albertis (Confitebor tibi, Laudate pueri), the others by Fra Ruffino Bartolucci d’Assisi.^[369] These psalms, of course, constitute the complete male cursus, all in coro spezzato style and obviously arranged for the singers to be able conveniently to sing the complete cycle in sequence on an appropriate feast. Following this cycle in the manuscript are individual psalm settings: two of In convertendo, one of Credidi propter quod, one of Memento Domine David, an additional setting of Dixit Dominus and one of Laudate pueri, all for the even-verse choir of coro spezzato compositions (the manuscript with the alternate verses is apparently missing).

15.9 This manuscript also includes on fols. 87v–96r the unvarying cycle of psalms and canticle for Compline throughout the year: Cum invocarem, In te Domine speravi, Qui habitat, Ecce nunc benedicite, and Nunc dimittis, all settings of even verses for four voices, and all probably by Albertis.^[370] The same cycle of Compline psalms and canticle, again for even verses of four voices and all by Albertis, appears on fols. 106v–115r of the other surviving manuscript, BergBC 1207.^[371]

15.10 Another composer who set coro spezzato psalms in cycles for both Vespers and Compline prior to the initiation of printed sources for these services was Francesco Santacroce “Patavino,” perhaps during his first term as maestro di cappella of the cathedral in Treviso (1520–28), but also possibly in his second term there (1537–51). Treviso cathedral manuscripts 24a and 24b contain only five Vespers psalms in the sequence Dixit Dominus, Confitebor tibi, Beatus vir, Laudate pueri, and Laudate Dominum, i.e., the male cursus, obviously intended to provide the complete psalm cycle for services on the appropriate feasts.^[372] A complete polyphonic Compline service by Santacroce appears in Verona, Biblioteca dell’Accademia Filarmonica, Fondo di Musica Antica, MS 218, comprising settings of the verse Jube Domine, the short lesson Fratres sobrii, the response Qui fecit caelum et terram, the psalms Cum invocarem, In te Domine speravi, Qui habitat, and Ecce nunc, the short responsory In manus tuas, the hymn Te lucis ante terminum, and the canticle Nunc dimittis.^[373]

15.11 These manuscripts clearly demonstrate that from the earliest surviving sources of polyphonic Vespers psalms, a continuous tradition emerged of organizing psalms for Vespers in the sequences they would be sung in specific categories of feasts. The purpose is obvious: not only to make available complete sets of polyphonic psalms for these feasts, but to order them in a manuscript so singers could most conveniently and efficiently transition from one psalm to the next in the sequence required for the service being performed. Further exploration of the burgeoning manuscript repertoire of Vespers psalms in the first half of the sixteenth century is beyond the scope of the present study, but the initial pattern had already been set, and it continued right into the period when printed psalmody started to become the most practical and efficient way of disseminating music for liturgical services.

16. Psalm Cursus Settings (2): Psalm Prints of the Second Half of the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

16.1 When publishers began printing Vespers and Compline psalms, they quite naturally took their cues from the manuscript tradition, but for obvious practical reasons, could not publish prints the size of many manuscripts. The earliest prints of Vespers music therefore focused on specific liturgical genres: Magnificats, hymns, and Vespers psalms. The earliest surviving Italian print of Vespers psalms is the 1550 anthology of Adriano Willaert and Jachet of Mantua, published by Antonio Gardano in Venice (see Fig. 42).^[374] The marketing function of the title page focuses prominently on the names of the two composers, the first, maestro di cappella at St. Mark’s in Venice, and the second, maestro di cappella at the Cathedral of San Pietro in Mantua, both well-enough known to potential buyers that Gardano did not consider explicitly mentioning their distinguished positions of employment necessary to help sell the volume. The other marketing feature of the title page is the identification of contents: Vespers psalms for feasts of the entire year (all sixteen named above, most in multiple settings), but also indicating the structure and style of the settings: some by verses (alternatim), some in cori spezzati, for performance by one and two choirs.

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16.2 While the title page is simple and clear in its meaning, the indices of the two sets of partbooks, one for each choir, are at first sight quite confusing and reveal just how complex the print is. It is only by placing the pair of indices in relation to one another that we can obtain an accurate idea of what at first sight appears bewildering (see Table 2). The indices have two distinct organizing principles: first is the structural character of the psalms, identified by headings for each group; and second, beneath these are alphabetical listings by text incipit.^[375] These organizing principles of the index cause the non-sequential page numbers, indicating that the organization of the indices is different from the succession of psalms within the print itself. The indices are designed to point the user foremost to whether the psalms are in eight-voice coro spezzato (Salmi a versi con le sue risposte, with the odd verses all composed by Jachet and the even verses by Willaert, Phinot, or Jachet); four voices of odd verses only in the first choir only, the even verses to be sung alternatim in plainchant (Salmi a versi ſenza risposte); eight-voice coro spezzato, all composed by Willaert (Salmi ſpezzadi di M. adriano); and four voices of odd verses only in the second choir, the even verses to be sung alternatim in plainchant (Salmi ſenza risposte quali sono nel secondo choro). The indices enable the user to find individual psalms in coro spezzato or alternatim style by specific composers.

16.3 However, the succession of psalms in the print itself, the most important organizational principle with regard to the convenience of the singers in performing services from the print, is quite different from the organization of the indices (see Table 3). As can be seen from comparing the two sets of contents, they do not line up completely parallel in first- and second-choir settings. The reason is that the alternatim psalms in the first choir (senza risposte, second category of the indices: see Table 2) only number four, while the alternatim psalms in the second choir (senza risposte, fourth category of the index) number seven. However, using this print for the most frequent feasts is much simpler for the singers than the complexities of the indices at first glance suggest. The first six psalms in succession (Table 3) constitute the Sunday cursus in coro spezzato, with the first- and second-choir verses by different composers, but with an interruption by the anomalous Beati omnes, on p. 6 (Table 2), which may have been inserted to fill the signature “A” sheet rather than leave the last page blank.^[376] Following In exitu Israel comes Laudate Dominum in the succession, the one psalm needed at the end of the first four psalms of the Sunday cursus to form the male cursus. Laudate Dominum is in turn succeeded in the first choir by the five psalms for feasts of Mary and female saints, the first psalm, Dixit Dominus, signaling the liturgical function with the rubric De Beatissima Vergine in the first choir (which sings the first verse). The second choir has the first four psalms, with De profundis inserted between the first and second psalms, and Lauda Jerusalem omitted after Nisi Dominus, leaving completion of the series to the first choir alone. Gardano simply may not have had a setting of the even verses of Lauda Jerusalem to use at this point in the print. The short psalm De profundis fills out page 12 that would have otherwise remained blank in the second choir. The parallel page 12 in the first choir contains the final verses of Dixit Dominus, but the even verses in the second choir required only the single page 11, leaving page 12 free for insertion of a psalm short enough to occupy only a single page.

16.4 The remaining seven psalms seem almost randomly placed in sequence, but Gardano was conscious of keeping together certain pairings that appear in succession in particular feasts. Thus, twice Credidi propter quod is followed in sequence by In convertendo, required in that order for Second Vespers of Peter and Paul as well as the Common of Apostles and Evangelists. Similarly, De profundis and Memento Domine David, which succeed one another in the psalm sequence for Second Vespers at Christmastide, are grouped together, both in coro spezzato settings by Willaert.

16.5 In this print, Gardano’s very complicated first effort to publish a collection of Vespers psalms, the publisher had perhaps bitten off more than he could easily chew, in part because of what music he had available. The succession of pieces is designed to make performance of the most frequent services in the liturgical calendar as convenient as possible, despite the insertions of the anomalous Beati omnes into the Sunday cursus and De profundis into the Marian/female cursus in order to fill otherwise blank pages, as well as the absence of a second-choir setting of Lauda Jerusalem at the end of the latter cursus. Further evidence of Gardano’s interest in performance convenience is his pairing of other psalms that occur in succession in other, less frequently used cursus. The print emerges as a mixture of order and randomness, some of it appearing as a miscellany, as Bowers describes all Vespers prints, and a good portion of it attempting, not wholly successfully, to provide for the most convenient performance of the most frequently used complete cycles of psalms.

16.6 Although this collection was republished in 1557, both Gardano and Girolamo Scotto quickly turned to much simpler and clearer publications of Vespers music in the early 1550s. The next surviving prints of Vespers music date from 1554. One of these is another anthology of psalms, by Cipriano di Rore and Jachet of Mantua, from Scotto’s publishing house (see Figs. 43 and 44). In this print the five psalms for Christmas appear in sequence with only the odd verses in polyphony, as are the even verses of the Magnificat, all by Cipriano de Rore. (The text incipits in the index of this print begin, atypically, with the first words set polyphonically after the initial chant intonation.^[377]) There follow two Vespers by Jachet of Mantua, both comprising the male cursus, with the first concluded by a Magnificat—not listed in the index—and the second adding three other psalms for Corpus Christi and the Common of Apostles and Evangelists. Of the latter psalms Credidi propter quod and In convertendo are in their proper sequence for feasts of Apostles and Evangelists. All the Jachet psalms are also for odd verses with only the Magnificat set for even verses.

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16.7 Another surviving psalm print of the same year is that of Domenico Phinot, published by Girolamo Scotto in 1554 and republished in 1555 by both Scotto and Gardano with the addition of two further Magnificats (see Figs. 45 and 46). This print contains a total of thirteen psalms, but only eight different texts, organized into a “Vespro Primo” that includes the male cursus sequence of five psalms, another five as the Vespro Secondo, also comprising the male cursus, and a Vespro Terzo della Madonna, whose first two psalms are the same as the Vespro Primo (as one can see from the page numbers) plus the remaining three psalms in the sequence required for feasts of the Virgin and almost all other female saints. At the end are three Magnificats, one for Quadragesima and Advent (odd verses) and the other two for other times of the year (even verses).^[378] There is nothing miscellaneous about the contents of this print: it consists of three different sets of services, with the first two laid out in the partbooks so the singers can perform on continuous pages without having to search elsewhere in the print. The first two psalms of the “Vespro della Madonna,” were already given in the Vespro Primo and not reset for the Marian cycle, but the other three are on continuous pages. The Magnificats do come at the end of the print, rather than at the end of each Vespers service, but that’s because none of the Magnificats is tied specifically to any of the three services, which could fall in the time frame of either Quadrigesima and Advent or “other times.”

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16.8 Willaert’s 1555 collection of music for the Office, published by Gardano, is more expansive (see Figs. 47 and 48). Here the “Vespro Primo” comprises a much more complete polyphonic service for Second Vespers on Christmas day: the five alternatim psalms in liturgical sequence (some of odd verses, others of even verses), polyphonic settings of the five psalm antiphons in a separate sequence (indicated only as “Antiphone,” with the text incipit of the first antiphon in the index), the hymn, the Magnificat antiphon, and the closing Benedicamus Domino.^[379] The Magnificat for “Alijs temporibus,” setting even verses, and the odd-verse Magnificat “Tempore Quadragesime & Adventus,” are located at the end of the print because of the multiplicity of potential uses for both settings.

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16.9 The “Vespro Secondo” is a Marian Vespers comprising the five psalms (again some of odd verses, some of even), the most common hymn for the Virgin (Ave maris stella), and the same Benedicamus Domino. The first psalm is drawn from the “Vespro Primo” above, and the hymn is located later in the print, as can be seen from the page numbers. Either of the Magnificats at the end of the print can serve for feasts of the Virgin, depending on the liturgical season.

16.10 The third major item in the print is a complete Compline service, the texts of which do not change throughout the course of the year, followed by the great Marian antiphon for the Easter season. This print offers the Christmas psalms in sequence on continuous pages, but the singers have to turn to other pages for the sequence of antiphons and the Magnificat. The four Marian psalms are in sequence, and the Compline service is entirely in liturgical sequence on continuous pages. The contents are obviously organized primarily for the benefit of the singers, so they can generally avoid skipping pages to find the next item. Only the Christmas psalm antiphons are somewhat inconvenient in their positioning.

16.11 Willaert’s print is a very rare instance of the composer providing the five liturgically correct antiphons in polyphony for each of the five Vespers psalms in their correct sequence, even though they are not interspersed between the psalms. It is the uniqueness of the psalm sequence for Second Vespers on Christmas that makes feasible these antiphon settings, which are also unique to that feast. In contrast to the Christmas Vespers liturgy as represented here, the Vespers liturgy of the multiple feasts of Mary, all with the same set of psalms, have different sequences of antiphons from one feast to another (the Common of Feasts of Mary has its own unique set of antiphons). Thus, there is only one set of liturgically correct antiphons for Willaert’s “Vespro Primo,” while there is a multiplicity of possible antiphon sets for the “Vespro Secondo.” By not providing a specific set of antiphons, Willaert has chosen not to suggest a limitation in the Marian feasts those psalms serve.

16.12 These prints, along with an enlarged reprint of Phinot’s, constitute the first five known publications of polyphonic psalms for Vespers. After Willaert and Jachet’s initial collection of all sixteen Vespers psalms, the publishers Antonio Gardano and Girolamo Scotto both obviously found a market niche for Vespers that presented a more limited grouping of complete psalm sequences for major feasts in the order of service. Gardano went even further by including a complete Compline service in Willaert’s 1555 publication, which was popular enough to be reprinted no less than three times, in 1561, 1565, and 1571. Phinot’s 1554 print was republished twice with a couple of Magnificats added, and the Rore and Jachet anthology was republished once. That such prints were purposely designed for maestri di cappella to have at their disposal complete polyphonic services, at least of the psalms and Magnificats, and sometimes more, is unquestionable. That doesn’t mean that any maestro di cappella might not draw on just a single item or two from a print, as with the manuscript sequences described above, and use those in a service that was otherwise sung in plainchant or falsibordoni, but the intention of the composers and publishers was clearly to provide the user with more-or-less complete services. Bowers’s comment on a selection of such prints discussed in Kurtzman’s book The Monteverdi Vespers, as “composers who had merely lighted upon an agreeably tidy way of presenting a choice of discrete and non-sequential pieces” is a baffling reversal of what these prints with their liturgically ordered sequences of psalms unequivocally demonstrate.^[380]

16.13 Collections with just five psalms for a single service, or a few more than five gathered into two or more distinct services, continued to be published all the way through at least the first quarter of the seventeenth century. From 1559 to 1624, we count, including reprints, thirty-three such collections.^[381] Between 1590 and 1611 there survive twelve prints, including Monteverdi’s, with just the five psalm texts (occasionally in multiple settings) and possibly a Magnificat or two, for the male cursus, the female cursus, the Sunday cursus, or another less common cursus.^[382] All these are obviously designed to provide polyphonic settings of the principal elements of a single service.

16.14 As we have already seen, it requires only eight psalms to fulfill the needs of both the male cursus and the female cursus because of the overlap of two psalms between these two sequences. A ninth psalm, In exitu Israel, added to the first four psalms of the male cursus, completes the Sunday cursus. But even for Sundays, In exitu, the longest of all the psalms for Vespers on principal feasts, was not always required. To relieve the length of a Sunday service, Laudate Dominum, the fifth psalm of the male cursus and the shortest of all the Vespers psalms, could be substituted for In exitu.^[383] Thus, only eight psalms could fulfill the need for Vespers psalms in most feasts, others being required in only a small quantity in more specialized liturgical situations, such as Christmas, Corpus Christi, or the Dedication of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel. (See Table 1.)

16.15 The quantity of surviving psalm prints from between 1550 and 1620, including reprints, limited to these eight psalms, numbers thirteen.^[384] In the same period the quantity of psalm prints with nine psalms, most often adding In exitu Israel for Sundays to the other eight, is also thirteen.^[385] In light of the statement made by Bowers regarding the results of Kurtzman’s research, quoted above, it bears repeating that all of these collections are designed to provide the complete psalm sequence, often with the Vespers response and a Magnificat, for the male or Sunday and female cursus, or all three cursus in a sequence that makes it as convenient as possible for the performers to present in polyphony most of the elements of a complete Vespers service for the vast majority of feasts in the annual cycle. There are other collections with ten, eleven, or twelve psalms that fulfill the needs of even more feasts, but almost always with the three principal cursus as their basis. Such collections, carefully ordered to provide for nearly complete services for specific categories of feasts, cannot justifiably be described as miscellanies.

16.16 Nor is this the case with large collections of all sixteen Vespers psalms that were published in great numbers from the 1570s onward as obviously highly marketable prints, but rigorously organized to make it as easy as possible for the singers to perform a complete set of five psalms on any major feast with a minimum amount of leafing through the partbooks to find the next item in the service. Representative of such publications is Giovanni Matteo Asola’s Psalmodia ad Vespertinas omnium solennitatum horas of 1574 (see Figs. 49 and 50). This print begins with the Office response, then proceeds with the five psalms for Sundays throughout the year, followed by the single psalm Laudate Dominum, which, with the first four psalms of the Sunday cursus, completes the male cursus. These two cursus are then followed by the three additional psalms, Laetatus sum, Nisi Dominus, and Lauda Jerusalem, required for Marian and almost all other female feasts. The next three psalms, Credidi propter quod, In convertendo, and Domine probasti me, like the three female psalms, are the final three in Second Vespers for the Common of Apostles and Evangelists, and for feasts of specific individual apostles in the Sanctorale. The next two psalms, De profundis and Memento Domine David, are the final two psalms for Second Vespers on Christmas day and a few other Christmastide feasts. Beati omnes appears in a single feast, Corpus Christi, while Confitebor Angelorum (Confitebor tibi … quoniam), is found in four feasts, as named in note 375 and illustrated in Table 1.

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16.17 This sequence of psalms is typical, though some prints place one or more groupings, such as the three for Apostles and Evangelists, before, instead of after, the three for the Virgin and female saints, and the final psalms of the sixteen are sometimes in a different order. But whatever the specific sequence, even these psalm collections for the entire liturgical year are carefully designed for performance of a complete set of five psalms for specific categories of feasts. We have found only a dozen prints out of some 650 between 1550 and 1620 that can justifiably be described as collections of miscellaneous psalms, but even these typically contain at least one five-psalm cursus sequence amid other randomly ordered psalms.^[386]  While prints with multiple liturgical genres, such as one or more masses, motets, psalms, multiple Magnificats, falsibordoni, and even instrumental compositions, which became much more common in the late sixteenth century, might properly be considered miscellanies, the Vespers psalms in such prints are almost never presented in a miscellaneous sequence.

16.18 The composers’ and publishers’ intentions in these prints are unequivocal, and it is equally clear that Monteverdi’s print for the Mass and Vespers of 1610 does indeed “conform to prevailing convention,”^[387] as Bowers says, but that convention is exactly the opposite of what Bowers claims (see App. 1, chapter 5). Monteverdi’s psalm sequence is organized to meet the needs of a single category of service, not a miscellany of psalms, and he’s added the Vespers response, the most common hymn to the Virgin, and two versions of the Magnificat. The response and at least one Magnificat are frequently included in other prints with series of psalms as well, as we’ve already noted, and Ave maris stella also appears on occasion. But we must also understand that Monteverdi’s print, designed as a liturgical sequence for a single category of feast, would not have inhibited a maestro di cappella from choosing to perform only one or a few of the items in the print. The two possibilities are not mutually exclusive. Publishers were well aware of that possibility, and it constituted one of their marketing considerations, often influencing how they worded their title pages, as is the case with Monteverdi’s print. Nevertheless, the design of Monteverdi’s contents is unequivocally for a polyphonic Vespers of the Virgin from opening response, through the five psalms, to the hymn and concluding Magnificat.^[388]

16.19 There are also other important observations to make regarding information provided by prints. The first is that despite the large quantity of prints that survive, there are many that are lost. What we observe as the first appearance in print of some style, technique, ordering of contents, or performance practice may not have been its first actual appearance in print, which could date back to some lost publication. Secondly, what is new in print may have been practiced for many years in manuscripts that never saw the printing press.^[389] This point is underscored by Vicentino’s comments on instruments in masses, psalms, and other genres. (See par. 13.3.) The passage, printed in 1555, speaks of the use of instruments not as a novelty, but rather as a method obviously already being used by some composers, that one can adopt to enhance the sound in a church. We don’t know how many years it took Vicentino to write his manuscript and get it published—likely a few years at a minimum for such a large treatise. Thus, he would have been speaking of a practice that could date back to the 1540s or even earlier. But the first time we encounter this practice in Office music in an extant print is 1573, in Ippolito Camatero’s Salmi corista discussed below (par. 18.3), almost two decades after Vicentino’s treatise was published. Similarly, Vicentino mentions Office and Mass music for three choirs. The first surviving publication to contain Office music for three choirs is Camatero’s Magnificats of 1575, cited above (par. 13.4), which includes one Magnificat for twelve voices. Any evaluation of any aspect of Monteverdi’s 1610 print must take all of these factors into account.

17. Monteverdi’s Mass and Vespers of 1610: Ave maris stella and the five sacri concentus

17.1 The history of the organization of manuscripts and prints containing Vespers psalms renders it unarguable that Monteverdi’s Vespers response, five psalms, and Magnificat constitute principal elements of a continuous Vespers service for feasts of the Madonna. The hymn Ave maris stella also fits into its proper place in this sequence, but Bowers argues that it is not a hymn at all—as we shall see, an argument based on false premises. Equally problematic are his arguments regarding the role of the five sacri concentus: Nigra sum, Pulchra es, Duo Seraphim, Audi Coelum, and the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria, published in Amadino’s print in that sequence, one after each of the five Marian psalms (see App. 1, par. 5.8–5.11).

17.2 We will postpone for the moment the question of the role of the five sacri concentus in order to deal first with the claims Bowers makes about individual compositions in the Vespers, namely, the hymn Ave maris stella and the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria.

Ave maris stella

17.3 Bowers’s commentary on Monteverdi’s Ave maris stella is problematic. It begins with the following assertion:

In the motet Ave maris stella the text set by Monteverdi was that of the hymn proper to both First and Second Vespers on all feasts of the Blessed Virgin. However, since in its published form the setting is through-composed and not alternatim, it appears to be readily identifiable as non-liturgical.^[390]

17.4 This statement, without substantiation, is puzzling. Although the vast majority of polyphonic hymns published in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were alternatim (even-verse polyphonic settings considerably outweighing odd-verse settings), we know of no liturgical requirement that hymns be composed and performed alternatim, and there had been settings of all verses of hymns from as early as the 1479 Modena choirbooks α.M.1.11–12, in which one three-voice choir sings the polyphonic odd verses and the other antiphonal choir responds with the polyphonic even verses.^[391] In the first surviving published hymn collection, Adrian Willaert’s Hymnorum omnium secundum ordinem romanae ecclesiae of 1542, we find among polyphonic settings of even verses and odd verses, a second setting of all verses of Vexilla regis prodeunt for Passion Sunday and another of the hymn for Saint Francis, O iubar nostrae specimen, in which the successive verses are set for varying numbers of voices with differing treatments of the cantus firmus.^[392] Giovanni Contini’s four voice Hymni per totum annum, published by Scotto in 1561, also sets all verses of Vexilla regis prodeunt.^[393] Giovanni Matteo Asola’s eight-voice Hymnodia vespertina in maioribus anni solemnitatibus of 1602 sets all verses of all its hymns.^[394] Lodovico Torti (Torto)’s three-voice Missa una, septem divinae laudes, aliquot & Hymni, unà cum psalmis vespertinis ac B.V. cantico, published by Amadino in 1607, includes a setting of all verses of Quodcunque vinclis among its eight hymns.^[395] Gaspare Villani’s setting of Ave maris stella from his eight-voice Psalmi omnes ad vesperas … liber quintus, published by Angelo Gardano in 1611, presents pairs of verses in coro spezzato, with each pair stylistically differentiated (i.e., non-strophic).

17.5 While the vast majority of hymns from the fifteenth through the early seventeenth centuries were indeed alternatim settings, settings of all verses in this repertoire demonstrate that no liturgical requirement of alternatim settings existed, refuting Bowers’s assertion that Monteverdi’s Ave maris stella does not qualify as a liturgical hymn. Monteverdi’s setting is, like the other components of his Vespro della Beata Vergine, an innovative and imaginative expansion on the precedents of simpler compositional techniques found in the sacred repertoire.

The Sonata sopra Sancta Maria

17.6 Bowers proposes a strictly numerical proportional structure underlying Monteverdi’s Sonata sopra Sancta Maria. But, as we show, that proportional structure does not fit the actual mathematics of the Sonata (see App. 1, par. 5.12–5.21).

17.7 While we are critical of Bowers’s attempt to manipulate numbers in order to devise a precise, complex mathematical symmetry for the Sonata, the piece is indeed symmetrical, just not according to Bowers’s formula. In fact, from Orfeo onward, Monteverdi demonstrates his propensity toward symmetrical structures as well as golden sections (the two sometimes combined) in large compositions. An interesting facet of these symmetries and golden sections, however, is that they are often not numerically precise. Symmetry and golden sections in Monteverdi are aesthetic ideas more than mere geometrical constructs. Even if Monteverdi begins with a geometrical framework in mind, the compositional exigencies, aesthetic choices, and dramatic demands of the moment frequently render flexible the structural units without diluting the larger aural impression of that structure.^[396]

The principal problem regarding the sacri concentus

17.8 Regarding Bowers’s commentary on the sacri concentus—the four motets and Sonata sopra Sancta Maria that follow each of the five Vespers psalms—see App. 1, par. 5.22–5.27.

17.9 The five sacri concentus in Monteverdi’s collection have caused problems for many scholars attempting to understand how their characterization on the title page as an apparently separate set of pieces relates to their position in the print, one after each of the five psalms, where, moreover, they are subsumed under the rubric in the Bassus Generalis partbook: “Vespro della B. Vergine da concerto, composto sopra canti fermi.” While the description da concerto certainly appertains to the sacri concentus as well as everything else under this rubric, sopra canti fermi applies to all of the items except the sacri concentus. We have already described the different roles of the title and the sequence of pieces in a print, which explains the supposed discrepancy that has bothered many writers besides Bowers and need not detain us further. As far as the canti fermi are concerned, even though the sacri concentus contain no intelligible references to plainchant, their positioning in the sequence of pieces makes no sense whatsoever in a rationally organized print unless they constitute part of the entire Vespro della B. Vergine, within which they are found in such a carefully distributed manner. Composto sopra canti fermi simply applies to the great majority of compositions falling within the sequence the rubric identifies.

17.10 The first to make a cogent in-depth argument in favor of the inclusion of the sacri concentus in an actual Vespers service was Stephen Bonta in 1967.^[397] According to Bonta, the requirements of the liturgy could be fulfilled by someone intoning the chant antiphon sotto voce while each of the Monteverdi sacri concentus was being performed. The situation would be entirely analogous to what the Caerimoniale Episcoporum of 1600 describes with regard to organ music:

Whenever there is played in organ polyphony something [properly] to be sung, or verses of hymns or canticles to be performed alternatim, let there be recited, in an intelligible voice by some member of the choir [the text of] that which was performed by the organ. And it would be praiseworthy for some singer to sing that, in a clear voice simultaneously with the organ.^[398] … In solemn Vespers the organ is usually played at the end of each psalm, and in alternatim in the versicles of hymns and the Magnificat canticle, etc., subject, however to the rules above [regarding the simultaneous singing of the text] [our emphasis].…^[399]

17.11 A similar passage is found under the rubric “De Vesperis solemnibus Episcopo in crastinum celebraturo” (Of solemn Vespers to be sung by the Bishop the next day):

At discretion, upon the completion of any psalm the antiphon may be repeated by
the organ, provided that that antiphon is [also] repeated in a clear voice by some Mansionarii, or by others so deputed. And if there were anyone who wished to sing
with the organ, let him sing nothing other than that antiphon, as more fully is
explained in the chapter “de organo.”^[400]

17.12 The Constitutiones Capituli Sanctae Barbarae Mantuae of 1568 prescribe that the mansionaries intone the antiphons after the psalm whenever the organ doesn’t play in major and minor duplex feasts.^[401] This instruction makes clear that it was common for the organ to play after psalms but is silent as to whether a mansionary should intone the antiphon when the organ does play.

17.13 In the previous examples, where the organ substitutes for a plainchant passage, the celebrant recites the liturgical text in a “clear” or “intelligible” voice (presumably before or after the organ plays, unless the text is to be sung along with the organ). The next quotation proposes that he recite it sotto voce, apparently simultaneously with figural music. In the Ritus servandus in celebratione Missarum (“Rite to be observed in the celebration of Masses”) of the post-tridentine Missale Romanum of 1570, under the heading De Epistola, Graduali, et alijs usque ad Offertorium (“About the Epistle, Gradual, and others up to the Offertory”) is the instruction:

With the prayers said, the celebrant … reads the Epistle with an intelligible voice. If he celebrates solemnly [i.e.,with music], he should read in a low voice with the ministers: similarly the Gradual and the Gospel. The Epistle having been read, it is answered by the ministers, “Thanks be to God”: and standing in the same manner as before, he continues with the Gradual, Alleluia, and Tract, and Sequence, if they are to be said.^[402]

17.14 With regard to Monteverdi’s sacri concentus, the point is not whether there are only certain circumstances and conditions when the rubrics of the Caeremoniale apply, but rather that there is a precedent in the official liturgy for organs to play at the repeat of the psalm antiphon. That the analogy with sacri concentus like those of Monteverdi is not authorized by the Caeremoniale has nothing to do with the fact that such an analogy exists and was likely a stimulating factor in Monteverdi’s and other composers’ and choir directors’ interpolating both vocal and instrumental music into services at the same position as the authorized organ music. It is worth noting (in light of Monteverdi’s providing no motet after either of his Magnificats) that all the Caeremoniale paragraphs regarding organ replacement for the repetition of the antiphons apply only to the five psalms and not to the Magnificat antiphon. (See App. 1, par. 5.25–5.27, for Bowers’s interpretation of the meaning of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum excerpts.)

18. Liturgical Books, the Caeremoniale Episcoporum, and the Performance of the Liturgy

18.1 The Caeremoniale Episcoporum, first published in 1600 and republished numerous times in revised editions thereafter, commences with a dedication to Pope Clement VIII, starting with the following statement of purpose:

Since the most recent pontifical was faulty and corrupt, we ordered it to be corrected by pious and learned men, and finally restored to the common use and convenience of bishops and prelates of other churches, and to be observed by all in the universal Church. The Ceremonial of the Bishops was seen as a useful and necessary work for all the Churches, and especially for the Metropolitan, Cathedral, and Collegiate [churches], in which [are performed] the rites and ceremonies of celebrating Masses, Vespers, and other Divine offices; and in other Church functions and acts, to be observed by these Bishops and other inferior prelates and in a uniform manner of proceeding.… We have accepted that the work has now been completed with due faith and diligence. [Original text in App. 7.]

This dedication makes it clear that although the book is entitled the Ceremony of Bishops, and the procedures it describes for celebrating Mass and Vespers are focused principally on the role of the bishop, they also describe procedures for situations when no bishop is present, and they apply to, or are a model for, other prelates in all types of churches (“the universal Church”).

18.2 Any assumption, however, that the performance of the liturgy was necessarily constrained by the dictates of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum and the antecedent service books that served as its basis is refuted by numerous publications of sacred music in Italy that ignored many of the prohibitions in its predecessors as well as in the immediate aftermath of the Caeremoniale’s own first edition of 1600. As noted above, the chapter “De Organo” restricts the use of the organ during the Advent season and Lent with specific exceptions.^[403] Wednesday in Holy Week and Good Friday are among the days when the organ cannot be used. The chapter proscribes all instruments other than the organ: “nec alia instrumenta musicalia praeter ipsum organum addantur.” It warns against organ music that is “lascivus, aut impurus,” and states that no song shall be sung with the organ that is profane or theatrical or does not pertain to the Office (“qui ad officium, quod agitur, non spectant, nedùm profane, aut ludici”). The chapter ends with a prohibition against the organ, and even polyphony, in Masses and Offices for the dead.^[404]

18.3 The use of instruments in divine services had, in fact, been a hotly contested topic in the pre-Tridentine period, but the Council eventually avoided the topic in its canons and decrees.^[405] As we noted above (par. 13.3), Nicola Vicentino in his treatise of 1555 had recommended joining instruments with voices in “masses, psalms and dialogues and other things” to produce a bigger sound in churches. There can be no question that the use of instruments was already reasonably common at the time of Vicentino’s recommendation, which does not read as some kind of novelty. However, such practices aren’t reflected in the published repertoire until almost two decades later. In par. 16.19 we called attention to the the earliest known print to call for the use of instruments in psalms, which didn’t appear until 1573: Ippolito Camatero’s Salmi corista, whose title page calls attention to its adherence to the dictates of the Council of Trent but also declares the contents “convenient for voices accompanied by every sort of musical instrument.” ^[406] Camatero made similar comment on the use of instruments in the dedication of his Magnificats of 1575.^[407] The earliest extant mass print calling for instruments was not issued, however, until 1596, by Ippolito Baccusi.^[408]

18.4 After the appearance of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum, prints of sacred music calling for instrumental participation only multiplied. In addition to motet collections advertised as tum viva voce, tum etiam omni instrumentorum genere, or some variation on this formula (from as early as Orlando di Lasso’s motets of 1562),^[409] music for the Office and Mass with instruments also continued unabated. Giovanni Francesco Ramella, maestro di cappella at the Cathedral of Novara, published in 1601 a mixed collection of sacred music for eight voices, including two masses, the whole under an almost identical rubric (“… and suitable for all musical instruments”).^[410] In 1603 Pompeo Signorucci, maestro di cappella and organist at Borgo San Sepolcro, published a mixed collection of psalms, falsibordoni, and motets with the same rubric in Italian.^[411] The next year Antonio Mogavero, maestro di cappella at the patriarchal seminary in Venice, produced a collection of masses for five and eight voices in Dialogo pro instrumentis & organo.^[412] It is unnecessary to list here the many additional surviving publications from the years preceding or following Monteverdi’s 1610 print, that,  in one way or another, called for the (usually optional) use of instruments besides the organ.^[413] By the 1620s it was common for composers to print independent instrumental parts, as Monteverdi already did in 1610, increasingly with specific instruments named.^[414] The Caeremoniale Episcoporum’s proscription against instruments in the Divine Office was in practice a dead letter the moment it was published.

18.5 The prohibition against the organ on Wednesday of Holy Week and Good Friday, as well as the universal injunction against instruments, are also violated in publications of Holy Week music. Since the early 1580s there had been a tradition of accompanying Holy Week music with a variety of instruments in a number of major churches in northern Italy.^[415] A letter from the prefect of the Congregazione dei Regolari to the bishop of Padua of 27 March 1601 laments the use of “varij instromenti” during Holy Week services, but the effort to ban instruments during Holy Week at the basilica of Sant’Antonio had already failed by early 1602.^[416] Serafino Cantone’s 1603 print contains a wide range of music for Holy Week beginning on Palm Sunday, including lamentations and responsories for the Triduum, all accompanied by the organ.^[417]

18.6 The remaining surviving prints of Holy Week music from the first decade of the century, however, do not have an organ part.^[418] Yet in the next decade, in 1612, Rogerio Argilliano of Castro Novo Carfignano published an anthology of Holy Week responsories for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday together with Vespers and a mass for Holy Saturday.^[419] While the organ was permitted on Maundy Thursday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, the responsories for Good Friday also include the organ continuo. In the same year Giovanni Francesco Capello of Venice published Lamentations for five voices and an optional four-voice instrumental choir of violas, violone, chitarrone, and basso continuo.^[420] In 1614 Antonio Burlini issued his Lamentations concertato alla moderna, including a basso continuo for harpsichord or spinet and a part for violin, also labeled istrumento acuto.^[421] Valerio Bona’s 1616 double-choir Lamentations include a basso continuo part for chitarroni or lutes, and, according to the title page, may be performed by voices alone or instruments.^[422] During the second decade of the century documents from Parma, Modena, and Ferrara also testify to the use of harpsichords, spinets, chitarroni, and strings in Holy Week services.^[423] The one homage some of these prints make to the Caeremoniale Episcoporum is the substitution of a harpsichord, spinet, or plucked string instrument for the organ as continuo—a rather disingenuous response to the injunction against the organ.

18.7 Publications of funeral masses could also ignore the prohibitions of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum. Polyphonic masses and offices for the dead had been published prior to 1600 and continued to be published afterward, such as those by Giovanni Matteo Asola (1603), Lodovico Viadana (1604, 1609), Vincenzo Pellegrini (1604), Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi (1607), Marco Gagliano (1607), Giulo Belli (1607–1608), Girolamo Bartei (1608), and Archangelo Borsaro (1608).^[424] The prohibition against the organ and other instruments was more effective in masses and offices for the dead than in other liturgical services, but even here a few prints included organ parts: Orazio Vecchi (1607), Domenico Belli (1616), Sante Petrucci (1621).^[425]

18.8 The many prints cited here make it obvious that the instructions and regulations of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum cannot be taken as determining the actual practice of liturgical services in the period after 1600.

19. The Use of Motets and Instrumental Music in the Performance of the Liturgy

19.1 While the prints containing violations of various prohibitions of the Caerimoniale Episcoporum cited in the previous chapter undercut Bowers’s rejection of Monteverdi’s sacri concentus as having any legitimate part in a Vespers service on the grounds of the Caerimoniale, there is much further evidence of vocal and instrumental music inserted into the liturgy, especially the Office, from the period immediately following the publication of the Caerimoniale.

19.2 As noted above, the first to bring that evidence to public attention was Stephen Bonta (see par. 17.10). Among the various arguments he makes, one involves five organ sonatas to be performed in Vespers services, found in the 1605 treatise of the Bolognese organist and composer Adriano Banchieri, L’Organo suonarino.^[426] According to Banchieri, these sonatas are provided for performance with the “five psalms that are ordinarily sung at Vespers,” and are “convenient to play in score, and also easy to intabulate for the hands.”^[427] These are five brief pieces in different compositional styles that are evidently to serve in place of the post-psalm antiphons—Banchieri must have thought their precise use so obvious that he didn’t need to state it explicitly. These five sonatas fall within the framework of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum’s guidelines if the antiphon text were simultaneously recited or sung by a mansionario or someone deputed to do so.

19.3 Further evidence and justification of the freedom of choirmasters to insert non-canonical motets and instrumental music into the liturgy, and particularly between psalms, is argued in several paragraphs of Tomus II of Operis de Virtute, et Statu Religionis, first published in 1610, by the internationally famous Jesuit theologian and professor at the University of Coimbra in Portugal, Francisco Suarez.^[428] In Book IV, Chapter XIII, after citation of various sins in performing the liturgy through omission of texts of the breviary or by addition and substitution of unauthorized texts, paragraph 16 turns to acceptable additions, with the rubric “The method of addition can sometimes be morally worthy and sometimes morally defective.”^[429]

But in a third way something may be added to the Divine Office, not belonging to it, not formally, so to speak, or by way of a part, but accompanying, and as it were adjacent to [contributing to] a greater solemnity. And so it is customary, in some feasts and churches, between psalms, something outside the Office is sung with the organ or some other musical instrument, which is sometimes taken from elsewhere in the same Breviary, sometimes from the Scriptures, sometimes composed by someone learned, which they call a Motet, and sometimes it is in the vernacular. Some, therefore, absolutely disapprove of this use … lest the hearers be moved to lasciviousness rather than to devotion, which is contrary to the purpose of prayer.… But indeed, if those things which are sung outside of the Ecclesiastical Office for the sake of devotion and its solemnity are pious, and the song is serious and exciting to devotion, it will be no sin to intersperse them with the parts of the Office. And this is proved by the custom of many churches, which are governed and administered by pious, prudent, and learned prelates and men.^[430]

19.4 Regarding the use of instrumental music, in paragraph 17, with the lead rubric, “The sound of organs alone between singing is approved, and what it ought to be is shown,”^[431] Suarez proclaims:

Hence it is also understood that it is not in itself a reprehensible practice by interspersing the sound of organs in divine services, without any singing, solely with the sweetness of musical instruments, as sometimes happens in a solemn Mass, or in the Canonical Hours between psalms. Because then that sound is not a part of the Office, and is for the solemnity and reverence of the Office itself, and for lifting the spirits of the faithful, so that they may more easily be aroused or disposed to devotion. However, it is proper that nothing should be sung to that sound, so that the sound itself be grave, and suitable for arousing devotion, and not other phantasms and movements unworthy of that place and Office.… [emphasis ours]^[432]

19.5 There are ample contemporary examples of Suarez’s description of the use of motets and instrumental music in the performance of the Vespers liturgy. Palestrina’s Motecta festorum totius anni cum communi sanctorum quaternis vocibus liber primus of 1564, published shortly after the conclusion of the Council of Trent, is one of the first, if not the first, book of motets to associate each text with an appropriate feast (see Figs. 51 and 52, showing 1571 reprint).

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19.6 The nomination of the feast alone, however, is insufficient to establish the manner of the motet’s use in the liturgy of the day. But its use in the liturgy is clear from remarks in the dedication (Fig. 53), reprinted in the edition of 1571, to Cardinal Rodolfo Pio of Carpi, in which the composer observes:

It was not without reason that our wisest mortal ancestors desired it [the art of music] to be used as a sort of narration of divine things in sacred places, so that those whom piety and religion had brought into the temples, those numerous voices in such a variety of concert, and the sweetness of singing, with its pleasure, would retain them.… As for me, even if I am most conscious of my feeble powers, I nevertheless had nothing closer to heart than to commend to the ears of men all that is sung in the temples throughout the year, at different times [emphasis ours], with as much loveliness of song as I could.^[433]

Several of these texts derive from the Office: Matins, Lauds, and Vespers in particular.^[434] The work was reprinted in more than eleven editions through 1622, testifying to its wide diffusion and use.

19.7 Palestrina’s Liber Primus motettorum quae partim quinis, partim senis, partim septenis vocibus of 1569,^[435] reprinted four times through 1600, does not provide indications of applicable feasts, but is organized principally according to the liturgical calendar (see Figs. 54 and 55). In the dedication to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este of Ferrara, Palestrina declares that among these motets “are included selected ones that are regularly sung publicly in the Church, suitable to the most important feasts of the entire year” (see Fig. 56).^[436] In fact, the majority of the texts are antiphons for feasts of various saints, thus adapted for Vespers in particular.

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19.8 Similarly, in Tomás Luis de Victoria’s two books of motets, the first of 1572, republished five times, and the second a unique edition of 1585, the vast majority are psalm or Magnificat antiphons.^[437]

19.9 The sole purpose of several prints is to provide systematically polyphonic settings of antiphons for the entire church year. A series of such prints, based principally on the Breviarium Romanum, were published between 1574 and 1600, testifying to polyphonic antiphons being sung after psalms in place of chant antiphons.^[438]

19.10 A unique exemplar of polyphonic antiphon settings for the entire year is Giovanni Francesco Anerio’s 1613 collection of Antiphonae seu sacrae cantiones, published in three parts in Rome.^[439] While we have seen motets that function as antiphons, Anerio’s title renders equivalent the terms for antiphon and motet (here using the common phrase sacrae cantiones). The publication is divided into three separate volumes, each dedicated to one of three brothers of the Alaleona family, one of whom, Paolo, served as master of ceremonies of the Sistine Chapel and diarist for Pope Paul V, the dedicatee of Monteverdi’s Mass and Vespers of 1610.^[440] The dedications of each volume of Anerio’s print are by Robertus Belandus, not by Anerio himself. The indices and contents are organized by feast, with four pieces each for most feasts, and five for some. While both the title and indices refer to antiphonae and cantiones, all the dedications speak of the music solely as antiphons. Anerio’s limit of four such pieces for the great majority of feasts may reflect the four psalms of Vespers in some monastic liturgies, though many orders seem to have adopted the five-psalm cursus by the seventeenth century. Alternatively, some descriptions speak of motets between the psalms, which may suggest exactly that, rather than a motet after each psalm. But we need not seek an overarching rational explanation for why most feasts have four motets and some have five. It could well have depended on what Anerio had completed at the time he published the three books.

19.11 James Armstrong’s 1974 study of this print, which is neither discussed nor cited by Bowers, is of paramount importance to the question of motets as antiphons in Vespers services.^[441] What is of particular interest is Armstrong’s finding that of 244 texts, 22 are not Vespers antiphon texts at all in the Breviarium Romanum or in any of the several other breviaries from between 1559 and 1618 that he consulted; 31 are altered or expanded texts based on Vespers antiphons; 44 are altered or expanded texts whose sources are other than Vespers antiphons or whose sources he was unable to trace; and 28 with canonical texts have non-canonical assignments with regard to first or second Vespers or even to the feast itself. Thus, out of 244 texts, 125, or more than half, do not coincide in one way or another with the Breviarium Romanum. Anerio’s print testifies to both the use of motets in the role of antiphons in Vespers services, and a much looser approach to the relationship between texts and their use in the Vespers liturgy than evident in previously published polyphonic antiphons. It is notable that the only surviving set of volumes reflecting such a liberal approach to chant antiphon replacements was not only published in Rome but also dedicated to those so close to the pope (Paolo Alaleona is described as “cubiculario intimo” of Paul V).

19.12 After Anerio’s print, five other publications of Vespers psalm antiphons survive from the seventeenth century, two of which mix antiphons and motets.^[442] The remaining three, from the last half of the century, all adhere, with few divergences, to the 1568 breviary.^[443]

19.13 Another unique approach to Vespers antiphons is provided by a 1614 publication of twenty-one motets by the Ferrarese composer Don Pietro Marsolo.^[444] The title of the print offers no hint that the motets are actually each a compilation of all five antiphons for twenty-one major feasts throughout the liturgical year. The purpose of combining all five antiphons in a single motet for each feast is explained in a note to readers in both Latin and Italian:

In Metropolitan, Cathedral, and Collegiate [churches] it is customary either after or before each Vespers psalm to sing the antiphon that goes with that psalm with one or more voices with organ or another instrument. Because of this the Vespers becomes too long, nor does it leave room for any instrument [i.e., instrumental composition]. To avoid such inconvenience, the author has included in each motet all five psalm antiphons; thus, one sings the motet after the last psalm, which satisfies the Office, the Vespers will be less tedious, and if one desires to play an instrument, there is enough room for it.^[445]

19.14 Marsolo has found a different, unauthorized, way to fulfill the antiphon requirement, in a manner outside the terms of the Breviarium Romanum and rules of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum, in order to shorten the service and ensure that instrumental music might be played as a replacement for one or more of the post-psalm antiphons. Another particularity of this collection is that the texts of some of the antiphons do not match precisely those of the Breviarium Romanum, but in several cases those of surviving chant books from the Ferrara cathedral where Marsolo served as maestro di cappella.^[446]

19.15 More closely related to Monteverdi’s print, however, was a collection published by the Roman Paolo Agostini in 1619 containing the psalms for Marian feasts, a Magnificat, the hymn Ave maris stella, antiphons, and motets.^[447] Agostini’s print originally comprised two volumes for three-voice choirs each, only one of which survives. It is also a print in which the title page differs from the index, which, in turn differs from the order of contents within the print itself. We focus on the sequence of pieces as the means by which Agostini makes the print as user-friendly for singers as possible (see Table 4):

19.16 This succession of pieces includes multiple settings of the Marian psalms in their liturgical sequence. Following the first version of each psalm text, the canonical antiphon from the Common of feasts of Mary for that psalm appears, labeled as an antiphon. After each subsequent setting of that same psalm is a motet. Since this group of antiphons is proper to lesser Marian feasts, the motets must fill an analogous role for the more major feasts. Agostini has done the same thing as Monteverdi—interpolated motets after each of the psalms, apparently with the same purpose as Monteverdi’s sacri concentus. Agostini has even included the Magnificat antiphon after the first Magnificat, one motet after his second Magnificat, and two motets after the final Magnificat; Monteverdi provided no motets after his two Magnificats in the 1610 print.

19.17 In 1639, the Provveditori di Commun in Venice, trying to regulate the use of non-liturgical motets in services at the scuole, except in certain instances in the Mass and also in Vespers, declared, “Similarly, between the psalms at Vespers, one can sing motets on pious, devout texts which are taken from holy books and ecclesiastical authors.”^[448] The German student composer Paul Hainlein reports in a letter to his patron in Nuremberg of hearing in Venice on the Feast of the Rosary, 5–6 October 1647, “between each psalm a sonata or a motet.” On 7–8 December Hainlein attended services on the Feast of the Conception of the Virgin at San Francesco della Vigna, where he reported in another letter that “between each psalm a sonata or a motet was performed.” The music in both instances was by Giovanni Rovetta, maestro di cappella at St. Mark’s.^[449] None of these references offer us any information about the relationship between these motets or sonatas and antiphons, but if they actually were only between the psalms, they would amount to only four.

19.18 Later, in Giovanni Battista Fasolo’s Annuale of 1645, which contains music for the organ to respond to the chorus in hymns, masses, and Magnificats, we find pieces to function as substitutes for Magnificat antiphons.^[450] The rubrics for these pieces are explicit: “pulsetur loco antiphonae post Magnificat,” “post Magnificat loco antiphonae,” “brevis modulatio post Magnificat loco antiphonae,” and “loco antiphonae post Magnificat.” In his note to the readers, Fasolo offers specific instructions to the organist for utilizing one of the canzone and fughe, also included in his print, if the antiphon is short.^[451] Of interest in Fasolo’s rubrics is the instruction that the organ piece is “in loco antiphonae” (instead of the antiphon), with no indication of it being accompanied by the recited or sung antiphon as required by the Caeremoniale Episcoporum.^[452]

19.19 These publications and Hainlein’s letters, along with Monteverdi’s 1610 print, testify to the performance of polyphonic music, whether instrumental or texted, at the position of post-psalm antiphons in Vespers services.^[453] Though there is ample evidence of such texts and instrumental music being used in this manner (recalling that their presence in print likely reflected more widespread practices from earlier than 1610), there was always some degree of tension between church authorities and those who performed unauthorized texts. This tension is revealed explicitly in multiple papal decrees from the second half of the seventeenth century. Three popes (Alexander VII in 1657, Innocent XI in 1687, and Innocent XII in 1692) issued bulls requiring that all compositions performed in the churches and chapels of Rome use only words prescribed in the breviary and missal, or words taken from the sacred scriptures or Holy Fathers approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Innocent XII even required specifically that the Vespers antiphons that come before and after the psalm “should be sung without any alteration.”^[454] The very repetition of these warnings demonstrates that they had often gone unheeded. Since they were addressed specifically to Roman churches (the pope was the bishop of Rome), we can only imagine what had transpired in the more than three hundred other bishoprics in Italy, not to mention other countries, many of whose bishops had infrequently, if at all, set foot in their dioceses, an issue that had been of grave concern to the Council of Trent.^[455]

19.20 Yet the term “antiphon-substitutes,” coined by Stephen Bonta from Fasolo’s “loco antiphonae” (see par. 17.10 and 19.2), may not have been the most felicitous terminology for such texts and instrumental pieces, even though Bonta pointed out that the antiphon should still be recited simultaneously with the “substitute” as the Caeremoniale Episcoporum indicates for organ music played in place of the post-psalm antiphon.^[456] Such texts and instrumental music may be better understood not as substitutes for antiphons (which should in most cases continue to be recited), but as overlays to the antiphons, whose purpose is not necessarily to replace the antiphon texts, but rather to elaborate on and enhance the meaning of the specific service and the entire feast in the manner described by Francisco Suarez (see par. 19.3–4). Nevertheless, it is quite conceivable that maestri di cappella, organists, and priests may have at times simply ignored the post-psalm repetition of the antiphon, letting a motet, instrumental piece, or organ music fill its place without concern for the original antiphon text, i.e., in loco antiphonae as Fasolo declared for his post Magnificat organ pieces.

19.21 We note that neither organ canzonas nor instrumental sonatas appear between the psalms in any extant publication of Vespers music, despite the evidence that such practices took place in the performance of the liturgy in the early seventeenth century. On the other hand, there are numerous prints with Vespers and other liturgical music that also contain instrumental canzonas or sonatas, though usually grouped near or at the end of the print. None intersperses them between the psalms.^[457]

20. Criteria for Motet Texts Used in the Liturgy

20.1 Our understanding of the role of motet texts within a specific liturgical service requires not only examining their relationship to the individual service but expanding to consider the feast as a whole. In fact, texts are frequently repeated in one form or another among the various Office hours. Matins responsories often appear in shortened form as Vespers antiphons. The same texts are sometimes shared between Lauds and Vespers. References in the Gospel or Epistle readings of the Mass may have resonance in texts of the Office. The feast must be understood as a whole, with each service approaching the subject of the feast from its own position and role in the celebratory cycle. This point was already made in an early study of the relationship between motets and the feasts into which they were interpolated, published in 1981 by Anthony Cummings.^[458] Cummings examined Sistine Chapel diaries of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in which motets are designated for performance in the Mass at the Offertory, at the Elevation, or after the Ite missa est. Many of the texts for these motets were derived from Office texts for the feast. After citing a few examples in which the text of the motet has nothing to do with the feast of the day, Cummings asserted that such examples are atypical: “for the most part, the texts of the motets clearly pertain to the liturgy of the feast on which they were performed; and for major feasts, the principle is consistently applied.”^[459] While the Sistine Chapel diaries mention motets only in conjunction with the Mass but not the Office, the phrase “pertain to the liturgy of the feast” is crucial, because a feast encompasses not just a single service, such as the Mass or Vespers, but the entire feast of Mass and Office hours with its own unity of subject matter and purpose.^[460]

20.2 Recent research has helped clarify further the ways that motets may interact with other texts in a feast or be assigned to feasts other than the one where the motet’s text originated. David Crook’s studies of Johnnes Rühling’s Tablaturbuch of 1583 and motets published in the order of the liturgical calendar have helped highlight and clarify what has been previously suggested by numerous other authors—that motet texts not only generally had something to do with the subject of a feast, but also that texts from the feast, including the Gospel and Epistle readings, could serve as the stimulus for motet texts that enhanced the meaning of the feast as a whole. Rühling’s Tablaturbuch comprises intabulations of existing motets, eighty of them Latin motets by such composers as Lasso, Clemens non Papa, Crequillon, Giaches de Wert, and many others, assigned to specific feasts throughout the liturgical year. That Rühling was a Lutheran is no indication that his approach to the assignment of motets in the liturgy was unique to that confession. As Crook has noted, “motet collections produced by both Catholics and Protestants travelled across the period’s confessional borders. Efforts to characterize a particular print as Catholic or Protestant, based on what we know about its creator, may thus be entirely misleading.”^[461]

20.3 According to Rühling’s title page, he selected for intabulation motets that “match or agree with the Gospels, Epistles, Introits, Responsories, Antiphons, or their stories.”^[462] Several important points emerge from this statement: that the text should bear some relationship to the subject (Historien) of the feast, or to a text from the feast, and that the stimulus for the motet can come from a text situated virtually anywhere in the feast.^[463] As Crook shows throughout his study, the exegetical connections of a motet text to a feast can be through a chain of associations, sometimes indirect, but eventually enabling the motet text to gloss the meaning of the feast by those associations. Sometimes a single word or phrase can generate a liturgical assignment of a motet text. We will see this below (par. 21.3–21.4) in Victoria’s 1585 setting of Duo Seraphim, assigned not to the Feast of the Holy Trinity, as this text is in his 1583 motets, but rather to the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel on the basis of the brief Matins psalm antiphon Laudemus dominum, in which seraphim sing just the three words Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus from Isaiah (6:3).

20.4 In his important study of motet collections ordered according to the liturgical calendar, David Crook notes that in such prints many liturgically assigned texts set official liturgical texts in polyphony, but that they also include “motets that draw their texts from beyond the liturgy of the day and elaborate the themes of the feast or season with striking ingenuity.”^[464] Crook’s article focuses on two prominent examples of this practice. The first is the motet text Si bona suscepimus, set by a number of different composers. The text, on death, from the book of Job, is used in the liturgy only at Matins on the first and second Sundays of September, a position for which settings in polyphony would have been very unlikely.^[465] Rather, polyphonic settings of the text were associated with services for the dead; with the Gospel stories of the raising of Lazarus (John 11:1–44), the raising of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11–17), and the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Matthew 9:18–26); with the Lenten season; and with penance. Death was the unifying rationale for all these applications of the motet’s text.

20.5 Crook also examines Palestrina’s Jesus junxit se discipulis, the Benedictus antiphon at Lauds on Easter Monday, set twice by Palestrina (once just the antiphon text, and again with an expanded text), which he assigns in his Motecta festorum totius anni of 1563/64 to Easter Sunday, where its subject is the resurrected Christ’s meeting of two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35) the day after the Resurrection. This subject matter actually contrasts with the Gospel reading on Easter Sunday where the Virgin, Mary Magdalene, and Salome are terrified at the empty tomb of Christ and hear the angel’s announcement that He has arisen (Mark 16:1–7). The role of the motet in Palestrina’s liturgical assignment, anticipating by one day its text’s official position, is as a gloss on the Gospel reading, associating the empty tomb and the fright it brings with the first of a series of appearances of the resurrected Christ to his disciples that animate the week following Easter.^[466] Crook explains the use and assignment of this motet as follows:

It is tempting to find in Jesus junxit a genuine exegetical impulse—a desire to use the motet to communicate a particular understanding of the Resurrection. This seems to have involved, first of all, a desire to adumbrate the progression of the series of Easter-week Gospels, the journey of the disciples from bewilderment to understanding. In addition, Palestrina’s Easter motet allows Christ—so dramatically silent in the lessons of Easter Sunday—to re-emerge. Above all, Jesus junxit focusses the celebration of Easter and the Resurrection on the question of belief … for those who bought the many copies of the Motecta festorum that were printed between 1563 and 1622, for the musicians who read from its pages and listeners who heard its music, all the rich themes and images of Eastertide were framed by the central question of belief in the Resurrection, the question implicit in Christ’s reproach of the two disciples in that quiet meeting on the road to Emmaus.^[467]

Cummings’s and Crooks’s studies point to a problem with questioning whether Duo Seraphim or any other of Monteverdi’s sacri concentus has an appropriate role in the Vespro della Beata Vergine. The relevant question is whether they can have a role in a Marian feast in its totality, encompassing a variety of liturgical texts in its Mass and all its Office hours, including the Gospel and Epistle readings of the day.

21. Duo Seraphim and the Sanctissima Virgine

21.1 Apart from controversy over the inclusion of Monteverdi’s sacri concentus in a Marian service, the relationship between Monteverdi’s sacri concentus texts and the other elements of his Vespro della B. Vergine has also been a highly contentious issue in discussions of his 1610 print. The texts of Nigra sum and Pulchra es, even though they don’t mention Mary, are derived from the Song of Solomon, which was associated with Marian worship from the Middle Ages.^[468] Moreover, Monteverdi’s Nigra sum contains the text from the third and fourth antiphons of the Common of feasts of Mary throughout the year, and Pulchra es includes the text for the fifth antiphon for the Feast of the Assumption. Audi coelum uses most of the antiphon to the Benedictus at Lauds on the Feast of the Assumption within its lengthy text, which eventually addresses the Virgin directly, as does the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria. But Duo Seraphim, which makes no mention of Mary nor has been traditionally associated with Mary symbolically, has often been seen as the sticking point against declaring the five sacri concentus as an integral part of Monteverdi’s Vespro della B. Vergine:

Duo Seraphim clamabant alter ad alterum: Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus sabaoth. Plena est omnis terra gloria eius. Tres sunt qui testimonium dant in coelo: Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus sanctus. Et hi tres unum sunt. Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus sabaoth. Plena est omnis terra gloria eius.^[469]

(Two seraphim called, one to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. There are three who bear witness in  heaven: Father, Word, and Holy Spirit; and these three are one. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.)

21.2 Bowers avers that Duo Seraphim

originated as an Office responsory. However, Monteverdi set the text for exclusively non-liturgical use, omitting the doxology and final truncated repetition of the respond, both obligatory in the church service.… Sung frequently at Matins on Sundays throughout the year, it possessed no exclusive liturgical associations, or any association whatever with Marian devotion.^[470]

However, as we will show, contrary to the assertions of Bowers and a number of other scholars, Monteverdi’s motet text with the most significant symbolic reference to the liturgy of Marian feasts is actually Duo Seraphim.

21.3 Duo Seraphim as a responsory has numerous specific and general liturgical assignments, beginning with the second Sunday after Epiphany and the Feast of the Holy Trinity; in both instances it is the final response to the eighth lesson.^[471] It is then used again on two successive Sundays after the second Sunday of Epiphany and repeatedly on Sundays from the third Sunday after Pentecost to the fourth Sunday in November, a week before Advent.^[472] In a 1632 Roman breviary, these post-Epiphany and post-Pentecostal appearances are of the first two words only, referring back by page number to the full text on the second Sunday after Epiphany or the third Sunday after Pentecost, suggesting the primacy of these two festal assignments.^[473] The earliest published polyphonic setting of which we are aware, of the same text as set by Monteverdi, is by Annibale Stabile of the German College in Rome in 1580.^[474] While Stabile does not indicate any liturgical association, another polyphonic setting, from 1583, by Tomás Luis de Victoria, also of the German College in Rome, carries the rubric In Festo Trinitatis.^[475] Victoria set this text again in his 1585 Motecta festorum totius anni, this time with the rubric In Festo Sancti Michaelis, & Angelorum.^[476] Monteverdi’s teacher, Marc’Antonio Ingegneri, published a setting of the same text in 1586 without any festal assignment. In 1589 he published another version for eight voices, again without any indication of feast. Also in 1589, Francesco Guerrero, musical prefect of the Spanish Church in Rome, published the text in a motet, complete with doxology and repeat of Plena est, making it a setting of the full liturgical responsory.^[477] Settings of the text thus originated in Rome, at least as far as published versions were concerned, but they also migrated north not long thereafter. The 1610 setting by Grammatico Metallo, resident at the time in Venice, identifies the motet, like Victoria’s 1583 setting, as In Festo Sanctissimae Trinitatis.^[478] The text is thus associated with the most prominent feast in which it occurs, but most polyphonic versions of this oft-set text have no festal assignment. Copies of both the Victoria 1585 print and the 1589 Ingeneri book were in the Santa Barbara library, to which Monteverdi, of course, would have had access, and from either of which he may have derived his text.

21.4 Victoria’s assignment of Duo Seraphim in 1585 to the Festo Sancti Michaelis, & Angelorum is of particular interest because this time the full text of this motet does not appear in the liturgy for the Feast of St. Michael. However, the phrase quem cherubim & seraphim, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus proclamant is found at Matins as part of the psalm antiphon Laudemus dominum.^[479] Victoria has seized upon these few words as justifying the relevance of the entire motet Duo Seraphim clamabant, together with its Trinitarian conclusion, to the Feast of St. Michael. This is an important observation. As we have seen (par. 20.3), a motet text might gloss the meaning of a feast through a chain of direct or indirect associations, sometimes—as in this example—starting with just a few words.

21.5 Bowers’s valid point about the Duo Seraphim text having multiple uses underscores the fact that it is not exclusively a text for the Feast of the Holy Trinity as many writers have assumed, but does indeed have wider application. The first section, Duo Seraphim clamabant alter ad alterum … would be appropriate for many kinds of celebrations. Although the specific text of the second part, Tres sunt qui testimonium dant in coelo, had given rise to controversy in biblical textual criticism in the sixteenth century,^[480] references to the Trinity had actually been ubiquitous for centuries in the Office, in the Lesser Doxology appended to all psalms, canticles, and the Office response Domine ad adiuvandum, as well as in many hymns, including Ave maris stella.

21.6 According to Bowers:

By its text this piece is rendered wholly non Marian in character. It therefore owned no rightful place whatever in an assemblage of music advertised as offered “For the most holy Virgin … to be sung,” yet it was not marked in any way as standing outside some otherwise pervasive and prevailing scheme of liturgical arrangement. Its inclusion, therefore, can mean only that Monteverdi’s choice of pieces was in no way driven by considerations of liturgical coherence or propriety, but was determined solely by individual compositional quality.^[481]

21.7 Bowers’s viewpoint depends on too narrow an interpretation of the relationship between Monteverdi’s motet texts and the liturgy. As “overlays” to the antiphons the motets function as additional commentaries on the subject of the feast, offering worshippers further, complementary ways of understanding the subject of a feast and engaging with it on various levels. From this point of view, the relationship between non-canonical motet texts and a feast into which they are interpolated turns their purpose away from any “liturgical” or “para-liturgical” function to their spiritual and allegorical role. Indeed, the liturgical antiphons derived from the Song of Solomon are themselves famously allegorical in their liturgical use from the third century onward, transferring the sensual love of the biblical male and female protagonists to the love of God for the individual human soul, Christ for his Church, the Love of the soul for God; and from the twelfth century, Mary as the idealization of the Church, Mary as the protector of humanity, the soul’s love of Mary or of Christ (or vice versa), an allegory of the Incarnation, etc.^[482]   

21.8 Returning to Monteverdi’s sacri concentus, four of the pieces, as we’ve already described, bear an obvious relationship to the subject of the service, and two of them actually take their point of departure from psalm antiphons for some feasts of the Virgin. The problem, as previously noted, is the text of Duo Seraphim (given in par. 21.1 and in App. 5), which, as seen in the quotation from Bowers above (par. 21.6), seems to have nothing to do with a Marian Vespers.

21.9 However, approaching Monteverdi’s motets from the more holistic standpoint we have been describing readily explains the purpose of Duo Seraphim in Monteverdi’s sequence. To begin with, Trinitarian texts are abundant, not only in any Vespers of the Virgin, but in any Vespers service at all: as already noted (par. 21.5), the response, the psalms, and the Magnificat all conclude with the Trinitarian lesser doxology, in which the fulfillment of the Word (Verbum) as predicted by Isaiah and others in the Old Testament is named as the Son (Filio) in the New Testament. Similarly, the Marian hymn Ave Maris Stella concludes by honoring the Trinity, and the Trinity is mentioned in the Gospel readings of several of the major Marian feasts as well as in their hymns.^[483] The Mass, of course, features the Trinity prominently in the Gloria and the Credo. If a single word or idea in the Gospels or anywhere else in a feast can stimulate a motet text commenting further on that subject, then Duo Seraphim is, in fact, a wholly appropriate choice by Monteverdi for his collection dedicated to the Virgin.

21.10 But Duo Seraphim is also profoundly associated with Mary herself, as a gloss on her central role in the divine cosmos. The first section of the motet, quoting the acclamation of the two seraphim from Isaiah, is a celebration of the glory of the Old Testament God in an elaborately ornamented imitative duet.^[484] But Isaiah’s later references to the “servant of Yahweh” were viewed, in Catholic exegesis, as adumbrated and realized in Jesus Christ as fulfillment of the Word of God.^[485] The second section of the motet makes this explicit, naming Father, Word, and Holy Spirit and announcing “et hi tres unum sunt,” thus declaring the new Trinitarian dispensation of the New Testament as expressed in the First Epistle of John.^[486] Monteverdi then repeats the Isaiah text beginning with “sanctus,” recasting the glory of the Lord in the light of this new dispensation, sung to the same music as before but now in the more fulsome and impressive texture and extraordinary virtuosity of three imitative voices instead of two.

21.11 The vehicle for the transition from the old to the new dispensation is, of course, Mary. It is she who fulfills the Word of God (Verbum) by bearing the Son through the Holy Spirit. So even if Mary receives no overt mention in the text, she is the indispensable vessel of the transition from the old to the new, which is the very reason her feasts are celebrated with such pomp, as in Monteverdi’s Vespers and in large, sumptuous performances such as those documented at Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo.^[487] Duo Seraphim represents the fulcrum on which the entire rationale for Marian feasts turns and justifies the central position of the motet in Monteverdi’s service and its employment of the most elaborate vocal writing in the entire collection.^[488] In that sense, it is the most important gloss on Mary in the entire print, and even ties closely with the words of the Nicolas Gombert motet on which the Missa in illo tempore is based: “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts that suckled You. Whereas He said, ‘yea, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.’ ”^[489]

21.12 The association of Mary with the Trinity is also typical in the iconography of medieval, Renaissance, and later paintings of the Annunciation and the Coronation of the Virgin. Paintings of the Annunciation typically represent her looking up from her reading (Verbum) to see the Angel Gabriel, as representative of God, with the dove of the Holy Spirit hovering overhead, revealing that she is to bear the Son of God. The head of God himself is often included as well in such scenes, including the one on the organ doors in the Gonzaga palace Church of Santa Barbara (see Figs. 57 and Fig. 34). The Coronation of the Virgin is frequently depicted with Christ and God on either side of Mary, with the dove of the Holy Spirit overhead (see Figs. 58 and 59).

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21.13 We may add to these rationales the role of the Trinity at the Gonzaga court, whose patron saint was Santa Barbara, martyred by her own father for her devotion to the Trinity, and the dedicatee of Guglielmo Gonzaga’s grand project of the Church of Santa Barbara with its own unique liturgy. To Mantuans and anyone in Italy familiar with the Gonzagas and their grandest palace church in all of Europe, that association would also have been unambiguous.^[490]

22. The Five sacri concentus: Do They Constitute a Theological Program?

22.1 The central theological role of Duo Seraphim among Monteverdi’s sacri concentus raises the question of whether there was a theological program behind the choice of all these texts and their sequence in the print. Without documentary sources, this is a difficult question, but it is certainly worth raising.^[491] (See App. 5 for all five texts and translations.) As we have noted (par. 21.1), the texts of Nigra sum and Pulchra es are derived from the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs) and have long been associated symbolically with Mary, even providing texts for Vespers antiphons for feasts of the Virgin throughout the year.

22.2 Exegeses of the Song of Solomon antedate Christianity in Jewish rabbinical writings.^[492] Numerous Christian exegeses of the Song of Solomon were written and circulated from the third century AD to Monteverdi’s time, with varying symbolic interpretations.^[493] Among the most important were those of Origen, originally written in Greek ca. 240 AD, which do not survive. Three of the ten original books were liberally translated into Latin by Rufinus in the year 410, and it was these translations that heavily influenced subsequent interpretations, though we have no idea which of these were read by Monteverdi or by court theologians who may have advised him on assembling his texts and a putative theological program.^[494] Nigra sum and Pulchra es are frequent beginnings of motets in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, though their continuation may consist of centonizations of other phrases from the Song of Solomon than those employed in Monteverdi’s settings.

22.3 Audi coelum (caelum), by contrast, is a rarely found text among early seventeenth-century publications (though it includes a common phrase from the Song of Songs). We know of only two other other versions of this text apart from that in Monteverdi’s own Selva morale et spirituale of 1641.^[495] One of these is by Giovanni Battista Dulcino, published in 1609 in a collection of motets dedicated to Bassano Casola, the vice maestro di cappella under Monteverdi.^[496] Dulcino has no known musical connection with Mantua other than this dedication to Casola, who was a compatriot of Dulcino’s in their native city of Lodi. The full eight-voice setting by Dulcino survives in a single copy comprising all the vocal partbooks, but not the Basso per l‘Organo, at the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Kraków, Poland; its pre-WWII origin was the Preußische Staatsbibliothek in Berlin (see Ex. 1).

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22.4 There are some obvious parallels between Dulcino’s and Monteverdi’s settings. The texts are virtually identical, with only the insertion of Alleluia in two places near the end of Dulcino’s composition, one orthographical difference, and a single change of word order. Both motets are echo pieces, and the pun echoes in the Dulcino version are on the same words as echoes in Monteverdi’s setting. However, Dulcino utilizes his eight voices for more textural and timbral variety than Monteverdi (see Table 5). Monteverdi, by contrast, employs only a solo tenor for the first part of the text, with his second tenor limited to the pun echoes. The style of Monteverdi’s solo section is recitative, enhanced by more melodically active ornamentation, including lengthy sixteenth- and even thirty-second-note runs and ornaments, associated with specific words. At “Omnes hanc ergo sequamur” the texture expands to a six- voice (CCATTB) imitative texture in triple time, later changing to duple with the texture reduced again to the tenor and its echo at two points. Dulcino’s melodic writing is much more arioso throughout, with several shifts between duple and triple time. Monteverdi’s setting of the first part is intimate and personal, while Dulcino’s is communal, shifting solo voices from one to another and injecting the full Chorus Primus at two points. As with Monteverdi, Dulcino expands his texture at “Omnes hanc ergo sequamur,” emphasizing the two full choirs, though often in alternation.

22.5 The other setting of Audi coelum is by Ercole Porta, organista in San Giovanni in Persiceto, near Bologna; it was likewise published in 1609.^[497] This is a piece for two sopranos, with one of them the echo voice. The text is virtually identical to Monteverdi’s up through “introducta autem vita” (echo: ita). From there it skips to “praestet nobis … miseris solamen.” The echoes in Porta’s setting are identical to those in Monteverdi’s version. Porta’s musical setting, however, is rather different. While Monteverdi’s is in recitative style, with occasional virtuosic ornamental flourishes on selected words, Porta’s version is in a continuously flowing arioso style with modest melismatic passages, mostly in eighth notes in contrast to Monteverdi’s several lengthy sixteenth- and even thirty-second-note runs and ornaments. Because Porta omits the text passage beginning with “omnes hanc ergo sequamur,” he has no textual impetus to expand the texture to more voices. The total length of 74 semibreves is a bit shorter than Monteverdi’s 84 semibreves before “omnes hanc ergo sequamur.”

22.6 The settings of Porta and Dulcino confirm that Monteverdi was not alone in being attracted to this lengthy text, and that it apparently circulated in northern Italy in almost identical form, including the specific echoes, with Dulcino including the phrase “omnes hanc ergo sequamur” but Porta omitting it. The pun echoes may well have been a principal factor in its attraction to composers. With both Porta’s and Monteverdi’s settings (including his later one in the Selva morale) employing a monodic style with the echo voice in the same register, and the Dulcino version doing the same thing, including a few four-voice echoes, Audi coelum may be considered a topos in circulation in the early seventeenth century—and, of course, the only surviving representations very likely weren’t the only ones composed; others, either printed and no longer extant or never published, might be lost.

22.7 Duo Seraphim, a third-person descriptive narrative celebrating the passage (through Mary) from the old dispensation to the new dispensation, does not rely either in its text or Monteverdi’s musical setting on allegorical symbolism and interpretation. The passages by Isaiah and John are direct quotations juxtaposed, and Monteverdi takes his cue directly from the words “Duo Seraphim clamabant Sanctus” and “plena est omnis terra Gloria,” as well as the naming of three witnesses (“Tres sunt qui testimonium dant …”) and the declaration “et hi tres unum sunt,” for his brilliant, if obvious, setting of an unproblematic text.

22.8 In the next motet, Audi coelum, the text is in the mouth of a first-person, individual worshipper (a solo tenor), full of longing and joy, inquiring just who this maiden is who, rising, shines like the stars, is lovely as the moon, and fills the earth, the seas, and the heavens with joy, in order that the worshipper might bless her.^[498] The answer, for the first time in the series of motets, identifies Mary by name and characterizes her as the sweet virgin, the eastern portal of the rising sun, as foretold by Ezechiel (note the reference back to the old dispensation as predicting the new). Mary is further described as the holy and happy portal through whom death was expelled and eternal life brought forth, who is the sure mediator between man and God, the remedy of sins. This description of Mary is established by means of a series of questions to which single-word confirming replies are made through the medium of verbal puns and musical echoes by a second tenor, whose fainter, distant voice suggests a heavenly reply.

22.9 Now, after ascertaining the identity and characteristics of Mary, comes a call for all therefore to follow her (in a texture now expanded to six voices) whose grace shall lead to eternal life. That result is then requested from two of the Trinity that she and Duo Seraphim have established. At the end, Mary is invoked directly as the Mother of humanity who is asked to grant comfort to the distressed. But even after the prayer is completed with its Amen, Mary is once again named as she who is blessed eternally. Except for ornamental melismas on such nouns and verbs as gaudio, consurgens, aurora, benedicam, terras, and coelos, the style is recitative in the first part and imitative polyphony in the concluding six-voice section. The meaning of the text and Monteverdi’s setting are straightforward, with some similes but no allegorical significance implied. Audi coelum is thus the first identification and description of the implied and unnamed person “behind the scenes” in Duo Seraphim, and once identified, the subject not just of individual, but of congregational invocation.

22.10 After the lengthy and complex text of Audi coelum, Mary assumes her fundamental role as the protector of all humanity as she is solicited in the simplest, direct, litany-like plea, “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.” But while the text is simple and repetitive, the underlying Sonata itself is virtuosically elaborate, bringing the whole range of instruments of the viuola family, cornettos, and trombones into play in a variety of textures, figures, and rhythmic gestures, all organized, as we have noted, in a basically symmetrical structure (see par. 17.7). While the instruments create a worldly atmosphere of sound, virtuosity, and humanly created order out of diversity, the single vocal part soars above the fray in its airy and heavenly simplicity, whether sung by a castrato, a falsettist, a boy soprano, or a group of boy sopranos.

22.11 This progression, beginning with Duo Seraphim as the theological fulcrum of the Vespers, celebrating the consummation of Mary’s role in the new dispensation but without naming her, to Audi coelum, identifying, characterizing, and invoking her, to the simplest and most direct collective prayer to her possible in the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria, is obvious and unequivocal. But Duo Seraphim is preceded by two other motets, drawn from the Old Testament Song of Solomon, and the next step in our analysis of the motets is to pose the question whether their role in the sequence of sacri concentus makes sense as allegorical predecessors, setting the stage for Duo Seraphim and the role of Mary in a manner similar to the way early Christians saw the appearance of Christ foreshadowed in the sayings of Old Testament prophets.

22.12 The Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, is a love poem between a bride (sponsa) and bridegroom (sponsus), with the bridegroom identified as Solomon himself, and the bride more ambiguous, though frequently identified with the Queen of Sheba in Song of Solomon exegeses. The poem itself has strands of narrative coherence but also gaps and a number of inherent ambiguities that have generated various interpretations from pre-Christian and Christian-era rabbis to the present day, with a number of exegetical treatises by ancient, medieval, and Renaissance theologians right up to the time of Monteverdi.^[499] Commentators on the Song of Solomon employ two different approaches—the literal and the allegorical, sometimes mixing the two, with diverse interpretations, though common themes and approaches appear to run through many of them, one following or expanding on the lead of another.^[500]

22.13 The first of the sacri concentus, Nigra sum, from the first chapter of the Song’s narrative of the Bride and Bridegroom, is a direct address by the bride, who describes herself as a daughter of Jerusalem (“daughters” in the Biblical Song itself) and asserts that even though she is black, she is lovely. She pleases the king, who brings her into his chamber, calling upon her to rise up, for the winter is past, the rains have gone, flowers have bloomed in the land, and the time of pruning has come.^[501] The two individuals were identified from early in the history of the Song as the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, with the Queen possibly representing the peoples of Africa, unknowing but keen in spirit to learn. She comes to Jerusalem to seek the fabled wisdom of the great King Solomon. From Hippolytus of Rome (ca. 235 AD) and Origen (ca. 240ff), through Gregory the Great (ca. 594–98), Bernard of Clairvaux in the first half of the twelfth century, all the way to Martin Del’Rio in 1604 and Michael Ghislerius in 1609, varying interpretations have been proposed, though all based on similar theological and narrative principles, with a multiplicity of nuances and different ways of expressing their interpretations.

22.14 As Origen declares, the Bride is a reference “either to the Church who comes to Christ [the King], or to the soul that cleaves to the Word of God.”^[502] The dark-skinned woman is described by Origen as “ugly” on the surface, but internally beautiful, or as one of “lowly origin,” but “beautiful through penitence and faith” in the “Son of God.”^[503] According to Hippolytus, she is the sinner who has become beautiful from love of Christ.^[504] Hippolytus explains the chamber of the King as the Church and those introduced into the chamber as the congregation of believers.^[505] And this “chamber” is “filled with many and vast riches.”^[506] Through Christ and these riches of the Church, the ignorant and sinful may now arise from the winter of their past and their souls may flower, pruning off what remains of that ignorance and sinfulness. As Origen summarizes the meaning:

Arise and come to me, for the winter which overwhelmed the unbelievers and held you down in ignorance, has passed. And the rain too has gone—that is to say, no longer will I bid the prophet-clouds to pour the rain of the Word upon the earth; but the voice of the turtle-dove, the very Wisdom of God, shall speak on the earth and say: “I myself that spoke, I am here.” The flowers, therefore, of believing peoples and of budding churches have appeared on the earth. And the time of pruning, through the faith of my Passion and Resurrection, also has come.^[507]

22.15 Gregory the Great’s interpretation of the text of Nigra sum demonstrates his close dependence on Hippolytus and Origen, professing essentially the same interpretations in very similar language.^[508] It is clear that despite the varieties of nuance, by the time of Gregory, a basic allegorical understanding of this text (as well as many others in the Songs) had been established in the Catholic Church. Yet commentaries continued to be written and multiple interpretations expanded.^[509] In 1609 Michael Ghislerius, in his commentary on the Songs, took the meaning of the time of pruning emphasized in the above quotation from Origen to even more specificity:

Arise, and do not delay to come wither I call you, for his birth is imminent whom you carry in your womb; the winter of the law has already passed, the rain of the teachings of the Prophets has passed away and receded, when first that which is in you, the Word, became flesh … and now also the flower of the field and the lily of the valley Christ the Son of God has grown in you: now is Advent and the time of pruning, when through the same Son of God all errors will be cut off from the world and all sins removed through redemption.^[510]

22.16 As Robert Kendrick observes, the phrase tempus putationis advenit “was taken in contemporary exegesis as referring to the passing of the old Law and coming of the new Law through the Incarnation of Christ (in Marian terms, the Annunciation).”^[511] To expand more generally on this allegorical connotation: for the ignorant or sinning individual, who has entered the “chamber” of the Church, the winter of the Old Testament, the old dispensation rooted in the law, is now passed. With the coming of Christ and the new dispensation, flowers have appeared on the earth. By pruning away the wordiness of the prophets and the overgrowth of the old dispensation in the Mishnah, Talmud, and other commentaries of the rabbis, the flowers of the new faith can flourish.

22.17 The early seventeenth-century commentator Martin del’ Rio quotes multiple earlier exegeses as predecessors to his interpretations of these passages.^[512] Helmut Hucke summarizes Del Rio’s interpretations of Monteverdi’s Nigra sum text as illustrating Mary bringing salvation to the world through the birth of Christ.^[513]

22.18 In both of these interpretations, Nigra sum serves as prologue to the juxtaposition of the two dispensations in Duo Seraphim. In this first motet, the general groundwork of the progression of the five sacri concentus is laid. Monteverdi, who is more interested in what can be represented in music than abstract ideas (unless they, too, are susceptible to musical analogies), employs considerable ornamentation on the word “surge” followed by rhythmic complexity and chromaticism in recitative style as the text continues with “amica mea, surge, et veni. Jam hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit, flores apparuerunt in terra nostra.” But at “tempus putationis advenit,” the style abruptly changes with repeated semibreves on the pitch d′ as the vocal part is pruned of every element of its complexity. Whether Monteverdi also saw this as a demonstration of the simplicity of faith in contrast to the complexities of the Old Testament law, or as Mary bringing salvation to the world couched in the imagery of the seasons, we can only speculate.^[514]

22.19 All Italian motets beginning with Pulchra es amica mea that we have been able to locate utilize the same text as Monteverdi’s Pulchra es, except for his addition of the words “filia Ierusalem,” which cause Monteverdi to repeat the opening words before going on to“sicut Ierusalem.” The imagery of Pulchra es is less coherent and more ambiguous on its semantic surface than Nigra sum. The daughter of Jerusalem is compared in beauty to the city of Jerusalem itself. But, in literal terms, she and Jerusalem also appear as the frightful battle line of an army (“terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinate”); therefore, the daughter (bride) and Jerusalem are asked to turn their eyes (view) away from the speaker (the bridegroom), who, at their sight, has been forced to flee. The contradictory juxtaposition of great beauty and alarm at its sight, causing the viewer to flee, inexorably calls for allegorical interpretation that goes beyond mere substitution of Mary, God, Christ, or the Church for nouns in the verse.^[515] Neither the fragments of Hippolytus nor the truncated commentary of Origen extend as far as the sixth book from which this text is directly quoted (6:3–6:4). Gregory the Great’s reading in the late sixth century is strained in trying to cope with the apparent oxymoron:

The holy catholic Church is described in the guise of a beloved woman. The interpretation of the name “Jerusalem” is “vision of peace,” which represents the heavenly homeland. So then, the holy Church is “charming and lovely as Jerusalem” because her conduct and desire are being compared to the vision of inner peace. Henceforth insofar as she loves her Creator and yearns to see the face of him, … she is said to be like the angels on account of her very desires of her love.…

22.20 From the standpoint of allegorical interpretation this is certainly reasonable, but it only deals with the unproblematic first part of the text. When Gregory approaches the second part, he introduces a jarring shift of tone:

She becomes pleasing to God to the extent that she makes an effort to become terrifying to wicked spirits … terrifying like an army’s front poised for battle, … an army’s front appears terrifying to enemies when it is drawn up so tightly and packed together so closely that no gaps can be seen anywhere … terrifying like an army’s front poised for battle, is well said because the wicked spirits tremble with fear at the multitude of the elect insofar as they observe them united and assembled together against them through the concord of charity.^[516]

22.21 Gregory has rather violently transmuted the bride “suavis et decora sicut Ierusalem” into a deployed and terrifying army of the elect, while the bridegroom (indicated in the Song by “amica mea,” and then “a me,” and “me … fecerunt”), who is generally elsewhere interpreted as the King, or Christ, or the Church) is transformed into a metaphor for “wicked spirits” who flee her presence. This is a much more convoluted and remote allegory than the simple and rather straightforward substitutions characteristic of Nigra sum exegises.

22.22 Del’Rio, for pages, cites other commentators’ remarks on the Pulchra es text, all of which in one way or another associate “amica,” “suavis,”and “decora sicut Jerusalem” with Heaven or heavenly angels, with Mary, with divine beauty, with the Church, or as descriptive of virtuous qualities or equivalents to virtues. For example, Hailgrinns: “pulchra es intensity of mind” (intentione mentis), “suavis in speech” (in eloquio), “decora in works” (in operibus); or Alanus: “Pulchra es is faith” (fide), “suavis, hope” (spe), “decora, charity” (charitate). Guilhelmus, on the other hand, associates pulchra, suavis, decora, and terribilis with the four cardinal virtues: justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude.^[517]

22.23 Most interpretations of “terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinate” discussed by Del’ Rio bear some similarity to that of Gregory the Great in emphasizing the frightening aspect of the phrase. The nuances are in who is doing the frightening and to what end. Honorius sees Jerusalem as like heavenly angels, “terrible against sin as a battle line against demons and heretics.”^[518] Guilhelmus, on the other hand, equating terribilis with fortitude, sees this as constancy in enduring hostile attacks while powerfully resisting hostile audacity, quoting the apostle Jacob: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” But he also sees it as an armed front opposing those who are not “sicut Ierusalem, pulcra, suavis, & decora.”^[519]

22.24 Modern translations have taken a different interpretative direction, relying on studies of the original Hebrew text in the context of ancient Hebrew. Thus terribilis can mean not only “frightening” but also “awe-inspiring: “Beautiful are you, my friend, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, awe-inspiring as visions! Turn your eyes away from me for they disturb me.” ^[520] Or “Awesome with trophies. Avert your eyes from me, for they drive me wild.”^[521] Or “Awesome as an army. Turn your eyes away from me—they overwhelm me.”^[522] But terribilis in classical Latin unequivocally means “inspiring terror or alarm” or “frightening,” and Monteverdi and his theological advisor(s) would have been working from the Latin Vulgate.^[523]

22.25 For Monteverdi, who seems interested in exegesis principally insofar as he can appropriately set individual words and phrases to music, there is little need to labor over interpreting the semantic difficulties of the text. He opens the motet by introducing the unnamed “amica mea suavis et decora sicut Jerusalem,” expressing that beauty through the sonority of parallel thirds. He notes the shift of tone not by any special treatment of “terribilis ut castorum acies ordinata,” which continues with the two voices in parallel thirds utilizing similar ornamentation as before, but with a mild harmonic shift to C major. A more distinctive change in tone actually occurs at “Averte oculos tuos,” which abruptly turns to an E major harmonic environment before settling back to the opening G tonality for “me avolare fecerunt,” where his obvious interest is in the lengthy melisma associated with “flee.”

22.26 If Nigra sum is viewed as referring to the transition from the old dispensation to the new dispensation, which occurred at a specific time and place, then it is conceivable that Monteverdi, the practical interpreter of texts, could even have thought of “terriblis ut castorum acies ordinate” in its literal, non-metaphorical meaning, as referring to the actual situation “on the ground” in Jerusalem at the time and place of that transition: the Nativity. Jerusalem was indeed a fearful armed camp of Roman soldiers, violently supporting and enforcing Roman governance of the city and taxation of the province as well as gruesome public executions of rebels. It was for Hebrews a place too painful to witness, inducing many to flee.

22.27 However that may be, and it is purely speculative on our part, Monteverdi makes no attempt to respond musically to such a reading; rather, he exploits the text for obvious musical, not theological possibilities, while ignoring the problematic aspects of “terribilis … ordinate.” What is critical to the meaning of Pulchra es in the sequence of Monteverdi’s sacri concentus is the mystery of that attractive, beloved figure for whom the next motet, Duo Seraphim, provides the identity, though still only implicitly, with the still unnamed Mary serving as the vehicle for the transition from the old dispensation to the new Trinitarian dispensation, first adumbrated in Nigra sum, as we have argued above (par. 21.8–12, 22.13–18).

22.28 In Audi coelum, the symbolism of Nigra sum, Pulchra es, and Duo Seraphim becomes explicit in the person of Mary herself, who is now identified in answer to the question “Quae est ista,” in which she is characterized by several of her attributes and addressed directly. Now that she is known as an individual and in her relationship to the Trinity, she can finally, in the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria, be addressed personally and intimately in the simplest of verbal prayers, “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.”

22.29 We cannot prove that Monteverdi or his theological advisor(s) interpreted these texts and their relationship in the way we have. We can only argue, within the general framework of historical exegeses of the Song of Solomon and theological principles espoused by the Catholic Church, coupled with the evidence of Monteverdi’s musical settings, that our assessment of their relationship is both plausible and within the parameters of what Monteverdi and contemporary theologians could have thought. Indeed, it seems to us implausible that Monteverdi and his advisor(s), in an age in which painted cycles of saints’ lives and actions were commonplace, did not consider the relationship of these texts and the cumulative meaning of their sequence, even though that meaning may have diverged from what we have proposed here.

22.30 Consideration of the sacri concentus as a coherent, progressively ordered theological program within Monteverdi’s Vespers underscores the function of the motets as “overlays” to the liturgical antiphons, whether the latter were actually recited as commanded by the Caeremoniale Episcoporum or not. Psalm antiphons do not necessarily have semantic or theological connections to the psalms to which they are attached since antiphons are proper to the feast or category of feasts, and the same psalm can be preceded and followed by many different antiphons. On the other hand, psalm antiphons often reflect the focus of the feasts to which they are proper. Monteverdi’s sacri concentus, like the proper antiphons of a feast or Common, are fully in accord with the theological significance of Marian feasts as a whole.^[524] The sacri concentus are tropes on that significance, and their placement follows the logic of their own textual sequence, beyond any specific relationships they may have to the psalms they follow.

22.31 Many have noted, sometimes disparagingly, the symmetry of the sacri concentus as a group in terms of the principal number of voices: Nigra sum: 1; Pulchra es: 2: Duo Seraphim: 3; Audi coelum: 2 (+6); Sonata sopra Sancta Maria: 1. But it is typical of Monteverdi’s sophistication and complexity as a composer that he has overlaid two different trajectories on this set of compositions. The textual trajectory is progressive, leading from beginning to end, as we have described. The vocal trajectory, however, is symmetrical, not just in terms of voicing, but also in terms of musical complexity, growing from the beginning to the middle, and then receding again. In that regard, the sequence of sacri concentus is similar to almost every other aspect of Monteverdi’s 1610 collection—his reliance on pre-existing, simple patterns of composition, which he consistently expands, enlarges, and deepens in their elaboration to form structures and modes of expression far beyond the foundations with which he started.

23. Conclusions Regarding the Vespers

23.1 Everything we have discussed with regard to both the sequence of response, psalms, hymn, Magnificats, and the interspersion of the sacri concentus after each of the five psalms in the 1610 print points to a deliberate effort on Monteverdi’s part to produce a nearly complete polyphonic Vespers service for the major feasts of the Virgin throughout the liturgical year (only an antiphon overlay after the Magnificat is lacking). That design is confirmed by Monteverdi’s own rubric in the Bassus Generalis partbook at the head of the response Domine ad adiuvandum all the way through the second Magnificat: Vespro della B. Vergine da concerto, composto sopra canti fermi. All the liturgical elements of a Vespers service of the Virgin, the response, psalms, hymn, and Magnificats, are indeed composed on canti fermi—the response tone, psalm tones,  Magnificat tone, and the Ave maris stella chant melody, the last in a form related to the rite of Santa Barbara. And all are in the modern concertato style, often described as da concerto or in concerto. The sacri concentus are also in the concertato style, but only the Sonata sopra sancta Maria employs a cantus firmus.

23.2 The absence of a cantus firmus elsewhere among the sacri concentus has given rise to further arguments, including those by Bowers, that they are not part of the Vespro.^[525] But there is no reason that the rubric has to encompass every aspect of each piece, and the liturgical elements of an official Vespers service are all sopra canti fermi. The sacri concentus fill exactly the function we have been describing as non-liturgical interpolations, or overlays to the liturgical antiphons supposedly recited underneath them, serving to expand the significance and spiritual understanding of the figure of Mary for worshippers. Their inclusion in Monteverdi’s design for a complete service is insured by his unusual and careful positioning of them after each psalm, something we see only once again in the surviving Vespers repertoire, in Paolo Agostini’s 1619 collection of music for Vespers of the Madonna, but it is also witnessed later in Venetian churches, by motets and instrumental pieces between the Vespers psalms in actual performance.

23.3 There was no need for Monteverdi to qualify his rubric to include the sacri concentus—their position in the sequence of pieces is perfectly clear in this very carefully organized print and their purpose would have been obvious to any of his contemporaries. Interpreting the lack of a qualifier in the rubric regarding their use as meaning their exclusion is a logically absurd argument. If they were to be excluded from Monteverdi’s design of his Vespro della B. Vergine service, there would have been no reason to place them where they are in the first place. Everything else in the collection, from the unique list of motives drawn from Gombert’s motet In illo tempore at the head of the Missa in illo tempore, to the much more detailed notation of ornaments than found in contemporary liturgical sources, to the uniquely explicit annotations for organ registration in the two Magnificats, to the specification of instrumentation in the response and the Magnificat a7 (highly unusual for this time), to the ordering of the main elements of a complete Vespers service for a feast of the Virgin, also confirms a very deliberate organization of the entire print on Monteverdi’s part.

23.4 Although Monteverdi’s design of his Vespro as a complete service for the Virgin is intentional and unequivocal, that purpose does not preclude purchasers from using the print in other ways. As we’ve highlighted before in discussing other liturgical sequences in both manuscripts and prints, a maestro di cappella might choose to perform only one or a few of the items in a print in a given service. Moreover, the response, two of the psalms, the Magnificats, Duo Seraphim, and even the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria could be performed in Vespers or other liturgical services not devoted to Mary or virgin saints. Five years after the publication of Monteverdi’s print, the response and Dixit Dominus were reprinted in a German anthology to make them available precisely for such purposes.^[526] Musicians could also perform the sacri concentus outside the context of a liturgical ceremony, in oratorios, in palace chapels,^[527] in devotional gatherings in or outside an ecclesiastical building, in private entertainments also including secular music, even at banquets. Composers and publishers were well aware of the multiple possibilities, which constituted one of their marketing considerations, often influencing how they worded their title pages. Monteverdi’s own title page envisages that eventuality.

23.5 We have no way of knowing how many performances from Monteverdi’s print were of the entire service, perhaps with an instrumental canzona or motet from some other source performed after the Magnificat, and how many extracted one or more elements from the print to be performed individually or as a group. Handwritten annotations in several of the pieces in different copies bear witness to the performance of some of the compositions. It is certainly possible, perhaps even probable given the vocal and instrumental demands of some of the pieces, that the latter predominated, but that doesn’t alter Monteverdi’s design—to provide a virtually complete Vespers service of the Virgin, including interpolated motets to enhance the spiritual and theological meaning.^[528] Unfortunately, the history of commentary on the Monteverdi Vespers has often been characterized by an attitude that if we don’t understand the source, then the source must be faulty, rather than the more likely probability that the fault lies not in the source, but in our understanding. The former position leads to attempts to “correct” the source—or, as in Bowers’s unique case, to reinterpret it bizzarely—while the latter encourages us to improve our understanding.^[529] Why should we be so eager to assume that Monteverdi did not mean exactly what he and his publisher Amadino manifested in the rubrics and layout of his print? (For the conclusion of our critique of Bowers’s articles, see App. 1, par. 5.28).

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of several other scholars in our research and preparation of this article: in Mantua, Stefano L’Occaso, who first gave us a guided tour of the structure in which remnants of the Church of Santa Croce can be seen; the staff of the Archivio di Stato in Mantua for making available numerous letters and other sources; Roberta Benedusi, who assisted us with Latin documents; Giulio Lometti, who provided useful comments on details of several of our translations; Leofranc Holford-Stevens, who checked most of our Latin translations; Julian Bennett Holmes, who transcribed in Finale the Dulcino Audi coelum example for us; Monsignor Giancarlo Manzoli and Don Stefano Savoia for several different types of assistance; Tim Carter, who did the first critical reading of an earlier stage of our manuscript and responded with his usual perspicacity and useful critique of many aspects, both general and in detail; Daniele Sabaino, who read a late version of this article and who provided several important references to us, as well as copies of his own articles on liturgical history, and a pre-publication copy for our use of his important article “Il mottetto a voce sola in Italia nel secolo XVII come genere liturgico: alcune osservazioni a partire dai testi intonati,” prepared for the Atti of the Conference “Music and Liturgy in Italy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Bologna 21–22 April 2023)”; and especially Lois Rosow, Editor of the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, who patiently and indefatigably helped us in so many ways through the process and details of such a large and complex publication.

Appendices

App. 1. Critique of two articles by Roger Bowers

App. 2. Ecclesiastical institutions in Mantua and environs supported by the Gonzagas to 1630

App. 3. Pastoral visit to Mantua, 1575–76

App. 4. Letters

App. 5. Texts of Monteverdi’s sacri concentus

App. 6. Ippolito Donesmondi’s Memoria di quanto è successo intorno al Sangue di Christo, che è in Mantova, 1616

App. 7. Beginning of the dedication of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum, 1600

Examples

Ex. 1. Giovanni Battista Dulcino, Audi coelum, from Sacrae cantiones octo vocibus … (1609)

Figures

Fig. 1. Gabriele Bertazzolo, Urbis Mantuae Descriptio, 1628

Fig. 2. Church of San Pietro, facade

Fig. 3. Church of San Pietro, nave

Fig. 4. Church of Sant’Andrea, facade

Fig. 5. Church of Sant’Andrea, nave

Fig. 6. Sant’Andrea, crypt preserving the relic of the Blood of Christ

Fig. 7. Santissima Trinità (now Mantuan State Archive), facade

Fig. 8. Church of San Francesco, facade

Fig. 9. Church of San Francesco, nave

Fig. 10. Corpus Domini (Santa Paola)

Fig. 11. Santa Maria delle Grazie di Curtatone, facade

Fig. 12a. Santa Maria delle Grazie di Curtatone, nave, looking toward the altar

Fig. 12b. Santa Maria delle Grazie di Curtatone, nave, looking toward the entrance

Fig. 13. San Barnaba, facade

Fig. 14. San Barnaba, interior

Fig. 15a. Detail with ducal palace complex and close environs, from Gabriele Bertazzolo, Mantuae Descriptio, 1596

Fig. 15b. Detail from Gabriele Bertazzolo, Mantuae Descriptio, 1596

Fig. 15c. Detail from Gabriele Bertazzolo, Urbis Mantuae Descriptio, 1628

Fig. 16. Plan of piano superiore of ducal palace by Bernardino Facciotto, ante November 1581

Fig. 17. Campanile, Church of Santa Barbara, Ducal Palace

Fig. 18. Gabriele Bertazzolo, Naumachia, Mantua, 1608

Fig. 19. Francesco Borgani, “St. Francis prays to the Madonna for cessation of an epidemic,” ca. 1618

Fig. 20. Gaetano Crevola, Pianta Prima: Stato presente della maggior parte del Pian Terreno del R. D. Palazzo di Mantova …

Fig. 21. Gaetano Crevola, Pianta Seconda: Stato presente d’una porzione del Piano superiore del R. D. Palazzo di Mantova …

Fig. 22. Gaetano Crevola, Pianta Terza, relativa alla Pianta Prima: Progetto di ridurre il Piano terreno a maggior comodo

Fig. 23. Church of Santa Croce, ground level arch, interrupted by reconstruction in the 1770s

Fig. 24. Church of Santa Croce, large and small circular windows, filled in near summit of structure

Fig. 25. Church of Santa Croce, current exterior brick facade

Fig. 26. Church of Santa Croce, rosone on interior rear wall

Fig. 27. Bird’s-eye view of Church of Santa Croce with two bays: altar bay at top, main entrance at bottom

Fig. 28. Side view projection of the two levels of the Church of Santa Croce (with the oratorio floor above)

Fig. 29. Reconstruction of Church of Santa Croce, with sketch of Sala dei Fiumi behind it

Fig. 29a. Facades of the Magna Domus (on the left) and the larger, connected Palazzo del Capitano

Fig. 30. Ground plan of the Appartamento di Santa Croce at the time of Isabella d’Este

Fig. 31. Church of Santa Barbara, facade

Fig. 32. Church of Santa Barbara, ground plan of spaces and altars

Fig. 33. Church of Santa Barbara, interior

Fig. 34. Church of Santa Barbara, cantoria, Antegnati organ, and open fly panels with diptych of the Annunciation attributed to Fermo Ghisoni

Fig. 35. Church of Santa Barbara, view from presbytery of nave, with cantoria over entrance

Fig. 36. Church of Santa Barbara, cantoria on opposite wall from organ

Fig. 37. Salaries of the musicians at court, 1577

Fig. 38. Monthly salaries of the musicians at court, [1580/81]

Fig. 39. Vocal (Altus) title page of Claudio Monteverdi, Mass and Vespers of 1610

Fig. 40. Bassus Generalis title page of Claudio Monteverdi, Mass and Vespers of 1610

Fig. 41. Cantus index from Claudio Monteverdi, Mass and Vespers of 1610

Fig. 42. Title page of Adriano Willaert and Jachet of Mantua, I salmi appertinenti alli vesperi … (1550)

Fig. 43. Title page of Cipriano de Rore and Jachet of Mantua, I sacri e santi salmi di David profeta (1554)

Fig. 44. Index from Cipriano de Rore and Jachet of Mantua, I sacri e santi salmi di David profeta (1554)

Fig. 45. Title page of Domenico Phinot, Il primo libro di salmi a quattro voci … con la gionta di dui Magnificat (1555)

Fig. 46. Index from Domenico Phinot, Il primo libro di salmi a quattro voci … con la gionta di dui Magnificat (1555)

Fig. 47. Title page of Adrian Willaert, I sacri e santi salmi che si canto a vespero et a compieta … (1555)

Fig. 48. Index from Adrian Willaert, I sacri e santi salmi che si canto a vespero et a compieta… (1555)

Fig. 49. Title page of Giovanni Matteo Asola, Psalmodia ad vespertinas omnium solennitatum horas … (1574)

Fig. 50. Index from Giovanni Matteo Asola, Psalmodia ad vespertinas omnium solennitatum horas … (1574)

Fig. 51. Title page of Palestrina, Motectorum festorum totius anni … (1571)

Fig. 52. Palestrina, motet Dies sanctificatus illuxit nobis, with rubric naming feast (“On Christmas Day”). Motectorum festorum totius anni … (1571)

Fig. 53. Dedication from Palestrina, Motectorum festorum totius anni … (1571)

Fig. 54. Altus title page from Palestrina, Liber Primus motettorum … (1569)

Fig. 55. Index from Palestrina, Liber Primus motettorum … (1569)

Fig. 56. Dedication from Palestrina, Liber Primus motettorum … (1569)

Fig. 57. Stefano d’Antonio di Vanni and Bicci di Lorenzo, Annunciation, ca. 1430

Fig. 58. Albrecht Dürer, Coronation of the Virgin, 1510

Fig. 59. Peter Paul Rubens, Coronation of the Virgin, ca. 1632–33

Tables

Table 1. Psalm cursus for major feasts

Table 2.  Indices of Adriano Willaert and Jachet of Mantua, I salmi appertinenti alli vesperi … (1550)

Table 3.  Succession of pieces in Adriano Willaert and Jachet of Mantua, I salmi appertinenti alli vesperi … (1550)

Table 4. Succession of pieces in Paolo Agostini, Salmi della Madonna … (1619)

Table 5.  Distribution of text among eight voices in Giovanni Battista Dulcino, Audi Coelum (1609)