Music in Cardinal Borromeo's Milan

Abstract

Despite its size and obvious strategic importance, Milan in the 16th century never made the kind of musical impact that cities like Rome, Venice or Florence did. As a result it has not in the past had the same attention from music historians as those other centres, with the exception of Lewis Lockwood's The Counter-Reformation and the masses of Vincenzo Ruffo (Venice, 1970). More recently Paul Merkley and Lorna Matthews in their Music and patronage in the Sforza court (Turnhout, 1999) have produced a comprehensive study of late 15th-century Milanese music, and Robert Kendrick has given us two studies devoted to early 17th-century music in the city: Celestial sirens (Oxford, 1996) and The sounds of Milan, 1585–1650 (Oxford, 2002). Christine Getz's new book fills the gap between these, providing the first full-length study devoted to how the city's institutions and its people used and experienced music in the 16th century. In fact it starts in 1525, when the Battle of Pavia finally brought stability to the city after decades of tussle between the Spanish and the French, and finishes in 1584 with the death of Archbishop Carlo Borromeo, which marks the starting point for Kendrick's studies. Peace came at the price of Spanish Habsburg overlordship. Initially the Habsburgs allowed Francesco II Sforza to rule under their overall control, but after his childless death in 1535 the Sforzas were replaced by a series of viceregal governors, for the most part Spanish grandees, who continued in a modified way the musical traditions built up by the Sforza dukes. Carlo Borromeo's towering presence in the city from 1565 changed the balance of power once again, establishing a triple axis of government, populace and church which was to give Milan a unique character until the fall of the Habsburgs.