Music as Cultural Mission: Explorations of Jesuit Practices in Italy and North America ed. by Anna Harwell Celenza, and Anthony R. DelDonna

Abstract

Music as Cultural Mission: Explorations of Jesuit Practices in Italy and North America. Edited by Anna Harwell Celenza and Anthony R. DelDonna. [Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts, Vol. 9.] (Philadelphia: St. Joseph's University Press. 2014. Pp. xii, 229. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-916-10180-0.)After eight volumes devoted mainly to the painting, emblems, and other visual objects of the Jesuits' cultural mission during the first three centuries of their history, the present volume is devoted to music. Since the foundation of the Society of Jesus, the order's members discovered the power of music in their missionary action, creating a sense of community and good for teaching the Christian principles in places as diverse as Brazil and India. But this volume is not about their wellknown activities in South America or Asia. Instead, the book focuses on less explored areas: Naples and Milan in Europe and North America from the seventeenth century to the end of the ancien regime. The editors both teach at Georgetown University (chapter 9, by coeditor Anna Harwell Cerenza, traces the importance of music at this Jesuit institution from 1789 to 1930). Her coeditor, Anthony DelDonna, edits the first part of the book, which is devoted mainly to Naples but includes an interesting chapter by Emanuele Colombo on the Jesuit Oratorio in Milan. The remaining five chapters of this section are written by Francesco Cotticelli, Paologiovanni Maione, Ausilia Magaudda, Danilo Costantini, Francesca Seller, and Antonio Caroccia, which describe in detail the history and activity of the five pedagogical institutions created by Jesuits in Naples: the old Collegio Massimo at the Church of Gesu Vecchio, the Collegio of San Ignazio al Mercato, San Giuseppe a Chiaia, San Saverio a Toledo, and the very influential Collegio of Nobles. DelDonna, in addition to a general introduction (Jesuit Music in Eighteenth-Century Italy: North versus South), offers a case study on the influence of Jesuit culture on Neapolitan society, through the oratorio Trionfo per lAssunzione della Santissima Vergine by Nicolo Ceva (1705); Ceva was a lesser known professional musician educated in the Neapolitan conservatory system who became a Jesuit and an influential figure in the Society's Neapolitan circles. The survival of Ceva's score in the Librar)' of the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella is quite exceptional, since most of the primary materials on Jesuit music activities in Naples have been scattered. The mentioned scholars have used alternative sources to reconstruct those activities: for instance, the Gazzetta di Napoli provides many records of musical events not only in Naples but also in the provinces (those from 1675 to 1768 were published in 2011). …