PATRONAGE AND TASTE IN VENETIAN DALMATIA: THE CASE OF TOMASO CECCHINO'S AMOROSI CONCETTI

Abstract

Questions of patronage and taste in two Dalmatian cities, Split and Hvar, in the early years of the seventeenth century are here addressed through an examination of the characteristics of two collections of monodies by Tomaso Cecchino. Tomaso Cecchino came to Dalmatia from Italy in the first decade of the seventeenth century. It seems that the documents which refer to his position as an assistant maestro di capella at the cathedral in Split around 1606 are no longer in existence and it is therefore impossible to ascertain how long he had been resident in Split before in 1613 he is described on the title-page of his Canti spirituali as ?Maestro di Capella nella Chiesa Cath?drale di Spalato?.1 The previous year he dedicated his first book of monodie madrigals to Nicol?, Giovanni, Agostino and Girolamo Capogrosso, members of a distinguished merchant family from Split. The reference in the preface to the composer's ?ferma habitatione? implies that the ?Nobilissima Citt?? is most likely Split, where the Capogrosso brothers were at home, rather than Venice, where the preface was wirtten, and this conjecture is strengthened by the implications of the wording in the preface to the other surviving volume of monodies, the third book of Amorosi concetti, published by Vincenti in 1616. The latter volume describes Cecchino now as ?Maestro di Capella nella Cath?drale