Abstract
Abstract In recent years, musicologists have dropped the murder charges against Carlo Gesualdo because criminal law in Renaissance Italy permitted cuckolds to execute their unfaithful wives. As Annibale Cogliano has expounded, Gesualdo had the right to perform an ‘honour killing’. Still, the known facts of this case are few, and the extent to which Gesualdo premeditated his attack has remained a mystery. Through a new investigation of the surviving sources, this study proposes that Gesualdo coordinated his honour killing with the church liturgy: fearful of breaking the fifth commandment, Gesualdo attacked on a day when the Bible lesson sanctioned vendetta killing.
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