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A SOUND DOCTRINE: EARLY MODERN JESUITS AND THE SINGING OF THE CATECHISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2015

Daniele V. Filippi
Daniele V. Filippi*
Affiliation:
Schola Cantorum Basiliensis – Musik Akademie Basel
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The musical activities connected with the teaching of Christian doctrine in the early modern era have failed to attract substantial scholarly attention. In fact, the noteworthy and by no means obvious association between singing and catechism is a longue durée phenomenon, and one of the most ubiquitous and characteristic elements of Catholic sonic cultures in the period 1550–1800. Interconnected as these practices are with many different aspects of early modern culture, their study raises questions and offers insights not only on musical issues, but on problems of interdisciplinary relevance. The present essay discusses their role in the pastoral work of early modern Jesuits and, conversely, the role of the Society of Jesus in the development of this tradition. Three different phases are examined: the export of the method from Spain to Italy in the sixteenth century; its adaptation to the French environment in the early seventeenth century; its further development in the golden age of popular missions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 34 , October 2015 , pp. 1 - 43
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

The research for this article is part of a larger project on ‘The Soundscape of Early Modern Catholicism’ I have conducted at the Jesuit Institute of Boston College in 2012–14. Related papers have been read during various seminars held at Boston College in the academic year 2012–13. I wish to thank T. Frank Kennedy, SJ, director of the Jesuit Institute, Michael Noone, and Alfonso de Vicente for their friendly advice. I am also grateful to Kate van Orden and Alexander Fisher for reading previous versions of this article; to Luca Di Donato for his bibliographic help; to Céline Drèze for sharing bibliography and unpublished material; and to the staffs of the following libraries: John J. Burns Library (Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass.), Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris), Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (Rome), Biblioteca Federico Patetta (Università degli Studi di Torino, Turin), for providing me copies of documentary material. All translations are mine, unless otherwise noted.

References

1 See e.g. Kennedy, T. F., ‘Some Unusual Genres of Sacred Music in the Early Modern Period: The Catechism as a Musical Event in the Late Renaissance – Jesuits and “Our Way of Proceeding”’, in K. M. Comerford and H. M. Pabel (eds.), Early Modern Catholicism: Essays in Honour of John W. O’Malley, S.J. (Toronto, 2001), pp. 266–279Google Scholar; Rostirolla, G., Zardin, D. and Mischiati, O., La lauda spirituale tra Cinque e Seicento: Poesie e canti devozionali nell’Italia della Controriforma, ed. G. Filippi et al. (Studi, Cataloghi e Sussidi dell’Istituto di Bibliografia Musicale, 6; Rome, 2001)Google Scholar; van Orden, K., ‘Children’s Voices: Singing and Literacy in Sixteenth-Century France’, Early Music History, 25 (2006), pp. 209–256CrossRefGoogle Scholar; de Vicente, A., ‘Música, propaganda y reforma religiosa en los siglos XVI y XVII: Cánticos para la “gente del vulgo” (1520–1620)’, Studia Aurea: Revista de Literatura Española y Teoría Literaria del Renacimiento y Siglo de Oro, 1 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, http://studiaurea.com/article/view/v1-vicente; Drèze, C., ‘Le Chant du catéchisme chez les jésuites de la province flandro-belge (XVIe–XVIIe siècles)’, in Martin Dumont (ed.), Musique et religion (Paris, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

2 As already suggested by Scaduto, M., L’epoca di Giacomo Lainez, 1556–1565: L’azione (Storia della Compagnia di Gesù in Italia, 4; Rome, 1974), p. 616Google Scholar; Turrini, M., ‘“Riformare il mondo a vera vita christiana”: Le scuole di catechismo nell’Italia del Cinquecento’, Annali dell’Istituto Storico Italo-germanico in Trento – Jahrbuch des Italienisch-Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Trient, 8 (1982), pp. 407–489Google Scholar, at p. 427; Guidetti, A., Le missioni popolari: I grandi gesuiti italiani. Disegno storico-biografico delle missioni popolari dei gesuiti d’Italia dalle origini al Concilio Vaticano II (Milan, 1988), p. 113Google Scholar. For recent literature, see below, n. 4.

3 In the acts of a synod held at Alcalá de Henares in 1480, every parish priest is requested to have an assistant (another cleric or a sacristan), ‘able to teach reading and writing and singing’, in order to educate the children of his parishioners. Fray Hernando de Talavera, archbishop of Granada from 1493 to his death in 1507, ordered the residents of Albaicín to ‘send their children to the churches in order to learn to read and to sing, or at least [to learn] the prayers’: Herrero, J. S., ‘La enseñanza de la doctrina cristiana en algunas diócesis de León y Castilla durante los siglos XIV y XV’, Archivos Leoneses: Revista de Estudios y Documentación de los Reinos Hispano-Occidentales, 59 (1976), pp. 145–184Google Scholar, at pp. 159 and 173 (my translation and emphasis). See also Herrero, José Sánchez, ‘Catequesis y predicación’, in Bernabé Bartolomé Martínez (ed.), Historia de la acción educadora de la Iglesia en España, 2 vols. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1995), i, pp. 204–233Google Scholar.

4 Partially edited in Herrero, , ‘La enseñanza de la doctrina cristiana’, pp. 177–183Google Scholar. See also Framiñán de Miguel, M. J., ‘La “Doctrina cristiana” de Gregorio de Pesquera (Valladolid, 1554): Esbozo de análisis y contextualización histórico-literaria’, Criticón, 96 (2006), pp. 5–46Google Scholar, at pp. 10–11; de Vicente, ‘Música, propaganda y reforma religiosa’, pp. 4–5; Resines, L., San Juan de Ávila: ‘Doctrina Cristiana que se canta’ (Madrid, 2012), p. 132Google Scholar; and especially Infantes, V., De las primeras letras: Cartillas españolas para enseñar a leer de los siglos XV y XVI (Salamanca, 1998), pp. 72–77Google Scholar, with full-size facsimile in attachment. A reproduction of the cartilla is now available online in the digital collection of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, which holds the only extant copy: see http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0004/bsb00043561/images/ (accessed Sept. 2014).

5 I plan to give a detailed historical account of these practices in a forthcoming study.

6 Beatified by Leo XIII in 1894, canonised by Paul VI in 1970, proclaimed Doctor of the Universal Church by Benedict XVI in 2012. For his catechetical methods, see especially Rosa, L. La, ‘Dalla Spagna alla Sicilia: La catechesi di Juan de Avila’, Itinerarium, 4/7 (suppl.) (1996), pp. 1–52Google Scholar; de Ávila, J., Obras completas, ii: Comentarios bíblicos; Tratados de reforma; Tratados de menores; Escritos de menores, ed. L. Sala Balust and F. Martín Hernández (Nueva ed. crítica; Madrid, 2001), pp. 753–757Google Scholar; Resines, San Juan de Ávila: ‘Doctrina Cristiana que se canta’.

7 Sierra, F. Santolaria, ‘Una edición no conocida de la “doctrina cristiana” de san Juan de Ávila, incluida en la compilación de Gregorio de Pesquera: “Doctrina cristiana y Espejo de bien vivir” (Valladolid, 1 de mayo de 1554)’, Hispania Sacra, 57/116 (2005), pp. 491–558CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 493. For modern editions, see Ávila, Obras completas, ii, pp. 811–32 and Resines, San Juan de Ávila: ‘Doctrina Cristiana que se canta’, pp. 173–258; a facsimile edition is included in Infantes, De las primeras letras. It should be noted that the 1554 print is anonymous, and the textual tradition of the work, as amply discussed by Resines, is extremely intricate.

8 See Resines, , San Juan de Ávila: ‘Doctrina Cristiana que se canta’, pp. 183ffGoogle Scholar.

9 Ibid., p. 42.

10 See Scaduto, , L’epoca di Giacomo Lainez, pp. 614–621Google Scholar; Resines, , San Juan de Ávila: ‘Doctrina Cristiana que se canta’, pp. 35–43Google Scholar. For a general description of the catechetical policies of the early Jesuits, see O’Malley, J. W., The First Jesuits (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), pp. 115–126Google Scholar. See also Sánchez, Javier Burrieza, ‘Los ministerios de la Compañia’, in T. Egido López, J. Burrieza Sánchez and M. Revuelta González (eds.), Los Jesuitas en España y en el mundo hispánico (Madrid, 2004), pp. 107–150Google Scholar at 137–45 (§‘La Compañia, escuela de catecismos’).

11 ‘Qui si manda una dottrina xpiana [a common abbreviation for christiana], quale vorriamo si stampasse in Napoli, et è quella di M[aes]tro Avila fatta in versi, italiana, per li putti, acciò meglio la imparino.’ Monumenta Ignatiana, ex autographis vel ex antiquioribus exemplis collecta. Series prima (Madrid, 1903–11), ix, pp. 623–4. The letter continues: ‘Your Reverence should see, together with Master Hieronimo [Vignes], that it be printed; at our own expense, if preferable, or otherwise we will take 200 or 300 copies, paying for them, and those there will take the rest’ (‘V.R. procuri insieme con M[aes]tro Hieronimo [Vignes], che si stampi, et si vorranno a nostre spese, o veramente noi pigliaremo 200 o 300 pagandole, et di là pigliaranno le altre’).

12 ‘Una dottrina xpiana, fatta per uno amico de la Compagnia, qual conosce il P. Mendoza, si manda costà per stampare ad detto P. Mendoza. V[ostra] S[igno]ria veda si potrà aiutarlo, dando qualch’ordine. Si è riputato buono per li putti questo libretto, et perciò l’ha tradotto uno scolaro nostro in italiano, et non occorrerà mettere nome de auctore. Si pigliarano 200 o 300 volumi pagandoli, o vero la spesa de un 500 si farà a nostro conto, pigliandoli tutti noi; ma sarà meglio si di là pensano adoperarla; si parte non vogliono, bastarebbe stampare li 200 o 300 che ho detto.’ Monumenta Ignatiana. Series prima, ix, pp. 624–5.

13 Ibid., x, pp. 105–6.

14 ‘La dottrina xpiana si fa stampar, et spero serà utile; perché soa Ex.za ha ordinato que le domeneche et feste in ogni parrochia si habbiano di giontar tutti gli figlioli, et che uno de li nostri gli insegni la dottrina xpiana. Et così si pensa di far imparar questa, che è per rime. Stampata che sia, si mandaranno fin a 10 o 12. Spero che contentarà, per estamparsi in bona forma per li figlioli.’ Epistolae mixtae, ex variis Europae locis ab anno 1537 ad 1556 scriptae (Madrid, 1898–1901), v, p. 133. Emphasis mine.

15 Monumenta Ignatiana. Series prima, x, pp. 597–8 (1 Feb. 1556) and 657–8 (8 Feb. 1556).

16 From the letter of 8 Feb.: ‘Qui mando la dottrina xpiana, stampata in Sicilia, mutate alcune cose.’

17 ‘Sono nelle nostre schole li figliuoli più principali, come figliuoli di baroni et gentilhomini: imparano la dottrina christiana in versi italiani et la vanno cantando pubblicamente per la città in loco d’altri canzone vane.’ Litterae quadrimestres ex universis, praeter Indiam et Brasiliam, locis (Madrid, 1894– ), v, pp. 56–9.

18 See La Rosa, ‘Dalla Spagna alla Sicilia’; Ávila, , Obras completas, ii, p. 755Google Scholar.

19 See Resines, , San Juan de Ávila: ‘Doctrina Cristiana que se canta’, pp. 255 ffGoogle Scholar. and 261 ff.

20 Ávila’s advice is, as a matter of fact, introduced as ‘Alcuni altri avisi . . .’ (‘Some further advice . . .’) on fol. 166r.

21 Another manuscript at ARSI, Institutum 38a, contains a clean copy of these texts (except the Dottrina breve . . . a modo di dialogo, and with the addition of a translation of Ávila’s introductory verse on the sign of the cross, ‘Todo fiel christiano . . .’) at fols. 116r–128v.

22 On Ledesma (1524–75), theologian and pedagogist, see Aranci, G., ‘Le “dottrine” di Giacomo Ledesma S.J. (1524–1575)’, Salesianum, 53 (1991), pp. 315–382Google Scholar; Lukács, L., ‘Ledesma, Diego de’, Diccionario histórico de la Compañia de Jesus (Rome and Madrid, 2001), iii, pp. 2318–2319Google Scholar; Rostirolla, G., ‘Laudi e canti religiosi per l’esercizio spirituale della Dottrina cristiana al tempo di Roberto Bellarmino’, in La lauda spirituale tra Cinque e Seicento, pp. 291–314Google Scholar. See also O’Malley, The First Jesuits, ad indicem, and Kennedy, ‘Some Unusual Genres of Sacred Music’; a recent synthesis in English about Ledesma is to be found in Østrem, E. and Petersen, N. H., Medieval Ritual and Early Modern Music: The Devotional Practice of Lauda Singing in Late-Renaissance Italy (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 57–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but it is largely derivative of Rostirolla and O’Malley. For Ledesma’s pedagogical writings, see Farrell, A. P., The Jesuit Code of Liberal Education: Development and Scope of the Ratio Studiorum (Milwaukee, 1938)Google Scholar. For a bibliographic description of the Modo, see Rostirolla, ‘Laudi e canti religiosi’; Rostirolla described what he thought to be a unicum, but meanwhile other copies have surfaced at the Biblioteca de Catalunya (available on http://books.google.com/ as of Sept. 2014) and in various Italian libraries (see Edit16, Censimento nazionale delle edizioni italiane del XVI secolo, http://edit16.iccu.sbn.it/).

23 In Table 1 I reproduce the beginning of the text by Ávila as edited in Resines, San Juan de Ávila: ‘Doctrina Cristiana que se canta’, pp. 183–4. The other texts are transcribed from ARSI, MS Institutum 109, fol. 169v, and from Ledesma, Modo per insegnar la dottrina christiana, fol. 51r–v, respectively.

24 Reprinted as Rostirolla, ‘Laudi e canti religiosi’.

25 As historian Federico Palomo has remarked, ‘Plutôt que par leur capacité à introduire des véritables “nouveautés” dans la pratique de la catéchèse, leur [scil. the Jesuits’] apport a surtout été celui de savoir conjuguer, systématiser et mettre en circulation des techniques de diffusion du message doctrinale, qui avaient été largement éprouvées pendant la première moitié du XVIe siècle et qui demeureront des outils efficaces du travail apostolique tout au long de la période moderne’: F. Palomo, , ‘La Doctrine mise en scène: Catéchèse et missions intérieures dans la Péninsule Ibérique à l’époque modèrne’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 74/147 (2005), pp. 23–55Google Scholar, at p. 28.

26 ‘Quello [scil. il modo] che riputiamo più conveniente per insegnare principalmente . . . a giovanetti, a putti, & ignoranti, rustici, gente roza, a donne, & altre persone idiote, & al popolo, che n’ha più bisogno; & insieme dar cibo spirituale a tutti gli altri di maggior capacità . . . sarà leggendo, interrogando, essortando, ripetendo, cantando, & altre cose.’ Modo, §3.4.

27 See also Resines, L., ‘La Summa de la Doctrina Christiana de Alonso Martínez de Laguna’, Berceo, 142 (2002), pp. 93–132Google Scholar, at pp. 103–4.

28 ‘farà dire quell’istesse parole a tutti i putti insieme, dicendo egli prima, e facendo che loro tutti insieme rispondano il medesimo; & potrà poi dimandarli ad uno o due da per sé, che lo dicano ad alta & chiara voce, sì che tutti l’intendano. Da poi instruirà gli uditori, che dicano, come egli dice, cantando parola per parola, o per versetti: & cominciando il Credo, o Pater noster, gli altri tutti risponderanno l’istesso al medesimo tuono; & da poi farà recitare ad uno con alta voce quel medesimo che s’è cantato; et anco sarà ispediente che la prima volta due de’ putti, instrutti per questo, cantino insieme tutta l’oratione intiera, senza che niuno risponda. Et se non vi fussero putti, egli stesso lo faccia, acciò essi sappiano il tuono; et il medesimo sia quello ch’haverà da correggere detto tuono, quando quelli errassero. Finito di cantare, se gli ridirà la lettione un’altra volta con brevità, rispondendo tutti insieme i putti.’

29 The Lodi, et canzonette spirituali published in Naples in 1608 by Tarquinio Longo contain, for instance, an appendix with an interesting method for the formulaic intonation of catechetical texts: see Koldau, L. M., ‘“Dare un honesto & santo trattenimento à tutte le sorti di persone”: Didaktisches Prinzip und Musikalisierung des Gebets in einem italienischen Andachtsbuch von 1608’, Die Musikforschung, 53 (2000), pp. 40–56Google Scholar, at pp. 54–6. Ledesma too explained that the polyphonic setting of the Ave Maria included in his Modo could be adapted in order to sing different texts, in a manner similar to what happened with the falsobordone (by means of flexible reciting tones and synchronised cadences: see Modo per insegnar la dottrina christiana, fol. 54r–v). Longo’s and Ledesma’s practices are compared in Østrem and Petersen, Medieval Ritual and Early Modern Music, pp. 61–4.

30 A Florentine adaptation of Ledesma’s short Dottrina uses such terms as ‘per salmeggiare’, ‘salmeggiata a cori’: see Aranci, ‘Le “dottrine” di Giacomo Ledesma’, pp. 323–5.

31 See the four-voice Latin-texted setting of the Ave Maria included in Ledesma’s chapter 32 (Rostirolla, ‘Laudi e canti religiosi’, pp. 303–6 and Østrem and Petersen, Medieval Ritual and Early Modern Music, pp. 61–2).

32 See Rostirolla, Zardin and Mischiati, La lauda spirituale tra Cinque e Seicento, passim.

33 For this lauda, see ibid., ad indicem.

34 Kennedy, T. F., ‘Music and the Jesuit Mission in the New World’, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 39/3 (2007), p. 16Google Scholar, http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/jesuit/article/view/4011.

35 For bio-bibliographic details and literature, see De Backer, A. and Sommervogel, C., Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Brussels and Paris, 1890–1932)Google Scholar, ii, coll. 1598–1607; Dhôtel, J.-C., Les Origines du catéchisme moderne, d’après les premiers manuels imprimés en France (Paris, 1967)Google Scholar, passim; Pau, G., ‘De l’usage de la chanson spirituelle par les Jésuites au temps de la Contre-Réforme’, in J.-M. Vaccaro (ed.), La Chanson à la Renaissance: Actes du XX e Colloque d’études humanistes du Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance de l’Université de Tours, juillet 1977 (Tours, 1981), pp. 15–34Google Scholar; Packer, D. S., ‘Collections of Chaste Chansons for the Devout Home (1613–1633)’, Acta Musicologica, 61 (1989), pp. 175–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Launay, D., La Musique religieuse en France du Concile de Trente à 1804 (Paris, 1993), pp. 119–136Google Scholar; F. Dobbins, ‘Coyssard, Michel’, Grove Music Online; Botterau, G., ‘Coyssard, Michel’, Diccionario histórico de la Compañia de Jesus, ii, p. 992Google Scholar; Dompnier, B., ‘Les Cantiques dans la pastorale missionnaire en France au XVIIe siècle’, in S. Nanni (ed.), La musica dei semplici: L’altra Controriforma (Rome, 2012), pp. 73–106Google Scholar, at pp. 78–84.

36 See van Orden, ‘Children’s Voices’ (on Coyssard, especially pp. 225–6 and 228–31).

37 Ibid., pp. 230–31.

38 See De Backer and Sommervogel, Bibliothèque; Launay, , La Musique religieuse en France, pp. 131–132Google Scholar.

39 Hereafter cited as TP. A reproduction of the treatise is now available online in the digital collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica): see http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k56681339 (accessed Sept. 2014).

40 O’Malley, The First Jesuits, p. 122.

41 See Resines, , San Juan de Ávila: ‘Doctrina Cristiana que se canta’, p. 258Google Scholar and La Rosa, ‘Dalla Spagna alla Sicilia’, p. 45 respectively.

42 ‘benché dove gli heretici cantano cose simili, & è prohibito da superiori il cantarle, bisogna che il cantar de Catolici si faccia con edificatione de Catolici, et consenso de superiori, per non parere di simbolizare con gli heretici’. Modo, p. 20.

43 Sommaire de la Doctrine chrestienne, p. 2: ‘R[everendi] P[atris] Antonij Possevini Societatis Iesu / Theologi, de hoc Libro Iudicium’.

44 See Botterau, ‘Coyssard, Michel’.

45 As recently pointed out by Dompnier, ‘Les Cantiques dans la pastorale missionnaire’, p. 81.

46 On Bellarmino see for instance Braido, P., Lineamenti di storia della catechesi e dei catechismi: Dal ‘tempo delle riforme’ all’età degli imperialismi (1450–1870) (Leumann, 1991), pp. 82–84Google Scholar; Librandi, R., ‘Indottrinare in un continuum di varietà’, in G. P. Clivio and R. Longo Lavorato (eds.), De vulgari eloquentia: Lingua e dialetti nella cultura italiana (Language, Media & Education Studies, 45; New York and Ottawa, 2010), pp. 25–44Google Scholar, at pp. 27–8 and passim. Coyssard’s translation, Brieve doctrine chrestienne: Composee par le commandement de nostre sainct Pere le Pape Clement VIII. Par l’Illustrissime Cardinal Bellarmin, de la Compagnie de Iesus. Traduict fidelement de l’Italien, par le R. P. Michel Coyssard de la mesme Compagnie, was published in Lyons in 1622; significantly, some of Coyssard’s Hymnes spirituels are printed in an appendix.

47 For an earlier Spanish example, see Cátedra, P. M., La ‘Doctrina cristiana del Ermitaño y niño’ de Andrés Flórez, O.P. (Valladolid, 1552) (Salamanca, 1997), pp. 58–59Google Scholar.

48 For Desiré, see Launay, La Musique religieuse en France, p. 90.

49 ‘Si le Concile de Trent . . . prohibe la lecture des Livres d’amours, escouterons nous sans scrupule de conscience les chansons impudiques, cent foys plus dangereuses, comme on peut voir de ce qu’avons dict de la force de la Musique?’; TP, 35.

50 For Schoondonck and his role as a promoter of musical education in Jesuit institutions, see Leech, P. and Whitehead, M., ‘“In Paradise and Among Angels”: Music and Musicians at St. Omers English Jesuit College, 1593–1721’, Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 61 (2011), pp. 57–82Google Scholar.

51 ‘Ita hic commendantur R. V. elegantes Hymni, ut excussis eroticis ac venereis cantilenis a nobilibus adolescentibus ac virginibus voce fidibusque hic Antwerpiae in variis familiis summa voluptate aurium et animorum cani coeperint. Quid isthic Vesontione, alibique in Gallia futurum credam, quibus est hic sermo nativus?’; TP, 50–1. Emphasis mine.

52 ‘un vray moyen pour gaigner à Dieu & les Mondains dissolus, & les Heretiques moins opiniastres, que de cacher soubs la friande amorce de ce qu’ils ayment le plus, le vray & souverain remede du Salut’; TP, 41.

53 See Il terzo libro delle laudi spirituali (Rome, 1577), dedication.

54 van Orden, ‘Children’s Voices’, pp. 230–1. For an interesting account of the different functions and styles of the catechetical songs in the practice of Flemish-Belgian Jesuits, see Drèze, ‘Le Chant du catéchisme’.

55 See Launay, La Musique religieuse en France, pp. 121–4. According to Launay, the main musical collaborator of Coyssard was Virgil Le Blanc; in the same year and at the same publishing house of Coyssard’s Les Hymnes sacrez et Odes spirituelles, Le Blanc published under his own name a book of Airs composez . . . sur quelques Paraphrases des Hymnes du R.P. Michel Coyssard.

56 Les Rossignols spirituels. Liguez en Duo, dont les meilleurs accords, nommément le Bas, relevent du Seigneur Pierre Philippes, Organiste de ses Altezes Serenissimes (Valenciennes: De l’imprimerie de Iean Vervliet, à la Bible d’or, 1616). The book was reprinted in 1621 and again, in a revised and altered edition, in 1647. Digital reproductions are available on Google Books as of Sept. 2014.

57 See Cappliez, C., L’École dominicale de Valenciennes au seizième siècle (Geneva, 1971)Google Scholar; Packer, ‘Collections of Chaste Chansons’; Launay, La Musique religieuse en France, especially pp. 191–201; John Steele, ‘Philips, Peter’, in Grove Music Online; Desmet, M., ‘Les Métamorphoses de l’air de cour dans “La Pieuse alouette” (Valenciennes, Jean Vervliet, 1619–1621)’, in G. Durosoir (ed.), Poésie, musique et société: L’air de cour en France au XVII e siècle (Liège, 2006), pp. 245–262Google Scholar; van Orden, , ‘Children’s Voices’, pp. 231–2. On Philips, see now D. J. Smith and R. Taylor (eds.), Networks of Music and Culture in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries: A Collection of Essays in Celebration of Peter Philips’s 450th Anniversary (Farnham, 2013)Google Scholar.

58 A performance of this dialogue is included in the CD La Semaine Mystique: Chants de dévotion du règne de Louis XIII, Faenza and Marco Horvat, Alpha, 2006 (Alpha 103). I wish to acknowledge the inspiration I have drawn from this recording and its cleverly conceived programme.

59 See Desmet, , ‘Les Métamorphoses de l’air de cour’, pp. 246–249Google Scholar.

60 I use the translation given in Culley, T. D. and McNaspy, C. G., ‘Music and the Early Jesuits (1540–1565)’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 40 (1971), pp. 213–245Google Scholar, at p. 231, with some changes and additions. See also Kennedy, T. F., ‘Jesuits and Music: Reconsidering the Early Years’, Studi Musicali, 17 (1988), pp. 71–100Google Scholar, at pp. 82–3.

61 See TP, 8, where he refers to the books for the Christian doctrine printed in Rome, Venice, Parma, Genoa and Turin ‘avecque la Musique forte facile des chansons spirituelles pour tous les Dimanches & Festes de l’Année’.

62 Launay, , La Musique religieuse en France, pp. 119–120Google Scholar.

63 See Pérennès, H., ‘Quelques auteurs de cantiques bretons: Le vénérable Père Maunoir’, Diocèse de Quimper & de Léon – Bulletin diocésain d’Histoire et d’Archéologie (1925), pp. 87–96Google Scholar; Launay, , La Musique religieuse en France, pp. 382–392Google Scholar; Dompnier, , ‘Les Cantiques dans la pastorale missionnaire’, pp. 74–76Google Scholar (with up-to-date literature).

64 Pronounced as a proparoxytone: Ségneri.

65 See at least Mellinato, G., ‘Segneri, Paolo (senior)’, Diccionario histórico de la Compañia de Jesus, iv, pp. 3547–3548Google Scholar, and the literature listed there.

66 Pratica delle missioni, i, pp. 111–18. The Laude spirituale was printed in the same year (but without the music) also in Segneri’s Opere (Parma, 1714), i, pp. 656–9. These editions were not known to Bernadette Majorana, whose account of the sounds of Jesuit rural missions in Italy is nevertheless commendable: see Majorana, B., ‘Musiche voci e suoni nelle missioni rurali dei gesuiti italiani (XVI–XVIII secolo)’, in La musica dei semplici, pp. 125–154Google Scholar. On the Laude spirituale see also Librandi, ‘Indottrinare in un continuum di varietà’, pp. 36–8.

67 In this metre, variously defined as oda or zingaresca, the third and fourth line of the stanza may be seen as a hendecasyllable with internal rhyme (the last line has five or four syllables depending on whether a synalepha with the previous line is possible or not); see Beltrami, P. G., La metrica italiana, 5th edn. (Bologna, 2011)Google Scholar.

68 The presence of notated melodies in the Pratica has already been pointed out by Römer, M., Schriftliche und mündliche Traditionen geistlicher Gesänge auf Korsika (Wiesbaden, 1983), pp. 77–79Google Scholar, and subsequently by Facchin, F., ‘Un esempio tardivo di canto fratto? I gesuiti e la musica nelle missioni rurali’, in M. Gozzi and F. Luisi (eds.), Il canto fratto: L’altro gregoriano (Rome, 2006), pp. 171–184Google Scholar.

69 See Pratica, ii, §VIII.

70 ‘di cotali laude se ne smaltiron tante le copie, che oltre a moltissime donate da’ Padri, un giovane secolare diceva di haverne vendute sol di sua parte niente manco di quindeci mila. Questa Canzone dunque distesa in gentilissima rima, benché contenesse circa d’un centinaio di stanze, veniva imparata a mente quasi da ogn’uno. Questa cantavano con grande allegrezza le donne alla caldaia della seta, a’ telari del tessere, su l’aia del grano, nel condurre al pascolo gli armenti, e negli altri lavori lor propri. Questa medesima si cantava dagli huomini, e piccoli e grandi, nelle case, per le strade, per la campagna, mettendosi così nel cuore quelle verità tanto importanti, che per altro non sarebbono mai né pur venute loro in pensiero.’ G. Massei, Breve ragguaglio della vita del P. Paolo Segneri (Venice, 1701), p. 100. See also Majorana, ‘Musiche voci e suoni nelle missioni rurali’, p. 151.

71 This is, however, a recurrent topos in missionary literature, which can be traced back at least as far as the letters of Francis Xavier from India in the late 1540s.

72 See Guidetti, , Le missioni popolari, p. 113Google Scholar; Librandi, , ‘Indottrinare in un continuum di varietà’, p. 38Google Scholar; Barbera, M., ‘Catechismo in versi popolari’, La civiltà cattolica, 94 (1943), pp. 287–291Google Scholar.

73 The main text seems to have been fairly consistent, but changes and additions were made, especially in the last section, and further devotional materials were sometimes added. The editions I have been able to identify are:

(1) Dottrina christiana, spiegata in versi, cavata dalle Scritture e da dottori (Florence: All’insegna della stella, 1669). No extant copies. (According to Michela Catto, it was censured by the Holy Office: see Catto, M., Un panopticon catechistico: L’arciconfraternita della dottrina cristiana a Roma in età moderna (Rome, 2003), p. 256Google Scholar.)

(2) Dottrina christiana, spiegata in versi, cavata dalle Scritture e da dottori. In questa quarta Impressione migliorata, & accresciuta dall’Autore, nelle Stroffe segnate da una stelletta * Si sono aggiunte le arie musicali da cantare à una, ò due voci (Turin: Per Gio. Sinibaldo, Ad instanza dell’Agilio, 1672). With notated music. A copy at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

(3) Dottrina christiana spiegata in versi cauata dalle scritture e da dottori. E di nuouo ristampata, e ricorretta, con nuoua aggiunta (Macerata: Nella Stamperia del Pannelli, 1677). A copy at the Biblioteca Nazionale, Rome.

(4) Dottrina christiana spiegata in versi, cauata dalle scritture, e da dottori. In questa quinta Impressione migliorata, & accresciuta dall autore [sic], nelle Stroffe segnate da una stella * Si sono aggiunte le arie musicali da cantare à una, ò due voci (Turin: A spese di Gio: Battista Fontana Libraro, 1689). With notated music. A copy at the Biblioteca Federico Patetta, Dipartimento di Scienze Giuridiche dell’Università degli Studi di Torino, Turin.

(5) Dottrina christiana spiegata in versi, cauata dalle Scritture, e da’ Dottori. In questa quarta [sic] impressione migliorata, & accresciuta dall’autore. Si sono aggiunte le arie musicali da cantare a una, o due voci (Milan: Nelle stampe dell’Agnelli, 1689). With notated music. A copy at the Biblioteca Universitaria di Genova, Genoa.

(6) Dottrina cristiana spiegata in versi cauata dalla sacra scrittura e da ss. Dottori . . . Decimasesta, & vltima impressione di nuouo ricorretta (Naples: per il Bonis stampatore arciuesc., 1694). A copy at the Biblioteca statale del Monumento nazionale di Montecassino, Cassino.

(7) Dottrina cristiana spiegata in versi. Cavata dalle scritture e da’ dottori. In quest’ultima Impressione diligentemente corretta (Milan: nella Stampa di Giuseppe Marelli, 1726). A copy at the Biblioteca nazionale Braidense, Milan.

74 Second edition (Palermo, 1737), iii, pp. 597–620; republished also in a subsequent edition, issued in Bassano in 1768.

75 In reference to ‘spiegata in versi’: ‘explained in verse by’.

76 ‘Per utile delle sante Missioni e per bene di tutte le dottrine cristiane, [il p. Innocenzi] prese a comporre e spiegare in versi la Dottrina Cristiana, ma in istile facile e popolare per renderla egualmente colla simplicità dello stile saporita ad ogni palato, e profittevole ad ogni temperamento . . . Per farla più cantabile, le diede un metro da tenersi facilissimamente a memoria . . . Io medesimo son testimonio d’avere udito nel Contado pe’ campi cantare questa Dottrina. Per vedere quanto ella sia stata e sia tutt’ora in uso, basti sapere che l’ultima impressione è la ventesima, come apparisce in quella ultimamente fatta in Piacenza.’ Patrignani, G. A., Menologio di pie memorie d’alcuni religiosi della Compagnia di Gesù (Venice, 1730)Google Scholar, sub 2/2/1697, p. 39.

77 There are some minor changes in the second part (regarding Hope), where Innocenzi includes the Salve Regina and other prayers and devotions after the Pater noster and Ave Maria. He also treats the mysteries of the Rosary in this section, whereas Bellarmino places them at the very end of his doctrine.

78 The frontispiece of Ferreri’s Istruzioni of 1737 (see above) highlights the correspondence between the two texts: ‘Coll’aggiunta . . . della Dottrina Breve del Bellarmino, e dell’istessa spiegata in versi’ (‘In addition . . . the short doctrine by Bellarmino, and the same doctrine explained in verse’; emphasis mine). Innocenzi’s text is printed in the appendix, immediately after Bellarmino’s doctrine.

79 Barbera, , ‘Catechismo in versi popolari’, p. 290Google Scholar.

80 See D’Aria, F. M., ‘Intorno all’autore d’un celebre inno mariano’, La Civiltà Cattolica, 92 (1941), pp. 300–307Google Scholar; id., Un restauratore sociale: Storia critica della vita di san Francesco de Geronimo da documenti inediti (Rome, 1943).

81 On pp. 82–3 and 81–2 respectively.

82 The arie, probably intended for a combination of men’s and boys’ voices, have a notation as crude as the woodcuts themselves; their treble-dominated texture is characterized by awkward voice-leading in the lower part and, at times, ungainly dissonances.

83 This text, the Italian translation of a popular Latin prayer, is part of the additional materials included in this edition.

84 Here with the variant ‘Dio ti salvi, Regina’.

85 See Rostirolla, , Zardin, , and Mischiati, , La lauda spirituale tra Cinque e Seicento, pp. 572–573Google Scholar, 589–90 and passim; transcription at p. 584. For the text of Spirito Santo amore and his attribution to the 15th-c. poet Leonardo Giustinian, see Leonardo Giustinian, Laudario Giustinianeo, ed. Francesco Luisi, 2 vols. (Venice, 1983).

86 See Catto, , Un panopticon catechistico, 256–257Google Scholar.

87 Coyssard, for instance, quotes exactly the same passage by St Basil: see TP, 20–1.

88 See Stefani, G., Musica Barocca 2. Angeli e Sirene (Milan, 1988), p. 193Google Scholar; Filippi, D. V., Selva armonica: La musica spirituale a Roma tra Cinque e Seicento (Speculum Musicae, 12; Turnhout, 2008), pp. 33–34Google Scholar.

89 For the paradigmatic case of the Oratorian Giovenale Ancina, see Bianco, C. (ed.), Il tempio armonico: Giovanni Giovenale Ancina e le musiche devozionali nel contesto internazionale del suo tempo (Lucca, 2006)Google Scholar, and Filippi, , Selva armonica, pp. 216–220Google Scholar.

90 A quotation from the Latin poet Manilius: see Coyssard’s ‘Letter to the devout reader’, printed before the Hymnes sacrez, pp. 3–4.

91 See de Miguel Framiñán, ‘La “Doctrina cristiana” de Gregorio de Pesquera’; Santolaria Sierra, F., ‘Una carta impresa del maestro Ávila en un compendio de uso escolar de 1554’, Hispania Sacra, 60/121 (2008), pp. 173–180CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92 See Turrini, ‘Riformare il mondo a vera vita christiana’; Grendler, P. F., ‘The Schools of Christian Doctrine in Sixteenth-Century Italy’, Church History, 53 (1984), pp. 319–331CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 See Dhôtel, Les Origines du catéchisme moderne, pp. 107 ff. The role of the Franciscans should also be taken into account: see e.g. Moser, Dietz-Rüdiger, Verkündigung durch Volksgesang: Studien zur Liedpropaganda und -katechese der Gegenreformation (Berlin, 1981)Google Scholar; Guilloux, Fabien, ‘“Sur l’air du père Honoré”: La circulation des cantiques de mission dans les recueils capucins du XVIIIe siècle: Premières approches’, in M. D. Leclerc and A. Robert (eds.), Chansons de colportage (Reims, 2002), pp. 191–205Google Scholar.

94 See, e.g., Dubois, P.-A., De l’oreille au cœur: Naissance du chant religieux en langues amérindiennes dans les missions de Nouvelle-France, 1600–1650 (Sillery, Québec, 1997)Google Scholar; Castagna, P., ‘The Use of Music by the Jesuits in the Conversion of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil’, in J. W. O’Malley et al. (eds.), The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences and the Arts, 1540–1773 (Toronto and Buffalo, 1999), pp. 641–658Google Scholar; Kennedy, ‘Music and the Jesuit Mission in the New World’; Ros-Fábregas, E., ‘“Imagine All the People . . .”: Polyphonic Flowers in the Hands and Voices of Indians in 16th-Century Mexico’, Early Music, 40 (2012), pp. 177–189CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 See at least Culley, T. D., Jesuits and Music: A Study of the Musicians Connected with the German College in Rome during the 17th Century and their Activities in Northern Europe (Sources and Studies for the History of the Jesuits, 2; Rome, 1970)Google Scholar; Culley, and McNaspy, , ‘Music and the Early Jesuits’; Pau, ‘De l’usage de la chanson spirituelle par les Jésuites’; T. F. Kennedy, ‘Jesuits and Music: The European Tradition 1547–1622’ (Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1982)Google Scholar; Kennedy, ‘Jesuits and Music: Reconsidering the Early Years’; J. I. Tejón, ‘Música y danza’, in Diccionario histórico de la Compañia de Jesus, iii, pp. 2776–89; Jeż, T., ‘The Social Functions of Music’, in id., Kultura muzyczna jezuitów na Slasku i ziemi klodzkiej: (1581–1776) (Warsaw, 2013), pp. 515–526Google Scholar.

96 For the latter genre, see Filippi, D. V., ‘Earthly Music, Interior Hearing, and Celestial Harmonies: Philippe de Monte’s First Book of Spiritual Madrigals (1581)’, Journal of the Alamire Foundation, 3 (2011), pp. 208–234CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 211–15.