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ISSN: 1089-747X
Volume 6 (2000) No. 1
Response to Edmond Strainchamps
Susan Parisi*
Abstract
Ferdinando Gonzaga may not have felt as disappointed by Gagliano's decision as implied in Strainchamps's paper, given Ferdinando's personality and other artistic activities that engaged him at the time. Apart from the festivities for the marriage of Cosimo II de Medici, new documents make clear that Ferdinando wrote another recommendation to the Medici Grand Duke in late 1608-1609 on behalf of the organist Cintoletti for a post. The Duke of Mantua subsequently requested the organist's services for Ferdinando's studio in Pisa. Attempts to bring Settimia Caccini and Jacopo Peri to Mantua also involved Ferdinando. In addition, it is argued that job security must have weighed in Gagliano's decision, since church positions afforded greater security than court positions. Monteverdi's experiences at the Mantuan court are reviewed, including his unsuccessful efforts in these weeks to serve "in the church." After Ferdinando became duke, his requests to musicians were mainly issued through court officials, though, as is demonstrated, musicians developed tactics for dealing with such demands.
1. Edmond Strainchamps's work on Gagliano
2. The Character and Personality of Ferdinando Gonzaga
3. The Conduct of Marco da Gagliano
4. The Subsequent Relationship between Gagliano and Ferdinando Gonzaga
1. Edmond Strainchamps's work on Gagliano
1.1 Professor Strainchamps has been offering us stimulating and meticulous papers and articles on Marco da Gagliano for many years, ranging from the comprehensive composer article in The New Grove, to analyses of compositions, to articles tackling perplexing questions in Gagliano's biography.1 And while these days we are more likely to find Edmond Strainchamps working on other topics, it is always a pleasure for us when he returns to Gagliano with a new contribution.2 As the present paper demonstrates, the viewpoint is always fresh, the problem solving thorough, and the interpretation insightful.
1.2 As Professor Strainchamps has indicated, some of Gagliano's letters we have been examining were published without analysis, mainly in the late nineteenth century, by Emil Vogel3 and others, such as Alessandro Ademollo, Amelia Civita, Angelo Solerti, and Stefano Davari.4 The letters' contents deal with a number of different subjects: performances, compositions, the Accademia degli Elevati, flowering bulbs and other topics peripheral to the central interest of the present paper. 5 Professor Strainchamps's paper offers scrutiny of those portions of the letters detailing Gagliano's efforts to obtain the position of maestro di cappella in the cathedral of Florence. The most exciting result of this examination is that in laying out the events in sequence and pondering their significance for Gagliano's career and for the length of his relationships with Ferdinando Gonzaga and the Medici grand dukes, he provides a much fuller explanation than could be obtained by a cursory reading of the historical facts in the letters. I find Professor Strainchamps's evaluation of the episode convincing, as I do, for the most part, his interpretation of the motivations of the principal figures involved. There is time here only to amplify the context, and to probe further certain of the speculative issues raised.
2. The Character and Personality of Ferdinando Gonzaga
2.1 Elsewhere I have written about Ferdinando Gonzaga's character and interests after he became duke, drawing on eye-witness accounts. Ferdinando (1587-1626) was prone to living above his means. He slept very little and had grandiose ideas for entertainments and artistic projects, a number of which never came to fruition. He also appears to have been crippled by an inability to act decisively. This is borne out in the musical sphere, but is markedly evident in foreign policy, where he allowed himself for several years to be carried along by events rather than determining their course, and deferred to the will of others instead of steadfastly asserting his own. 6
2.2 The Gagliano episode seems to provide further evidence of these personality traits. But I think one point Professor Strainchamps implies should be underscored: Ferdinando Gonzaga did not have independent means in the fall of 1608 to hire musicians for the household he would later establish in Rome. In fact, he did not even go to Rome until February 1610. He and his brother Prince Francesco (1586-1612) only began acquiring musicians for their respective households in 1609.7
2.3 Thus the extent to which Ferdinando felt disappointed or slighted by the outcome of the Gagliano episode was perhaps not as great as we might like to think, partly given his personality, and partly because there were many other artistic activities and projects of interest to him that were ongoing in these same weeks. Principal among these, as was touched on by Strainchamps and is discussed elsewhere, were the festivities in Florence for the marriage of Cosimo II de Medici to Maria Magdalena of Austria and their aftermath, including a repetition of the main play and intermedi later in November.8 Other new documents also make clear that in this period Ferdinando Gonzaga not only wrote an official recommendation for Gagliano, but also wrote an additional letter to the Medici grand duke (his uncle Ferdinando I de Medici) on behalf of the organist Cintoletti for a post in Pisa. The same Medici official who sent notification on 19 November 1608 that the Santa Maria del Fiore post had been conceded to Gagliano informed Ferdinando on 12 January 1609 that Cintoletti had been elected.9 This information in turn led the Duke of Mantua, on 30 January, to request the organist for Ferdinando Gonzaga's studio in Pisa.10 And we know from the poet Michelangelo Buonarroti's letter of 30 December 1608 that Ferdinando Gonzaga was also trying to procure Giulio Caccini's daughter Settimia for the Mantuan court and, from Jacopo Peri's letter of 20 January 1609, that he sought to borrow Peri for the upcoming carnival season in Mantua.11
3. The Conduct of Marco da Gagliano
3.1 Beyond consideration of family and of the prestige that employment with the Medici carried, there was surely a practical matter that would have weighed on Gagliano's mind. And this brings me to the larger issue of the job security of musicians in the early Baroque, a subject about which we are beginning to learn more as individual cases, like Gagliano's, Monteverdi's and Frescobaldi's, are analyzed. Elsewhere I have written about hiring practices from the perspective of a ducal court as employer.12 From the musicians' perspective, what do we know about strategies for maneuvering within the system? A number of cases might be taken up; for the present I would like to review what we know from Monteverdi's situation.
3.2 From the evidence of Monteverdi's experiences at Mantua we know that musicians appointed to maestro di cappella positions at courts were not obtaining secure posts they could expect to retain throughout their lives. In 1609 Monteverdi was asked to inquire about the availability of a certain Galeazzo Sirena to serve as maestro di cappella for Prince Francesco Gonzaga, and he worried in a letter what would happen upon the death of the Duke of Mantua, since the prince was entitled to appoint whom he pleased as his director of music. Would he, Monteverdi, be asked to leave Mantua? Monteverdi then maneuvered to have his brother installed as the prince's maestro di cappella.13 Still, in the end, what Monteverdi feared did indeed happen: Duke Vincenzo died in February of 1612, Prince Francesco became duke, and in June of that year he sacked the high-ranking musicians and hired new personnel. Then the new duke, having higher status than his brother Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga, took Santi Orlandi, Ferdinando's maestro di cappella as his own in July of 1612.14
3.3 On the other hand, musicians who moved into premier church positions, like the Medici cathedral post, had greater job security. In fact, while Gagliano and Santi Orlandi were competing for the Florentine cathedral position in the fall of 1608, Monteverdi and his father were contemplating a discharge from court service for Monteverdi, "so that he can find other air for his health and less trouble, and another fortune for the well-being of his poor sons," as Baldassare Monteverdi put it in a letter to Duke Vincenzo.15 Thus Baldassare Monteverdi sought openly for Claudio to be permitted to resign: "... I turn yet again to beseech you that by Christ's heart you permit him the requested discharge ...," he wrote Duke Vincenzo in November 1608, "if from the favour of your generous dismissal it happens that he serves a prince, ... he will be viewed favourably." But there was also the Gonzaga ducal church of Santa Barbara in Mantua, where the already mortally ill Gastoldi served until his death in January 1609. Therefore, Baldassare continued, "If Your Most Serene Highness commands only that he serves in the church, that he will do, for even from this source he will draw 400 scudi as a fixed income and 150 as extras, from which he will be able to advance something for his sons... "16 But no such appointment would be forthcoming for Monteverdi.17
3.4 In November 1608 Monteverdi was exhausted and overworked, and, in his view, felt that he had been shabbily treated in May and June of that year during the Mantuan festivities celebrating the nuptials of Prince Francesco and Margherita of Savoy when the young Gagliano, fifteen years Monteverdi's junior, had received favored treatment as the guest composer.18 We know that Monteverdi obtained a raise following his complaints,19 but soon he was making inquiries in cities where there were major church positions: in 1610 in Rome, in 1612 in Milan, and then, in 1613, he succeeded in securing appointment as maestro di cappella at St. Mark's in Venice.20 Thus to return to Gagliano and his options: it seems to me that the security the Florentine cathedral post would provide him was surely an important consideration in his decision.
4. The Subsequent Relationship between Gagliano and Ferdinando Gonzaga
4.1 Finally, I think Professor Strainchamps is accurate in his assessment that the relationship between Gagliano and Ferdinando Gonzaga became more distant after this episode. I would add that Santi Orlandi's letters further suggest that, for a time, he himself became the kind of confidant to Ferdinando that Gagliano had been.21 But we also cannot forget that after Ferdinando became duke in 1613, there were pressing matters of state that consumed his energy,22 and that he then largely dealt with musicians such as Gagliano, Peri, and Monteverdi through court officials who issued his requests for compositions and his invitations for guest appearances.23 The musicians, for their part, had their own tactics for dealing with such demands; sometimes they accepted the invitations, sometimes not, though they usually sent a composition or two and hoped for and indeed, oftentimes counted on, a gainful reward in return.24
4.2 Professor Strainchamps's rich paper not only piques our interest in Gagliano's particular circumstances but should motivate us to continue to investigate the larger issue of musicians' career strategies in the early Baroque.
References
* Susan Parisi <sparisi@illinois.edu> is a Graduate College Scholar at the University of Illinois. She recently edited Music in the Theater, Church, and Villa: Essays in Honor of Robert Lamar Weaver and Norma Wright Weaver (Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 2000). Return to beginning
1.The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1980), 7:81-87. In addition to the articles cited in notes 2 and 5 below, see Strainchamps, "Theory as Polemic: Mutio Effrem's Censure . . . sopra il sesto libro di madrigali di Marco Gagliano," in Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past, ed. Christopher Hatch and David W. Bernstein (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 189-215; idem, "Music in a Florentine Confraternity: The Memorial Madrigals for Jacopo Corsi in the Company of the Archangel Raphael," in Crossing the Boundaries: Christian Piety and the Arts in Italian Medieval and Renaissance Confraternities, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, Medieval Institute, 1991), 161-78; idem, "Filli, mentre ti bacio, and the End of the Madrigal in Florence," in Music and Civilization: Essays in Honor of Paul Henry Lang, ed. Edmond Strainchamps, Maria Rika Maniates, and Christopher Hatch (New York and London: Norton, 1984), 311-25; and idem, "A Brief Report on the Madrigal Style of Marco da Gagliano," in International Musicological Society: Report of the Eleventh Congress, Copenhagen 1972, ed. Henrik Glahn, Søren Sørensen and Peter Ryom (Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen, 1974) 2:675-79.Return to text
2. One recent essay is "The Sacred Music of Marco da Gagliano," in Cantate Domino: Musica nel secoli per il Duomo di Firenze, ed. Carolyn Gianturco, Piero Gargiulo, and Gabriele Giacomelli (Florence: Olschki, forthcoming). Return to text
3. "Marco da Gagliano: Zur Geschichte des florentiner Musiklebens von 1570-1630," Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft 5 (1889): 396-568; on the candidacies of Gagliano and Orlandi for the position of maestro di cappella, see the documentation on pp. 555-58. Return to text
4. Alessandro Ademollo, La bell'Adriana ed altre virtuose del suo tempo alla corte di Mantova (Città del Castello: S. Lapi, 1888), 60-61; Amelia Civita, Ottavio Rinuccini e il sorgere del melodramma in Italia (Mantua: A, Manuzio, 1900), 142-43, 195-98; Angelo Solerti, Gli albori del melodramma (Milan: Sandron, 1904), 1:106-107; Stefano Davari, Notizie di fabbricatori d'organi e d'altri istrumenti, liuti, viole ecc., in ispecie pel maestro Sebastiano Napolitano 'Dall'Organo,' autore dell'organo d'alabastro, e di maestro Vincenzo Bolcione, fabbricatore d'organi a Firenze, undated manuscript, printed in Anna Maria Lorenzoni and Clifford M. Brown, eds., "Stefano Davari, Notizi di fabbricatori d'organo ...," Atti e Memorie, Accademia Virgiliana, n.s. 43 (1975): 40-42. Return to text
5. On these topics, see Edmond Strainchamps, "New Light on the Accademia degli Elevati of Florence," The Musical Quarterly 62 (1976): 507-35, and Strainchamps, "The Unknown Letters of Marco da Gagliano," in Music in the Theater, Church, and Villa: Essays in Honor of Robert Lamar Weaver and Norma Wright Weaver, ed. Susan Parisi in collaboration with Ernest Harriss and Calvin M. Bower (Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 2000), 89-110. Return to text
6. For discussion of musical activity during his reign, and of the productions planned, then never mounted, see my "Ducal Patronage of Music in Mantua, 1587-1627: An Archival Study," Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1989, 275-358, especially 308, 311, 313, and my "Licenza alla mantovana: Frescobaldi and the Recruitment of Musicians for Mantua, 1612-1615," in Frescobaldi Studies, ed. Alexander Silbiger (Durham: Duke University Press, 1987), 55-91, where there is also analysis of Ferdinando's indecision in the political arena. Ferdinando's intense interest in the decoration of his country residence is detailed in Pamela Askew, "Ferdinando Gonzaga's Patronage of the Pictorial Arts: The Villa Favorita," The Art Bulletin 60 (1978): 274-76. Return to text
7. Prince Francesco was sent to govern the Mantuan territory of Monferrat, bordering the duchy of Savoy, in November 1609. There Giulio Cesare Monteverdi served as his maestro di cappella. Ferdinando's formal entry into Rome took place on 4 February 1610. Santi Orlandi, with whom he had also studied composition, became his maestro di cappella. On the musicians in his household, see my "Musicians at the Court of Mantua during Monteverdi's Time: Evidence from the Payrolls," in Musicologia Humana. Studies in Honor of Warren Kirkendale and Ursula Kirkendale, ed. Siegfried Gmeinwieser, David Hiley, and Jörg Riedlbauer (Florence: Olschki, 1994), 200-201. Return to text
8. The Gonzagas received reports on the progress of the entertainments from the Mantuan tenor Francesco Campagnolo and engineer Gabriele Bertazzolo, who had been lent for the occasion, the latter to produce the naval battle in water, as he had done in Mantua a few months earlier as part of the public celebrations of Prince Francesco's marriage to Margherita of Savoy. For Bertazzolo's and Campagnolo's letters from Florence, see Angelo Solerti, Musica, ballo e drammatica alla corte medicea dal 1600 al 1637 (Florence: Bemporad, 1905), 54-57; Stefano Davari, Notizie biografiche di Claudio Monteverdi (Mantua: Mondovi, 1885), 93; and my "Ducal Patronage," 562-64. Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga was in Florence for the restaging of Il Giudizio di Paride on 17/19 November. Recent work on aspects of the festivities in the two cities includes Tim Carter, "A Florentine Wedding of 1608," Acta musicologica 55 (1983): 89-107; Paolo Carpeggiani, "Studi su Gabriele Bertazzolo. I: le feste fiorentine del 1608," Civiltà mantovana 12 (1978): 14-56; Iain Fenlon, "The Origins of the Seventeenth-Century Staged Ballo," in Con che soavità: Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and Dance, 1580-1740, ed. Iain Fenlon and Tim Carter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 13-40; Edmond Strainchamps, "The Life and Death of Caterina Martinelli: New Light on Monteverdi's 'Arianna'," Early Music History 5 (1985): 155-86; Stuart Reiner, "La Vag' Angioletta (and others)," Analecta musicologica 14 (1974): 26-88; Suzanne Cusick, "'There Was Not One Lady Who Failed to Shed a Tear': Arianna's Lament and the Construction of Modern Womanhood," Early Music 22 (1994): 21-41; Tim Carter, "Lamenting Ariadne?" Early Music 27/3 (1999): 395-405 (citing the earlier literature); Leofranc Holford-Strevens, "'Her Eyes Became Two Spouts': Classical Antecedents of Renaissance Laments," Early Music 27/3 (1999): 379-93; and Anne MacNeil, "Weeping at the Water's Edge," Early Music 27/3 (1999): 407-17. See also Paolo Fabbri, Monteverdi, trans. Tim Carter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 77-99; Warren Kirkendale, The Court Musicians in Florence during the Principate of the Medici (Florence: Olschki, 1993), 152-153, 218-219; A.M. Nagler, Theatre Festivals of the Medici 1539-1637 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), 101-15 and plates 66-68; and Parisi, "Ducal Patronage," 144-51, 165-66, 189-97, 214. On the earlier Mantuan production of the Rinuccini and Gagliano opera La Dafne in February 1608 and Ferdinando's elevation to the cardinalate (for which Ferdinando had composed a few songs), see ibid., 164-65. Return to text
9. Letter of Belisario Vinta in Florence to Ferdinando Gonzaga in Mantua, 12 January 1609 [Florentine style 1608] (Mantua, Archivio di Stato, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1126): "Questo giorno il Gran Duca mio Sig[no]re ha eletto in organista della Chiesa de Cav[?]re di Pisa il Cintoletti, et p[er]che V[ostra] S[ignore] Ill[ustrissi]ma l'haveva racommandato all'Alt[ezz]a Sua, mi ha comandato di farle sapere detta elettione, et non ha voluto [illegible] l'Alt[ezz]a sua med[esim]a p[er]che desiderando di gratificarla, et servirla in cose di momento, questa le pare troppo minima et le ricorda il prevalente dell'Alt[ezz]a Sua con i suoi comandamenti; ad ogni hora in ogni altro conto, et io con ossequintiss[im]a reverenza me le ricordo, et confermo humiliss[imo] et devotiss[imo] ser[vito]re. Da fiorenza xii di gen[nai]o 1608.
Humilliss[i]mo et devot[issi]mo ser[vito]re Belisario Vinta"
10. Draft of letter from Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, 30 January 1609 (Mantua, Archivio di Stato, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 2270):"Desiderando ... il Card[ina]le mio figliuolo di haver il p[adre] Cinitella al p[rese]nte lettere nello studio di Pisa presso la sua p[er]sona, et vedendo io quanto la stimi et ami, et quanto ... possa conseguire della sua com[m]iss[io]ne informato p[er] altro delle buone qualità di esso Padre ... con volentieri contentato [illegible] a pregare V[ostra] A[ltezza] che non solo si contenta di lasciarlo venire a q[ues]to serv[izi]o con buona gratia sua ma ad esserne ella med[esi]ma la promettere sicuro che esso padre sarà ben veduto et che ricevera ogni amorevole trattam[en]to Mi perdoni S[ua] A[ltezza] q[uan]to impaccio che se le do con la solita confidenza, et si ricordi del continuato mio desid[eri]o di servirla mentre p[er] fine le bacio la mano et auguro felicità." Grand Duke Ferdinando I de Medici died a few weeks later, on 7 February 1609. Return to text
11. Santi Orlandi and a young boy soprano, though not Peri, were sent to Mantua in January 1609; see my "Ducal Patronage," 607-09, notes 434-35. Nor would the Medici part with Settimia Caccini. Frescobaldi had been proposed as a possible husband for her, but she was instead married to Alessandro Ghivizzani; see the documentation in Anthony Newcomb, "Girolamo Frescobaldi, 1609-1615: A Documentary Study in which information also appears concerning Giulio and Settimia Caccini, the brothers Piccini, Stefano Landi, and Ippolita Recupita," Annales musicologiques 7 (1964-1977): 126-27; Kirkendale, The Court Musicians, 339; and Frederick Hammond, Frescobaldi, His Life and Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 40-41. Return to text
12. Parisi, "Recruiting and Hiring Practices in the Early Baroque: Observations from Mantua," The Journal of Musicology 14 (1996): 117-50, 426. Return to text
13. From the letter of Monteverdi in Cremona to [Alessandro Striggio in Mantua], 10 September 1609, as translated in Denis Stevens, The Letters of Claudio Monteverdi (Oxford: Clarendon Press, rev. ed., 1995), 61-64: ". . . he [Sirena] asked me to tell him (if he were to go and serve His Highness) whether the prince wanted him as his Director of Music or for some other post, to which I replied that I did not know his intention. So, Signor Striggio, I thought I would write to Your Lordship a few words about the things that make me uneasy, because I mean the prince is entitled to do just what seems right and pleasing to His Highness, but by taking either him or others as Director of Music (if indeed he wants to give him such a title, and that I don't know), on the death of the Duke, and should Almighty God allow me to survive—the prince having a Director of Music—what would you wish me to do: go away from Mantua then? I want to find out, if you please, Your Lordship (in that discreet manner which I know will be better seen to by you than explained by me), whether His Highness has this intention, so that I may know what to do...." A recent contribution on Giulio Ceasare Monteverdi's activity in Monferrat during this period is Isabella Data, "'Rapimento di Prosperina' of Giulio Cesare Monteverdi e le feste a Casale nel 1611," in Monteverdi: Studi e prospettive: Atti del Convegno, Mantova, 21-24 ottobre 1993, ed. Paola Besutti, Teresa Gialdroni, and Rodolfo Baroncini (Florence: Olschki, 1998), 333-46. Return to text
14. This account is considerably curtailed. For full analysis of events surrounding Monteverdi's dismissal, including the rumor that he wanted to leave, see my "Licenza alla mantovana," 59-64. Return to text
15. From Baldassare Monteverdi's letter from Cremona to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, 9 November 1608, in translation in Fabbri, Monteverdi, trans. Carter, 101-02. Return to text
16. From the same letter of 9 November 1608. For a provocative interpretation, see Claudio Annibaldi, "Per una teoria della committenza musicale all'epoca di Monteverdi," Claudio Monteverdi: Studi e prospettive, 466-475, where it is speculated that implied here (and in Baldassare's letter to Duchess Leonora, 27 November 1608) was a discharge that would have permitted Monteverdi license to serve in the church, but not license to serve in a court elsewhere. Return to text
17. Upon Gastoldi's death, Antonio Taroni temporarily succeeded him for three months. The post of maestro di cappella then went to Stefano Nascimbeni; see Pierre M. Tagmann, "La Cappella dei maestri cantori della basilica palatina di Santa Barbara a Mantova (1565-1630)," Civiltà Mantovana 4 (1969): 382. Return to text
18. From Claudio Monteverdi's well-known letter to Annibale Chieppio, 2 December 1608, as translated in Stevens, Letters, rev. ed., 50-54: "I know full well that His Highness the Duke has the very best of intentions towards me, and I know that he is a very generous prince; but I am extremely unlucky at Mantua.... I do know that His Highness--after the death of my wife Claudia--made a resolution to leave me her allowance. However, on my arrival in Mantua he suddenly changed his mind.... He also decided... to give me 25 scudi a month, but lo and behold he suddenly changed his mind, and unluckily for me five of them fell by the wayside... What clearer proof do you want, Your Lordship? To give 200 scudi to Messer Marco da Gagliano who can hardly be said to have done anything, and to give me nothing, who did what I did. Therefore I beg you for the love of God, Most Illustrious Signor Chieppio, knowing that I am unwell and unfortunate in Mantua, please let me have an honourable dismissal from His Highness, for I know that from this I shall derive true happiness...".. Return to text
19. On 19 January 1609 he was awarded an annual pension of 100 scudi, and on 27 January his salary was increased to 300 scudi a year plus 35 scudi for housing; see the documents in Davari, Notizie biografiche di Claudio Monteverdi, 98; translation in Fabbri, Monteverdi, trans. Carter, 104; and in my "Ducal Patronage," 604, note 406. Return to text
20. On Monteverdi's stay in Rome, see my "New Documents Concerning Monteverdi's Relations with the Gonzagas," in Claudio Monteverdi: Studi e prospettive, 477-511; and Jeffrey Kurtzman, The Monteverdi Vespers of 1610: Music, Context, and Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 40-43. For Monteverdi's visit to Milan, see Vogel, "Claudio Monteverdi," Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft 3 (1887), 430; translations in Leo Schrade, Monteverdi, Creator of Mondern Music (New York: Norton, 1950), 266-67, and Fabbri, Monteverdi, trans. Carter, 122-23. Perspectives on his appointment in Venice are in Schrade, 265-75, and Fabbri, 123-24, and, for the period of the 1620s, in Jonathan Glixon, "Was Monteverdi a Traitor?" Music and Letters 72 (1991): 404-05; and my "New Documents Concerning Monteverdi," 500-11, where the employment offer he received from Sigismund III of Poland is also examined. Return to text
21. See in particular the correspondence of Ferdinando in Rome and Orlandi in Mantua in July and August 1612, quoted in my "Ducal Patronage," 238, 264-66, 273; for the period 1609-10, see ibid., 468-70, 607-11, and Strainchamps, "New Light on the Accademia degli Elevati," 528-30. Return to text
22. The Savoyard invasion of Monferrat, the conflict's escalation into a five-year war, and the Gonzagas' loss of the cardinalate were among the preoccupations, as was the question of the line of succession, since Ferdinando's marriage to Caterina de Medici did not produce offspring. For a summary of these difficulties, and of the later war over Mantua's succession, see Romolo Quazza, Mantova attraverso i secoli, 2d ed. (Turin: Edizioni G.A.M., 1966), 193-97 and 408-18. Return to text
23. This point is borne out in a number of Monteverdi's letters from Venice. Consider, for example, the letter of 21 November 1615 to [Annibale Iberti], published in Stevens, The Letters, 2d ed., 98, which begins: "His Highness of Mantua's Most Illustrious Resident dwelling in Venice ... commissioned me recently through Your Lordship's letter (at the command of His Highness of Mantua ... ) to set a ballet to music ... " Return to text
24. The madrigals of the seventh book present a clear illustration of the latter. See also Monteverdi's letter to Alessandro Striggio of 22 February, 1620 in Stevens, The Letters, 2d. ed., 177-78: "You would therefore do me a favour, Your Lordship, by forgiving me if I do not come at once...and since you have kindly honoured me with a promise to present my madrigals—in my name—to Her Ladyship [Duchess Caterina], they have just been sent off ..." We learn of his eventual reward from his letter to the Duchess, 4 April 1620 in ibid., 207: " ... Your Highness has not only been so kind as to consider me excused for my failing, and indeed to receive this feeble token of my devoted service with a happy countenance, but (more than this) has wished to honor me with a gift of a fine necklace." Return to text