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Music and Spectacle at the Gonzaga Court, c. 1580–1600

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1976

Iain Fenlon
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The death, on 14 August 1587, of Guglielmo Gonzaga Duke of Mantua and Monferrato, heralded a sudden shift in the political, economic and artistic policies of the Duchy. His successor, Vincenzo, had notions of a Mantuan role in the peninsular greatly disproportionate to the size of its territory and population, and it was undoubtedly an important part of his conception that the Gonzaga should be seen as patrons of the arts on a scale compatible with these ambitions. During the 1580s, Vincenzo had conspicuously preferred the hedonistic atmosphere of Ferrara and Florence to the Counter-Reformation gloom of his father's court, and in the years immediately after his accession began to import cultural fashions from these other centres. One important change in the musical establishment was the formation, probably completed by April 1589, of a permanent ensemble of virtuoso singers on the Ferrarese model. Another was the rejuvenation of theatre and spectacle at court, culminating in the presentation of opera and ballet during the carnival seasons of 1607 and 1608 and the wedding celebrations of the latter year. The following considers one aspect of this revived interest in music and spectacle, the attempted productions of Battista Guarini's Il pastor fido during the 1590s. The first section deals with the problems surrounding the gestation of the play, the attempted productions and the surviving music. The second considers some of the novel aspects of that music in relation to other traditions.

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Research Article
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Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 103 , 1976 , pp. 90 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 The major studies of Mantuan music during the second half of the sixteenth century remain P. Canal, Delia musica in Mantova (Venice, 1881) and A. Bertolotti, Musici alla corte dei Gonzaga in Mantova dal secolo XV al XVIII. Notizie e documenti raccolti negli archivi mantovani (Milan, 1890). Some idea of the major styles of Mantuan court during the period is gained from C. MacClintock, Giaches de Wert (1535–1596). Life and Works (American Institute of Musicology, 1966). The present author's forthcoming study attempts to deal with the changing emphases of Mantuan court music seen against the political, economic and social structure of the city.Google Scholar

2 The documentation concerning the Mantuan performances af Pastor fido is presented and discussed in A. d'Ancona, Le origini del teatro italiano, 2 vols. (Turin, 1891), ii, 535–75. See also V. Rossi, Battista Guarini ed il pastor fido. Studio biografico-critico con documenti inediti (Turin, 1885).Google Scholar

3 For the development of the controversy up to 1600 See Weinberg, B., A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1961), ii, 1074–1105. A shorter account, extending beyond 1600, is N. J. Perella, The Critical Fortune of Battista Guarini's ‘Il pastor fido’ (Florence, 1973).Google Scholar

4 There is some discussion over the long gestation of the play. Some commentators have suggested that the work was conceived as early as 1569. A more commonly accepted view is that Guarini began the work in earnest at the end of 1580 or the beginning of 1581, prompted perhaps by the appearance of Tasso's Aminta in the 1581 Aldine edition. For the various arguments see d'Ancona, Le origini ii, 535ff, and Rossi, Battista Guarini, 55ff.Google Scholar

5 Salviati's corrections, notes and other references to Il pastor fido are preserved in Ferrara, Biblioteca Ariostea Cod. CL. H. 276. The annotations alone are published in S. Pasquazi, Rinascimento ferrarese (Caltanisetta-Rome, 1957), 251–83. P. M. Brown, Lionardo Salviati: A Critical Biography (Oxford, 1972), 198–9 is a useful summary in English.Google Scholar

6 Il pastor fido, tragicommedia pastorale. Del molto illvstre Sig, Cavaliere Battista Guarini. Ora in questa XXVII impressione di curiose, & dotte annotationi arricchito, & di bellissime figure in rame ornato. … (Venice, 1602).Google Scholar

7 See below, pp. 93–5.Google Scholar

8 See Mantova. Le arti, iii, 161–75 and U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexicon der bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 40 vols. (Leipzig, 1907–1956), xxiv, 321–3.Google Scholar

9 For further information on these travelling companies and their impact upon the theatrical life of Mantua see Mantova. Le lettere, iii, 574–6 and K. M. Lea, Italian Popular Comedy: A Study in the Commedia dell'arte, 1560–1620 with Special Reference to the English Stage, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1934), ii, 271ff.Google Scholar

10 For the contrasting theatrical tastes of the two rulers See Cavicchi, A., ‘Teatro monteverdiano a tradizione teatrale ferrarese’ in R. Monterosso (ed.), Claudio Monteverdi e il suo tempo (Verona, 1969). 139–42.Google Scholar

11 d'Ancona, Le origini, ii. 539.Google Scholar

12 d'Ancona, Le origini, ii, 536 and Rossi, Battista Guarini, 85–7.Google Scholar

13 Ignez Argotta, the wife of Marchese Prospero del Carretto, is thought to have become Vincenzo's mistress sometime in 1587. She seems to have been connected with the Mantuan court at least since 1581, when one of Muzio Manfredi's Lettere was addressed to her. Two of Guarini's letters are also addressed to her (Nos. 79 and 107). Her period of ascendancy seems to have been the early 1590s when she exhibited a strong interest in the cultural life of the court. In addition to taking a keen interest in the attempt to mount Il pastor fido, she was the dedicatee of Wert's Il decimo libro de madrigali a cinque voci (Venice, 1591) and the poetic anthology Tesoro delle ninfe (1593).Google Scholar

14 d'Ancona, Le origini, ii, 543ff. The intermedi are published in Rossi, Battista Guarini, 307ff. I have been unable to locate the music which accompanied them.Google Scholar

15 d'Ancona, Le origini, ii, 547ff.Google Scholar

16 Margherita arrived on 20 November. Her journey through Italy, including her stop at Mantua and the performance of Il pastor fido, was widely publicised in contemporary Italian, French and English pamphlets. See Grillo, G. B., Breve trattato di quanto successe alla maestà della regina D. Margarita d'Austria … con le particolarità del sponsalitio (Naples, 1604). The intermedi for this performance (and again no music has been found) are given in A. Neri, ‘Gli “intermezzi” del “Pastor fido” ‘, Giornale starico per la letteratura italiana, i (1888), 405ff. For Viani's involvement See Flechsig, E., Die Dekoration dar modernen Bühne in Italien (Dresden, 1894), 30–2. It is now clear from A. Cavicchi, ‘La scenografia dell'Aminta nella tradizione scenografica pastorale ferrarese del secolo XVI’ in M. T. Muraro (ed.), Studi sul teatro veneto fra rinascimento ed età barocca (Florence, 1971), 53ff., that the plates of the 1602 Ciotti edition are most probably based upon Aleotti's designs for the 1598 performance, and it is certainly suggestive that the Ciotti edition is dedicated to Vincenzo Gonzaga. Aleotti's importance in the 1598 production is further stressed by the documents in Rossi, Battista Guarini, 308 and 311, and is implied by Guarini's own remarks on theatrical machines in his Lettere (Venice, 1593), 18.Google Scholar

17 d'Ancona, Le origini, ii, 544.Google Scholar

18 d'Ancona, Le origini, ii, 551 and 554.Google Scholar

19 Guarini, G. B., Il pastor fido, tragicommedia pastorale (Venice, 1603), 149–50.Google Scholar

20 The 1584 preparations in Ferrara are referred to in A. Solerti and D. Lanza, ‘Il teatro ferrarese nella seconda metà del secolo XVI’, Giornale storico per la letteratura italiana, xi (1891), 148ff. For Ltizzaschi's setting of the Gioco see Guarini's own remarks in Il pastor fido, 149–50.Google Scholar

21 Wert and Rovigo are mentioned in the letters published in d'Ancona, Le origini, ii, 542–3.Google Scholar

22 d'Ancona, Le origini, ii, 540.Google Scholar

23 As supra fn. 22.Google Scholar

24 Guarirli, Il pastor fido, 149–50.Google Scholar

25 The original function of Gastoldi's music seems to have been first noted in A. Cavicchi ‘Teatro monteverdiano e la tradizione teatrale ferrarese’, in R. Monterosso (ed.), Claudio Monteverdi e il suo tempo (Verona, 1969), 149–50.Google Scholar

26 For the documentation of Gastoldi's career see Tagmann, P. M., ‘La cappella dei maestri cantori della basilica palatina di S. Barbara a Mantova (1565–1630): nuovo materiale scoperto nelli archivi mantovani’, Civiltá mantovana, iv (1970), 38–382. The strong musical element in the 1598 production is indicated by the intermedi as printed in Neri, ‘Gli “intermezzi” del “Pastor fido” ‘and by the remarks of the composer Bernardino Bertolotti who participated. See the dedication to Il terzo libro de madrigali a cinque voci di Bernardino Bertolotti (Venice, 1609), partially given in E. Vogel, Bibliothek der gedruckten weltlichen Vocalrrusik Italiens aus den Jahren 1500–1700, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1892), i, 93.Google Scholar

27 The documents concerning the Ferrarese Balletto della Duchessa are assembled in A. Solerti, Ferrara e la corte estense nella seconda metà del secolo decimosesto. I discorsi di Annibale Romei (Città di Castello, 1890), Chapter x. An additional letter is presented in L. Torri, ‘Nei parentali (1614–1914) di Felice Anerio e di Carlo Gesualdo Principe di Venosa’, Rivista musicale italiana, xxi (1914), 505ff. The fundamental study of the Balletto, which uses the Mantuan performances of Il pastor fido as a way of explicating Ferrarese practice, is Cavicchi, ‘Teatro monteverdiano e la tradizione teatrale ferrarese’. A similar point of view is adopted in A. Newcombe, The musica segreta of Ferrara in the 1580s (Diss., Princeton University, 1970) where the Balletto is also related to other aspects of musical culture at the Ferrarese court. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Newcomb for sending me a revised version of his argument as it will appear in his forthcoming study of Ferrarese court music As will become apparent from my own discussion here, I believe that the arguments of Cavicchi and Newcomb misjudge the innovatory elements in the Balletto and disregard important developments elsewhere which also influenced theatrical and musical life at Mantua during the 1590s.Google Scholar

28 Misconceptions concerning the composition and development of the Ferrarese concerto delle donne spring from A. Einstein, The Italian Madrigal, 3 vols. (Princeton, 1949), ii, 825–35. These are now corrected and expanded in Newcomb, The musica segreta of Ferrara.Google Scholar

29 See Solerti, Ferrara e la corte estense, cxl.Google Scholar

30 Luzzaschi is also represented by an instrumental dance in one of the manuscripts which originally came from the Gonzaga chapel of Santa Barbara—Santa Barbara MS 196/4 (now housed together with the rest of the fondo in the Milan Conservatorio) consists of two partbooks believed to have been copied before 1600. The surviving parts are for ‘Violino secondo’ and ‘Baso’ [sic], and each book contains thirty-seven instrumental dances. All the pieces are anonymous with the exception of that on f.2 which is headed ‘Bertazina [Bertonzina] del Sig[n]or Luzaschi’. See Conservatorio di musica ‘Giuseppe Verdi’, Milano. Catalogo della biblioteca, fondo speciali 1, Musiche della cappella di S.Barbara in Mantova (Florence, 1972), 147–8. Intriguingly, the 1625 inventory of the Este music library preserved in Modena, Archivio di Stato Musica Busta 1a lists Balletti a otto e a dodici del Luzzasco; these cannot be identified with any surviving printed or manuscript music.Google Scholar

31 Archivio di Stato, Modena. Particolari, Conosciuti. Letter of 26 February 1585.Google Scholar

32 See the discussion in F. A. Yates, The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1947), chapter xi.Google Scholar

33 Principal source, Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles Neuviesme (Meidelbourg, 1578), 268–9. Discussed in H. Prunières, Le ballet de cour en France avant Benserade et Lully (Paris, 1914) and Yates, The French Academies, 254ff.Google Scholar

34 Dorat, T., Magnificentissimi spectaculi … descriptio (Paris, 1573), where a moment in the dance is depicted on page 67. The rock is depicted complete with female musicians in F. A. Yates, The Valois Tapestries (and revised edition, London, 1975), 67–72.Google Scholar

35 Cited in P. Merimée and L. Lacour (eds.), Pierre de Bourdeille [Seigneur de Brantôme]. Oeuvres complètes, 13 vols. (Paris, 1858–1895), x, 74. The reaction of the Poles is given in A. de Ruble, Histoire universelle, x vols. (Paris, 1886), iv, 179.Google Scholar

36 Principal source: B. Beaujoyculx: Balet comique de la Royne. … (Paris, 1582). The main discussions are Prunièra, Le ballet de caur; Yates, The French Academies and M. McGowan, L'art du ballet de caur an France, 1581–1643, 42–7.Google Scholar

37 Original text in Beaujoyculx, Balet comique, 55–6.Google Scholar

38 Yates, F. A., The French Academies, 248ff.Google Scholar

39 P. Merimée and L. Lacour (eds.), Pierre de Bourdeille … Oeuvres complètes, x, 76.Google Scholar

40 A. M. P. G. de Nolhac and A. Solerti, Il viaggio in Italia di Enrico III, re di Francia, e le feste a Venezia, Ferrara, Mantova e Torino (Turin, 1890), 176–7, 258–60.Google Scholar

41 The primary sources for the feste are listed and synthesised in A. M. Nagler, Theatre Festivals of the Medici (New Haven, 1964), 70–92. To the information given there should be added the extracts from the diary of Barthold von Gedenstadt published in W. F. Kümmel, ‘Ein deutscher Bericht über the florentinischen Intermedien des Jahres 1589’, Analecta musicologica, ix (1970), 1ff. The fundamental study is that by A. Warburg in Gesammelte Schriften, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1932), i, 259–300 with important addenda on pp. 394–422 of the revised edition prepared by G. Bing. D. P. Walker, Les fîles du mariage … Musique des intermedes de ‘La Pegrina’ (Paris, 1963) is a complete edition of the music together with important preliminary says by Walker and F. Ghisi. The main discussions of the music are F. Ghisi, Feste musicali á la Firenze medicea (1480–1589) (Florence, 1939), xlv-xlvi; W. Osthoff, Theatergesang und daellende Musik in der italienischen Renaissance (15. und 16. Jahrhundert), 2 vols. (Tutzing, 1969 i, 332–56; and particularly N. Pirrotta, Li due Orfei (2nd revised version, Turin 1975), 234–56. H. M. Brown, Sixteenth-Century Instrumentation: the Music for the Florentine Internedu (American Institute of Musicology, 1973) is principally concerned with performance practice in these spectacles. Information about additional source materials, particularly pictorial, will be found in G. G Berelà and A. Petrioli Tofani, Feste e apparati medicei da Cosimo I a Cosimo II (Florence, 1969), 67–85 and Il luogo teatrale a Firenze (Milan, 1975), 110–16.Google Scholar

42 [B de Rossi]: Descrizione dell' apparato e degli intermedi (Florence, 1589), 60ff.Google Scholar

43 A. E. Taylor (trans.): Plato: The Laws (London, 1960), 30.Google Scholar

44 The influence of the piece is traced in W. Kirkendale, L'Aria di Fiorenza, id est il ballo del Granduca (Florence, 1972). To the sources listed there should be added those given in R. Hudson's review of the book, Journal of the American Musicological Society, xxv (1973), 344–50, and Florence, Biblioteca nazionale centrale MSS Magi. VIII. 1222b is f.5 v and Magl. VII. 894 f.30.Google Scholar

45 Original text in G. B. Doni, Lyra barberina, 2 vols. (Florence, 1063), ii, 95.Google Scholar

46 [C Malvezzi]: Nono parte. Intermedii et concerti fatti per la commedia. … (Venice, 1591), 19.Google Scholar

47 Similarly, of the two stanzas beginning ‘Alle dure fatiche’ leading up to the ballo in Rossi's account, the first is omitted. The second was composed as the ‘pseudo-monody’ ‘Godi turbal mortal’ by Cavalieri but was not printed in Malvezzi's edition of the music.Google Scholar

48 Pirrotta, N., ‘Temperaments and Tendencies in the Florentine Camerata’, Musical Quarterly, xl (1954), 169. See also the evidence in U. Rolandi, ‘Emilio de’ Cavalieri, il Granduca Ferdinand e l'Inferigno', Rivista musicale italiana, xxxvi (192g), 26ff and, on the experimentalism of the ballo, A. Solerti, ‘Laura Guidiccioni Lucchesini ed Emilio de’ Cavalieri', Rivista musicale italiana, ix (1902), 797ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Walker: Les files du manage, xxix.Google Scholar

50 [Malvezzi]: Nono parte, sig. KK ff.Google Scholar