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Music in the Myth of Venice*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Ellen Rosand
Ellen Rosand*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
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Extract

Historians have long been fascinated by the ‘myth of Venice’: the phenomenon of a single state acquiring and sustaining a reputation, often at obvious variance with reality, that would serve not only the propaganda goals of the state itself but even as an influential political model for others. Although there are several aspects to this myth, they all focus on the perfection of the Venetian Republic, its uniqueness and virtù. The official epithet, la Serenissima, epitomized the image of this splendid city, founded miraculously upon the waters, unwalled yet unconquered for more than a millennium, remarkably undisturbed by internal strife. Petrarch's wellknown panegyric expresses a generally held view of Venice: ‘a city rich in gold but richer in renown, mighty in works but mightier in virtue, founded on solid marble but established on the more solid foundations of civic concord, surrounded by the salty waves but secure through her saltier councils.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , Winter 1977 , pp. 511 - 537
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1977

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Footnotes

*

An abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America held at Smith College in March 1976; the program of that meeting, focusing on the relationship of art to politics, was organized by Professor Felix Gilbert, whom I would like to thank for his hospitality. I am indebted to Professor Edward Lowinsky, who very kindly and carefully read a draft of this study and offered a number of acute criticisms and suggestions, including revisions of several translations. Finally, for his helpful guidance through the world of political iconography in Renaissance Venice I am grateful to my husband, David Rosand.

References

1 The literature on the myth of Venice has been growing steadily in recent years. The fundamental studies remain: Chabod, Federico, ‘Venezia nella politica italiana ed europea del Cinquecento,’ in La civiltà veneziana del Rinascimento (Florence, 1958), pp. 29–55 Google Scholar; Fasoli, Gina, ‘Nascita di un mito,’ in Studi storici in onore di Gioacchino Volpe (Florence, 1958), I, 447–479 Google Scholar; Gaeta, Franco, ‘Alcune considerazioni sul mito di Venezia,’ Bibliothèque d'humanisme et Renaissance, 23 (1961), 58–75 Google Scholar; Gilbert, Felix, ‘The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political Thought,’ in Florentine Studies, Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence, ed. Nicolai Rubenstein (London, 1968), pp. 463–500 Google Scholar. See also Libby, Lester J., Jr., ‘Venetian History and Political Thought after 1509,’ Studies in the Renaissance, 20 (1973), 7–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gilmore, Myron, ‘Myth and Reality in Venetian Political Theory,’ in Renaissance Venice, ed. J. R. Hale (London, 1973), pp. 431–444 Google Scholar; and Bouwsma, William J., ‘Venice and the Political Education of Europe,’ ibid., pp. 445–466 Google Scholar. More general surveys of the ‘mythology of Venice’ are offered in Logan, Oliver, Culture and Society in Venice, 1490-1790 (London, 1972), pp. 1–19 Google Scholar; Chambers, D. S., The Imperial Age of Venice, 1380—1580 (London, 1970)Google Scholar, passim; and Lane, Frederic C., Venice, a Maritime Republic (Baltimore, 1973), esp. pp. 253–258 Google Scholar.

2 Petrarch, Epistolae seniles, rv, 3: ‘Augustissima Venetorum urbs quae una hodie libertatis ac pacis, et iustitiae domus est, unum bonorum refugium, unus portus, quern bene vivere cupientium tyrannicis undique, ac bellicis tempestatibus quassae rates petant, urbs auri dives, sed ditior fama, potens opibus, sed virtute potentior, solidis fundata marmoribus, sed solidiore etiam fundamento civilis concordiae stabilita, salsis cincta fluctibus, sed salsioribus tuta consiliis.’ (Cf. Gilbert, ‘The Venetian Constitution,’ p. 467.) In his Venetia of 1581 Francesco Sansovino quotes this passage in translation: ‘La qual lettera … descrivendo la qualità di Venetia in quel tempo, mi è piacciuto di mettere in questo luogo, non Latina come egli scrisse, ma fatta Volgare, si come ella stà, per intelligenza d'ogni uno, & è questa, dopo l'introduttione d'essa lettera.

L'Augustissima Città de i Veneti, la quale hoggi è casa di libertà, di pace, & di giustitia, rifugio de buoni. Solo Porto de legni conquassati dalle tempeste in ogni parte, delle guerre, & delle tirannidi, à coloro, che desiderano di viver bene. Città ricca d'oro, ma più ricca di fama. Potente di facultà, ma molto più potente di virtù. Fondata su saldi marmi, ma piu saldamente stabilita sul saldo fondamento della Concordia civile. Cinta dall'onde salse, ma difesa da più salsi consigli.’

(Venetia città nobilissima et singolare, ed. Giustiniano Martinioni [Venice, 1663], p. 407f.) On Sansovino see Grendler, Paul F., ‘Francesco Sansovino and Italian Popular History, 1560-1600,’ Studies in the Renaissance, 16 (1969), 139–180 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Thomas Aquinas, De regimine principum, IV, 8. In this passage—which, as Gilbert has noted (‘The Venetian Constitution,’ p. 467, n. 2), was actually written by Ptolemy of Lucca—the rulers of northern Italy are identified as tyrants, except the Doge of Venice, ‘qui temperatum habet dominium’ (cf. Fasoli, ‘Nascita di un mito,’ p. 468). The passage was a favorite of Venetian apologists. Gilbert cites the ‘Commonplace Book’ of Bernardo Bembo: ‘Omnes principes Italiae sunt tiranni Duce Venetiarum excepto. Qui habent regimen temperatum. Verbi sunt Sancti Thome.’

4 Cf. the observations of one of Venice's most influential apologists, Gasparo Contarini: ‘… fù ordinato nella nostra Republica il Senato, e'l consiglio de Dieci; i quali nella Città di Vinegia (la cui Republica dissi essere misto di stato Regio, popolare, & nobile) rapresentano lo stato de nobili: & sono certi mezzi, con i quali le estreme parti, ciò è lo stato popolare, il gran Consiglio, e'l Prencipe, il quale rappresenta la persona d'un Re, insieme con stretto nodo si stringono. Cosi dice Platone nel Timeo, che gli estremi elementi, la terra, e'l fuoco, co gli elementi di mezzo si congiungono, & legino. Cosi nella consonantia del Diapason le voci estreme con quelle di mezzo del Diatessaron, & Diapente insieme s'accordano’ (La republica e i magistrati di Vinegia [Venice, 1548], p. XXXIII; cf. also p. XXXIIII). On Contarini and his book, see Gilbert, Felix, ‘The Date of the Composition of Contarini's and Giannotti's Books on Venice,’ Studies in the Renaissance, 14 (1967), 172–184 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the passage cited, see also Libby, ‘Venetian History,’ esp. p. 19. For the larger contexts, semantic and historical, of the concepts underlying such political rhetoric, see Spitzer, Leo, Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony (Baltimore, 1963)Google Scholar. On the implications of celestial harmony in painting, especially in the structure of Tintoretto's monumental canvas of the Coronation of the Virgin presiding over the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Ducal Palace, see Tolnay, Charles de, ‘The Music of the Universe,’ Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 6 (1943), 83–104 Google Scholar, esp. p. 95, and idem, ‘Il “Paradiso” del Tintoretto, note sull'interpretazione della tela in Palazzo Ducale,’ Arte Veneta, 24 (1970), 103-110.

5 ‘L'estat [de Venize] est … conduit par proportion Harmonique: qui a rendu ceste Republique là fort belle & florissante’ (Les six livres de la republique [Paris, 1576], p. 751). The comment occurs in VI, 6 (‘De la Justice Distributive, Connuptative, & harmonique, & quelle proportion il y a dicelles à l'etat Royal, Aristocratique, & Populaire’), and follows the demonstration that ‘La loy de Dieu tient la proportion Harmonique.'

6 ‘Havendo adunque gli antichi figurata Pallade per la sapientia, hò voluto (diceva egli) che questa figura sia Pallade armata, & in atto pronto, & vivente, perche la sapientia di questi Padri, nelle cose di Stato è singolare & senza pari alcuno. Et favellando poi della statua del Mercurio soggiugneva. Et perche tutte le cose prudentemente pensate & disposte, hanno bisogno d'essere espresse con eloquenza, percioche le cose dette con facondia, hanno molto più forza ne gli animi di coloro, che ascoltano, che quelle che si espongono senza eloquenza, & in questa Repub. la eloquenza ha sempre havuto gran luogo, & gli huomini eloquenti vi sono stati in numero grande & in sommo grado di riputatione: ho voluto figurar Mercurio, come signiflcativo delle lettere & della eloquenza. Quest'altro ch'è Apollo, esprime, che si come Apollo significa il Sole, & il Sole è veramente un solo, & non più, & però si chiama Sole, cosi questa Repub. per constitutioni di leggi, per unione, & per incorrotta liberta è una sola nel mondo senza più, regolata con giustitia & con sapientia. Oltre à cio si sà per ogn'uno, che questa natione si diletta per ordinario della musica, & però Apollo è figurato per la musica. Ma perche dall'unione de i Magistrati che sono congiunti insieme con temperamento indicibile, esce inusitata harmonia, la qual perpetua questo ammirando governo, però fù fabricate l'Apollo. L'ultima statua è la Pace, quella pace tanto amata da questa Rep. per la quale è cresciuta a tanta grandezza, & la quale la constituisce Metropoli di tutta Italia, per i negotij da terra & da mare. Quella pace dico, che il Signor diede al Protettor di Venetia, S. Marco, dicendoli, Pax tibi Marce Evangelista mens. La quale, dalla religione, dalla giustitia, & dall'osservanza delle leggi, proviene in quella maniera che esce il concento da una ben Concorde harmonia, cosi diceva egli’ (Sansovino, Venetia, p. 307f.). On Jacopo Sansovino's statues, see Pope-Hennessy, John, Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, 2nd ed. (London and New York, 1970), pp. 404–406 Google Scholar. Further on the Loggetta and its public function and significance: Tafuri, Manfredo, Jacopo Sansovino e Varchitettura del ‘500 a Venezia, in A ed. (Padua, 1972), pp. 72–80 Google Scholar, and Howard, Deborah, Jacopo Sansovino, Architecture and Patronage in Renaissance Venice (New Haven and London, 1975), Pp. 28–35 Google Scholar.

7 Sansovino, Venetia, p. 380.

8 Vasari cites Giorgione's talents as a musician and lavishes more praise on Tintoretto's musical abilities than upon his art. Pordenone and Sebastiano del Piombo were similarly renowned as musicians. Perhaps the best-known pictorial statement of this relationship is to be found in Paolo Veronese's vast canvas of the Marriage at Cana, in which the musicians playing in the foreground quartet have been identified traditionally as Titian, Tintoretto, Jacopo Bassano, and Veronese himself—the four leading painters of Cinquecento Venice. For further comment and bibliography, see David Rosand, ‘The Crisis of the Venetian Renaissance Tradition,’ L'Arte, 11-12 (1970), 134f. and n. 141. On the larger theme in general, see Lowinsky, Edward, ‘Music in the Culture of the Renaissance,’ in Renaissance Essays, ed. Paul Oskar Kristeller and Philip P. Wiener (New York and Evanston, 1968), pp. 337–381 Google Scholar.

9 Vitruvius, De architectura, 1, i, 8 (tr. Morgan, Morris H., The Ten Books on Architecture [Cambridge, Mass., 1914], p. 8)Google Scholar.

10 Wittkower, Rudolf, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, 3rd ed. (New York, 1971), esp. pp. 101–154 Google Scholar (‘The Problem of Harmonic Proportion in Architecture’).

11 See above, n. 4.

12 On the divine origin of Venice and its special relationship to the Virgin, see Sinding-Larsen, Staale, Christ in the Council Hall: Studies in the Religious Iconography of the Venetian Republic, Institutum Romanum Norvegiae, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia, v (Rome, 1974), pp. 142–144 Google Scholar; see also Rosand, David, ‘Titian's Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple and the Scuola della Carità,’ Art Bulletin, 58 (1976), 55–84, esp. 76-81Google Scholar.

13 Sansovino (Venetia, p. 479f.) describes the basic iconography of the ducal andata in trionfo; Book XII (pp. 492-526) is devoted to the individual occasions for such processions. Cf. below, n. 36.

14 See, for example, the activities occasioned by the visit of Henry III of France in 1574, described by Sansovino (Venetia, pp. 441-449). The many sources, printed and manuscript, describing Henry's visit have been collected by Nolhac, Pier de and Solerti, Angelo, Il viaggio in Italia di Enrico III Re di Francia e le feste a Venezia, Ferrara, Mantova e Torino (Turin, 1890)Google Scholar. See also Ivanoff, Nicolas, ‘Henri III à Venise,’ Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 80 (1972), 313–330 Google Scholar.

Another opportunity for such festivities was afforded by the Christian victory at Lepanto in 1571: see Gombrich, E. H., ‘Celebrations in Venice of the Holy League and of the Victory of Lepanto,’ in Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art Presented to Anthony Blunt (London, 1967), pp. 62–68 Google Scholar.

15 On the religious and political position of San Marco in Venice, see the summary by Demus, Otto, The Church of San Marco in Venice, Dumbarton Oaks Studies, VI (Washington, D.C., 1960), pp. 1–60 Google Scholar; cf. also Sinding-Larsen, Christ in the Council Hall, pp. 179-217, and, for the Solomonic implications of the temple and palace, Rosand, ‘Titian's Presentation,’ pp. 76-79. Bruce Boucher has recently demonstrated the extent to which the coro maggiore of San Marco was transformed by Sansovino into an explicit ‘extension of the council chambers of the doge's palace.’ See his ‘Jacopo Sansovino and the Choir of St Mark's,’ Burlington Magazine, 118 (1976), 552-566.

16 Kenton, Egon, Life and Works of Giovanni Gabrieli (American Institute of Musicology, 1967), p. 31 Google Scholar. The earliest documentary record of musical activity in San Marco is the appointment in 1318 of ‘Mistro Zucchetto’ as organist (Giacomo Benvenuti, Andrea e Giovanni Gabrieli e la musica strumentale in San Marco, Istituzioni e monumenti dell'arte musicale italiana, 1 [Milan, 1931], p. XIX).

17 Gabrieli, Angelo, Libellus hospitalis munificentiae Venetorum in excipienda Anna Regina Hungariae (Venice, 1502), fol. 9Google Scholar. Molmenti, Pompeo (La storia di Venezia nella vita privata, 5th ed. [Bergamo, 1909-1912], II, 324 Google Scholar) alludes to ‘una cantata del maestro de Fossis’ performed for Anna of Candale, citing as his source I Diarii of Marino Sanuto (ed. Rinaldo Fulin et al. [Venice, 1879-1903], IV, cols. 295, 296, 298). Sanuto, however, makes no mention of such a work by Fossa, although he gives full coverage to the cultural activities of the queen's busy stay—including concerts in private houses (‘dove era musiche di ogni sorte’), visits to churches and monasteries (‘a udir cantar monache’), and at least one Mass in San Marco (‘A I'altar grando, stando a mezo il choro, udite messa picola’).

18 On the Procuratori di San Marco, see Sansovino, Venetia, pp. 297-307, and, more recently, Mueller, Reinhold C., ‘The Procurators of San Marco in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: A Study of the Office as a Financial Trust,’ Studi veneziani, 13 (1971), 105–220 Google Scholar; cf. also Howard, Sansovino, pp. 8-37.

19 Caffi, Francesco, Storia della musica sacra nella già cappella ducale di San Marco in Venezia dal 1318 al 1797 (Venice, 1854), I, 84f.Google Scholar (document dated December 12, 1527). On the strongly independent temperament of Andrea Gritti, see Sansovino's account of his transformation of the ducal costume (Venetia, p. 472) in addition to his brief biography (p. 593f.).

20 Redlich, Hans F., ‘Latin Church Music on the Continent—1 (d) The Venetian School,’ in The New Oxford History of Music, rv. The Age of Humanism, 1540-1630 (London, 1968), p. 287 Google Scholar.

21 ‘Che sia non solamente dotto e pratico della musica, ma come quello che ha da essere superiore agli altri musici, sia anche prudente et modesto in far il suo offitio …’ (Cam, San Marco, p. 136, document dated July 5, 1565).

22 ‘L'Illustrissimi signori Procuratori hanno atteso a procurar sempre huomini honoratissimi … insignati tra i più principali nella professione de molta riputatione, per essere non solo peritissimi nella musica, ma fondatissimi nella teoria, famosissimi, come fu mastro Adriano, et dopo lui mastro Cipriano, et dopo lui il dottissimo Zarlino, così scientifico in questa professione che ha composto opere profondissime nella teoria; vera cosa è che questi tal huomini siccome non si trovano qui in piazza così, meritano che siano ricercati a dove dal valor et virtù loro sono manifestadi a chi ne ha bisogno di essi, in qual luogo si trovano’ (Benvenuti, Musica strumentale, p. LVII).

23 In 1557 one Nicolao Dorati was appointed to take charge of instrumental music (ibid.). He was replaced in 1567 by Girolamo da Udine (ibid., p. LXVII). Upon the latter's death in 1601 Giovanni Bassano was appointed (ibid., p. LXXV).

24 On December 18, 1588, Paolo Giusto was appointed third organist (ibid., p. LXXIII).

25 Caffi (San Marco, 1, 207) names Bartolomeo Moresini, appointed in 1608, as the first official vice-maestro di cappella; but Moresini was apparently preceded in that position by Giovanni Croce, since publications by Croce from as early as 1592 specifically identify him as vice-maestro of San Marco. See Vogel, Emil, Bibliothek der gedruckten weltlichen Vokalmusik italiens (Berlin, 1892), I, 198 Google Scholar.

26 Zarlino's publications include some fifteen secular works, which appeared in various anthologies published between 1548 and 1570, and two volumes of motets published, respectively, in 1549 and 1566. For a list of Zarlino's works see Palisca, Claude, ‘Zarlino,’ in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, XIV (Kassel and Basel, 1968), col. 1018fGoogle Scholar. Of the large number of works he reportedly composed for special occasions, none appears to have survived. These include his setting of some ‘distici latini’ by Cornelio Frangipane for the visit of Henry III to Venice in 1574 (Nolhac and Solerti, Il viaggio, p. 106) and a piece in retrospective praise of Henry and his visit supposedly performed a year later during Ascension Day festivities (ibid., p. 169, and Einstein, Alfred, The Italian Madrigal [Princeton, 1949], II, 549f)Google Scholar. Zarlino is also reported to have written music in thanks for the cessation of the plague in 1576 (ibid.).

27 Benvenuti, Musica strumentale, p. XIV. By 1556 Francesco Sansovino had already singled out the two organs at San Marco as chief testimony to the chapel's musical significance: ‘[La Cappella del Doge] ha due organi perfettissimi, i quali si suonano da due valenti huomini provisionati. La Cappella poi de Musica è senza paro’ (Delle cose notabili delta città di Venetia [Venice, 1606], p. 44; the first edition was published in 1556).

28 Molmenti, Storia di Venezia, II, 317, n. 1, quoting Pietro Casola's description of 1494 (Viaggio a Gerusalemme, [Milan, 1855], p. 11). On the fame of the Venetian organists, see also Sansovino, Venetia, pp. 244, 379f., and cf. the observations of the English traveler Thomas Coryat: ‘There are reported to be in Venice and the circumjacent islands two hundred Churches in which are one hundred forty three paire of Organs…’ (Coryat's Crudeties [London, 1611; rpt. Glasgow, 1905], 1, 426). Further on the subject in general: Libera, Sandro Dalla, L'Arte degli organi a Venezia (Florence, 1962), esp. p. 8f.Google Scholar, and Selfridge-Field, Eleanor, Venetian Instrumental Music from Gabrieli to Vivaldi (Oxford, 1975), p. 5fGoogle Scholar.

29 See especially Coryat's description of musical festivities at the Scuola di San Rocco (quoted below, p. 535). See also the remarks of J. B. Duval published by Pirro, André, ‘La musique des italiens d'après les Remarques Trienniales de J. B. Duval (1607-1609),’ in Mélanges offerts à M. Henry Lemonnier (Paris, 1913), pp. 175–185 Google Scholar, reprinted in Mélanges André Pirro, ed. François Lesure (Geneva, 1972), pp. 81-91. On the scuole grandi, their place in Venetian society, and relationship to the Venetian government, see Pullan, Brian, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice (Oxford, 1971), pp. 33–193 Google Scholar; on their patronage of the arts: Logan, Culture and Society, pp. 202-210, and Rosand, ‘Titian's Presentation.’

30 Such abuses must have reached intolerable proportions on at least two occasions. On September 14, 1557, the Procuratori declared, ‘essendo conveniente, che li organisti della Chiesa di S. Marco debbano li giorni che sono obligati sonar personalmente li organi di essa Giesa et non per altre persone come fanno al presente però hanno terminato che de caetero essi organisti debbano personalmente andar a sonar essi organi li giorni che sono tenuti, salvo impedimento di malattie, o vero, se havessero havuto licentia delli clarissimi Sig. Proc. altramente che per l'apontador della Giesa siano apontadi per rata nella forma et ricordi che sono apponta de li canonici et altri preti di essa Giesa, et li siano tolti detti punti irremissibilmente’ (Benvenuti, Musica stmmentale, p. XLVI). And again, on November 28, 1564, they declared: ‘Vedendosi la poca cura che tengono li organisti della chiesa di S. Marco, li quali lasciano molte volte da sonar sì alle messe, come alii Vesperi essi organi mandano molte volte persone giovane et poco pratiche a sonar quelli per andar loro a sonar in altri luochi che è con pocco decoro da essa Chiesa … i procuratori hanno terminato che ogni volta che li sonatori quali hanno il salario per sonar essi organi et che hanno per tal effetto ogni anno ducati 100 per caduno, mancheranno da venir loro propri a sonare, sì alle feste come alle vigilie, si alle messe come alii vesperi, et ogni et qualunque giorno, che si suole suonare in essa Chiesa caschino cadaun di loro in ducati doi per cadauno fiata che non venissero personalmente a far l'omtio suo come e predetto et debbano essere appuntati nel modo di sopra li quali denari li debbano esser tenuti nelle loro paghe’ (ibid., p. LXIX). This document probably refers to Padovano.

31 Cf. the document of 1603 published by Benvenuti (p. XXXI). For the terms of the contract hiring Donato and, later, Croce, see Caffi, San Marco, I, 195 and 202.

32 On privilegi for the invention of new instruments, see Molmenti, Storia di Venezia, II, 316f., and for music publishing, see Brown, Horatio F., The Venetian Printing Press, 1469-1800 (London, 1891), p. 107fGoogle Scholar.

33 See above, n. 24.

34 See Sansovino, Venetia, p. 479f., and Molmenti, Storia di Venezia, II, 66 (reproducing the woodcut). On Pagan's processional print, see Rosand, David and Muraro, Michelangelo, Titian and the Venetian Woodcut (Washington, D.C., 1976), cat. no. 89Google Scholar.

35 See the details published in Benvenuti, Musica strumentale (without pagination), and in Selfridge-Field, Venetian Instrumental Music, pi. I. For further bibliography on the painting, see Sandra Moschini Marconi, Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia, i. Opere d'arte dei secoli XIV e XV (Rome, 1955), cat. no. 62.

36 Sansovino, Venetia, pp. 496f. (San Gemignano), 500f. (Ascension), 502f. (San Vio), 504f. (San Giorgio Maggiore), 513f. (Redentore), 514f. (Santa Giustina).

37 Kenton (Gabrieli, p. 308) contends that the accompaniment of a choir by an organ, especially after 1580, was general practice.

38 Cf. Arnold, Denis, Giovanni Gabrieli (London, 1974), p. 30 Google Scholar. Two settings of the Ordinary of the Mass by Giovanni Gabrieli survive complete as well as a half-dozen by Andrea Gabrieli and a few by Giovanni Croce; the number of Mass settings by Palestrina, however, exceeds one hundred. Cf. Reese, Gustave, Music in the Renaissance (New York, 1960), pp. 469ff. and 496ffGoogle Scholar.

39 On the mixture of political and religious elements in the ceremonies of San Marco, see Sinding-Larsen, Christ in the Council Hall, pp. 208-217, 279-281, and Kenton, Gabrieli, p. 21ff.

40 For a thorough discussion of ceremonial motets based upon Latin poems, including two by Willaert, see Dunning, Albert, Die Staatsmotette 1480-1555 (Utrecht, 1970), p. 284ffGoogle Scholar.

41 See Kenton, Gabrieli, p. 268, and the tables of contents of those publications by Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli that include sacred music, printed in Benvenuti, Musica strutnentale, p. XCVIIff.

42 Denis Arnold (‘The Significance of Cori Spezzati,’ Music and Letters, 40 [1959], 7) suggests that Andrea Gabrieli's sixteen-part Gloria, published in 1587, was written for Mass on the occasion of a state visit of Japanese ambassadors in 1585.

43 ‘Gloriosa felice alma Vineggia,’ ‘Quattro dee che'l mondo onora,’ and ‘Viva sempre in ogni etade’ are called madrigals, although they appear in Donato, Baldassare, Il primo libro di canzon villanesche alia Napolitana (Venice, 1550)Google Scholar. For the contents of this publication, see Vogel, Weltlichen Vokalmusik, 1, 206. The tradition of the political motet was, of course, well established in Venice, going back at least to the early fifteenth century and Johannes Ciconia's ‘Venetia mundi splendor,’ composed for the coronation of Doge Michele Steno (cf. Kenton, Gabrieli, p. 405). A modern edition of this motet may be found in Clercx, Suzanne, Johannes Ciconia, un musicien liégeois et son temps (vers 1335-1411) (Brussels, 1960), I, 186ffGoogle Scholar. Several other early fifteenth-century Venetian political motets are discussed and transcribed in Alberto Gallo, F., ‘Musiche veneziane del MS 2216 della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna,’ Quadrivium, 6 (1964), 107–116 Google Scholar. For some even earlier Venetian ceremonial music, see idem, ‘Da un codice italiano di mottetti del primo trecento,’ Quadrivium, 9 (1968), 25-44. On the political aspect of Venetian poetry, see the still fundamental study of Medin, Antonio, La storia della repubblica di Venezia nella poesia (Milan, 1904)Google Scholar.

44 For this iconography, most obviously developed in the context of the Ducal Palace, see Wolters, Wolfgang, ‘Der Programmentwurf zur Dekoration des Dogenpalastes nach dem Brand vom 20. Dezember 1577,’ Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 12 (1966), 271–318 Google Scholar; Sinding-Larsen, Christ in the Council Hall, passim; Rosand, ‘Titian's Presentation,’ pp. 76-81, with further references.

45 Einstein (The Italian Madrigal, p. 451) discusses the text, which reads as follows:

Quattro Dee che'l mondo honors et ama

Dal ciel discese in questa vaga parte

Vittoria, Pace, Sapienza e Fama

In cui quant'ha di raro il Ciel comparte

A te cui Giove a grand'impresa chiama

Venut'insieme siam’ a farti parte

Di nostri doni ch'a virtute tale

Che terran te qua giu sempre immortale.

46 The first of these cycles, completed by 1556, decorated the ceiling of the Sala del Consiglio di Dieci and was based on an iconographic program devised by Daniele Barbaro (see Schulz, Juergen, Venetian Painted Ceilings of the Renaissance [Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968], cat. no. 35Google Scholar). Although such classical figures were used in earlier civic decorations—such as Alessandro Leopardi's bronze pedestals in the Piazza, dating from 1505 (cf. Muraro, Michelangelo and Grabar, André, Treasures of Venice [Geneva, 1963], pp. 164–166 Google Scholar)—they do not occur on a fully monumental and public scale until later. The emergence of this new iconography coincides with the deliberate development of the myth of Venice following the Peace of Bologna (1530), when the Venetians themselves, accepting the new political realities and the decline in their effective power, began to project a new rhetorical image of the Serenissima as the haven and true home of the political virtues (cf. the comments of Chabod, ‘Venezia nella politica italiana,’ p. 48). For the later dramatic development of this iconography, see below, n. 65.

47 Some confirmation of the practice of repeating the same music from year to year on Ascension Day is provided by a letter from Claudio Monteverdi written on April 21, 1618. In explaining why he has not yet been able to begin work on the Andromeda text by Ercole Marigliani, he cites his pressing duties in Venice:'… poi me converà mettere all'ordine una certa cantata in lode di sua serenità, qual si stilla cantarsi ogni anno in bucintoro mentre va con tutta la Sigria a sposare il mare nel giorno de la Sensa’ ( Francesco Malipiero, G., Claudio Monteverdi [Milan, 1929], p. 176ffGoogle Scholar; Domenico de’ Paoli, ed., Claudio Monteverdi. Lettere, dediche, e prefazioni [Rome, 1973], p. 106f). It is tempting to suppose that the ‘cantata’ was one of Donato's madrigals, although their extreme simplicity makes such a supposition rather unlikely.

48 Two of Donato's madrigals are available in modern editions: ‘Viva sempre in ogni etade’ (in Luigi Torchi, ed., L'Arte muskale in Italia [Milan, 1897], 1, 175ff.) and ‘Gloriosa felice alma Vineggia’ (in Bruno Pasut, ed., Polifonisti veneti [Padua, 1963], p. 40ff.).

49 Andrea Gabrieli's two madrigals, first published in Concerti di Andrea e di Gio: Gabrieli … Primo libro et secondo (Venice, 1587), are ‘Ecco Vinegia bella,’ à 12, and ‘Hor che nel suo bel seno,’ à 8. Their texts are:

50 Nolhac and Solerti, Il viaggio in Italia, p. 53.

51 For descriptions of the function of music in the festivities drawn from contemporary chronicles, see ibid., p. 100ff. Cf. also Solerti, Angelo, ‘Le rappresentazioni musicali di Venezia dal 1571 al 1605,’ Rivista musicale italiana, 9 (1902), 554–558 Google Scholar, who publishes the text of Frangipane's tragedy.

52 To judge from their texts, the Gabrieli madrigals could well have been sung on the Lido during Henry's initial meeting with the Doge on the morning of 18 July, or slightly later in the day from the Bucintoro as it reached the bacino with its honored guest; there ‘un coro cantava le lodi di Enrico e gli dava il benvenuto’ (Nolhac and Solerti, Il viaggio in Italia, p. 106). Caffi (San Marco, 1, 171) reports, although apparently without specific evidence, that, of the two Gabrieli madrigals, ‘quella che incomincia—Ecco Venezia— fu il saluto secondo l'etichetta di que’ giorni cantato all'ingresso dell'ospite scettrato sotto I'arco eretto dall'immortale Palladio.’ The chronicles, however, mention no music for the first meeting on the Lido, and, for the second occasion, they mention only some Latin texts set by Zarlino (cf. above, n. 26). In fact, they do not anywhere specify Andrea's participation in the celebrations.

53 For a list of the German reprints of Andrea Gabrieli's polychoral works, see Denis Arnold, ‘Andrea Gabrieli,’ Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, IV (Kassel and Basel, 1955), col. 1188f.

54 Bradshaw, Murray C., The Origin of the Toccata (American Institute of Musicology, 1972), p. 46 Google Scholar.

55 Scardeoni, Bernardino, De antiquitate urbis Patavii, II, xii (Basel, 1560), fol. 264Google Scholar, cited in Kenton, Gabrieli, p. 34. Cf. also Reese, Renaissance, p. 544.

56 On the interpretation of this formula, see Denis Arnold, ‘Con ogni sorte di stromenti: Some Practical Suggestions,’ Brass Quarterly, 2 (1959), 99ff.

57 Kenton, Gabrieli, p. 521. See also Denis Arnold, ‘Brass Instruments in Italian Church Music of the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries,’ Brass Quarterly, 1 (1957), 89f.

58 Arnold, ‘Con ogni sorte di stromenti,’ p. 102.

59 Kenton, Egon, ‘The “Brass” Parts in Giovanni Gabrieli's Instrumental Ensemble Compositions,’ Brass Quarterly, 1 (1957), 73–80 Google Scholar, discusses the historical and practical evidence for the use of different combinations of instruments depending on the site and function of a particular performance.

60 See, for example, Giovanni d'Alessi, ‘Precursors of Adrian Willaert in the Practice of Coro Spezzato,’ Journal of the American Musicological Society, 5 (1952), 187-210.

61 Burney, Charles, The Present State of Music in France and Italy (London, 1721), p. 173fGoogle Scholar. Cf. Mason, Wilton, ‘The Architecture of St. Mark's Cathedral and the Venetian Polychoral Style: A Clarification,’ in Studies in Musicology …in Memory of Glen Haydon (Chapel Hill, 1969), p. 163ffGoogle Scholar. See also Denis Arnold, ed., Giovanni Gabrieli, Opera omnia, I (Rome, 1956), I. Actually, the comment by Burney might even be used to justify the particular developments of the polychoral style within the work of the Gabrieli: for example, the use of ever shorter passages and incomplete choirs of different sonorities in opposition to one another.

62 Coryat's Crudities, I, 390-392 (cf. above, n. 28). See also Denis Arnold, ‘Music at the Scuola di S. Rocco,’ Music and Letters, 40 (1959), 236f.

63 Il Bellerofonte, Drama musicale del Signor Vincenzo Nolfi (Venice, 1642), p. 9: ‘Fuori d'alcune nubi squarciatesi n'apparve poi un rilucente come toccato d'argento, con singolar arte composto spiccandosi totalmente dal Cielo nella sua ultima parte, & awanzandosi verso terra negando all'occhio il penetrare l'appoggio di questa macchina; sopra vi sedeva la Giustizia con un Leone a lato la spada, e le bilancie nelle mani, con veste turchina sparsa d'oro, ricca, e vaga sopra maniera… . Sorse poscia alia destra dal mare in forma d'argentata conchiglia tirato da Cavalli marini un carro che portandosi alia destra al mezo della scena girossi in faccia fermandosi in prospetto del Teatro; portava questi il Dio dell'onde Nettuno servito all'intorno da suoi Tritoni…. D'ordine suo viddesi sorger dal mare in modello la Città di Venetia così esquisita, e vivamente formata, che la confessò ogn'uno un sforzo dell'arte: Ingannava l'occhio la Piazza con le fabriche publiche al naturale immitate, e dell'inganno ogn'hor più godeva scordandosi quasi per quella finta della vera dove realmente si tratteneva.’ See Bjurstrom, Per, Giacomo Torelli and Baroque Stage Design (Stockholm, 1961), pp. 61 and 239Google Scholar, and Worsthorne, Simon Towneley, Venetian Opera of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1954), p. 176f.Google Scholar, both reproducing Giorgi's engravings illustrating the stage sets.

64 Il Bellerqfonte, p. 21.

65 Ibid., p. 22. In addition to the painted iconography of the Ducal Palace, theatrical precedent for such political spectacle is to be found in the masques performed there in the late Cinquecento, the texts of which were published: e.g., the Rappresentatione fatta avanti il Serenissimo Prencipe di Venetia Nkolo da Ponte, il giorno di S. Stefano 1580. The dramatis personae of this piece include Peace and Victory as well as Wisdom, who, addressing the first two, declares:

Tra voi non cresca lite,

Ambe giostrate al pari,

Ambe siete sorelle,

Nate ad un parto istesso,

Ecco la cara Madre

VENETIA, ch'apre il grembo

Virginal, fatto sol per voi secondo,

State mill'anni in quest'aurato tetto,

Consolate di Madre, e di ricetto.