The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 8 (2002) No. 1

Trombe, Trombe d'argento, Trombe squarciate, Tromboni, and Pifferi in Venetian Processions and Ceremonies of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

Jeffrey Kurtzman and Linda Maria Koldau

III. Pictorial Representations of Venetian Processions

16. Gentile Bellini's Processione della Croce in Piazza San Marco of 1496

17. Matteo Pagan's Woodcut of a Ducal Procession, 1556–59

18. Jost Amman's Woodcut of a Ducal Procession, c. 1560

19. Trombe d'argento and Pifferi in Giacomo Franco's Engravings of 1610

20. The Procession of J. van Vianen Published by Pieter van der Aa

21. Comparison of Bellini's, Pagan's, Amman's, Franco's, and Vianen's Processions

22. The Coronation of the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani in 1597

23. Vicentino's Paintings of the Coronation of the Dogaressa

24. Giacomo Franco's Engravings of the Coronation of the Dogaressa

25. Giovanni Grevembroch's Illustration of Trombe d'argento

26. Grevembroch's Illustration of a Suonatore di Piffero

27. Iconographical Representations of Heraldic Trumpets

28. Mid-length Straight Trumpets in Venetian Iconography

29. Iconographical Allegories with Mid-length and Short Straight Trumpets

30. Categories of Iconography: Heavenly and Mythical Allegorical Scenes

31. Categories of Iconography: Allegories of Religious Events

32. Categories of Iconography: Historical Events

Table 1

References to Part III

16. Gentile Bellini's Processione della Croce in Piazza San Marco of 1496

16.1  Perhaps the most famous pictorial representation of a Venetian procession is Gentile Bellini's huge canvas, Processione della Croce in Piazza San Marco of 1496 housed in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice (Figure 11). This painting was originally commissioned by the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista as one of a series of paintings commemorating miracles wrought by a piece of the True Cross given to the Scuola in 1369 and treasured as its prize possession.284 Bellini's Processione refers to a miraculous cure effected from witnessing the relic during a procession in St. Mark's square on the feast of Saint Mark, April 25, 1444.285

16.2 The members of the scuola are in the foreground, while musicians appear at two places in the painting, both of them on the periphery and somewhat obscure. In the foreground at the left are the singers of the scuola and three instrumentalists playing a lute, a harp, and a rebec.286 This is the typical ensemble of the scuole of the period, as already discussed in paragraph 13.1. What concerns us at this moment, however, is the far right of the painting, where one can see, not yet having rounded the corner to pass along the front of the picture, the doge's banners, trombe d'argento, and pifferi. The procession continues with the ambassadors in varied costumes, followed by several symbols of the doge: the doge's white candle, and later on, the doge's umbrella, the cushion for the doge's crown, and ultimately, the doge himself.

16.3 In closer detail (Figure 12), one can see on the far right three of the eight comandadori with their banners, followed by the six trombe lunghe, which are not so long and large as those in the Matteo Pagan woodcut and Giacomo Franco engraving described below and don't require the support of boys. Since the trombe were enlarged to the size of those in the Pagan and Franco representations in the period 1473–1478, Bellini's painting, at least as far as the trumpets are concerned, seems historically oriented to the period of the event it depicts rather than the date of the painting itself.287 From each tromba there hangs a small banner. Only two of the trombettieri are actually playing. The other four are carrying their instruments propped on their shoulders with the bells in the air. Immediately behind them march three of the doge's pifferi playing shawms, followed by two trombonists. The nearer of the two is playing a U-shaped double-slide instrument, while the figure in black to his left is not playing and has his instrument resting on his shoulder in the same manner as four of the trumpeters. The bell of this trombone is smudged in the painting.288 Bellini's are among the earliest depictions of double-slide trombones.  [Return to paragraph 2.3.]

17. Matteo Pagan's Woodcut of a Ducal Procession, 1556–59

17.1 A particularly clear illustration of a ducal procession can be seen in a long, eight-block xylograph by Matteo Pagan from 1556–59 in the Museo Correr, depicting the corteo in St. Mark's square on Palm Sunday (Figure 13, Figure 14, Figure 15, Figure 16, Figure 17, Figure 18, Figure 19 and Figure 20).289 Pagan's full woodcut provides a detailed account of the roles, position and costumes of the various personages in a ducal andata, as well as a depiction of the traditional symbols of the doge, including the doge's musical instruments.290 The second frame of this woodcut (Figure 14) shows six straight trumpets of extraordinary length, labeled by Pagan in Latin as sex tubae argenteae and in Italian as sei trombe di arzento. These trumpets are so long that they have to be supported on the shoulders of six boys, one preceding each of the trumpeters. Immediately behind the trumpets come six ambassadorial servants, followed by the doge's six pifferi, labeled by Pagan as tubae et barbiton and trombe piffari (Figure 15). The pifferi in Pagan's woodcut are shawms distinctly larger than those in Bellini's Processione (just as the six trombe d'argento are much larger). Pagan, as an artist, was apparently not intimately acquainted with musical instruments, for his depictions of the shawms are lacking in detail, and the trombone is especially problematic: the last loop of a double-slide trombone would ordinarily extend over the player's shoulder along the side of the head.291 In the Bellini painting some of the instrumentalists are not playing; in Pagan's xylograph the position of some of the instruments is odd. The two shawmists on the inside of the procession are holding their instruments in the normal playing position, whereas the one between them on the outside clearly holds his at a higher angle, and the other two are holding their instruments straight out, as if they were mid-length straight trumpets. These oddities are compounded by the presence of five shawmists and only one trombone; the pifferi del doge normally comprised four shawms and two trombones in this period. Pagan seems to have exercised considerable artistic license with regard to the instruments, as he did in the positioning of some of the elements of the corteo.

17.2 It is also curious that Pagan should have used the plural forms—tubae in Latin and trombe in Italian—in identifying the single trombone in his xylograph, though the pifferi del doge normally did consist of more than the one trombone shown by Pagan. It should not be surprising, however, that the trombone is called here a tromba or tuba, since trombone is no more than an augmentative of tromba. The Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca of 1612 lists the word trombone under the entry tromba as "a musical wind instrument" in contrast to the tromba itself, which is described as a military [signaling] instrument.292 The contrast in size between the two instruments is emphasized in the contemporaneous Italian-English dictionary of John Florio, where tromba is defined as "any Trump or Trumpet," while a separate entry for trombone describes it as "A Base or great Trumpet, or Sackbut."293 The 1741 edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, like Florio's dictionary, has a separate entry for trombone, but still defines it as sorta di tromba.294 Thus, in all these definitions the trombone is a subcategory of the trumpet. The Vocabulario, however, represents generic Tuscan rather than Venetian usage. Despite Pagan's naming of trombones as trombe, trombe are often clearly distinguished from tromboni in Venetian account books and detailed descriptions of instruments and processions.295 By the same token, trumpets in Venice, as in other cities, were also often referenced by their diminutive, trombetti, and some Venetian documents refer to trombetti squarzadi, or trombetti et tamburi, seemingly identifying the instrument as smaller than a full-size tromba. However, the vagaries and ambiguities of scribal terminology caution against making any definitive statement with regard to the meaning of trombetti.296 Pagan's use of the Latin term barbiton (which referred to a large lyre in ancient times), evidently derives from the medieval Latin barbita, defined in Domino Du Cange's Glossarium Mediae et infimae Latinitatis, first published in 1678, as fistula pastoralis, appropriately applied to the rather large shawms in Pagan's woodcut.297 [Return to: paragraph 9.4, note 146, paragraphs 31.2, 32.2.]

18. Jost Amman's Woodcut of a Ducal Procession, c. 1560

18.1 Another woodcut of a procession, by the Fleming Jost Amman in the Graphische Sammlung of the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie, is a copy of an earlier one by Giovanni Andrea di Vavasson after an original by Titian from c. 1560 (Figure 21).298 This large woodcut, comprising fourteen adjoined blocks, depicts the ducal cortege traversing the piazzettaof St. Mark's and just beginning to embark on the Bucintoro (the doge's ceremonial barge) for what is evidently the feast of the Sensa (the wedding of Venice with the sea). The eight standard-bearers have already mounted and are clustered on the rear of the ship. The sei trombe d'argento are not visible at all, and still on the embankmentwaiting to embark are five pifferi, playing four shawms and one other instrument whose identity is not obvious (detail, Figure 22). The shawmists all hold their instruments in the normal playing position, but the first player on the backside of the cortege holds his straight out, in the same position as two players in the Pagan woodcut.299 However, in this case the instrument has the appearance of a mid-length, cylindrical trumpet with a particularly flared bell, rather than a shawm. While it is not impossible that this instrument actually is a trumpet, the normal constitution of the pifferi cautions against taking Amman's illustration too literally, especially since there is no evidence of trombones in the woodcut.

18.2 Other standard elements of a procession in trionfo follow: the squires of the doge, the Patriarch attended by another man and followed by two candles (not one as in other representations), the doge's throne (faldstool) and crown (cornu), possibly the ballottino adjacent to the bearer of the crown, the doge flanked by the papal legate on his right and the imperial ambassador on his left, the doge's ceremonial umbrella, three ambassadors, the doge's ceremonial sword, and the Signoria.

19. Trombe d'argento and Pifferi in Giacomo Franco's Engravings of 1610

19.1 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Giacomo Franco published a set of engravings of Venetian life that includes a depiction of a procession wending its way through St. Mark's square (Figure 23).300 Like Pagan some fifty years earlier, Franco has carefully labeled each separate element in the procession, and again we can see, in their usual position in the cortege following the eight banners, the six trombe d'argento supported on the shoulders of six boys. The servants of the ambassadors march between the trombe d'argento and the pifferi del doge, just as in Pagan's woodcut. The pifferi in Franco's procession comprise, as best we can tell from a somewhat unclear plate, four shawms and two trombones, for a total of six pifferi (the trombones appear to be in the middle, between the two pair of shawms).

19.2 Another engraving by Franco from the same 1610 set (Figure 24) illustrates the trombe d'argento and the pifferi on board a ceremonial barge (called in Venetian dialect a peatone) as the doge disembarks at San Giorgio Maggiore for Vespers on Christmas day.301 Here again we see the six trombe lunghe, but as in the Bellini painting, not so long that they require support from boys. This point is quite interesting, for it suggests that in Franco's day and possibly at other times as well, there were two sets of trombe lunghe, one smaller than the other for easier transport aboard ship.302 Immediately behind the trombe four of the pifferi can be discerned playing three shawms and one trombone (one of the shawms is scarcely visible behind the front two). These players have not yet disembarked, though the gangplank is down, ready for them to go ashore. On the boat in the foreground, there are three other instrumentalists, distinct from the official ensembles of the doge, playing shawms.  [Return to: paragraph 9.4, note 290.]

20. The Procession of J. van Vianen Published by Pieter van der Aa

20.1 An undated engraving by J. van Vianen published by Pieter van der Aa in the early eighteenth century entitled Il Doge in Processione (Figure 25)303 shows a serpentine corteo crossing the riva of the piazzetta, led by several clerics (one holding a large cross) and what is probably the Patriarch of Venice and two monks. Then the doge's official cortege begins with the eight standards, the six exceptionally large trombe lunghe, each pair supported by one boy, and five pifferi without any ambassadorial servants between the instrumental ensembles. All five pifferi are clearly playing shawms (one can even distinguish the position of the reeds), and no trombone is present. Subsequent elements of the procession proceed as in the Franco engraving except for the absence of the grand captain,  grand chancellor, and ballottino before the appearance of the doge, who is flanked by the imperial ambassador and papal legate.  [Return to note 304.]

21.Comparison of Bellini's, Pagan's, Amman's, Franco's, and Vianen's Processions

21.1 There are several notable aspects of Bellini's painting that contrast with the Pagan and Amman xylographs and the Franco and Vianen engravings. First, Bellini's trombe d'argento and shawms are smaller than those in the later representations, except for Franco's engraving of the doge disembarking at San Giorgio (Figure 24); in both of these representations the trombe do not require the support of boys. Secondly, in Bellini's painting there is no group of commanders (comandadori) without banners preceding the trombe d'argento. Nor is there a contingent of ambassadorial servants between the trombe d'argento and the pifferi as there is in both Pagan's (Figure 13) and Franco's (Figure 23) processions. In the Amman woodcut, neither the trombe d'argento nor any possible group of ambassadorial servants are visible; the cortege remaining on shore begins with the pifferi. In the Vianen engraving, as in Bellini's painting, the pifferi follow immediately on the heels of the trombe d'argento. In all of these representations, a group of squires (camerari) follows the pifferi.

21.2 According to the Ceremoniale del doge published by Bartolomeo Cecchetti, the trombe d'argento follow immediately after the eight commanders carrying the banners, and the remaining commanderscome between the trombe d'argento and the pifferi rather than between the banners and the trombe d'argento.304 A comparison of the Cerimoniale del doge as quoted by Cecchetti with the Pagan and Franco processions can be seen in Table 1. The order in the Ceremoniale contains more elements than the two labeled pictorial representations, and a few elements are located in different parts of the cortege.305 This table illustrates the fact that while the order of many of the principal elements of a procession in trionfo remained constant over time, there were differences of detail from one epoch or even from one procession in any particular period to another (cf. the contemporaneous Pagan and Amman woodcuts), apart from the fact that certain components were included or omitted depending on the festivity itself.306 Differences between Pagan's and Franco's depictions of a procession are few: the doge's ceremonial crown (corno) doesn't appear in Franco's engraving, and the imperial ambassador (Ambasciator Cesareo) and the papal legate (Legato), both men flanking the doge, are not found in Pagan's woodcut.307

22. The Coronation of the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani in 1597

22.1 Not all lavish civic processions were centered on the doge and the Signoria. One of the most famous processions, because it was recorded in several paintings and engravings as well as in detailed descriptions by Giovanni Stringa, Giovanni Rota, and Dario Tutio, formed part of the festivities celebrating the coronation of the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani, May 4–7, 1597.308 When Marino Grimani had been elected doge two years previously, one of the terms of his promissione was that his wife would be given a coronation as dogaressa after at least one year had passed.309 This was the first time since 1557 that the wife of a doge had been crowned; the celebration, continuing for four days, was stunning in its sumptuousness and was described in painstaking detail by all three chroniclers.310 The ceremonies were inaugurated with a major public procession commemorated in three large paintings by Andrea Michieli detto il Vicentino as well as two engravings by Giacomo Franco, one published in his Habiti of 1610, and another that hangs independently in the Museo Correr (see section 24). This procession was similar to a ducal procession, with many of the same elements in the same order, but without certain of the doge's symbols, such as the eight banners or the doge's cushion and faldstool. In addition, the procession included numerous invited gentlewomen and escorts as well as a large contingent of trumpets, drums and pifferi.

22.2 In anticipation of the event, visitors came from all over Italy; on the day of the coronation crowds of people gathered in St. Mark's square and elsewhere, and all kinds of boats filled the canals. The sound of trumpets and drums could be heard everywhere.311 Stringa relates the festive travel of the civic emissaries in the Bucintoro from the Piazzetta San Marco to the personal residence of the doge at San Luca on the Grand Canal. The procession of boats was led by the brigantine of the broker's guild, outfitted in military fashion, from which trumpets and drums played while artillery sounded continuously.312 On the Bucintoro itself were twelve trumpets and twelve drums, and as the flotilla set off, not only were there volleys of artillery, but also the ringing of bells.313 Upon arriving at the Grimani palace, the officials disembarked and solemnly ascended the stairs to the sound of trumpets, drums, and artillery.314 After ceremonies in the Grimani palace, the dogaressa descended the staircase accompanied by numerous gentlewomen and embarked on the Bucintoro for her trip to the Piazzetta of St. Mark's. She was preceded onto the boat by twelve trumpets, twelve drums, six pifferi and the six long silver trumpets of the doge.315 As the Bucintoro and accompanying vessels traveled along the Grand Canal they were viewed by people leaning out of windows, standing on the roofs of houses, filling the streets, crowding the sides of the canal and occupying bridges. Amidst the din could also be heard the "sweet sound of many instruments," which echoed off the boats.316

22.3 According to Stringa, the travel from the Grimani palace along the Grand Canal was accompanied by the firing of arquebuses and artillery. Many of the honored guests were carried on a special octagonal floating ceremonial pavilion with vertical columns and domed roof, designed by Vicenzo Scamozzi and known as the Teatro del Mondo. Twelve trumpeters and twelve drummers were stationed on this boat, with two groups of six trumpets each playing in alternation.317 [Return to note 173.]

22.4 The flotilla proceeded down the Grand Canal to the piazzettaof St. Mark's, where they were saluted by more than four hundred pieces of artillery and "the sound of a great quantity of trumpets and the noise of a great number of drums."318 At the point of disembarkation, a giant triumphal arch had been constructed with inscriptions and symbolic figures. Above an inscription honoring the dogaressa was stationed a trumpeter representing Fame, who "having put the trumpet to his mouth, made all the world resound with cheers and praise of the princess."319 After disembarking, the dogaressa and her entourage processed around the piazzetta under a canopy with a carefully ordered succession of elements. According to Stringa, the procession included four hundred invited gentlewomenand their escorts; representatives of all the artisans' guilds walking two by two, each guild with its own insignia carried by a standard bearer; twenty-four men dressed in livery who played drums and trumpets (di tamburi, e di trombe); and another twelve, dressed in scarlet, who played pifferi and short silver trumpets (trombe corte d'argento).320 Groups of twelve trumpeters and twelve drummers are mentioned several times in the chronicles, and the twelve pifferi and trumpeters dressed in scarlet comprised the six pifferi del doge supplemented by six short trumpets (in contrast to the doge's trombe lunghe).321 Scarlet was, in fact, the color of the livery of the doge's pifferi.  [Return to note 497.]

22.5 When the procession arrived at the door of St. Mark's, the trumpets, drums and pifferi formed wings through which all the gentlewomen proceeded into the basilica, and as the dogaressa entered the church, there was a salute from the arquebusses and the sound of "drums, pifferi and trumpets made the air resound with sweet melody."322 Once settled in the church, a Te Deum was sung, "instruments and singers made lovely music while she was present, except during the liturgy," and at the end of the ceremonies, the entourage was preceded by drums as it exited into the courtyard of the ducal palace.323 The palace itself was gorgeously decorated for an elaborate reception where the dogaressa was received "with the most beautiful music," and as she passed from one room to another, each filled with decorations and confections furnished by one of the various artisans' guilds, she was greeted with "music full of infinite sweetness."324 The music was furnished by "lutes, cornettos, shawms, strings, and various other instruments."325 In fact, many of the individual guilds, each having decorated its own room, also employed musicians. Both the goldsmiths and the tailors presented trumpets and drums, while the shoemakers danced to the sound of various instruments.326 The haberdashers utilized both instrumentalists and singers, the sword makers were accompanied by sweet music, the dyers employed lutes and "delicate voices", and the bakers boasted trumpets, drums, and piffari.327

22.6 The second day was given over to dancing and refreshments in the ducal palace. During the day, the general celebration continued with "the usual din of drums and trumpets throughout the city" and "playing and singing" on boats that plied the canals.328 The general populace was invited to view the decorations in the palace, from which they had been excluded the previous day. At midday, twelve trumpets and twelve drums assembled in the courtyard of the palace to announce the forthcoming celebrations in the Grand Council Hall.329

22.7 On the third day, in a papal mass celebrated by the papal nuncio in St. Mark's, the dogaressa was presented with a silver rose blessed by the pope. The procession into the church was led by the sound of drums, trumpets, and pifferi.330The mass that followed included instruments as well as the choir (canti, & suoni), but Stringa does not specify which instruments.331 It is quite probable, given the documentation cited above of trumpets playing in St. Mark's and other churches on especially joyous occasions, that Stringa's suoni included the trumpets and even the drums, which, if present, would most likely have sounded at the Elevation. Following the ceremony of the rose, the dogaressa and her entourage exited the main door of St. Mark's to the sound of piffari, trumpets, and drums.332 The celebration continued once again in the ducal palace with a banquet and dancing "to the sound of delicate voices,"333 culminating with a mock naval battle in the bacino. The event, initiated by trumpets which continued to sound during the course of the battle, was viewed by the celebrants from the windows of the Grand Council Hall.334 After the battle ended and a prize was awarded, a splendid regata of various types of boats made its way down the Grand Canal as far as the Rialto to the sound of "warlike and musical instruments."335 Throughout the city the sound of trumpets and drums filled the air.336 Even after the doge and dogaressa retired for the night, the palace remained open to noble visitors who could "hear the music in every room," and who danced until three hours after sundown.337

22.8 The fourth day the dogaressa made the rounds of the palace greeting all the artisans' guilds, where she was treated again to the music of instruments and voices.338 That night rain and wind forced the relocation of a sumptuous banquet from the Portico Argonautico to the gran casa de' Foscari, at the bend of the Grand Canal, where the celebration continued with games, music and dancing.339

22.9 The coronation of the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani is one of the rare instances where iconographical sources can be correlated with a written description of the same event. In most other cases, iconography and the accounts by Sansovino, Stringa and other chroniclers do not overlap so closely.  [Return to paragraph 35.2.]

23. Vicentino's Paintings of the Coronation of the Dogaressa

23.1 Andrea Michieli detto il Vicentino (1539–after 1617) was a collaborator of Tintoretto who painted a number of large scenes of Venetian history for the doge's palace and several others for major churches in Venice and elsewhere.340 He executed three known large paintings depicting the first stages of the coronation ceremonies for the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani, the first two of which are owned by the Museo Correr; the third was formerly owned by the Castello di Duino in Trieste, but was recently sold at auction.341 Andrea Vicentino's first painting in this series (Figure 26) shows the dogaressa at the door of the Grimani palace on the first day of the celebration, about to embark on the Bucintoro that will convey her and her entourage to the piazzetta. Near the bow of the barge can be seen three straight instruments extending outward, while three others are scarcely visible near the stern. These are likely meant to represent shawms, though they are similar to mid-length straight trumpets. In the bottom left hand corner of the painting is a mid-length straight trumpet announcing the event. To the right is Scamozzi's octagonal Teatro del Mondo, with its vertical columns and domed roof. Some of the dogaressa's accompanying gentlewomen are in the Bucintoro, others in the Teatro del Mondo.

23.2 The second, even larger painting by Vicentino in the Museo Correr illustrates the dogaressa and her entourage disembarking across a wooden gangway at the piazzetta before her entry into the piazza. On the left of the painting (Figure 27) is a shawm (part of the pifferi) still in the Bucintoro, while in the middle are two drums. On the far lower right (Figure 28) are two folded trumpets and a single drum as well as a third folded trumpet in the distance slightly above and behind the two principal trumpeters—all obviously in the act of announcing the arrival of the dogaressa. All three trumpets have banners suspended from their yards. The Teatro del Mondo is on the right above the trumpeters; its passengers have already disembarked.

23.3 The third of Vicentino's representations of the coronation depicts the dogaressa in corteo in the piazzetta of St. Mark's, though the canopy under which Stringa says the participants processed is omitted from the painting. Below and to the left of the campanile are trumpeters, blowing mid-length straight trumpets (Figure 29) in all directions. Below and to the right of the campanile is a battery of mid-length straight trumpets with their bells pointed high in the air and blowing in a single direction (Figure 30).

23.4 Vicentino's paintings depict two types of trumpet: 1) full-size folded trumpets, serving a symbolic heraldic role at the edge of the second painting; and 2) mid-length straight trumpets, one also serving in a heraldic function in the first painting, and others as an integral part of the dogaressa's entourage, announcing her presence in St. Mark's square in the third painting. These latter are most likely the trumpets accompanied by drums in Stringa's description of the procession arriving at the home of the dogaressa to escort her to St. Mark's and which later, together with drums and pifferi, formed wings to the entrance of the church. Stringa also mentions a separate group of trombe corte d'argento, instruments not illustrated in any of the Vicentino paintings. These instruments may well have been even smaller than the mid-length straight trumpets, perhaps the size of the elegant trumpet depicted by Bernardo Strozzi in his Personification of Fame, now in the National Gallery in London (https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/bernardo-strozzi-a-personification-of-fame). Such instruments would have been quite high pitched, probably a fifth above the mid-length trumpets (see section 42).  [Return to: paragraph 29.2, 30.4, note 497.]

24. Giacomo Franco's Engravings of the Coronation of the Dogaressa

24.1 Yet another depiction of the coronation festivities appears in an engraving by Franco published in the Habiti of 1610 (Figure 31).342 In this illustration, the Bucintoro occupies center stage. The dogaressa in her crown (cornu) can be seen at the rear of the barge, together with some of her attending noblewomen, themselves crowned by elaborate, doubly pointed hairdos. Other gentlewomen (nobilissima schiera di gentildonne pomposamente vestite) are transported in the octagonal pavilion, the Teatro del Mondo. The entire naval procession is headed from the Grimani palace to the piazzetta. Franco's engraving, therefore, fills in the temporal gap between the embarkation of the dogaressa from her palace and her disembarkation at the piazzetta, both scenes painted by Vicentino and described in detail by Stringa.

24.2 Instruments appear throughout this engraving. Toward the stern of the Bucintoro, near the dogaressa, three of the pifferi del doge can be seen with their instruments, probably shawms, extending outside the boat. In the foreground the scene is announced by the symbolic heraldic trumpet on the left—in this case a mid-length straight trumpet with an especially wide bell—and an equally symbolic drum on the right. A statuette with a similar symbolic trumpet surmounts the dome of the Teatro del mondo. More realistic, because they accord with actual Venetian practice, are the single mid-length straight trumpets on two of the smaller boats situated above-left and above-right of the pavilion. Signal trumpets on boats were commonplace in Venice, as discussed in paragraph 5.19.343

24.3 There is also an independent engraving of the Bucintoro in the bacino by Franco in the Museo Correr, inscribed "Prospetiva et Apparato nella Piazza di S. Marco col Nobilissimo et Gran Vascel Bucintoro nel quale la Ser.ma Dogaressa Moresina Grimani fu condotta dalla Ill.ma Sig.ria dal suo nel Ducal Palazzo . . ." (Figure 32). Once again, the doge's pifferi, consisting of four shawms and two trombones, are visible. In this engraving two of the instruments are illustrated in enough detail to indicate unequivocally that they are shawms. As in Franco's other engraving of the event, mid-length trumpets are also shown on several boats in the flotilla, and drums may be seen in yet other boats. A specially built ramp for disembarkation onto the piazzetta at the upper right is populated with trumpeters and drummers awaiting the dogaressa's arrival. Some of the trumpets are obviously mid-length straight trumpets, but others are not clear enough to exclude the possibility of their being folded instruments. Three boats in the center are firing their artillery and an extensive row of bonfires, probably the origin of fireworks, can be seen on the riva at the top left. The Teatro del mondo is not shown in this engraving. Once again the bottom corners of the picture are framed by a single mid-length trumpet with an exceptionally wide bell on the left, balanced by a single drum in the lower right-hand corner.  [Return to paragraph 22.1, 32.1.]

25. Giovanni Grevembroch's Illustration of Trombe d'argento

25.1 While the Gentile Bellini painting stems from the very beginning of the period that is the main focus of this article, a costume book by Giovanni Grevembroch, which includes an illustration of two trumpeters (trombettieri) with their trombe d'argento, shows us an eighteenth-century view of their livery and their instruments (Figure 33).344 The trumpets depicted are long, thin instruments, less than eight feet in length, with the pair of trumpets supported near the bells by a single boy. These instruments contrast significantly with the much larger trumpets of the Pagan woodcut and the Franco engraving, where every instrument is supported by a separate boy. Grevembroch's trumpets are more like those in Bellini's Processione della Croce, though Grevembroch's appear a little longer, and Bellini's are not supported by boys. Each of Grevembroch's illustrations is accompanied by a written commentary; the notes on the trombettieri summarize in a somewhat confusing manner the history of these instruments. According to Grevembroch, the trumpeters were in earlier times numbered among the courtiers, and were fewer, but were then increased. At that time the trumpets were not as long as they are at present, and were used to announce the imminent arrival of the doge. In 1473 they were enlarged to their present size and were carried by six comandadori for show alone without playing them. Because they were inconveniently long they had to be supported at the front by boys. Grevembroch also says that a confraternity of instrumentalists had been established in the Augustinian monastic church of San Stefano.345

25.2 Grevembroch's previous illustration in the same volume is of a representative of the some fifty comandadori, eight of whom carried the ducal banners in processions, followed, according to Grevembroch, by six who carried the trombe d'argento. In his commentary to this illustration, Grevembroch repeats aspects of his commentary on the trombettieri, saying that the trumpets had once weighed 24 marche, then were rebuilt by Nicolò Marcello in the fifteenth century at the size that they are at present, and that at one time they had been supported on the shoulders of boys.346

25.3 Since Grevembroch's book is a costume book, it is possible to compare the costumes of his trombettieri and comandadori with those in Bellini's painting, Pagan's xylograph, and Franco's engraving. The costumes of Bellini's trumpet players are somewhat varied, but resemble more Grevembroch's trombettieri than his comendadori, while the standard bearers directly in front of the trumpeters in Bellini's painting are clearly wearing Grevembroch's comandadori costume. In the Pagan woodcut, the trumpeters wear a costume similar to the comandadori, but without the golden medallion specified by Grevembroch and worn by Pagan's comandadori (in the woodcut, all but two of the comandadori wear a cape shorter than that borne by the trumpeters). In Franco's engraving, the trumpeters are wearing shorter capes than the comandadori and possibly a different beret.

26. Grevembroch's Illustration of a Suonatore di Piffero

26.1 In addition to the trombettieri, Grevembroch also illustrates a suonatore di piffero, who holds a shawm of the size typically used in Venetianprocessions (Figure 34). Grevembroch's illustration of a shawm is no more detailed than Pagan's (Figure 15). In his commentary on this instrument, Grevembroch remarks that it was the custom at four special banquets, on the Bucintoro, and on ceremonial barges (nelli Peatoni) to add two silver trumpets and several trombones to the pifferi so that the sinfonia would sound more melodious and noisy (for a depiction of such barges and added instruments, see Figure 24).347 In other words, outside of their role in state processions, the pifferi were often joined by other instruments when they performed atmospheric or banquet music. The silver trumpets mentioned by Grevembroch in this context were definitely not the trombe d'argento del doge—which were used only for processions—but rather shorter, very likely folded, trumpets, suitable for chamber music, also made of silver. Grevembroch clearly distinguishes these instruments from trombones. [Return to note 233.]

27. Iconographical Representations of Heraldic Trumpets

27.1 Andrea Vincentino's "Embarkation of the Dogaressa" and "Disembarkation of the Dogaressa" as well as the two Franco engravings discussed above picture their heraldic trumpets in accord with a convention that placed such instruments in the lower left or the lower right-hand corner of a painting or engraving. Often the trumpet or trumpets are accompanied by a drum or balanced by a drum in the opposite corner of the illustration. In Francesco Maffei's "Procession for the Translation of Relics" in the Old Duomo of Brescia, likely from the second quarter of the seventeenth century, a group of folded trumpets as heralds appear in the lower right-hand corner. Another example of a single folded trumpet and drum appears in a genre painting by Matteo Ponzoni of "The Adoration of the Magi" from 1629, now in the Museo Civico in Treviso.348 The trumpet and drum at the far right are symbols of royalty—the three kings. In a long, but not very tall painting from before 1631by Matteo Ingoli depicting the disembarkation of the newly elected Doge Tommaso Mocenigo (1414–1423), a trumpet and drum are positioned on the left hand side.349 In Jacopo Palma the Younger's "The Crusaders Assault Constantinople" in the doge's palace in Venice (Figure 35) a single folded trumpet appears in the lower left-hand corner and another near the bow of the large ship, while a large drum appears in the foreground on the right. Another example of a folded trumpet and drums as part of a public ceremony, this time fully integrated with the central event, can be seen in Pietro Damini's painting (c. 1619–21) of Captain Silvestro Valier receiving the keys of his command, hanging in the City Hall of Padua. On the left of the central figures is a large drum without trumpet, and on the right a folded trumpet with a drum just beneath (Figure 36 and Figure 37). Again the trumpet and drums serve as icons for the military connotations of the ceremony.  [Return to: paragraph 28.3, 45.3.]

27.2 The folded trumpets in the Ponzoni, Damini, and Le Clerc paintings, as well as in Vicentino's "Disembarkation of the Dogaressa," are all of the type well-known from Nuremberg makers of the sixteenth century. However, there were other sources of folded trumpets as well, some of which have only recently been discovered.350 The predecessor of such folded instruments was the S-shaped trumpet (see paragraph 2.1). S-shaped trumpets can be seen in the center of a famous painting by Vittore Carpaccio of the "Ten Thousand Crucified on Mount Ararat" from 1515 in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.351 Numerous iconographical sources from throughout Europe depict such instruments, which were still in occasional use early in the sixteenth century but were soon fully supplanted by folded instruments.352 [Return to paragraph 41.2.]

28. Mid-length Straight Trumpets in Venetian Iconography

28.1 Despite these representations of folded trumpets, Venetian paintings and engravings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries depict more mid-length straight trumpets than the full-size folded variety, while the S-shaped instrument is rather rare, reflecting its obsolescence. Such moderate length straight trumpets had existed alongside the longer straight busine since the latter became prominent in the period after 1100.353 A battery of five of these straight trumpets announces the festivities in Carpaccio's "Meeting of Ursula and Erus and the Departure of the Pilgrims" of 1495, the largest painting in Carpaccio's cycle of Saint Ursula (Figure 38 and Figure 39).354 The trumpets are all of moderate length and open out more broadly in their bells than the typical conical bell, where the increase in diameter of the conical segment is more gradual. At least a dozen such trumpets are scattered around the circular parapet of the Castel Sant'Angelo in the background of another painting from this cycle, "Meeting of the Pilgrims with the Pope."355 In the very center of yet another painting in the series, "The Martyrdom of the Pilgrims and Funeral of Saint Ursula," a single straight trumpet is played by a rider on horseback (Figure 6).356 The position of the rider and trumpet give the figure special prominence.  [Return to: paragraph 31.1, note 390.]

28.2 A series of seven paintings from the late seventeenth century by Alessandro Piazza in the Museo Correr depict episodes in the life of Francesco Morosini, a great military officer, who was doge from 1688 until 1694. One highly detailed painting shows his departure for the Levant. At the left, the ducal procession embarks on the Bucintoro, surrounded by a crowd of sailing ships and gondolas of various sizes (Figure 40).357 A close-up of the large sailing ship in the foreground (Figure 41) reveals two trumpeters on the bow with mid-length straight trumpets and what may be a group of similar trumpets with banners appended in the lower left-hand corner. Another painting in Piazza's series shows eight short straight trumpets about three feet long followed by two drums in Morosini's funeral procession (Figure 10).358

28.3 In the Matteo Ingoli painting of the disembarkation of the Doge Tommasseo Mocenigo mentioned in paragraph 27.1, the trumpet is a relatively short, straight instrument, perhaps three feet in length, with a particularly wide bell, clearly larger than the bells of the folded trumpets in Le Clerc's painting of the crusade oath of Doge Enrico Dandolo (Figure 8), Vicentino's painting of the disembarkation of the dogaressa (Figure 28), or Damini's painting of Silvestro Valier's investiture (Figure 37). Antonio Vassilacchi detto l'Aliense's large painting from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century of the disembarkation in Venice of Caterina Cornaro, queen of Cyprus, shows a single, straight trumpet approximately three feet long with a somewhat larger than normal bell and a single drum in the background to the right (see Figure 42).359 [Return to paragraph 40.1.]

29. Iconographical Allegories with Mid-length and Short Straight Trumpets

29.1 Such straight trumpets, shorter than the old busine, appear not only amidst realistic scenography, but also in strictly allegorical representations, both in northern Europe and in Italy. A wooden altar figure about 80 cm high in the Dorfkirche of Döben, dating from 1591 and probably by Franz Ditterich the Elder, consists of a putto playing an unrealistically short straight trumpet with an unusually wide, probably fanciful, bell.360 Several such trumpets with rather wide bells can be seen in a ceiling by Domenico Bruni from the mid-seventeenth century in the Villa Negrelli (on the Venetian terrafirma at Stra).361 In the early sixteenth century, Lodovico Mazzolino, a native of Ferrara who studied in Bologna, but also possibly Venice, inserted such a trumpet, with a conical bell, into the very center of his "Massacre of the Innocents," located in the Galleria Doria in Rome (see Figure 43). Similar trumpets can be seen in the Sistine Chapel in Michelangelo's "Last Judgment."362

29.2 Such instruments are the vehicles for disseminating messages from heaven or the fame of worldly figures and places. Cesare Ripa, in his Iconologia, first published by the heirs of Giovanni Gigliotti in Rome in 1593, then reprinted and expanded numerous times, associates the trumpet with fame and glory (the use of trumpets as symbols of fame has already been noted in paragraphs 13.5 and 23.4).363 One of the most beautiful contexts for the celebration of glory is Paolo Veronese's "Triumph of Venice" of 1583 on the ceiling of the Great Council Hall of the doge's palace.364 The winged figure at the very top of the painting holds a short straight trumpet of fame, perhaps three feet in length. Mid-length straight trumpets lead the parade entitled "The Triumph of Faith" in a woodcut based on a Titian sketch.365 The straight trumpet as the symbol for broadcasting fame can be seen in Antonio Servi's "Glorification of the Podestà Giulio Gabriel" of 1677 in the Rotonda of Rovigo, where the message visibly emerges from the bell of the instrument (Figure 44). Another example of such an instrument appears in Lodovico David's painting of the Graces from the "School of the Nude" in the Palazzo Albrizzi in Venice from around the third quarter of the seventeenth century.366 Perhaps the most famous example of the trumpet as a symbol of fame is Bernardo Strozzi's allegorical Personification of Fame of c. 1635–36 in the National Gallery in London (https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/bernardo-strozzi-a-personification-of-fame), already mentioned in paragraph 23.4. Strozzi portrays a finely detailed, obviously realistic instrument of probably little more than two feet in length held in the left hand of a young female angel. In her right hand is an equally detailed alto shawm. [Return to paragraph 30.4.]

29.3 The collection of poetry for Claudio Monteverdi's funeral, published in 1644, has a border on the frontispiece with a great variety of musical instruments (Figure 45). Two straight trumpets as symbols for the dissemination of the composer's fame emerge from behind the oval medallion containing an image of Monteverdi's head. Two other trumpets are represented in the border—an S-shaped instrument and what appears to be a folded trumpet. Both of these as well as the two straight trumpets possess no detail and are more allegorical than realistic; all four have unusually wide bells.

30. Categories of Iconography: Heavenly and Mythical Allegorical Scenes

30.1 The principal question raised by the iconography of musical instruments is the accuracy with which they are depicted. Different paintings and engravings serve different purposes, and realistic, accurate depiction of musical instruments is not necessarily an artist's primary goal. Several scholars have issued warnings and criteria regarding the appropriate use of iconography in making determinations about the musical instruments illustrated.367 Assisting in determining the probability of accuracy of an iconographical representation are such methods as categorizing genres of illustrations, understanding the functions they serve, observing the accuracy of other details, comparing an image with actual surviving instruments or with depictions known to be accurate, and comparing a sizable number of representations by different artists. The latter method, which James McKinnon calls the "survey principle," is especially important when we do not have surviving examples of instruments.368

30.2 One of the broad categories of representation comprises allegorical scenes. Allegorical scenes often picture angels and putti in the heavens blowing trumpets of various types and sizes. In Albrecht Dürer's 1498 "The Seven Trumpets Are Given to the Angels" from the Revelation of St. John, there are seven fanciful long, thin trumpets (four of them curved) with very shallow, very wide bells.369 We can even see such a fanciful depiction of instruments in an unprepossessing worldly context in Dürer's1515 woodcut of a German trumpet corps.370 This excerpt from Maximilian I's prayer book shows six folded trumpets (the positions of the players' hands strongly suggest that these are slide instruments) with enormous, obviously exaggerated bells, created for visual effect rather than for accuracy.

30.3 Heavenly scenes continued in popularity well into the eighteenth century, with many examples by the Venetian Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Straight trumpets of moderate length are featured in several of Tiepolo's ceilings, such as "The Apotheosis of the Pisani Family" in the Museum of Fine Arts at Angers and "The Triumph of Strength and Wisdom" in the collection of Count Bonacossi in Florence.371 In Tiepolo's "Translation of the Holy House of Loreto" in the Gallerie della Accademia in Venice372 and his "Coronation of the Virgin" in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, folded, rather than straight, trumpets are depicted.373 All four paintings are highly fanciful and allegorical in nature, and do not offer particularly accurate representations of the trumpets. All four display the typical widely flared bells characteristic of trumpets in such celestial scenes, and in "The Coronation of the Virgin," the trumpet at the bottom has a very wide throat as well.

30.4 However, the presence of an instrument in an allegorical scene does not necessarily mean that it is a fanciful representation, nor the opposite—that it is depicted realistically. Both approaches can be found. In fact, in such allegorical scenes, the straight busine, often realistically illustrated, is by far the most common instrument. Trumpets may be a long busine, or a shorter trumpet, both visible in Fra Angelico's "Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven" of c.1435 in the National Gallery in London (https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/probably-by-fra-angelico-christ-glorified-in-the-court-of-heaven). Giovanni Bellini's "Allegory of Prudence" of c. 1490 in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice depicts a nude female figure with a small boy at the bottom left holding a short straight trumpet while another similar trumpet is propped against the wall in the background.374 Both trumpets display rather wide bells and are less than three feet in length, judging by their relation to the female figure. In the foreground another small boy plays a tiny drum, once again demonstrating the usual association of trumpets with drums. Although the trumpets are clearly allegorical and may be somewhat fanciful, the bell of the foreground instrument in particular is not so wide as to be unrealistic. A simple, but fairly realistic depiction of a folded trumpet appears in Andrea Vicentino's "Venus in the Forge of the Cyclops" from around the turn of the seventeenth century in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice (Figure 46). The very short trumpet in Bernardo Strozzi's "Personification of Fame," as described in paragraphs 23.4 and 29.2, is remarkably realistic in its detail. Giulio Carpioni's "Allegory of the Podestà Vincenzo Dolfin" of 1647 in the Museo Civico of Vicenza (Figure 47) illustrates another rather short straight trumpet of realistic shape and proportion but without detail.

30.5 It is by comparison with other categories of painting and engraving that we may determine the relative accuracy of the instruments in such allegorical scenes. The bells of these allegorical trumpets are sometimes their most fanciful aspect. Some tend to flare out quickly into large flat bells, which seem unlikely to have represented any actual manufacturing practice, since the thinning of the metal to this degree would have made it very fragile. Rather, these large flared bells represent metaphorically the purpose of the trumpet—to broadcast to the world the glory of God, or the divine message. Similarly, the trumpet was the standard symbol for worldly fame. From a pictorial/metaphorical standpoint, the large flared bell on so many of these instruments conveys the concept of wide dissemination better than the more narrow, confining conical bell that actual surviving instruments typically possess.375 On the other hand, an allegorical instrument is occasionally depicted quite realistically, as in Bernardo Strozzi's Personification of Fame.

31. Categories of Iconography: Allegories of Religious Events

31.1 A second category of allegorical painting constitutes depictions of religious history that are presented allegorically. In such paintings there is often an effort to illustrate people, animals, costumes, and instruments in a realistic manner, even if the geographical setting may be imaginary. The Carpaccio cycle of paintings on the life of St. Ursula (see paragraphs 9.3 and 28.1) displays realistic figures in an imaginary physical environment, sometimes conflating two or more temporally successive scenes in a single painting as was so common in medieval hagiographic paintings. While many of Carpaccio's buildings are imaginary (with the notable exception of the Castel Sant'Angelo), the cycle is replete with elaborate, accurate and minutely detailed depictions of several different kinds of contemporary sailing vessels. Numerous other features, such as costumes and animals, are just as detailed and realistic as the ships, and there is no reason to think that the musical instruments, though not a principal focus of attention, are not equally realistic.376

31.2 In religious historical paintings and engravings such as these, we can assume that the instruments pictured may well be closely representative of those actually in existence at the time the work was executed. Here the question is just how careful or accurate in detail a particular painter or engraver was. For example, we have already seen how Matteo Pagan's detailed illustration of a ducal procession, despite its precision in displaying costumes and most of the ducal insignia, is neither detailed nor careful when it comes to the musical instruments (see section 17). Nevertheless, even if some details may be inaccurate, the general shape of an instrument is likely to be more realistic in such illustrations than in allegorical heavenly scenes. Another factor distinguishing heavenly allegories from worldly, historical allegories, is that the heavenly allegory became a tradition of genre painting, so that the long busine, with or without flared bell, became a standardized iconographical element in such paintings and continued to appear long after such instruments had passed out of practical use. This iconographical tradition is less likely to be a consideration in more earthly allegories.

32. Categories of Iconography: Historical Events

32.1 An even more reliable genre with regard to accuracy of representation comprises paintings and engravings of actual historical events that attempt to record these events as memorials or souvenirs for the participants and for posterity. In contrast to other cities in Italy, Venice is fortunate to be represented by remarkably detailed paintings and engravings of a number of specific processions and other civic events, such as those described in sections 16–24.

32.2 These illustrations all tend to realism in their depictions of the figures, costuming, instruments, and physical setting, intending to record these aspects of an event as accurately as possible. Nevertheless, detailed realism in one feature of an illustration may not be accompanied by equally detailed realism in another, as we have already seen with respect to Pagan's woodcut (see section 17).377 Numerous details of Vicentino's paintings of the coronation of the dogaressa correspond closely with the description of the event by Giovanni Stringa, but Vicentino's representation of the procession in the piazzetta (Figure 48) dispenses with the canopy under which everyone marched, unequivocally described by Stringa.378 The realism of Vicentino's scene of the disembarkation of the dogaressa onto the piazzetta also does not prevent its possessing allegorical elements (Figure 28). The trumpeters and drummers are positioned or "staged" symbolically on the canvas, but represent realistically the role trumpets and drums would have played in such a procession (as indeed described by Stringa), and their dimensions and shape appear unusually accurate in detail. In fact, the trumpets depicted by Vicentino are virtually identical to the one illustrated by Praetorius in his Theatrum Instrumentorum of 1620, published as an appendix to his second volume of the Syntagma musicum (Figure 49, item 10).379 Marin Mersenne's 1635 engraving of a trumpet is very similar (Figure 50).380 They are also virtually identical to the surviving examples from German workshops illustrated below. There is no reason, therefore, not to consider Vicentino's representations of mid-length trumpets accurate as well.  [Return to paragraph 40.1.]

---