Dedication and Labelling Practices in Seventeenth-Century Instrumental Music: the Case of Marco Uccellini

Abstract

Marco Uccellini (1610–80) published seven instrumental collections, four in the 1630s–40s and three in the 1660s. About one third of the works, 92 to be exact, carry titles or labels of various kinds. After preliminary information on the composer and his instrumental works (section 1), the author considers his dedication practices as an exercise in morphology and typology (section 2). He then turn to opus 4 (1645). Beyond having Uccellini's first examples of solo sonatas, six in all, the opus warrants attention for the inscriptions, in the six, to various women, e.g. a triumphant Victoria, a satisfied Luciminia and a shining Laura; Uccellini may have drawn some of them from literary and historical sources (section 3). Assuming that the information gleaned from the titles to Uccellini's works can serve as a measuring rod for those in others' works, the author summarizes the questions that apply methodologically to the study of dedications in the seventeenth-century instrumental literature at large (section 4).