Papal Chapel Research Articles

Fifty Years with the Fondo Cappella Sistina of The Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

Reflections on the study of the music sources in the fondo Cappella Sistina of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana beginning with Giuseppe Baini and Franz Xaver Haberl in the nineteenth century and progressing chronologically through the twentieth-century studies of Knud Jeppesen, Joshua Rifkin, the author, and others, to the incorporation of the sixteenth-century manuscript sources into the RISM catalogue in the twenty-first century. In an Addendum, evidence is offered that suggests that the main scribe of the Medici Codex (1518) can be identified as Giovanni Maria Borsetto who was the official scribe of the Papal Chapel for a short time in 1522.

Inside—and outside—Illibata: composition, context and chronology in a famous Josquin motet

Abstract Opinions remain divided on the date of Illibata Dei virgo nutrix, the motet with the famous acrostic spelling the name Josquin des Prez. Some writers see it as a product of the composer’s years at the papal chapel, 1489–94; others would move its origin considerably earlier, even to 1466–75. The only real foothold we have comes from a Vatican copy made in the mid-1490s. Advocates for an early date see the music as particularly close to the works of Du Fay, Busnoys and Johannes Regis; those supporting a Roman origin point to a trend there during Josquin’s tenure towards similarly ‘archaic’ motets. In both instances, the writers have sought a context in the music of other composers. The present study turns the focus inward to seek a context within the development of Josquin himself. Despite the uncertainty that scholars find in Josquin chronology at every turn, careful analysis of compositional procedure offers a way of breaking the apparent logjam over what everyone recognizes as one of the most significant works of its era.

Rome after Josquin

The “Roman period” of Josquin des Prez resulted in a small but impressive body of work, and the Missa La sol fa re mi has been received as one of the most substantial and finest members of this corpus. Closer inspection of the transmission of this mass, however, suggests that despite its copying at the Sistine Chapel before 1500, there is reason to situate it instead among the problematic and derivative copies of Josquin’s music made at the papal chapel after his departure. I argue that rather than originating from the composer’s tenure in Rome, the Missa La sol fa re mi entered the papal chapel repertoire as part of an influx of music by composers associated with the French royal court surrounding the Italian campaign of King Charles VIII in 1494–95. Decoupling the Missa La sol fa re mi from Josquin’s tenure at the papal chapel raises new possibilities surrounding his works-chronology, biography, and milieu.

Authority and Power in the Medieval Church, c. 1000–c. 1500 ed. by Thomas W. Smith

Reviewed by: Authority and Power in the Medieval Church, c. 1000–c. 1500 ed. by Thomas W. Smith Beth C. Spacey Smith, Thomas W., ed., Authority and Power in the Medieval Church, c. 1000–c. 1500, Brepols, Turnhout, 2020; hardback; pp. 412; 19 b/w illustrations, 2 b/w tables; R.R.P. €100.00; ISBN 9782503585291. This is a superb and substantial collection. Thomas Smith has successfully marshalled twenty-two chapters in this interdisciplinary exploration of power and authority in the medieval Church, curating a varied yet coherent compilation. While some of the chapters are more explicitly linked to the book's central themes than others, the collection nonetheless succeeds in demonstrating how enormously variable Church power and authority was in form, justification, and expression over time and space. A key issue that emerges across the contributions concerns the Church's ability to move beyond claims to authority to act upon those claims, and how often those mechanisms of power were dependent upon local cooperation. The range of disciplines and approaches represented in this collection is commendable and highlights that much important research continues to be undertaken in what remains a vigorous field, and that many fruitful avenues of inquiry remain. Part I explores ideas of papal authority. Ian Robinson examines how eleventh-century ecclesiasts drew on fifth- and ninth-century ideas of judicial supremacy in their own discussions of papal primacy. Benedict Wiedemann explores how letters from the papal curia of Innocent III drew upon different methods to legitimize the Pope's authority as regent of the Kingdom of Sicily during the minority of Frederick II, while Rebecca Rist addresses the question of whether the popes of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries were anti-Judaic or anti-Semitic. Laura Cleaver examines how the genealogical diagrams contained in four thirteenth-century English manuscripts portrayed papal power and authority through the positioning of depictions of popes and their contemporaries. Part II looks to the authority of papal representatives. Smith uses the case study of thirteenth-century Languedoc to examine how the absence of local support could affect papal legates' ability to wield power, while Gábor Barabás outlines the varied fortunes of legates in thirteenth-century Hungary, from cooperation to incarceration. Philippa Mesiano uses the case of thirteenth-century papal nuncio Master Rostand Masson to consider how papal representatives exercised power [End Page 262] in their diplomatic destinations. Finally, Jean Dunbabin identifies how papal representatives could respond pragmatically to the local diplomatic landscape, by exploring a case of dual secular-ecclesial rulership in late thirteenth-century Sicily. Part III considers relations between the papacy and the Eastern Churches. The chapter by the late Bernard Hamilton examines papal attitudes towards the separated Eastern Churches in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the papacy's prioritization of 'corporate' over 'individual' conversion. James Hill analyses the entanglement of papal power and its ability to achieve unity with and reform of the Byzantine and Armenian Churches respectively, while Mike Carr argues that the Avignon papacy did wield authority in its regulation of Latin trade with Muslims, as evidenced by trade licences. Part IV examines the cultural history of ecclesiastical authority and power. Matthew Ross traces cultural life at the medieval curia through the examination of the papal chapel. Jan Vanderburie analyses the symbolism of the Oignies treasures associated with Jacques de Vitry, arguing that Jacques deliberately drew on specific imagery in his self-fashioning. Catherine Lawless uses two images from the Florentine Franciscan context to explore the relationship between the power of female mysticism and the authority of friars, the latter of which recognized the devotional power of the former and acted as mediators with the realm of male ecclesiastical power. Kirsty Day demonstrates how examples of royal and noble women associated with female Franciscan communities in Bohemia and the Polish duchies challenge the narrative of women religious as defiers of male ecclesiastical authority. Part V discusses ecclesiastical communities. Nicholas Vincent considers how secular authorities exercised power over bishops, examining the conventions for the ordering of bishops in the witness lists of Henry II's charters. Maroula Perisanidi considers how Eustathios of Thessalonike offers an alternative model of spiritual and moral authority in...

Florence, Pope Clement VII and Emperor Charles V. A contextual study of the motet ‘Dominator caelorum’ by Jean Conseil / Costanzo Festa (?)

Costanzo Festa (ca. 1490–1545) and Jean Conseil (ca. 1498–1534) spent most of their life in the papal chapel and composed motets based on the same texts: 'Deus venerunt gentes’, probably written in response tothe sack of Rome in 1527, as well as 'Lumen ad revelationum / Nunc Dimittis’. The five-voice motet 'Dominator caelorum’ is ascribed both to Festa and to Conseil. Thus if 'Ecce advenit dominator’ was really composed by Costanzo Festa, a papal composer, and performed at the meeting between Charles V and Clement VII in Bologna, as Klaus Pietschmann persuasively demonstrates, could not 'Dominator caelorum’ have been Conseil’s small musical contribution to this event? If so, it may have been Conseil who composed 'Dominator caelorum’ to embellish the Bologna meeting as Festa did by composing 'Ecce advenit dominator’.

Dominican Dignitaries and Private Preaching at Papal Avignon. Part III: Conclusion

ABSTRACTPrivate preaching certainly existed at papal Avignon, though a shortage of private sermon texts makes it difficult to gauge either the frequency with which it occurred or its importance to the cultural life of the fourteenth-century curia. The survival in a single manuscript of two sermons, preached by prominent Dominicans in the private chapel of Cardinal Pierre des Prés in the spring of 1340, may provide some insight in the phenomenon of private preaching at Avignon. Similar – not identical, but very similar – in structure, tone, and topoi to sermons preached before the popes during the solemn liturgies of the Avignonese chapel, the two private texts seem to suggest that private preaching at Avignon grew up in imitation of the liturgical sermons of the papal chapel, but without the ceremonial context.

I Kyrie di Tr93 ed. by Antonio Chemotti

Reviewed by: I Kyrie di Tr93 ed. by Antonio Chemotti Robert Nosow I Kyrie di Tr93. Edited by Antonio Chemotti. (Codici musicali trentini del Quattrocento, 2.) Trent: Provincia autonoma di Trento, Soprintendenza per i Beni culturali; Rome: Fondazione Istituto Italiano per la Storia della Musica, 2014. [Presentazione & pref., p. 7–8; abbrevs. and sigla of sources, p. 8–9; list of tables, p. 10; introd., p. 11–19; problemi di edizione, p. 20–52; cantus firmi, p. 53–62; prosulae, p. 63–65; criteri di edizione, p. 68; score, p. 69–167; critical apparatus, p. 168–217; appendix, p. 217–25; trascrizioni dei Kyrie in canto piano, p. 226–30; bibliographic sigla, p. 231; bibliog., p. 232–35; index, p. 237–40. ISBN 13 978-88-95349-12-1. €26.] The succinct title of the volume I Kyrie di TR93 refers to a series of thirty-nine consecutive Kyrie settings in the manuscript Trent, Archivio Diocesano, 93, pertaining to the seven Trent Codices so important to our understanding of polyphony in the early- and mid-fifteenth century. This volume is the second in the ongoing series Codici musicali trentini del Quattrocento, which will provide a complete scholarly edition of the codices. (The first, devoted to the sequences, was published in 2012 and edited by Marco Gozzi.) The editor, Antonio Chemotti, refers to the manuscript as a “Kyriale” (p. 11), in reference to chant manuscripts transmitting the Ordinary of [End Page 587] the Mass. The Kyries in Trent 93 fill up three separate gatherings, IX to XI, and are followed by extensive sections of polyphonic Glorias, Credos, and mixed Sanctus and Agnus Dei movements. As Chemotti shows in table 5 (pp. 53–54), the two main scribes of the Kyrie section organized them according to cantus firmus. All but five of the works paraphrase the plainchant, usually in the discantus, as shown in the table. The twelve relevant plainchants very helpfully appear in transcription at the end of the volume (pp. 226–30). After the first six works, Nos. 80–85, however, the cantus firmus designations do not appear in the headings to the individual works. Instead, Chemotti elects to present the liturgical designations in parentheses wherever they appear in the manuscript: “Paschali,” “de Apostolorum.” The settings in this volume are surprisingly limited in scope. All have either two or three voices. Given the position of Trent on the alpine route between Verona and northern Italy to Innsbruck and the Holy Roman Empire, the sources of the music are correspondingly diverse. They range from Binchois, in the Burgundian court chapel, to Petrus Wilhelmus, working in central Europe. Despite the presence of only two composer attributions, several more can be added from concordant sources, noted in brackets (table 3, pp. 17–18). One of the more extensive settings, No. 117, is attributed in the manuscript to Johannes Pullois, who worked in Antwerp and Rome, where he arrived in 1447. It has three sections in all: two Kyries in o, two Christes in , and two Kyries in o. The sections here are not longer than in other settings, there are simply more of them. Nine settings have attributions in one source or another to Guillaume Dufay. Seven pertain to the annual Kyrie cycle postulated by Alejandro Enrique Planchart, a thirteen-movement cycle perhaps composed for the papal chapel (“Music for the Papal Chapel in the Early Fifteenth Century,” in Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome, ed. Richard Sherr [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 109–14). Given the liturgical organization of the Kyries in Trent 93, the Dufay settings are scattered throughout the three gatherings. As Planchart shows, the underlying chants have stable designations across Europe, meaning that a Kyrie Lux et origo, for example, would have been intended for Easter. All four settings based on this plainsong, Nos. 93–96, in fact carry the designation “Paschale” in the manuscript. Chemotti fails to cite the Planchart study in either text or bibliography, so that an important repertorial connection is lost to the reader. Another missing connection is to the Aosta Codex, Biblioteca del Seminario Maggiore, 15. The Aosta Codex transmits a shorter series of eleven Kyrie settings, folios 20v...

Qui musicam in se habet: Studies in Honor of Alejandro Enrique Planchart ed. by Anna Zayaruznaya, Bonnie J. Blackburn, Stanley Boorman

Reviewed by: Qui musicam in se habet: Studies in Honor of Alejandro Enrique Planchart ed. by Anna Zayaruznaya, Bonnie J. Blackburn, Stanley Boorman Kathleen Sewright Qui musicam in se habet: Studies in Honor of Alejandro Enrique Planchart. Edited by Anna Zayaruznaya, Bonnie J. Blackburn, and Stanley Boorman. (Miscellanea, 9.) Middleton, WI: American Institute of Musicology, 2015. [xxvi, 854 p. ISBN 9781595515148. $130.] Music examples, illustrations, facsimiles, appendix, bibliography, indexes. [End Page 540] This volume is a tribute not only to a preeminent musicologist, but to a highly influential colleague, mentor, and teacher. Planchart is primarily a medievalist, so many of the contributions in this festschrift address that field, but even the outliers among its pages reflect the impact that Planchart has had on colleagues and former students who have pursued musicological subjects in other eras. The festschrift opens with Fabrice Fitch’s discussion of his compositional homage to Planchart, Agricola IXa: Je nay dueil, for “solo cornetto muto.” Fitch notes that Planchart, too, is a composer, and a list of the dedicatee’s considerable body of compositions is given as part of a larger list of “Publications, Compositions, and Recordings by Alejandro Enrique Planchart” in the appendix. Following this homage, the editors have chosen to group the various contributions according to nine topics, all of which at one point or another have been the focus of Planchart’s own wide-ranging scholarship. The first two categories, “Chant Transmitted and Reformed” and “Cults,” reflect Planchart’s lifelong engagement with chant and its contexts. In a well-argued article, Angelo Rusconi demonstrates that the Old Milanese hymn for the feast of Saint John the Baptist, Alma prophetae, must be one of the oldest extant Ambrosian chants, dating from no later than the sixth century. James Vincent Maiello writes about twelfth-century Alleluias and their tropes at Pistoia, explaining the impetus to update this repertory at the Cathedral of San Zeno as part of a larger campaign to make that institution competitive with others nearby. Michel Huglo and Barbara Haggh-Huglo summarize what is known about the medieval procession for Saint Agatha’s feast day in the city of Florence. They correct a few details concerning the route of the procession after taking into consideration new building projects undertaken between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which were designed to accommodate the city’s growing population. Thomas Forrest Kelly discusses an unrhymed musical Office for Saint Donatus found in the fourteenth-century Bene ventan antiphoner I-BV MS 848. This composite Office contains a series of responsories that Kelly believes may be the earliest music written for that feast. James Grier questions whether text tropes for Saint Androchius preserved in F-Pn 909, a manuscript written for the monks at Saint Martin of Limoges, reflect actual liturgical practice at the abbey. The little-known repertory of seventeenth-century motets cultivated at the convent in Saint-Cyr, known as the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis, is the focus of Deborah Kauffman’s essay; and Rebecca G. Marchand explains Lou Harrison’s aesthetic response to the official guidelines regarding the composition of Catholic Mass music in the wake of Vatican II. Following these, the reader will encounter entries for sections called “The Lives of Singers” and “The Lives of Songs.” Here, Evan A. MacCarthy has uncovered a letter from Pope Urban VI to the Count of Flanders, Louis II, which turns out to be an early request regarding the recruitment of northern singers to the Papal Chapel, predating Johannes Ciconia’s known presence in Italy by over a decade. Although no attributable music by the organist and canon known as Orpheus survives, Margaret Bent’s interpretation of the relevant archival documentation suggests that he probably did compose polyphony during his career in the areas of Padua and Vicenza during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Jane Alden and David Fiala attempt to clarify the confusion surrounding the various musical and documentary references to persons named “Sohier” throughout the fifteenth century. Richard Sherr next explains the complicated, convoluted, but lucrative world of supplications and benefices, focusing on a series of such requests made by a group of Breton singers, most of whom either sang in the...

Botschafterzeremoniell am Papsthof der Renaissance. Der Tractatus de oratoribus des Paris de Grassi, Teil 1 und 2 ed. by Philipp Stenzig (review)

Botschafterzeremoniell am Papsthof der Renaissance. Der Tractatus de oratoribus des Paris de Grassi, Teil 1 und 2. Edited with commentary by Philipp Stenzig. [Tradition-Reform-Innovation: Studien zur Modernitat des Mittelalters, Band 17.] (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 2013. Pp. 716, 717-1372. $182.95. ISBN 978-3-631-62611-5.)Studies of papal ceremonies flourished during the 1970s and 1980s with Marc Dykmans and Bernhard Schimmelpfennig as the foremost scholars in the field. In recent years a group of scholars based at the University of Munster has taken up the papal ceremonial of the Renaissance and dedicated a series of publications to it. Philipp Stenzig's monumental contribution has grown out of a Munster doctoral thesis supervised by Nikolaus Staubach, a leading figure among these researchers. When it is compared to the older investigations, differences of approach soon become obvious. Whereas Dykmans and Schimmelpfennig had been much involved with codicological and philological studies that aimed at making available the relevant texts and tried to shed light on the precise circumstances of their creation, these younger authors, seeking the historical meaning of individual ceremonial elements, prefer to interpret what was going on.As was to be expected, the prolific figure of Paris de Grassis-or Paride Grassi, papal master of ceremonies (in office 1504-28)-attracted new scholarly attention. Dykmans planned an edition of De Grassis's ceremonial diary, but this project was not brought to completion. Twenty-five years later, such a publication would be no less desirable than it was in Dykmans's time. Beyond writing his Diarium and a general directory of papal liturgy and ceremonial, a Ceremoniale Romane curie, De Grassis's name is connected with a new literary genre-the tractatus- dedicated to specific aspects of the Roman ceremonial. Seven such treatises, which the author considered in the tradition of the professional writing practiced by Vitruvius and other scholars from classical antiquity, have survived. Stenzig's focus is one on the reception of foreign oratores at the papal court. De Grassis wrote it down in a first draft by 1508/09, adding material in subsequent years. As Stenzig points out, the master of ceremonies did not intend to create a new type of ceremonial but rather a definite literary description of it, which could be used later as a manual. Since his own experience is present throughout these writings, and he continuously refers to ceremonial events he witnessed, his treatises, too, adopt traits of the ceremonial diary, thus rendering the boundaries of professional writing rather fluid.These oratores should not be confused with the ambassadors in residence, although the latter could be referred to as oratores, procuratores, or ambassiatores. Instead, it was their task to declare the obedience of their respective senders, usually secular rulers from all over Europe or Italian city republics, in front of the newly elected pope. Due to this rhetorical performance they were called orators. In essence, their office ended with this declaration, although their presence in the papal chapel and in public consistories was tolerated thereafter. The number of orators representing an individual sovereign could vary from one to four, seven, or even a dozen. Although the ceremonial receptions of the oratores in Rome implied the recognition of the sovereignty of the ruler who had sent them, the honors displayed in their regard by the officials of the papal court changed according to the status of the sender, not to that of his envoys. The ceremonial under discussion embraced two distinct parts: first the obviatio-that is, the reception of the delegation through the familiares of the cardinals and of the pope outside the city walls. Here, De Grassis focuses on questions of who would wait where and how this cavalcade was to be composed hierarchically. This procession would lead the newly arrived to their dwelling place in the city. …

Einem Wunder auf der Spur: Die Mozarts und das Misererevon Gregorio Allegri

The notation from memory of Gregorio Allegri’s Misererewas made by Wolfgang Amadé Mozart during his stay in Rome in 1770. The notation – about which the family correspondence reports – was transformed from an occurrence to an anecdote in literature about Mozart, and from an anecdote it was built into a myth. Under scrutiny, Mozart’s achievement is not so spectacular, however new perspectives get articulated about the performance practice of the papal chapel and the liturgical contexts of the Misererein the Sistine Chapel. These basic parameters shed a light on the impressions of the alleged “hearing miracle” that must have absorbed the 14 year old Mozart's attention.

The One Who Comes After Me

Abstract Studies of the past two decades have shown that late medieval and Renaissance composers participated in a culture of symbolic representation by inscribing Christian figures and concepts into musical design. One figure who has been overlooked in this line of scholarship is John the Baptist, the precursor of Christ. This essay outlines the Baptist's historical impact on the conception of Christian temporality and proceeds to demonstrate some distinct experiments in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century music for John that express his predecessory character through emblematic manipulations of temporal parameters. By the sixteenth century, several inscriptions found in Vatican manuscripts reveal that the Baptist was associated with a particular musical craft that controls masterfully the unfolding of time: the art of canon. Drawing heavily on Scripture (especially John 1:15, 27, 30) to articulate the compositional conceits, the rubrics likened the leader (dux) and follower (comes) of a canon to the relationship between John (the forerunner saint) and Jesus. The analogy intensified around the papal chapel choirbook Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Cappella Sistina 38.

Josquin (review)

Reviewed by: Josquin Stephanie P. Schlagel Josquin. By David Fallows. (Collection Épitome Musical.) Turnhout: Brepols, 2009. [xvii, 522 p. ISBN 9782503530659. $138.] Music examples, illustrations, maps, appendices, bibliography, index. Nearly ten years ago I wrote in this space: "[A]n extended narrative of Josquin's oeuvre would indeed be a foolish undertaking at this point in time" (review of The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000], Notes 58, no. 4 [June 2002]: 822). Musicologists were deep into the project of reediting Josquin's complete output and had called into question the authenticity of some of his most beloved works when newly discovered biographical facts turned the entire enterprise on its head. Josquin the composer was teased apart from several doppelgänger and we learned his full legal name, Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez. Armed with this information, archival researchers (notably Lora Matthews and Paul Merkely, among others) were able to document his early whereabouts more thoroughly, revise our understanding of his service to the Milanese cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and establish the dates of his tenure at the Papal Chapel. Most significantly, the discoveries enabled us to escape the uncomfortable but difficult-to-refute extrapolation that he had been born in the early 1440s. In sum, by 2000, all scholarship concerning Josquin's career before 1489 became wrong. A solid biography as well as important details of Josquin's employment, procurement of benefices, and sojourns is now firmly established. Though gaps remain and significant disagreement concerning the authenticity and chronology of some major works continues, the picture has stabilized enough to merit a reconsideration of Josquin's development as a composer in light of archival research, manuscript studies, and style-critical debates (many unpublished) that have emerged at a dizzying pace within the last ten years. David Fallows takes on the task in the first major monograph on Josquin since Helmuth Osthoff's two-volume study (Josquin Desprez [Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1965-67]), and the first ever in English. Following the traditional life-and-works model, in each chapter Fallows first considers the evidence establishing Josquin's place of employment in a given period, then discusses repertory he assigns to that time. Fallows goes beyond summarizing his own or others' findings, instead creating a narrative out of disparate primary and secondary sources and elegantly filling gaps: where Josquin received his earliest training; where he was between the appointments to René d'Anjou and Ascanio Sforza; when he departed the Papal chapel, and where he was from then until 1503. He explains inconsistencies in both familiar and newly discovered documents. Case by case, he considers claimed sightings of Josquin in locations that seem to conflict with this framework by logically explaining them or dismissing them as references to people other than our Josquin: thus, Josquin Desprez could not have been the Josquin who was transporting dogs between the Gonzaga family and Ascanio Sforza in 1498 and 1499, but it is physically possible for our guy to have travelled from Ferrara to Condé in eleven days. There may be truth to Heinrich Glarean's stories of how Josquin came to write Memor esto verbi tui and Guillaume se va chauffer; this is a matter not of confused Josquins but rather of misidentified kings (Louis XI and Louis XII). Most exciting is Fallows's assertion concerning Josquin's training prior to entering [End Page 506] the service of René d'Anjou. Fallows rejects anecdotes naming Josquin as a choirboy and later master of music at St. Quentin (though he did at one time hold a canonry there). Instead, he connects several documents that together establish him as an altar boy until 1466 in Cambrai—not at the cathedral, but at the collegiate church of St. Géry—putting the young musician in direct contact with Guillaume Du Fay. Generally Fallows avoids issues of authenticity, reserving analysis for confidently accepted works (p. 100), and he is cautious about deriving biographical details from the music. But placing Josquin in Cambrai at the same time as Du Fay reopens the case of Missa L'ami baudichon, the attribution of which has been doubted in recent years because, among other reasons, its writing (with its...

'The singers of the said chapel are chaplains of the pope': some remarks on the papal chapel in early modern times

'The singers of the said chapel are chaplains of the pope': some remarks on the papal chapel in early modern times

Re-Covering Christ in Late Medieval Rome: The Icon of Christ in the Sancta Sanctorum

The icon of Christ in the Sancta Sanctorum (Rome), known commonly as the Acheropita because of the miraculous nature of its production, had a long-standing and significant position in the cult of images in Rome. Centuries of processional use contributed to the deterioration of the icon and led to frequent interventions aimed at renewing or restoring the representation of the enthroned Christ. Through this process, which helped to ensure the efficacy of the sacred image, the surface of the icon became a site of exchange, a point of mediation between the viewer and the holy personage depicted. One of the most drastic additions to the icon was a gilded silver revetment that covers the figure of Christ up to his neck. This article explores the meaning of the metal cover by examining the images and votive objects that make up its surface; this palimpsest ofaniconic and figurai reliefs creates an intermediary zone that defined the power of the image and evoked a particular response from the viewer. Reflective of a variety of donors, the additions to the icon cover demonstrate the shifting landscape of devotional practice in Rome while at the same time reinforce the continuing significance of the cult image. This article considers the meaning of the revetment not only in the context of the icon's processional use but also in the more restricted and private environment of the papal chapel.

Claudio Monteverdi and Sacred Music in the Household of the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua, 1590-1612

Upon the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua (as on all laity) the canon law of the Catholic Church imposed an obligation to be present at Matins, Mass, and Vespers on every Sunday and (with First Vespers on the eve) on every major feast day. To facilitate their compliance Dukes Guglielmo and Vincenzo maintained among their household personnel an ecclesiastical staff (the cappella ) extending to a principal and four other chaplains, a Director of Music ( Maestro di Cappella ), and ten adult male singers. Within the ducal palace at Mantua they kept two chapels for the conduct of service in their presence with elaborate music. For observance of the Office (and also High Mass when there were visiting princes to impress) there was maintained within the Corte Vecchia an opulent chapel, a little larger than the papal Sistine Chapel, known as the church of Santa Croce. For the celebration of private Mass daily for the duke, there existed a separate chapel within the Palazzo del Capitano, furnished with an elaborate chamber organ. (With these arrangements the ducal basilica of Santa Barbara was not associated, being a wholly separate collegiate church enjoying its own endowment and staff.) Claudio Monteverdi was from 1590 a member, and from 1601 Maestro , of the cappella staff of the ducal household, and may be understood to have composed an extensive repertory of music to sacred texts not only for the liturgical service in the chapels, but also for the entertainment and edification of his employer in the domestic setting. In 1610 he published a collection of fifteen items, of kaleidoscopic variety and inconsistency in terms of style and scoring, of which one was a mass, six were miscellaneous sacri concentus (motets), and the remainder items for the office of Vespers. The text both of his title pages and of his dedication expressed no claim whatever that these offered a menu for the construction of a unified service of Vespers. Rather, these and his other inscriptions make plain that he was tendering merely a miscellany, subjected (for the sake of tidiness and intellectual cohesion) to a superficial ordering as if for a service of Marian festal Vespers, albeit inordinately extended and illicitly interrupted.

The Papacy: An Encyclopedia (review)

Reviewed by: The Papacy: An Encyclopedia Nelson H. Minnich The Papacy: An Encyclopedia. General editor Philippe Levillain, English language edition editor John W. O'Malley, translated by Deborah Blaz et al.3 vols. (New York/London: Routledge, 2002. Pp. xxxvi, 614; xiv, 615-1266; xiv, 1267-1780.) Originally published in 1994 as Dictionnaire historique de la papauté, the English edition updates the bibliography and some of the articles and adds several new entries. As evident from its French title, the emphasis in the articles is historical. It was designed for use in libraries. The topics covered range from biographies of the popes acknowledged by the Vatican and of most of the antipopes in brackets, to a vast array of themes related to the papacy. Separate entries are devoted to papal conclaves, simony, habemus papam, onomastics (naming of the new pope), coronation, possesso, titles, residences, allocutions, benedictions, canonizations, patronage, offenses against, travels, sickness, deposition, resignation, death and tomb, and vacant or impeded see. Items associated with the pope are also treated such as regalia, tiara, vestments, keys, fisherman's ring, pavilion (sunshade), coins, medallions, banners, chair of St. Peter, sedia gestatoria(litter), ferula(ceremonial rod), flabellum(feather fan), and floreria(warehouse of papal paraphernalia). The papal chapel is described in entries on the Sistine Chapel, ceremonials, liturgy, castrati, and breviary, while one has to consult various entries for the music used there. The papal court is described in entries dedicated to such topics as the papal palace, garb, gentlemen, diplomatic corps, nuncios, and legates. Various papal officials are delineated in the entries on the papal family and household and its prefecture, on almoner, barber, caudatary, chancellor, chaplain, chef, collector, cursor, datary, sacristan, and secretary. Cardinals receive extensive treatment: their appointment (e.g., in petto), garb (e.g., cappa[mantle up to seven meters long], mozzetta[ermine cape], and biretta), offices (e.g., papal nephew, protector, and legate), and titles. To help understand the organization of the papal bureaucracy, there are separate entries on the consistory, secretariats (e.g., of State, of the Roman Curia, of Briefs, etc.), congregations (e.g., Holy Office, Index, Penitentiary, Signature of Grace, Propaganda Fide, Index, etc.), and tribunals (e.g., Rota and Apostolic Signature)—an organizational flow chart would have been helpful, but is missing. The Roman Curia is also studied by entries on its officials (e.g., chancellor, camerlengo, abbreviator, minutante, and scriptor), on its style ( bollatica), fees (common and small services, annates), documents (recorded in registers, differences among bulls, briefs, constitutions, and encyclicals), forgeries, and practices (provisions, petitions, expectatives, reservations, and ad liminavisits). Papal teaching authority can be studied through the entries on magisterium, Holy Office, master of the sacred palace, infallibility, ex cathedra, heresies, anathema, and social teachings. Papal law is treated under various headings such as code, Decretum, decretals, exemptions, and reserved cases and causes. [End Page 285] The Papal States and Vatican City State are treated in long articles with separate entries for such items as the superintendent of the ecclesiastical state, annona(a provision of grain), passports, labor unions, library, secret archives, gardens, museums, observatory, postage stamps, railway station, press office, Osservatore romano, radio, television, and telephone. The state's defense is described in entries on the gendarmes, papal navy, Swiss Guards, Palatine Guards, and zouaves. Papal finances receive an appropriately long entry, plus separate studies of banking, tax, and tithes. The city of Rome is given a substantial entry. It can be further studied under such headings as its images in literature, traveler's views of, its Senate, its famous buildings (e.g., Colosseum, Pantheon, and Quirinal), its basilicas (major and minor, St. Peter's [its fabric and excavations], St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major), obelisks, sackings, confraternities, nobility, feasts, the diocese of, and its suburbicarian dioceses. Relations with secular states can be found in such entries as the Roman Empire, Donation of Constantine, barbarians (with separate entries for the Franks and Lombards), Holy Roman Empire, investiture controversy, concordat, crusades, holy helmet and sword, golden rose, consecrated swaddling clothes (a papal gift on the birth of a princely heir), wars of Italy, Italian unity, and the world wars. Papal relations to other...

Finishing Josquin's “Unfinished” Mass: A Case of Stylistic Imitation in the Cappella Sistina

ABSTRACT In all but one source for Josquin's Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales the Credo mysteriously lacks the text “Et in spiritum … ecclesiam.” A setting of the missing text is found only in a Vatican manuscript (VatS 154) compiled ca. 1550–55 by Johannes Parvus, where it appears in situ as a discrete mass section that incorporates a complete statement of the cantus firmus. Though preserved in a late source, the Et in spiritum is remarkably close in musical style to the remainder of Josquin's mass. An analysis of the Et in spiritum with respect to the rest of the mass indicates that it is probably not by Josquin. Given the close stylistic connections between the two pieces, however, this finding suggests that the Et in spiritum was a papal singer's self-conscious imitation of a mass composed some 60 years earlier. The new mass section is distinctly unlike most 16th-century “uses” of Josquin, which tend to adapt his music to a thoroughly contemporary aesthetic. By contrast, this “completion” of Josquin's mass, informed by a culture of traditionalism in the papal chapel, alerts us to a rare but significant kind of musical borrowing in mid-16th-century Rome.

Goths and Romans: Daniel Rock, Augustus Welby Pugin, and Nineteenth-Century English Worship

The Chant or music used by the Papal choir, and indeed in most Catholic cathedrals and abbey churches is, excepting in some instances, ancient. Gregory the Great collected it into a body and gave it the form in which it now appears, though not the author of it. The chant of the psalms is simple and affecting, composed of Lydian, Phrygian and other Greek and Roman tunes, without many notes, but with a sufficient inflection to render them soft and plaintive or bold and animating…. This ancient music which has long been known by the name of the Gregorian chant, so well adapted to the gravity of divine service, has been much disfigured in the process of time by the bad taste of the middle and the false refinements of the latter ages. The first encumbered it with an endless succession of dull unnecessary notes, dragging their slow length along, and burthening the ear with a dead weight of sound; the other infected it with the melting airs, the laboured execution, the effeminate graces of the orchestra, useless to say the least even in the theatre, but profane and almost sacrilegious in the church. Some care seems to have been taken to avoid these defects in the papal choir. The general style and spirit of the ancient and primitive music have been retained and some modern compositions of known and acknowledged merit, introduced on stated days and in certain circumstances. Of musical instruments, the organ only is additional in St Peters, or rather in the Papal chapel, and even then not always: voices only are employed in general, and as those voices are numerous, perfect in their kind, and in thorough unison with one another, and as the singers themselves are concealed from view, the effect is enchanting and brings to mind ‘the celestial voices in full harmonic number joined’ that sometimes reached the ears of our first parents in paradise, and ‘lifted their thoughts to heaven’.

Galeazzo Maria Sforza and musical patronage in Milan: Compère, Weerbeke and Josquin

Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1444–76), fifth Duke of Milan, set out when he acceded to power in 1466 to style himself as one of the most glorious of rulers and to make his court (in the words of the contemporary chronicler Bernardino Corio) one of ‘the most splendid in the universe’. Galeazzo, a contemporary of King Louis XI of France and Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, entertained grand designs of turning his ducal coronet into a king's crown and transforming Lombardy into a royal realm, just as Charles the Bold sought to elevate the duchy of Burgundy to a kingdom. The two dukes, as vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, relied on that monarch's power to bestow the kingly crown; both failed tragically in the end. As part of his design to impress his contemporaries with the princely splendour of his court, in 1471 Galeazzo focused his energies particularly on the ambitious project of developing the best musical chapel in Italy. During the course of the next two years he sent emissaries to the rulers of England, Flanders, France, Naples and his neighbour Savoy, seeking to hire (or borrow, in the case of Savoy) the best singers available. His cappella grew to include more than thirty singers, making it larger than any other in Italy, even the papal chapel.

Cigoli’s Immacolata and Galileo’s Moon: Astronomy and the Virgin in Early Seicento Rome

The moon in Lodovico Cigoli's Immacolata fresco (1610–12) in the Pauline Chapel, S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, departs radically from tradition, appearing not as a perfect crescent but as a crater-pocked sphere, just as Cigoli's friend Galileo had observed it through his telescope and had published it in 1610. This study focuses on the reception of Cigoli's and Galileo's moon in light of Christian lunar symbolism and astronomical theory. At issue are the theological implications of a maculate moon within an image of the Immaculate Virgin in a papal chapel and how the Church accommodated the new cosmology to theological traditions.