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Divine Wisdom and

Dolorous Mysteries:
Habsburg Marian Devotion
in Two Motets from
Monteverdi’s Selva morale
et spirituale
A N D R E W H . W E AV E R
Claudio Monteverdi’s Selva morale et spirituale,

the last print issued by the composer during his lifetime, is both the
237
largest and most perplexing of his publications, particularly in its ad-

mixture of music.1 The primary components of the print are not in
themselves puzzling: The stile antico mass for four voices and liturgical
music for vespers combine to create a messa e salmi collection along the
same line as Monteverdi’s celebrated Vespers of 1610.2 This basic collec-
tion is then expanded with concertato mass movements (a large-scale
An earlier version of this article was presented at the 68th An-

nual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Columbus,
1 November 2002. For their valuable comments on earlier drafts
I am very grateful to Robert Holzer, Jeffrey Kurtzman, Massimo
Ossi, Ellen Rosand, and Steven Saunders.
1 Claudio Monteverdi, Selva morale et spirituale (Venice: B. Magni, 1641). Facsimile
and modern edition in idem, Opera Omnia: Edizione nazionale, vol. 15, ed. Denis Stevens
(Cremona: Fondazione Claudio Monteverdi, 1998).
2 Claudio Monteverdi, Sanctissimae Virgini missa senis vocibus, ac vesperae pluribus de-
cantandae (Venice: R. Amadino, 1610). The best overview of this print, as well as of messa
The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 24, Issue 2, pp. 237–271, ISSN 0277-9269, electronic ISSN 1533-8347.
© 2007 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests
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04.JOM.Weaver_pp237-271 4/23/07 9:29 AM Page 238
the journal of musicology
Gloria and three sections of the Credo) and psalms for large, diverse
performing forces.3 The inclusion of small-scale, extra-liturgical works
adds to the complexity of the print. The most anomalous feature of the
Selva morale is the set of five Italian madrigals that opens the volume,
transforming it into an unorthodox multilingual sacred print.4 The
other extra-liturgical works are four solo motets; although such works
are more common in messa e salmi collections, two of them are puzzling,
especially in terms of their texts, musical character, and placement.
Three of the motets appear at the end of the Selva morale (as is typi-
cal), and two of these, Jubilet tota civitas and Laudate Dominum in sanctis
eius, pose no conceptual problems in that they set texts that correspond
thematically to much of the other music in the print yet are general
enough to be used in as wide a variety of contexts as the consumer
e salmi collections of the seicento, is Jeffrey G. Kurtzman, The Monteverdi Vespers of 1610:
Music, Context, Performance (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999). The vespers items in-
cluded in the Selva morale include psalms, hymns, Magnificats, and settings of the Salve
Regina. Strictly speaking, the Marian antiphons belong liturgically with compline, but
238 throughout Europe it was standard for the seasonally appropriate antiphon to be per-
formed at the end of vespers if a polyphonic performance of compline did not immedi-
ately follow the service. Kurtzman has cited a liturgical rubric that dictates the singing of
a Marian antiphon after the last hour of the day; see his The Monteverdi Vespers, Appendix B,
503.
3 With its immense scale and multiple large-scale settings of the psalm texts, the
Selva morale is virtually unrivaled among 17th-century messa e salmi collections; only one
other print, in fact, approaches the grandeur of Monteverdi’s: This is Giovanni Antonio
Rigatti, Messa e salmi, parte concertati (Venice: B. Magni, 1640); modern edition ed. Linda
Maria Koldau, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era 128–30 (Middleton:
A-R Editions, 2003). In the Introduction to her edition, Koldau explicitly compares
Rigatti’s print to the Selva morale (1: vii–xi), although Rigatti’s publication features none
of the anomalies that make Monteverdi’s print so enigmatic.
4 For an overview of the few 17th-century prints that mix Latin and Italian texts, see
Jerome Roche, “On the Border Between Motet and Spiritual Madrigal: Early Seventeenth-
Century Books that Mix Motets and Vernacular Settings,” in Seicento inesplorato: L’evento
musicale tra prassi e stile: un modello di interdipendenza, ed. Alberto Colzani et al. (Como:
Antiquae Musicae Italicae Studiosi, 1993), 305–17. Roche lists only 12 examples of this
type of publication, including the Selva morale; Linda Maria Koldau supplements this
list with six more prints in her Die venezianische Kirchenmusik von Claudio Monteverdi
(Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2001), 118n66. To this can also be added four prints by Isabella
Leonarda: Motetti a voce sola, Op. 12 (Milan: Fratelli Camagni alla Rosa, 1686), a book of
12 motets containing two spiritual madrigals that open and close the volume; Motetti a
voce sola, Op. 14 (Bologna: G. Monti, 1687), a book of nine motets that opens with a
“canzonetta sagra”; Motetti a voce sola, Op. 15 (Bologna: P. Monti, 1690), a book of ten
motets that concludes with a “cantata morale”; and Salmi concertati, Op. 19 (Bologna:
M. Silvani, 1698), a book of vespers psalms that concludes with a three-voice “canon coro-
nato.” Facsimiles of Opp. 12, 14, and 15 are available in Anne Schnoebelen, ed., Solo
Motets from the Seventeenth Century: Facsimiles of Prints from the Italian Baroque, 10 vols. (Lon-
don: Garland, 1987–88), vols. 4 and 5; information on these prints is also available in
Stewart Carter, “The Music of Isabella Leonarda (1620–1704)” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford
Univ., 1982).
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wished.5 The third, however, is problematic. Immediately following Ju-

bilet tota civitas and Laudate Dominum is a work that contrasts in subject,
mood, and style. The Pianto della Madonna, a Latin contrafactum of
Monteverdi’s celebrated Lamento d’Arianna, is an operatic, sorrowful
recitative soliloquy in which the Blessed Virgin Mary laments the cruci-
fixion of Christ. Likewise, the fourth motet in the Selva differs remark-
ably from the other three. Ab aeterno ordinata sum sets a passage from
the Old Testament book of Proverbs, an utterance by Divine Wisdom
describing the creation of the world. Whereas the other three motets
are scored for solo soprano or tenor, Ab aeterno is a virtuosic showpiece
for solo bass, a very rare genre in Monteverdi’s oeuvre.6
The placement of these two works in the print is striking and un-
doubtedly significant (see Table 1), especially considering that scholars
have commented on the seemingly deliberate placement of works in
Monteverdi’s mature prints.7 The Pianto della Madonna stands out not
only because of its textual and stylistic incongruence with the two motets
that precede it but also because as the final work in the Selva morale it oc-
cupies a traditional place of honor in 17th-century musical prints. In ad-
dition, Linda Maria Koldau has observed that the Pianto works together
239
5 The combination of psalms and hymns provided by Monteverdi can be arranged
to form complete services for the feasts of male saints (see Koldau, Die venezianische
Kirchenmusik, 105–10 and 126–31), so it is perfectly appropriate that Jubilet honors a spe-
cific saint, whose name is characteristically omitted and replaced with “N” (nomen). Lau-
date Dominum is a motet setting of the popular Psalm 150; although it does not specifically
celebrate saints, this ebullient song of praise could nonetheless have easily been sung ei-
ther in conjunction with Jubilet or on almost any festive occasion during the church year.
6 There are only two known extended solo bass works by Monteverdi: this motet
and the long second section of the madrigal Ogni amante è guerrier from his Eighth Book.
On Monteverdi’s solo bass music, see Werner Braun, “Monteverdis große Baßmonodien,”
in Claudio Monteverdi: Festschrift Reinhold Hammerstein zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Ludwig Fin-
scher (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1986), 123–39.
7 Massimo Ossi, for instance, has noted that the texts of the continuo madrigals of
Book Five are drawn from a single source (Guarini’s Rime) and that Monteverdi re-
arranged them to form a continuous narrative that is reinforced by textual continuities
and musical similarities among the works; see his “ ‘L’ordine novo e la via naturale all’im-
mitatione’: Struttura e rappresentazione nei madrigali concertati del ‘Quinto Libro’ di
Monteverdi,” in Monteverdi al quale ognuno deve cedere: Teorie e composizioni musicali, rappre-
sentazioni e spettacoli dal 1550 al 1628 (Parma: Archivio di Stato di Parma, 1993), 113–31.
For a larger discussion incorporating the entire Fifth Book as well as the Fourth Book, see
idem, Divining the Oracle: Monteverdi’s “Seconda Prattica” (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,
2003), 58–110. Careful ordering of works has also been noted in Monteverdi’s sacred
repertoire; much has been written on the unusual placement of the motets in his 1610
Vespers, where they are sandwiched between the psalm settings instead of forming a sepa-
rate section at the end of the print; see, for instance, Stephen Bonta, “Liturgical Prob-
lems in Monteverdi’s Marian Vespers,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 20
(1967): 87–106; Jeffrey G. Kurtzman, Essays on the Monteverdi Mass and Vespers of 1610,
Rice University Studies, vol. 64, no. 4 (Houston: Rice Univ., 1978), 127–31; idem, The
Monteverdi Vespers, 23–25, 35–36, 56–78, and 106–10; and John Whenham, Monte-
verdi:Vespers (1610) (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), 19–22.
TABLE 1
Contents of Monteverdi’s Selva morale et spirituale (1641)
Adapted from Linda Maria Koldau, Die venezianische Kirchenmusik von Claudio Monteverdi
(Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2001), 119.
Extra-liturgical Frame

Composition Setting (plus Bc) Ordering Principle
O ciechi, ciechi SSATB, 2Vl
Voi ch’ascoltate STTTB, 2Vl
È questa vita un lampo SSATB literary chronology (madrigali spirituali)
Spontava il di ATB
Chi vol che m’innamori ATB, 2Vl

Messa a 4 da cappella SATB
Gloria a 7 voci SSATTBB, 2Vl
(4Vla/Tb)
Crucifixus ATTB Mass Ordinary
Et resurrexit SS/TT, 2Vl
Et iterum concertato AAB (4Tb/Vla)
Motetto Ab aeterno B

Dixit primo concertato SSAATTBB, 2Vl
(4Vla/Tb)
Dixit secondo concertato SSAATTBB, 2Vl
240 (4Vla/Tb)
Confitebor primo ATB, SSATB (rip.)
Confitebor secondo conc. STB, 2Vl
Confitebor terzo alla francese SSATB or S, 4Vla
Beatus primo concertato SSATTB, 2Vl concertato
(3 Vla/Tb) feastday/ da capella
Beatus secondo SATTB male saints
Laudate pueri primo conc. SSTTB, 2Vl concertato
Laudate pueri secondo SATTB da capella Mass &
Vespers
liturgy
Laudate Dom. primo conc. SSTTB, SATB, 2Vl
(4Vla/Tb)
Laudate Dom. secondo conc. SSAATTBB
Laudate Dominum terzo SSAATTBB
confessors
Credidi da capella SATB, ATTB martyrs/
Memento da capella SATB, ATTB

Sanctorum meritis primo S, 2Vl
Sanctorum meritis secondo T, 2Vl
Deus tuorum militum T, 2Vl
Iste confessor primo T, 2Vl Vespers hymns
Iste confessor secondo SS, 2Vl
Ut queant laxis SS, 2Vl
Deus tuorum militum TTB, 2Vl

Magnificat primo SATB, ST, AB/2 Magnificat
Vla(4Vla/Tb) settings concertato
Magnificat secondo SATB da capella

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TABLE 1 (continued)

Salve Regina TT
Salve Regina TT/SS Marian antiphons
Salve Regina ATB/SAB
Jubilet S
Laudate Dominum S/T Motets/spiritual monody
Pianto della Madonna S (free liturgical function)
sopra il Lamento
dell’ Arianna
Extra-liturgical Frame
with the five opening madrigals to create an extra-liturgical “Italian”

frame for the entire publication.8 The positioning of Ab aeterno is even
more unusual; instead of being grouped at the end of the publication
with the other three motets, it appears roughly a third of the way in,
where it separates the vespers music from the preceding mass. This
placement does not seem to reflect any liturgical considerations but
rather an abstract organizational concern, with Ab aeterno articulating
the division between the two large sections of the print.9 Thus the two
anomalous motets serve important structural functions, closing off the 241
two parts of the Selva morale.10
It is difficult to imagine that the placement of Ab aeterno and Pianto
della Madonna is anything but a deliberate act by Monteverdi, and this
presumption opens the door to questions about the composer’s inten-
tions in assembling the Selva morale. Such questions have not been over-
looked by scholars. Most notably, in an article published in 1984,
James H. Moore attempted to place much of the music of the Selva into
the services establishing the church of Santa Maria della Salute in
8 Koldau, Die venezianische Kirchenmusik, 114 and 117–18. Although the text of the
Pianto is Latin, the piece was known by audiences first and foremost as an Italian work;
the title, moreover, is Italian.
9 The gathering structure and pagination of the partbooks support this interpreta-
tion, for in every book signature B begins with the first setting of the psalm Dixit Dominus,
at which point the pagination returns to one. The only exception is the Alto e Basso Se-
cundo partbook, in which the music for Ab aeterno spills over into the first page of B; how-
ever, the fact that the bulk of the music is in signature A implies that the motet belongs
primarily in the earlier section. The index to each partbook places the letter B before the
bass motet, but this was probably a printer’s error (of which there are many in the publi-
cation). See Jeffrey G. Kurtzman, “Monteverdi’s ‘Mass of Thanksgiving’ Revisited,” Early
Music 22 (1994): 81n15 and Koldau, Die venezianische Kirchenmusik, 120–21.
10 Monteverdi’s Sixth and Eighth Madrigal books are similarly organized. As Gary
Tomlinson has commented, “Monteverdi’s strengthened urge to schematic clarity . . . is

evident as well in the internal organization of the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Books. The
Sesto libro de madrigali of 1614 falls into two sections, articulated by a series of lengthy
madrigals that act as structural pillars” (Monteverdi and the End of the Renaissance [Berkeley:
Univ. of California Press, 1987], 156).
Venice in the face of the devastating plague of 1629–31; Moore also at-
tempted to demonstrate that the organization of the print was deter-
mined primarily by the function of the music during the services.11 As
Jeffrey Kurtzman later pointed out, however, Moore’s conclusions are
based primarily on unsupported speculation and loosely connected cir-
cumstantial evidence. Although very attractive, they cannot stand as a
definitive explanation of either the original function of the music or
the organization of the Selva morale.12 Recent scholarship has taken the
opposite approach than that taken by Moore. Today the generally ac-
cepted view is that the print is merely a retrospective, multipurpose
compilation of sacred music written throughout Monteverdi’s nearly
thirty years as maestro of San Marco.13 I concur with this view but never-
theless maintain that even a retrospective collection may contain pieces
(whether newly composed or not) that are directed to a specific pur-
pose or that relate some kind of “program.”14 It is my contention that
Ab aeterno and Pianto della Madonna fall into this category, and indeed, I
shall argue that Monteverdi included these motets in the Selva morale
for a specific reason. They are significant signposts whose inclusion—
and prominent positioning—in the publication serves as a conspicuous
242 act of homage to a valued patron.
I
The dedicatee of Monteverdi’s remarkable collection is Eleonora
Gonzaga, daughter of Monteverdi’s former Mantuan patron Vincenzo
Gonzaga and widow of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (r. 1619–
37). It would make sense, then, that it is she whom Monteverdi honors
with Ab aeterno and Pianto della Madonna. Scholars invariably mention
this dedication in general overviews of the Selva morale, explaining it as
an act of fealty to Monteverdi’s former patron, an acknowledgement by
the aged composer of the importance that Gonzaga patronage had
11 James H. Moore, “Venezia favorita da Maria: Music for the Madonna Nicopeia and
Santa Maria della Salute,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 37 (1984): 299–355.
12 Kurtzman, “Monteverdi’s ‘Mass.’ ” Kurtzman is currently preparing another arti-
cle refuting Moore’s conclusions.

13 For instance, the most recent overview of the Selva (Koldau, Die venezianische
Kirchenmusik, 98–134) offers many illuminating observations and suggestions about the
ordering principles in the print but for the most part sidesteps considerations of the com-
poser’s intent or the specific purpose of any piece.
14 I am not the only scholar to hold this view of the Selva morale. In his unpublished
paper “The Madrigals of the Selva morale et spirituale,” Robert R. Holzer focuses on the five
opening madrigals, using evidence from the composer’s life and contemporaneous liter-
ary movements to posit an autobiographical narrative for the five works as a set. I am
grateful to Prof. Holzer for kindly sharing his paper with me.
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played in his long career. (This interpretation is reinforced, moreover,

by the text of Monteverdi’s dedication.)15 It has also been noted that
this dedication forms a pair with that of Monteverdi’s immediately pre-
ceding publication, the Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi of 1638, which is
dedicated to Ferdinand III (r. 1637–57), the son and successor of Fer-
dinand II.16 Even while honoring Eleonora’s Gonzaga lineage, then, it
would seem that Monteverdi was also addressing her as a Habsburg; in
fact, there is ample evidence indicating that Monteverdi included the
two anomalous motets in the Selva morale specifically with the Habsburg
court in Vienna in mind.17
Monteverdi was certainly no stranger to the concept of tailoring his
publications to his dedicatees; the contents of Book Eight clearly
demonstrate the extent to which Monteverdi’s choices could be condi-
tioned by the Viennese court. Although he had originally planned to
dedicate the Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi to Ferdinand II, the composer
was careful to craft a print that explicitly honored the new emperor. A
number of the madrigals name Ferdinand III, allude to his recent coro-
nation as King of the Romans, and exalt his military prowess.18 It is also
significant that Monteverdi’s homage to the emperor came in the form
of a book glorifying the concept of war (regardless of whatever the ac- 243
tual “war” represented by the predominantly amorous madrigal texts
15 General overviews of the Selva morale include Giuseppe Biella, “I ‘Vespri dei Santi’
di Claudio Monteverdi,” Musica sacra ser. 2, 6 (1966): 144–53; Denis Stevens, “Claudio
Monteverdi: Selva morale e spirituale,” in Congresso internazionale sul tema Claudio Monteverdi e
il suo tempo: Relazioni e communicazioni, ed. Raffaello Monterosso (Verona: Valdonega,
1969), 423–34; and Paolo Fabbri, Monteverdi (Turin: EDT, 1985), 313–22.
16 This connection is made, for instance, in Fabbri, Monteverdi, 313. As is clear from
the text of the dedication, Monteverdi had originally intended to dedicate Book Eight to
Ferdinand II, but the emperor’s death in 1637 caused a change in plans. For details on
the origins of this madrigal book, see Steven Saunders, “New Light on the Genesis of
Monteverdi’s Eighth Book of Madrigals,” Music & Letters 77 (1996): 183–93. A modern
edition of Book Eight is Claudio Monteverdi, Madrigals, Book 8: Madrigali guerrieri et
amorosi, ed. Gian Francesco Malipiero with a preface and new translations by Stanley Ap-
pelbaum (New York: Dover, 1991).
17 Simultaneously and independently, Koldau has also raised the question of a possi-
ble relationship between the contents of the Selva morale and the Habsburg court; her
monograph contains a brief section entitled “Ausrichtung am Wiener Kaiserhof ?” (Die
venezianische Kirchenmusik, 110–16).
18 These works include the piece that opens the volume (Altri canti d’Amore), the
sixth madrigal (Ogni amante è guerrier), and the Ballo that closes the section of madrigali
guerrieri. Ogni amante è guerrier addresses Ferdinand III by his full name (“gran Fernando
Ernesto”), making it absolutely clear that this is a reference to him, not his father. Signifi-
cantly, the entire section of warlike madrigals is framed by proclamations of the Habs-
burgs’ military glory. For an insightful look at the poetry of this book, see Nino Pirrotta,
“Monteverdi’s Poetic Choices,” in Music and Culture in Italy from the Middle Ages to the
Baroque: A Collection of Essays (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1984), 309–11.
may be).19 The Habsburgs were embroiled in the Thirty Years’ War
(1618–48), and Ferdinand III had recently led the imperial troops to
victory at the Battle of Nördlingen on 6 September 1634.20 Thus the
overall topos of the madrigal book would have been most welcome at
court as a celebration of the emperor’s military might. Monteverdi may
even have composed some of the music with an eye to the prevailing
musical tastes at the imperial court. Margaret Mabbett has pointed out
that many of the unusual features of the Book Eight madrigals, such as
the instrumentation and the use of the bass voice, seem more closely re-
lated to the stylistic trends of Vienna than those of Venice or Mantua.21
Peter Holman, furthermore, has pointed to what he considers signs of
an Austrian tradition of string playing apparent in Monteverdi’s later
music, including works from Book Eight and the Selva morale.22
That Monteverdi would have wanted to honor the Viennese court
with two large publications is not surprising in light of his long and
profitable association with the Habsburg emperors. Their relationship
dates as far back as the last decade of the 16th century, when Monteverdi
made several trips through Habsburg lands and Ferdinand II sojourned
in Italy.23 A personal bond between the composer and the Habsburgs
244 can be confirmed as early as 1604, for the godfather of Monteverdi’s
son Massimiliano Giacomo (baptized on 10 May 1604) was Maximilian
Ernst, Ferdinand II’s younger brother.24 Eleonora Gonzaga’s marriage
19 For a provocative interpretation of Monteverdi’s guerrieri madrigals as a whole,
see Robert R. Holzer, “ ‘Ma invan la tento et impossibil parmi,’ or How guerrieri are Mon-
teverdi’s madrigali guerrieri?” in The Sense of Marino, ed. Francesco Guardiani (New York:
Lagas, 1994), 429–50.
20 Ferdinand III had become general of the imperial army in May of that year.
21 Margaret Mabbett, “Madrigalists at the Viennese Court and Monteverdi’s Madri-
gali guerrieri, et amorosi,” in Monteverdi und die Folgen: Bericht über das Internationale Sympo-
sium Detmold 1993, ed. Silke Leopold and Joachim Steinheuer (Kassel: Bärenreiter,
1998), 291–310.
22 Peter Holman, “ ‘Col noblissimo esercitio della vivuola’: Monteverdi’s String Writ-
ing,” Early Music 21 (1993): 577–90, esp. 580 and 587.

23 In 1595 and 1599, Monteverdi headed the groups of musicians who accompa-
nied Vincenzo Gonzaga on trips north of the Alps, where they passed through Habsburg
cities such as Innsbruck and Prague. In 1598, moreover, the future emperor traveled
through Mantua on a tour of Italy and most likely heard Monteverdi perform at the
Gonzaga court. Ferdinand’s Italian sojourn is discussed in detail in Theophil Antonicek,
“Italienische Musikerlebnisse Ferdinands II. 1598,” Anzeiger der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse 104 (1967): 91–111. On Monteverdi’s re-
lationship with the Habsburgs, see also idem, “Claudio Monteverdi und Österreich,”
Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 26 (1971): 266–71; Saunders, “New Light”; and Herbert
Seifert, “Monteverdi und die Habsburger,” in Monteverdi und die Folgen, 77–92.
24 Claudio Gallico, “Newly Discovered Documents Concerning Monteverdi,” Musi-
cal Quarterly 48 (1962): 68–72. See also Seifert, “Monteverdi und die Habsburger,” 81.
Eleven years later a work by Monteverdi was included in the Parnassus musicus Ferdinan-
daeus (Venice: G. Vincenti, 1615), an anthology of small-scale motets dedicated to Ferdi-
nand II. For more information on this anthology, see Hellmut Federhofer, “Graz Court
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to Ferdinand II in 1622 served only to strengthen this relationship; un-

doubtedly helping to facilitate communication between Monteverdi
and the imperial court was the fact that a number of his former Man-
tuan colleagues had traveled with Eleonora to Vienna.25 In 1627 the
composer even considered using his relationship with Eleonora to
leverage the acquisition of a benefice in Cremona, a plan that eventu-
ally came to fruition in 1633 when Ferdinand II wrote a letter of recom-
mendation for the composer after receiving a gift of musical works (no
doubt an early version of the Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi ).26
So strong were Monteverdi’s ties to the Habsburgs that they were
no secret among his Venetian compatriots. An anonymous denuncia-
tion of the composer from the late 1620s or early 1630s went so far as to
claim that Monteverdi “said that he still hopes to see the Eagle rule this
Piazza in place of the symbol of St. Mark.”27 In light of this strong (and
apparently public) relationship between Monteverdi and the imperial
court, it is quite probable that the composer did indeed have Viennese
tastes in mind as he compiled the Selva morale et spirituale. This idea is
strengthened, moreover, by the fact that both Ab aeterno ordinata sum and
Pianto della Madonna play directly into the most important elements of
the Habsburgs’ much-flaunted public piety, the Pietas Austriaca. 245
Originating in Habsburg legends that extend as far back as their
first ruler Rudolph I (r. 1273–91), the Pietas Austriaca was a unique moral
and religious code promulgated by the Habsburg dynasty throughout the
16th and 17th centuries.28 Strongly influenced by the Jesuits, with whom
the Habsburgs had a long-standing and very close relationship,29 this
Musicians and Their Contributions to the Parnassus musicus Ferdinandaeus (1615),” Mu-
sica disciplina 9 (1955): 167–244.
25 For further information on the artistic connections between Mantua and Vienna,
see Paola Besutti, “I rapporti musicali tra Mantova e Vienna durante il Seicento,” in In
Teutschland noch gantz ohnbekant: Monteverdi-Rezeption und frühes Musiktheater im deutschs-
prachigen Raum, ed. Markus Engelhardt (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1996), 45–62. Ferdinand
II’s court also maintained close artistic ties with Venice, and Monteverdi most likely came
into contact with the emperor’s two Venetian chapel masters, Giovanni Priuli and Gio-
vanni Valentini. On the influence the Serenissima had on the imperial court, see Herbert
Seifert, “La politica culturale degli Asburgo e le relazioni musicali tra Venezia e Vienna,”
in L’Opera Italiana a Vienna prima di Metastasio, ed. Maria Teresa Muraro (Florence:
Olschki, 1990), 1–15 and Steven Saunders, Cross, Sword and Lyre: Sacred Music at the Imper-
ial Court of Ferdinand II of Habsburg (1619–1637) (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 61–92.
26 Saunders, “New Light,” 183–86.
27 See Paolo Preto, “Una denuncia anonima contro Claudio Monteverdi,” Rassegna
veneta di studi musicali 5–6 (1989–90): 371–73 and Jonathan Glixon, “Was Monteverdi a
Traitor?” Music & Letters 72 (1991): 404–6 (translation from Glixon).
28 Anna Coreth, Pietas Austriaca, trans. William D. Bowman and Anna Maria Leitgeb
(West Lafayette: Purdue Univ. Press, 2004).

29 Beginning with Ferdinand II, all Habsburg emperors were educated by the Jesuits.
The relationship between Ferdinand II and his Jesuit confessor William Lamormaini was
Pietas consisted of four pillars: the Blessed Virgin Mary (especially the
controversial doctrine of her Immaculate Conception), the cross (with
special emphasis on the five wounds of Christ), the Eucharist, and
saints. The Pietas Austriaca, furthermore, was closely related to the on-
going Thirty Years’ War and served as a powerful political weapon for
the Habsburgs. As nominal ruler of a realm that was deeply divided
over religious matters, Ferdinand III (like his father before him) con-
sidered it his divine mission to unify the Holy Roman Empire under the
banner of the Catholic church. This, ultimately, was what the Thirty
Years’ War was about for the Habsburgs, and religious goals remained
the emperor’s top priority until the war’s bitter end.30 This Counter-
Reformation program permeated all aspects of imperial life and mani-
fested itself in many forms, but by far one of the Habsburgs’ most im-
portant means of re-Catholicization was the Pietas Austriaca, through
which they aimed both to attract dissenting Protestants back to the
church and to provide an exemplary model for their subjects to follow.31
Accordingly, it was precisely during this time that the Pietas reached its
246 so close that Lamormaini was his most influential advisor in political matters; this rela-
tionship is examined in detail in Robert Bireley, Religion and Politics in the Age of the Coun-
terreformation: Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, S.J., and the Formation of Imperial
Policy (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1981). See also Gernot Heiss, “Princes,
Jesuits and the Origins of the Counter-Reformation in the Habsburg Lands,” in Crown,
Church and Estates: Central European Politics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed.
R. J. W. Evans and T. V. Thomas (London: Macmillan, 1991), 92–109.
30 This remained the case even in the final decade of the conflict, by which point
the war had grown well beyond the confessional issues that had sparked it in 1618; on
this point, see especially Andrew H. Weaver, “Music in the Service of Counter-Reformation
Politics: The Immaculate Conception at the Habsburg Court of Ferdinand III (1637–
1657,” Music & Letters 87 (2006): 361–78, and idem, “Piety, Politics, and Patronage:
Motets at the Habsburg Court in Vienna During the Reign of Ferdinand III (1637–
1657)” (Ph.D. diss., Yale Univ., 2002), 10–17. The best general account of the Thirty
Years’ War is the multi-author book edited by Geoffrey Parker, The Thirty Years’ War (Lon-
don: Routledge, 1984; 2nd ed., 1997). A more succinct book is Ronald G. Asch, The
Thirty Years War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618–48 (New York: St. Martin’s,
1997), and the “classic” account of the war is C. V. Wedgwood, The Thirty Years War (1938;
repr., Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961).
31 On the Habsburgs’ Counter-Reformation program and its relationship to politics
and culture, see especially Robert Bireley, “Confessional Absolutism in the Habsburg
Lands in the Seventeenth Century,” in State and Society in Early Modern Austria, ed. Charles W.
Ingrao (West Lafayette: Purdue Univ. Press, 1994), 36–53; idem, “Ferdinand II: Founder
of the Habsburg Monarchy,” in Crown, Church and Estates, 226–44; idem, Religion and Poli-
tics in the Age of the Counterreformation; Robert Douglas Chesler, “Crown, Lords, and God:
The Establishment of Secular Authority and the Pacification in Lower Austria, 1618–
1648” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Univ., 1979); R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg
Monarchy, 1550–1700: An Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979); Charles W. Ingrao,
The Habsburg Monarchy 1618–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994), 23–52;
and Kurt Piringer, “Ferdinand des Dritten Katholische Restauration” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of
Vienna, 1950). These issues are also discussed in Weaver, “Piety, Politics, and Patronage,”
1–4 and 10–37.
weaver
apex, being frequently lauded in printed historical works.32 It is un-

likely that Monteverdi ever read (or even knew about) any of these
books, but even so he could have easily been aware of the important el-
ements of the Pietas Austriaca. This is because the Pietas was also im-
printed onto every artwork that emanated from the Habsburg court, es-
pecially the music of Ferdinand’s renowned court chapel.33
In this regard, one composer stands out as the most important fig-
ure of the late 1630s and early 1640s through whom Monteverdi could
have become aware of the Pietas Austriaca: Giovanni Felice Sances (ca.
1600–79). Though not widely known today, Sances was one of the
brightest stars of the mid 17th century and among the most prolific
composers at the Habsburg court.34 Originally from Rome, where he
received his earliest training at the Jesuit Collegio Germanico, Sances
spent the early 1630s in Northern Italy (including a brief stint in
Venice) and became famous for four publications of small-scale secular
cantatas as well as his opera Ermiona, performed in Padua in April
1636.35 He joined the imperial court chapel as a tenor later in 1636,
32 Examples include Wenceslaus Adalbert Czerwenka, Annales et acta pietatis augustis-

247
simae ac serenissimae Domus Habspurgo-Austriacae (Prague: J. M. Störitz, 1694); Didacus
Lequille [Diego Tafuri], De rebus Austriacis tomus tribus: Piissima atque augustissima Domus
Austria (Innsbruck: M. Wagner, 1660), the second volume of which is explicitly entitled
Pietas Austriaca ; Johann Peter Lotichus, Austrias Parva: id est, gloriae Austriacae, et belli nuper
Germanici, sub divo Matthia, Ferdinandis II. et III. Impp. gesti, compendaria (Frankfurt:
J. Schönwetter, 1653); Phosphorus Austriacus de Gente Austriaca libri tres, in quibus gentis illius
prima origo, magnitudo, imperium, ac virtus asseritur, et probatur (Louvain: H. Coenestenius,
1665); Nikolaus Vernulz, Virtutum augustissimae gentis Austriace libri tres (Louvain: J. Zeger,
1640); and Eberhard Wassenberg, Panegyricus Sacritissimiso Imperatori Ferdinando III.
(Cologne: J. Kalkhoff, 1647).
33 See, for example, Adam Wandruszka, “Ein Freskenzyklus der ‘Pietas Austriaca’ in
Florenz,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 15 (1962): 495–99; Saunders, Cross,

Sword and Lyre, 178–222; and Weaver, “Piety, Politics, and Patronage,” 305–417.
34 The best biography of Sances is in Steven Saunders’s edition of the composer’s
Motetti a una, due, tre, e quattro voci (1638), Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque
Era 126 (Middleton: A-R Editions, 2003), ix–xii. See also John Whenham and Steven
Saunders, “Sances, Giovanni Felice,” in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd
ed. (New York: Grove’s Dictionaries, 2000); Peter Webhofer, Giovanni Felice Sances (ca.
1600–1679): Biographische-bibliographische Untersuchung und Studie über sein Motettenwerk
(Rome: Pontificio Istitutio di Musica Sacra, 1964); and Thomas D. Culley, Jesuits and Mu-
sic, vol. 1, A Study of the Musicians Connected With the German College in Rome During the Seven-
teenth Century and of Their Activities in Northern Europe (Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute; St.
Louis: St. Louis Univ. Press, 1970), 141–43.
35 Sances’s earliest surviving publications are his Cantade . . . a voce sola (Venice:
B. Magni, 1633) and Cantade . . . a doi voci (Venice: B. Magni, 1633). He also published
an earlier collection of cantatas that has not survived and Il quarto libro delle cantate, et arie
a voce sola (Venice: B. Magni, 1636). On Ermiona, see especially Ellen Rosand, Opera in
Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press,
1991), 67–70. We know precious little about Sances’s activities in Venice or even precisely
when he lived there; our only information is that he worked in the service of Nicolò
Sagredo, future ambassador to the imperial court. Sances mentions this service in the
and almost immediately after his move to Vienna he began publishing

sacred music. Two books of small-scale motets appeared in 1638, and
he issued five more publications within the next decade.36 This flurry
of publication was undoubtedly a calculated attempt by Sances to make
a name for himself as a prominent court composer by spreading the
glory of the imperial musical establishment—and of the Habsburgs—to
a wide audience. Most of the publications, in fact, were dedicated to
Ferdinand III or members of his immediate family.37 Sances even an-
nounced his intentions in the dedicatory text (to the emperor) of his
first motet book from 1638, which begins, “Previously I devotedly dedi-
cated to you my voice; today I reverently dedicate to you my pen, with
the sentiment of making known to the world in these little notes my
current service, in which I take pride, and to Your Majesty my ardent
desire.”38 Sances also cleverly designed the prints to emphasize impor-
tant aspects of Habsburg piety and promote the Counter-Reformation,
placing particularly significant texts at prominent locations and employ-
ing striking musical features to highlight the meaning of the words.39
Sances’s attempts to endear himself to his patron were ultimately suc-
cessful: In 1649 he rose to the position of vice chapel master, eventually
248 becoming maestro di cappella.
One of Sances’s sacred prints is of particular importance for our
consideration of Monteverdi’s Selva morale: his Motetti a voce sola of
1638, the second print he issued after becoming a member of the im-
dedication of his Capricci poetici (Venice: Gardano, 1649), in which he refers to “that
former service that I rendered to you many years ago in Venice” (quall’antica servitù,
ch’in Venetia già molti anni sono le consecrai).
36 Giovanni Felice Sances, Motetti a una, due, tre, e quattro voci (Venice: B. Magni,
1638); idem, Motetti a voce sola (Venice: B. Magni, 1638); idem, Antifone e litanie della Bea-
tissima Vergine a più voci (Venice: B. Magni, 1640); idem, Motetti a 2. 3. 4. e cinque voci . . .
con le letanie della B.V. a sei voci . . . opera quarta ecclesiastica (Venice: B. Magni, 1642); idem,
Salmi a 8 voci concertati, con la comodità de suoi ripieni per chi li desiderasse (Venice: B. Magni,
1643); idem, Salmi brevi a 4 voci concertate (Venice: Gardano, 1647); and idem, Antiphonare
Sacrae B.M.V. per totum annum una voce decantandae (Venice: Gardano, 1648).
37 Dedicatees of Sances’s prints include: Ferdinand III (1638), Eleonora Gonzaga
(1638), Ferdinand III’s wife Maria of Spain (1640), Ferdinand III’s brother Archduke
Leopold Wilhelm (1643), and Ferdinand III’s eldest son Ferdinand IV (1647). The dedi-
catee of his 1642 motet book is Count Vilem Slavata, chancellor of Bohemia and one of
the men who had survived being hurled out of a window at the Defenestration of Prague
in 1618.
38 “Già divoto dedicai la Voce; hoggi consacro riverente la penna, con sentimento di
far noto al Mondo in queste poche Note l’attual servitù, di cui mi glorio, e alla Maestà
Vostra l’ardente desiderio.”
39 On these points, see especially Weaver, “Music in the Service of Counter-Reformation
Politics”; idem, “Piety, Politics, and Patronage,” 246–52 (and passim); and Saunders’s In-
troduction to Sances, Motetti, xiii–xv. See also the Introduction to my forthcoming edition
of Sances’s Motetti a 2, 3, 4, e cinque voci (1642), Research Researches in the Music of the
Baroque Era (Middleton: A-R Editions, in press).
weaver
perial chapel.40 Whereas Sances had dedicated his first sacred print to
his new employer, for this second publication under Habsburg patron-
age the honor went to the next most prestigious figure at the imperial
court: the dowager empress Eleonora Gonzaga. That both Sances’s
print and the Selva morale bear dedications to the same person (and
were issued by the same publisher) may at first seem mere coincidence,
but there are undeniable similarities between the two prints. Even if
Monteverdi did not know Sances personally,41 there can be little doubt
that the older composer was at least acquainted with Sances’s Motetti a
voce sola. If nothing else, he used it as a reference for selecting motets
that would have been especially appreciated at the Viennese court.42
40 A facsimile edition of this print is available in Schnoebelen, Solo Motets, vol. 8. In
the copy reproduced in Schnoebelen’s facsimile, a later hand has altered the publication
date on both the title page and the dedication to read “1643,” but this alteration appears
only in the basso continuo partbook and not in any of the vocal partbooks (see Schnoeb-
elen, Solo Motets, vol. 8, xviii, n1). This alteration is inexplicable and almost certainly not
authentic; not only had Sances already established the practice of publishing multiple
prints in the same year (e.g., his books of cantatas in 1633), but the order of his dedica-
tions to the imperial family also follows a strict hierarchy, in which the dowager empress is
second only to the current emperor.
41 There is, however, tantalizing evidence to suggest that Monteverdi was aware of
249
Sances and his music. For instance, we know that Sances spent time in Venice, even if (as
mentioned earlier) we know practically nothing about his activities there. There are nev-
ertheless other possible biographical intersections between the composers. Sances’s older
brother Lorenzo, a renowned opera singer, was employed at the Mantuan court shortly
after Monteverdi’s move to Venice; we do not know, however, precisely what—if any—
contact Monteverdi had with Mantuan musicians at that time. For more information on
Lorenzo, see especially Susan Helen Parisi, “Ducal Patronage of Music in Mantua, 1587–
1627: An Archival Study,” 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
1989), 2: 499–500 and Culley, Jesuits and Music, 155–56 and 230. Even more intriguing,
the cast of Sances’s Ermiona included not only Sances himself but also Francesco Mon-
teverdi, Claudio’s eldest son, who was at that time employed under his father’s direction
at San Marco; see Denis Stevens, The Letters of Claudio Monteverdi, rev. ed. (Oxford: Claren-
don, 1995), 140–41. Silke Leopold has pointed to what she sees as evidence for compo-
sitional emulation, and perhaps even a direct rivalry, between the two composers, based
on similarities between Sances’s cantatas of the early 1630s and works by Monteverdi,
especially those written over ostinato basses, such as Monteverdi’s famous Zefiro torna
published in his Scherzi musicali (Venice: B. Magni, 1632; modern edition in Monteverdi,
Opera omnia, vol. 12, ed. Frank Dobbins and Anna Maria Vacchelli, 72–83); see Silke
Leopold, Al modo d’Orfeo: Dichtung und Musik im italienischen Sologesang des frühen 17.
Jahrhunderts, Analecta Musicologica 29 (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1995), 270–78. The cur-
rent state of research on the Monteverdi-Sances relationship is laid out by Saunders in
Sances, Motetti, ix–x.
42 It is quite possible that Monteverdi may have been directed to Sances’s print by
his Venetian publisher Bartolomeo Magni. Jeffrey Kurtzman has suggested to me that in
the early 1640s Magni appears to have been very interested in honoring the Habsburgs
with a number of impressive publications dedicated to them; it is surely significant that
Rigatti dedicated his large-scale Messa e salmi, parte concertati to Ferdinand III, even though
he had no known connections to the imperial court. (In comparing Rigatti’s print to the
Selva morale, Koldau has also considered the role that Magni may have played as instigator
behind the publication of both prints; see Rigatti, Messa e salmi, ed. Koldau, 1: vii–xi.) Al-
though as yet we have no answers as to why Magni would have wanted to do this, it is
II
The text of Ab aeterno ordinata sum, Proverbs 8:23–31 (Table 2), is
found only rarely in the 17th-century motet repertoire. It is striking,
then, that one of the bass motets in Sances’s Motetti a voce sola, Dominus
possedit me, sets exactly this same text, with just one verse added to the
beginning and end. I have located only one other surviving setting of
this passage, a motet by the obscure composer Giovanni Battista Treviso
published in an anthology from 1645.43 Significantly, the text was also
apparently set by Antonio Bertali, the maestro di cappella of the Viennese
court from 1649 to 1669; a motet by him entitled Ab aeterno ordinata is
listed in an inventory of the imperial music library that dates from the
reign of Ferdinand III’s successor Leopold I.44
What meaning could this rarely-used motet text have held for 17th-
century composers and listeners? In his attempt to place Monteverdi’s
motet into the 1631 Venetian plague ceremonies, Moore sought to situ-
ate this text in the liturgy for the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin;
although the Proverbs passage is not a standard component of this
feast, he nonetheless located a portion of Monteverdi’s motet text in
Clement VIII’s revised Roman breviary of 1606, where it appears in
250
matins.45 To strengthen his claim, Moore then drew upon a wealth of
iconographic evidence to formulate an interpretation of Ab aeterno as a
celebration of Venetia aeterna, the perfect republic that had existed from
the beginning of time and would remain forevermore, despite the re-
cent scourge of the plague. Moore’s interpretation is both eloquent
and eminently plausible. In fact, David Rosand has shown that as early
as the 12th century, Venetian clergy drew upon the Old Testament Wis-
dom texts when praising the Serenissima; one prayer for the doge, for in-
stance, declares that “God himself had wonderfully arranged the Vene-
tian republic ab eterno.”46 Even if the motet were not planned as part of
the plague ceremonies, Monteverdi almost certainly would have known
possible that perhaps he was still suffering financially from the lag in publications brought
on by the plague of 1629–31 and was therefore hoping to secure substantial financial
support from the imperial court as a means of helping him get back onto his feet.
43 The anthology is Motetti a voce sola de diversi Eccelentissimi Autori (Venice: Gardano,
1645); facsimile edition in Schnoebelen, Solo Motets, vol. 3. Our only information about
Treviso comes from a biographical blurb in another anthology containing motets by him,
Teatro musicale de concerti ecclesiastici a due, tre, e quattro voci di diversi celebri e nomati autori . . .
(Milan: G. Rolla, 1649), which describes him as “Maestro di Cap. Del Santiss. Rosario in
S. Tomaso di Pavia.”
44 The inventory is the so-called Distinta specificatione (Vienna, Österreichische Na-
tionalbibliothek, Cod. Suppl. mus. 2451), in which Bertali’s motet is listed on fol. 18r.
45 Moore, “Venezia favorita da Maria,” 340–42.
46 David Rosand, “Venetia Figurata: The Iconography of a Myth,” in Interpretazioni
Veneziane: Studi di storia dell’arte in onore di Michelangelo Muraro, ed. David Rosand (Venice:
Arsenale, 1984), 184–85.
weaver
TABLE 2
Text and Translation of Ab aeterno ordinata sum
Ab aeterno ordinata sum I was set up from everlasting
et ex antiquis antequam terra fieret. before the earth was made.
Nondum erant abyssi The depths were not yet in existence
et ego iam concepta eram. and I had already been conceived.
Necdum fontes aquarum eruperant When there were no fountains
erupting with water,
necdum montes gravi mole constiterant before the mountains were constituted,
ante omnes colles ego parturiebar. before all of the hills I was brought
forth.
Adhuc terram non fecerat When he had not yet made the earth,
et flumina et cardines orbis terrae nor the rivers, nor the ends of the
earth,
quando praeparabat caelos aderam when he prepared the heavens I was
there;
quando certa lege et gyro vallabat when he placed a compass upon the
abyssos abyss,
quando aethera firmabat sursum when the clouds were made firm,
et librabat fontes aquarum and he liberated fountains of water,
251
quando circumdabat mari terminum when he gave to the sea his decree,
suum
et legem ponebat aquis ne transient that the waters not pass his
fines suos commandment,
quando appendebat fundamenta when he appointed the foundations of
terrae the earth
cum eo eram cuncta componens then I was with him

et delectabar per singulos dies and I was his daily delight
ludens coram eo omni tempore rejoicing before him at all times,
ludens in orbe terrarum rejoicing in the whole world,
et deliciae meae esse cum filiis and my delights were with the sons of
hominum. men.
that it could be interpreted as honoring the city that for nearly thirty
years he had called home.47 It is also highly probable, however, that
Monteverdi would have known that the motet could also serve as a song
of praise to the aspect of the Pietas Austriaca that was of utmost impor-
tance to Ferdinand III: the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Vir-
gin Mary.48
47 If this were the case, however, we might wonder why the Ab aeterno text does not
seem to have been more popular among Venetian composers.

48 On the importance of the Immaculate Conception to Ferdinand III, see espe-
cially Weaver, “Music in the Service of Counter-Reformation Politics” and idem, “Piety,
Politics, and Patronage,” 347–415.
By the 17th century, the Old Testament text from which Ab aeterno
is drawn was most readily understood not in connection to the Presen-
tation of the Virgin but as a prefiguration of her Immaculate Concep-
tion, the belief that Mary had been conceived by human parents with-
out acquiring any touch of Original Sin. This is one of the few
doctrines of the Catholic faith for which there is no direct Biblical evi-
dence, a fact that ignited a heated controversy over the doctrine lasting
until the 19th century; not until 1854 did it finally became dogma of
the Catholic church and receive an official liturgy.49 Already by the
12th century theologians seeking to defend the doctrine were turning
to Old Testament texts, including Proverbs 8, in search of whatever
traces of proof they could find.50 By equating the Blessed Virgin with
the figure of Divine Wisdom, sapiential passages such as Proverbs 8 and
a similar text from Ecclesiasticus 24:14 (“Ab initio et ante saecula cre-
ata sum”) came to be explained as allegories for Mary’s predestination
and conception in the mind of God before the creation of the world, the
fall in Eden, and the inception of Original Sin. In the early 17th century,
moreover, this interpretation was widely propagated in the influential
Bible commentaries of Cornelius a Lapide, a Flemish Jesuit theologian
252 who taught at the renowned Collegio Romano in Rome from 1616 until
his death in 1637 and who was widely considered (even by many Protes-
tants) as one of the most authoritative figures of the time.51 As Lapide
wrote in his exegesis of Proverbs, “The Lord created and possessed the
Blessed Virgin, the Mother of Christ, in the beginning of his ways, that
is, of his works. . . . Moreover, the Blessed Virgin was in that beginning
49 This controversy accounts for a large part of why the Immaculate Conception was
so important to Ferdinand III, as it not only helped differentiate the Habsburgs’ Catholi-
cism from that of other leading families and the laity at large, but it also forced them to
uphold the doctrine with especially strong fervor. On the controversy surrounding the
Immaculate Conception, see especially Nancy Mayberry, “The Controversy over the Im-
maculate Conception in Medieval and Renaissance Art, Literature, and Society,” Journal
of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 21 (1991): 207–24; and Wenceslaus Sebastian, “The
Controversy over the Immaculate Conception from after Scotus to the End of the Eigh-
teenth Century,” in The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception: History and Significance, ed. Ed-
ward Dennis O’Connor (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1958), 228–41. For
general discussions of the history of the Immaculate Conception, see especially Marina
Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1976), 236–54; Mirella Levi D’Ancona, The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception
in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance ([New York]: College Art Association of America,
1957); and the excellent study by Suzanne L. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception in Span-
ish Art (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994).
50 Raymond E. Brown, Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine (New York: Paulist Press,
1985), 45.
51 Cornelius a Lapide, Commentaria in Salomonis Proverbia (Antwerp, 1635; repr.,
Antwerp: J. Meursius, 1659), 181–94; idem, Commentaria in Ecclesiasticum (Antwerp, 1634;

repr., Antwerp: J. Meursius, 1663), 515–16. Lapide cites Prov. 8:22 in his exegesis of
Ecclus. 24:14.
weaver
of his ways and in that moment of conception and life granted by God
alone the most illustrious inheritance, in particular as the most delight-
ful future mother of God. Therefore the Blessed Virgin had been pre-
destined ab aeterno.”52 He even dedicated his Proverbs commentary to
the Virgin and included a lengthy quotation from Proverbs 8 in his
dedicatory text. So great was Lapide’s importance and influence that
any literate Catholic of the mid 17th century (surely including the
maestro di cappella of Venice’s most important church, who had become
a priest in 1632) would have immediately recognized Ab aeterno as a
Marian, Immaculist text.
There is ample documentary evidence that the Habsburgs followed
the Divine Wisdom exegetical tradition especially closely. Both Old Tes-
tament passages are found in Marian liturgies at the imperial court:
The Ecclesiasticus text was read as the lesson at mass on the feast of the
Purification of the Virgin and as the chapter at second vespers on all
Marian feasts; the passage from Proverbs was read as the lesson at mass
only on the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and Nativity of the
Virgin.53 The texts were also frequently cited in sermons on the Immac-
ulata given at court. For example, four published orations delivered in
St. Stephen’s Cathedral on the feast of the Immaculate Conception in 253
1649–51 and 1653 frequently quote these passages in direct reference
to the Blessed Virgin. To give just two instances, the 1650 sermon,
which compares the Immaculate Virgin to the dove, quotes Proverbs 8
in saying that “the delights of the Virgin are with the sons of men.”54 The
sermon given the following year, which compares the Virgin to a spot-
less mirror, cites Ecclesiasticus 24:14 in declaring that “the eternal
father in heaven, born on earth, was begotten by her who was created in
52 “Dominus creavit et possedit B. Virginem, utpote Christi matrem, quasi princi-
pium viarum, id est, operum suorum . . . Insuper B. Virgo in ipso initio viarum, ipsoque
momento conceptionis et vitae, a Deo solo postessa fuit tamquam hereditas amplissima,
mater utique Dei dilectissima futura. Igitur B. Virgo ab aeterno praedestinata fuit, ut esset
principium, id est, prima, princeps et domina omnium operum Dei, puta omnium pu-
rarum creaturum” (Lapide, Commentaria in Salomonis Proverbia, 181).
53 The placement of these texts (which was consistent in many Catholic liturgies
throughout Europe) is attested to by printed 17th-century service books such as Missae de

Sanctis ex Proprio Viennensi (Vienna: M. Cosmerovius, 1668) and Missale Romanum ex De-
creto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini Restitutum, Pii V. Pont. Max. Jussu Editum, et Clementis VIII.
Primum, Nunc Denuo Urbani Papae octavi auctoritate Recognitum (Antwerp: B. Moreti, 1691).
The use of these texts in Vienna is further confirmed by manuscript service books copied
at the Habsburg court in the 17th century such as Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbib-
liothek, Cod. 11691 and Cod. 11674.
54 Maria Virgo sine macula concepta Ferdinando III. Romanorum Imperatori in columba
repraesentata (Vienna: M. Cosmerovius, 1650), sig. A4v : “Sociabile genus avium columba
est: Deliciae Virginis sunt eße cum filiis hominum.” Another citation to Proverbs 8 appears on
sig. B3r : “De ista dicitur: Qui me invenerit, inveniet vitam.”
the beginning and before the ages.”55 Another slightly later sermon that
compares the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception to Eve refers once
to Ecclesiasticus 24:14 and makes no fewer than five references to
Proverbs 8 in descriptions of the Immaculata.56 Furthermore, a manu-
script treatise compiled at the Habsburg court in the early 1660s, which
defends the Immaculate Conception from a variety of angles, makes
the connection between Proverbs 8 and this doctrine explicit in its pro-
logue: “That the future Mother of God would be immune from all stain
of original sin is for the greater part unarguable and for the lesser part
held by Proverbs 8: Ab aeterno ordinata sum.”57
The frequent appearance of these Old Testament quotations in
Habsburg sermons is of special significance, for by hearing these words
spoken aloud in explicitly Immaculist contexts, the Viennese congrega-
tions would have immediately connected the passages to this important
Marian mystery. Just as sermons were valuable tools in promoting doc-
trine and interpreting Biblical passages, so too could motets offer an
equally effective means of achieving these same ends; musical settings
of these same passages would have powerfully reinforced the doctrine
for imperial listeners.58 This is perhaps what Sances intended with his
254
55 Gotthulphus Khueffstain, Maria Virgo sine macula concepta Ferdinando III. Romano-
rum Imperatori in speculo repraesentata (Vienna: M. Cosmerovius, 1651), sig. B2v : “Aeterno
Patre in coelo genitus in terris nascitur ab illa, quae ab initio, et ante saecula creata est.” Ad-
ditional printed sermons that contain citations are Cornelius Gentilotto, Maria Virgo sine
macula concepta Ferdinando III. Romanorum Imperatori in arcu coelesti repraesentata (Vienna:
M. Cosmerovius, 1649), which cites Prov. 8 on sig. Bv (“quandoquidem Deus in hac Vir-
ginea nube libravit fontes aquarum”), and Johannes Ernestus Lindelauf, Maria Virgo sine
macula concepta, in rosa repraesentata (Vienna: M. Cosmerovius, 1653), which cites Ecclus.
24 on sig. B2v (“Moriatur ille cum surgit, haec ab initio et ante saecula creata, et in futurum
saeculum non desinet ”).
56 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 11683, Maria Immaculata Sig-
num cui contradicetur, sive Sermo Panegyricus in quo Maria Immaculata Evae contradictio Eva
Maria Immaculata Antithesis demonstratur, fols. 2r (“Una Mulier cum eo erat cuncta com-
ponens”), 4v (“Ecce nascientis MARIAE uterum: Cor Patris! Et rursum ipsa: Ab initio et ante
saecula creata sum. Ecce vulvam MARIAE puerperam Caput Divinitatis! Hoc in utero cum
nondum essent abyssi . . . hic ante omnes colles parturiebatur . . . hic priusquam terra fieret, ab
aeterno formabatur”), and 5v (“Quodsi tamen MARIA, cum eo erat cuncta componens”). The
sermon was given for the Habsburgs in Prague on the octave of the Immaculate Concep-
tion in 1666.
57 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 11540, De Mysterio Immaculatae
Conceptionis SS. Dei Genitricis Mariae Devotissimus Tractatus, fol. 8v: “Dei futura Mater immu-
nis esset ab omni Labe orginalis peccati, maior est inaltercabilis minor habetur ex Prov. 8.
Ab aeterno ordinata sum, et ex antiquis antequam terra fieret, nondum erant abyssi, et
ego iam concepta eram.”
58 It is quite likely, moreover, that the Viennese people had the opportunity to hear
Ferdinand III’s musicians perform Sances’s and Monteverdi’s motets. Beginning in Ferdi-
nand II’s reign and continuing into the next century, the emperor and his retinue fol-
lowed a regular schedule of celebrating mass and vespers in the various churches of
Vienna and outlying areas, on which occasions the imperial chapel always performed the
service. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the emperor always heard mass in
weaver
setting of Proverbs 8, which includes several musical details that rein-

force an Immaculist interpretation and serve the Habsburgs’ Counter-
Reformation aims. The work opens with a long duple-meter section fea-
turing a wealth of madrigalisms that vividly depict the creation of the
world, most of them virtuosic melismas that illustrate the meaning of
such evocative words as “eruperant” (erupted), “gyro” (circle), and
“fontes aquarum” (fountains of water). The first melisma in the motet,
however, is not pictorial but occurs on the word “concepta” (see Exam-
ple 1). If this motet were intended for any occasion other than the
Immaculate Conception, the heavy emphasis on this seemingly insignif-
icant word would be unwarranted; surely, then, the melisma purpose-
fully highlights the very event celebrated by the work. Moreover, be-
cause Dominus possedit me sets more verses than found in Monteverdi’s
Ab aeterno, Sances’s motet corresponds more fully to the complete text
as found in the Immaculate Conception liturgy. In addition, the final
verse ends the motet with a didactic lesson addressed directly to the lis-
tener that stresses the importance of following Mary.59 This passage is
musically set apart from the rest of the motet with a shift from triple
back to duple meter, the harmonic juxtaposition of G- and E-major tri-
ads, and the most declamatory writing in the motet (see Example 2). 255
This ensures that no listener can miss this final lesson, thereby turning
the work into valuable Counter-Reformation propaganda.
Although Monteverdi’s Ab aeterno does not feature any of the spe-
cific details described above,60 there are nevertheless basic musical sim-
ilarities between it and Sances’s Dominus possedit me. Not only is each
work a virtuosic showpiece for bass voice, but Monteverdi’s setting also
opens in a similar manner to Sances’s, with a long duple-meter section
featuring many of the same melismatic madrigalisms. Both settings
then give way to a more melodious triple-meter aria style at exactly the
same point, marking a shift in the text from narrative description to
emotional rejoicing at the words “cum ero eram.”61 It may be possible
St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the largest church in the city. See Friedrich W. Riedel, Kirchen-
musik am Hofe Karls VI. (1711–1740): Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von Zeremoniell und
musikalischen Stil im Barockzeitalter (Munich: Emil Katzbichler, 1977); Saunders, Cross,
Sword and Lyre, 33–37 and 43–44; and Weaver, “Piety, Politics, and Patronage,” 102–18.
59 The text of this final verse is “Now therefore, sons, listen to me: Blessed are they
who keep to my ways” (Nunc ergo filii audite me: beati qui custodiunt vias meas).
60 There is one possible exception: Monteverdi includes a lengthy melisma on the
phrase “et ego iam concepta eram”; however, the melisma appears on “ego” instead of
“concepta.” This could be an instance in which the melisma on “ego” functions as a
deictic, pointing to the important word “concepta.” On this concept, see Mauro Calcagno,
“ ‘Imitar col canto chi parla’: Monteverdi and the Creation of a Language for Musical
Theater,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 55 (2002): 383–431.
61 None of these features, furthermore, appears in the setting of this text by Treviso.
On the conventional use of triple meter as the preferred medium for emotional passages,
example 1. Sances, Dominus possedit me, mm. 17–25
Ł Ł Ł ²ð ¹ Ł Ł ý Ł ² Ł ý Ł
17
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Non - dum e - rant a - bys - si et e - go iam con -
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21 t. t.
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256
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to dismiss these similarities as merely conventional approaches to the

same text, but it is equally possible to see Sances’s motet as a model for
Monteverdi’s own setting of Proverbs 8.
This suggestion receives further support from Monteverdi’s use of
the bass voice in Ab aeterno. I have already noted the rarity of this virtu-
osic bass style in the composer’s oeuvre, and Monteverdi’s compositional
choice seems even more odd in light of the fact that the speaker of
Proverbs 8 is a woman (made apparent by both the Latin grammar and
the symbolic association with the Blessed Virgin). As has been discussed
by Massimo Ossi, Monteverdi made the correlation between singing
voice and the gendered speaker an important part of his seconda prattica
aesthetic; by paying careful attention to such matters he was able to add
verisimilitude to miniature dramatic scenes (as in the Book Six dia-
logue Addio Florida bella), to dramatize otherwise reflective texts (as in
see especially Tim Carter, “Resemblance and Representation: Towards a New Aesthetic in
the Music of Monteverdi” and John Whenham, “ ‘Aria’ in the Madrigals of Giovanni
Rovetta,” both in Con che soavità: Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and Dance, 1580–1740, ed.
Iain Fenlon and Tim Carter (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 118–34 and 135–56.
weaver
example 2. Sances, Dominus possedit me, mm. 151–67
Ý / Ð Ð ý ð Ð ²Ð Ð þ þý Ł
151
²Ð ¼ Ł Ł Ł Łý Ł Ł
-
es - se cum fi - li - is ho - mi - num. Nunc er - go fi - li - i au -
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² 6 ² ¦
Ý Ł ý ²Ł ð Ł Ł Ł Łý Ł Ł Łý ² Ł Ł Ł Łý ² Ł ð
157
¼ Ł
di - te me, nunc er - go fi - li - i au - di - te me, au - di - te me:
$Ý Ł ý ²Ł ð ð Ł Łý ² Ł Ł Ł Łý ² Ł ð
Ł Ł Ł
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² 6 − ² 2
Ł ý Ł Ł ý Ł Łý Ł Ł Ł Ł ŁŁŁŁŁŁŁŁŁŁŁŁŁŁ
162
Ý¼ Ł

be - a - ti qui cu - sto - di - unt vi - as
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257
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me - as
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Book Five’s T’amo mia vita, in which the words of the poet’s lover—only
remembered in the poem—are assigned to a soprano soloist), or to add
new layers of meaning to a work (as in Eccomi pronta ai baci from Book
Seven, in which Monteverdi blatantly reverses the gender of the singing
and speaking voice, assigning the words of Ergasto’s female lover to
three male singers).62 This is also an important issue in Monteverdi’s
only known extended virtuosic bass solo in a madrigal, Book Eight’s
62 Massimo Ossi, “ ‘Pardon me, But Your Teeth are in my Neck’: Giambattista
Marino, Claudio Monteverdi, and the bacio mordace,” Journal of Musicology 21 (2004): 175–
200. Most of Ossi’s article is a detailed discussion of Eccomi pronta ai baci, but on p. 199 he
discusses the importance of voice in Monteverdi’s madrigals and mentions the other
pieces considered here.
Ogni amante è guerrieri, in which the bass soloist, speaking in the first
person, becomes a representation of the masculine, heroic warrior/
lover (and possibly even a representation of Ferdinand III himself, who
is praised by name in this very section). It is undoubtedly significant,
moreover, that the virtuosic bass style appears in a madrigal book—and
in a madrigal—that openly praises Ferdinand III, for this style was
avidly cultivated at the Habsburg court.63 Sances’s Dominus possedit me is
just one of many solo bass motets in the repertoire of the imperial
court chapel, and works for multiple voices by such varied court com-
posers as Sances, Bertali, Pietro Verdina, Wolfgang Ebner, and Ferdi-
nand III himself almost invariably single out a bass soloist for special at-
tention, often assigning the most important passages of text to the bass.
Thus it is likely that the use of the bass voice in both Sances’s and Mon-
teverdi’s Proverbs motets was conditioned not by any desire for musical
verisimilitude but rather by the performance options and the musical
preferences at the Viennese court.64 Although it is still possible that
Monteverdi wrote Ab aeterno long before he compiled the Selva morale, it
appears much more likely that in wishing to honor the imperial court
with a specific motet he turned to Sances’s Dominus possedit me, with its
258 Immaculist interpretation and its use of the bass voice, as a model.
III
Skeptical readers may still wish to view the presence of Proverbs 8
motets in the Selva morale and Sances’s Motetti a voce sola, as well as the
musical similarities between them, as merely a string of coincidences.
63 On the use of the bass voice in imperial motets, see Weaver, “Piety, Politics, and
Patronage,” 217 (and passim). It has also been argued that the most heavily revised music
in the closing work of Book Eight, the Ballo delle ingrate (originally performed in 1608),
was probably that for Pluto, sung by a bass; see Mabbett, “Madrigalists at the Viennese
Court,” 304–6 and Tomlinson, Monteverdi, 206–7.
64 Sances most likely even wrote the work with an individual in mind. We know that
Sances sometimes wrote music for specific singers; he even indicated that two solo bass
motets in his Antiphonae Sacrae B.M.V. of 1648 were written at the insistence of the court
singer Carlo Benedetto Riccioni. The works, O dulcis Virgo and O Domina gloriae, are the fi-
nal two pieces in the print, and each is labeled in the score with the rubric, “Motetto
Della Glo. B. V. ad instanza del Sig. Carlo Benedetto Riccioni Musico di Sua Maestà
Cesarea” (for more information on these works, see Weaver, “Music in the Service of
Counter-Reformation Politics,” 372–73). Unfortunately, very little is known about the
bass singers at court at the beginning of Ferdinand III’s reign. Of the three basses with
the highest salary, the Roman singer Agostino Argomenti seems most likely to be the per-
former for whom Sances wrote his motet; he was very well connected with other musi-
cians at the court and received special monetary gifts on 13 May 1640 and again in late
1641. The gifts are documented in Herwig Knaus, Die Musiker im Archivbestand des kaiser-
lichen Obersthofmeisteramtes (1637–1705), 3 vols. (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus, 1967–1969),
1: 106 and 110. The other two highest paid bass singers at court were Giovanni Bernardi
and Virgilius Bickel.
weaver
There is, however, another striking parallel between the two publica-
tions: Sances’s print, like the Selva morale, concludes with a work for
solo soprano entitled Pianto della Madonna. Furthermore, as in the
Selva, the overall organization of Sances’s print immediately draws at-
tention the final work (see Table 3). The organization of Sances’s print
is eminently logical, with four discrete groups of four motets each,
scored respectively for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass; the Pianto, how-
ever, is notably out of place, occurring outside of this four-by-four struc-
ture and appearing far removed from the other works for soprano in
the basso continuo partbook. The parallel title and placement of Mon-
teverdi’s and Sances’s pieces could scarcely be happenstance. It was
common enough for sacred prints to conclude with a work in praise of
the Virgin Mary, but the standard choice throughout the 17th century
was either one of the four Marian antiphons or the Litany of Loreto. I
have found only two other publications prior to 1638 that close with
Marian laments: a pair of collections of vernacular spiritual madrigals
issued by the Sienese composer Claudio Saracini in 1620.65
Unlike the two composers’ Proverbs settings, there are no musical
or textual parallels between Monteverdi’s and Sances’s Pianti, aside
from the fact that both are Latin laments on the crucifixion of Christ set 259
in a patently operatic style. Whereas Monteverdi’s work consists of en-
tirely freely composed text joined to the preexisting music of Ariadne’s
famous lament, Sances’s Pianto transforms a well known text, the Stabat
mater sequence, into a dramatic, first-person lament. In Monteverdi’s
case, moreover, the impetus for including the work in the Selva morale
may have been largely commercial. Ever since the 1608 Mantuan pre-
miere of Arianna, the famous lament had been one of the composer’s
greatest hits, and the recent successful revival of Arianna in Venice in
65 Claudio Saracini, Le seconde musiche (Venice: A. Vincenti, 1620) and idem, Le terze
musiche (Venice: A. Vincenti, 1620). Modern editions of both prints are in Éva Pintér,
Claudio Saracini: Leben und Werk, 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1992), 2: 369–456. Le se-
conde musiche concludes with a Lamento della Madonna that sets Marino’s Sospirava e spargea
di pianto, and Le terze musiche closes with a Planctus B. Mariae Virginis that sets the Stabat
mater sequence in the style of a spiritual madrigal (see also Roche, “On the Border,” 311).
Although it is possible that these prints were known to Monteverdi or Sances (Saracini, in
fact, dedicated the opening madrigal of Le seconde musiche to Monteverdi), there is no evi-
dence connecting them to either the Selva morale or Sances’s Motetti. Sances’s and/or
Monteverdi’s prints may nonetheless very well have set the precedent for a later publica-
tion from Magni’s presses: Maurizio Cazzati, Il primo libro de motetti a voce sola (Venice:
B. Magni, 1647), which closes with an Italian work entitled Pianto di S. Pietro. For more on
this print, see Roche, “On the Border,” 307. One additional sacred print (again with no
connection to Monteverdi or Sances) concludes with a setting of the Stabat mater: Anto-
nio Coma, Sacrae cantiones 1.2.3.4. voc. concinendae et in fine Stabat Mater (Bologna:
G. Rossi, 1614). I am very grateful to Elizabeth Roche for kindly searching her late hus-
band’s index of 17th-century Latin motets for me.
TABLE 3
Contents of Sances’s Motetti a voce sola (1638)
CANTO Solo.
Audite me divini fructus
Domine Deus meus
Benedicam Dominum
O Bone Jesu
ALTO Solo.
O Domine Jesu Christe
Lettamini omnes
O Maria Dei genitrix
Querite Dominum
TENOR Solo.
O Deus meus
Solvatur lingua mea
260 Domine quid multiplicati sunt
Venite ad me omnes
BASSO Solo.
O vos omnes
Dominus possedit me
Jesu dulcis memoria
Bonum est confiteri Domino
Pianto Della Madonna. Soprano Solo.

Stabat Mater dolorosa
the 1639–40 season undoubtedly tempted Monteverdi to capitalize

once again on its popularity.66
The appearance of these two extra-liturgical works in both com-
posers’ prints nonetheless raises questions about their possible perfor-
mance contexts; here a number of possibilities present themselves. Ei-
ther work could have been performed during the services of Marian
confraternities, in either Venice or Vienna.67 As Jonathan Glixon has
66 Even Moore (“Venezia favorita da Maria,” 339) suggests that this could have played
a factor in the inclusion of the Pianto in the Selva morale.

67 I am grateful to Jonathan Glixon for bringing this possibility to my attention.
weaver
pointed out, the Venetian confraternities were an important part of the

thriving musical culture of the Serenissima and served as an important
source of additional income for Monteverdi.68 The various Marian con-
fraternities in Vienna, furthermore, not only received financial support
from the emperor but also counted imperial musicians among their
members.69 Either lament would also have worked extremely well as a
component of a sacra rappresentazione (Latin sacred drama), a genre
that was particularly popular at the imperial court.70 Indeed, Koldau
has raised the possibility that Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna may have
been performed at the imperial court prior to 1641 with a different sa-
cred text. In 1629 the Mantuan troupe I fedeli mounted a production in
Vienna of La Maddalena, a work that had already been performed in
Mantua in 1617 with music contributed by a number of composers in-
cluding Monteverdi. Although the music of La Maddalena has been lost,
the libretto (published in Vienna in 1629) calls special attention to a
lament for Mary Magdalene, the music of which may have been based
on Ariadne’s lament.71 Because there is no documentation for any per-
formances of either Monteverdi’s or Sances’s Pianto della Madonna, it is
impossible to answer this question definitively, and it is probably unwise
to assume that both works were conceived for the same purpose. Never- 261
theless there remains another possible performance context for these
works, one both unique to Vienna and directly related to the dedicatee
of Monteverdi’s and Sances’s prints.
68 Jonathan Glixon, Honoring God and the City: Music at the Venetian Confraternities,
1260–1807 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003), esp. 252.

69 Two of the most important Marian confraternities in 17th-century Vienna were
one devoted to the rosary at the church of the Dominicans and one in honor of the Im-
maculate Conception at the Jesuit church am Hof ; unfortunately we know very little about
their specific musical activities. On the Immaculate Conception brotherhood, see Ernst
Tomek, “Das kirchliche Leben,” in Geschichte der Stadt Wien, ed. Anton Mayer (Vienna:
A. Holzhausen, 1914), 304. Information on the rosary confraternity is in Edmund M.
Prantner, Die Dominikanerkirche in Wien (Vienna: Verlag des Dominikanerklosters, 1912).
See also Geraldine M. Rohling, “Exequial and Votive Practices of the Viennese Bruder-
schaften: A Study of Music and Liturgical Piety” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic Univ. of America,
1996).
70 In fact, by the 1640s the Habsburgs had instituted the tradition of the sepolcro, a
dramatic oratorio-like work in Italian that was performed during Holy Week in front of a
replica of the holy sepulcher. On the early history of the sepolcro, see Steven Saunders,
“The Antecedents of the Viennese Sepolcro,” in Relazioni musicali tra Italia e Germania nel-
l’età barocca: atti del VI convegno internazionale sulla muisca italiana nei secoli XVII–XVIII, ed.
Alberto Colzani et al. (Como: Antiquae Musicae Italicae Studiosi, 1997), 63–83.
71 Koldau, Die venezianische Kirchenmusik, 112–13. Koldau’s hypothesis is based on
the fact that two different contrafacta of the Lamento d’Arianna with texts sung by Mary
Magdalene survive in Italian manuscripts; on these sources, see Lorenzo Bianconi, Music
in the Seventeenth Century, trans. David Bryant (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987),
210–11. For further information on the production of La Maddalena in Vienna, see Saun-
ders, Cross, Sword and Lyre, 182 and Herbert Seifert, Die Oper am Wiener Kaiserhof im 17.
Jahrhundert (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1985), 29–30 and 434.
The Immaculate Conception was the most prominent aspect of the

Habsburgs’ Marian devotion, but it was not the only component of the
Pietas Austriaca. In fact, both Ferdinand II and Eleonora Gonzaga aug-
mented their fervent love of the Blessed Virgin with an especially deep
attachment to the rosary. Eleonora’s most overt support for this Marian
symbol came after her husband’s death, when in 1637 she instituted
the Celebration of the Fifteen Mysteries, a commemoration of the
15 miraculous events in the life of the Blessed Virgin upon which the
pious soul reflects when reciting the rosary. Beginning in that year and
continuing into the 18th century, the Viennese court observed this de-
votion in the Augustinian church annually on the last three Saturdays
before Easter, with each day devoted respectively to the five joyous, do-
lorous, and glorious mysteries. The most important elements of the cel-
ebration were five sermons on each day (one for each mystery), painted
scenic backdrops, and motets performed by the court chapel.72
The subject matter of Monteverdi’s and Sances’s Pianti della Madonna
would have been perfectly suited for the fifth—and most important—
dolorous mystery: the crucifixion. Both works express the Virgin’s point
of view, making them particularly appropriate for a celebration devoted
262 to the rosary, and there is also evidence that the operatic style of these
works would have been especially suitable for this celebration.73 Per-
forming the service in front of a scenic backdrop implies that it fea-
tured overtly dramatic elements; the later Viennese sepolcri (Holy Week
oratorios), which we know were acted out by the performers, also in-
cluded similar backdrops. Musical evidence from the 18th century also
implies a dramatic component to the Fifteen Mysteries Devotion: Works
written for the celebration by the important court composers Johann
Joseph Fux and Johann Georg Reinhardt feature more recitative than is
common in motets of the time, such that they resemble miniature dra-
matic scenes.74 That this use of dramatic music was a long-standing tra-
72 Saunders has cited a 17th-century manuscript that mentions the singing of a
motet during a procession for the second dolorous mystery; see his “The Antecedents,”
69–70 and “Sacred Music,” 1: 153. The source, “Tomus II. Protocolli conventus nostri Vi-
ennensis ab anno introductionis nostrae ad annum 1696,” is housed in the Augustinian
church in Vienna.
73 Koldau has also tentatively suggested the Fifteen Mysteries Celebration as a possi-
ble context for Monteverdi’s lament (Die venezianische Kirchenmusik, 113). Another possi-
ble clue pointing to the appropriateness of Sances’s Pianto for the Mysterien-Andachten
comes from the opening work in his solo motet book, Audite me divini fructus, which sets
Ecclesiasticus 39:17–19. Portions of this text appear in the Viennese liturgy during mass
on the feast of the Most Holy Rosary (see Sances, Motetti, ed. Saunders, xiv and xxvi). If
the Pianto were also intended for a rosary celebration, this would then create a “rosary
frame” for the entire motet book, a feature that would have undoubtedly pleased Eleonora.
74 Gabriela Krombach, “Die Musik zu den Mysterien-Andachten in der Wiener
Augustiner-Kirche,” in Johann Joseph Fux und seine Zeit: Kultur, Kunst und Musik im Spätbarock,
ed. Arnfried Edler and Friedrich W. Riedel (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1996), 203–18.
weaver
dition extending back to the origins of the celebration is supported,

moreover, by the one work that we can definitely assign to the Mysterien-
Andachten during Ferdinand III’s reign: a setting of Popule meus by none
other than the emperor himself.
The evidence placing Ferdinand III’s Popule meus, which survives in
manuscript in the emperor’s own hand, into the Fifteen Mysteries De-
votion is twofold.75 First, the work was mentioned by Ferdinand in a
letter to his brother Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in 1646, and second,
it is listed in an inventory of the imperial music library under the rubric
“3. Mottetti per gl’ultimi 3. Sabati della quadragesima a S. Augustino
alle Cinque Prediche.”76 Like Monteverdi’s and Sances’s Pianti, Ferdi-
nand’s Popule meus, the text of which (Table 4) is drawn from a tradi-
tional Holy Week chant, would have been sung for the fifth dolorous
mystery.77 Despite the venerable source of the text, Ferdinand manipu-
lated the structure of the chant to create a work that contains dramatic
musical features and that also bears resemblances to the conventional
17th-century operatic lament generally and to Sances’s and Mon-
teverdi’s Pianti specifically.78
Popule meus, uttered by Christ on the cross, is a scathing rebuke of
the Hebrew people, in which Jesus reproaches them for repaying his 263
boundless love with torture. Scored for solo alto and tenor, the work
75 The manuscript that contains this motet is Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei, Mus. ant.
pract. K.N. 28, fols. 1–5. For further details on this source (including a reproduction of
one of the pages in Ferdinand III’s hand), see Steven Saunders, “The Emperor as Artist:
New Discoveries Concerning Ferdinand III’s Musical Compositions,” Studien zur Musikwis-
senschaft 45 (1996): 9–14. For more information on Ferdinand III as a composer, see also
Theophil Antonicek, “Die italienischen Text-vertonungen Kaiser Ferdinands III.,” in
Beiträge zur Aufnahme der italienischen und spanischen Literatur in Deutschland im 16. und 17.
Jahrhundert, ed. Alberto Martino, Chloe 9 (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1990), 209–
33; H. V. F. Somerset, “The Habsburg Emperors as Musicians,” Music & Letters 30 (1949):
204–15; and Guido Adler, ed., Musikalische Werke der Kaiser Ferdinand III., Leopold I. und
Joseph I., 2 vols. (Vienna, 1892; repr., Westmead: Gregg International, 1972).
76 Ferdinand’s letter to his brother, dated 1 February 1646, is quoted in Saunders,
“The Emperor as Artist,” 14 and Antonicek, “Musik und italienische Poesie,” 1. The in-
ventory is the Distinta specificatione (cited above for listing Bertali’s setting of Ab aeterno), in
which Ferdinand III’s Popule meus is listed on fol. 2r.
77 The chant, known as the Improperia, is generally sung on Good Friday. In the Vi-
ennese liturgy, the Improperia was sung during mass on that day, usually in a well-known
polyphonic setting by Marc’Antonio Ingegneri, which appears in a manuscript collection
of Holy Week music (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 15943) that was
copied at the Habsburg court during Ferdinand III’s reign and was still being used in the
18th century. For further information on this manuscript, see Riedel, Kirchenmusik am
Hofe Karls VI., 74–86 and Herbert Kellman and Charles Hamm, ed., Census-Catalogue of
Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400–1550, 5 vols., Renaissance Manuscript Studies
1 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Hänssler/American Institute of Musicology, 1979–88), 4: 102.
78 For more information on the operatic lament in the seicento, see especially Mar-
garet Murata, “The Recitative Soliloquy,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 32
(1979): 45–73; Bianconi, Music in the Seventeenth Century, 209–19; and Rosand, Opera in
Seventeenth-Century Venice, 361–86.
TABLE 4
Text and Translation of Popule meus
Popule meus, quid feci tibi? My people, what did I do to you?
Aut in quo contristavi te? Or in which way did I upset you?
Responde mihi. Answer me.
Ego te eduxi de Aegypto, I led you out of Egypt,

et tu me tradidisti principibus and you betrayed me to the high
sacerdotum. priests.
Ego te praeivi in columna nubis, I guided you in the cloud column,
et tu me duxisti ad praetorium Pilati. and you led me to Pilate’s court.
Popule meus . . . Responde mihi. My people . . . Answer me.
Ego te exaltavi magna virtute, I exalted you with great power,

et tu me suspendisti in patibulo Crucis. and you hung me on the scaffold of
the Cross.
Ego te potavi aqua salutis de petra, I gave you the healthy water of the
rock to drink,
et tu me potasti felle et aceto. and you gave me gall and vinegar to
264
drink.
Popule meus . . . Responde mihi. My people . . . Answer me.
opens with a recurring refrain (see Ex. 3, mm. 1–52) in which both
voices sing in imitation, with extensive musical and textual repetition
plaintively highlighting the clauses “quid fecit tibi” (what did I do
to you) and “responde mihi” (answer me). The intervening sections are
then sung by the solo alto and tenor in turn; the music remains in
triple meter and features sequential repetitions common in the mid-
century motet, yet the melodic lines are primarily declamatory in style.
Although the work by no means sounds operatic and could never be mis-
taken for an operatic scene (as could Sances’s or Monteverdi’s laments),
it nevertheless relates to dramatic conventions of the seicento. The over-
all structure, in which two solo voices alternate with each other, exploits
the style of the dramatic dialogue, in a manner similar to dialogue
motets by court composers such as Giovanni Valentini.79 In addition,
79 See, for example, Valentini’s five dialogue motets (including his own setting of
Popule meus) venerating the wounds of Christ from his Sacri Concerti a due, tre, quattro et
cinque voci (Venice: A. Vincenti, 1625); on these works, see Saunders, Cross, Sword and
Lyre, 204–22. Modern editions of three of these works (Salve tremendum, Deus qui pro re-
demptione mundi, and O vos omnes) are in ibid., 307–31 and idem, ed., Fourteen Motets From
the Court of Ferdinand II of Hapsburg, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era
75 (Madison: A-R Editions, 1995), 47–68.
weaver
example 3. Ferdinand III, Popule meus, mm. 1–104

$ ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ ½ ½ ð
A Š − ./ ð ý Ł ð −Ð ý Ðý
Po - pu-le me - us, quid
− / ð ý ð Ð ý Ðý ÿ ÿ ÿ ½ ½ ð −Ðý Ð ý
T
% Š+ . Ł
Po - pu-le me - us, quid fe - ci,
$Ý
/
B.c.
% − . Ðý Ð ý Ðý Ð ý ý
Ð ý Ð Ðý Ðý Ð
ý
$10 ÿ ½ ½ ð −Ðý ÿ
A Š − −Ðý Ðý Ðý −ð ð ð Ðý
fe - ci, quid fe - ci, quid fe - ci ti -
− ÿ ½ ½ ð −Ðý Ðý ÿ ÿ ð −ð ð Ðý Ð ¦ð
T
% Š+
quid fe - ci, quid fe - ci ti -
$Ý
B.c.
% − Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý ð Ð ð ð ð Ð
ý 265
$19 ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ
A Š − Ðý −ð ð ð Ðý Ðý
ð ð −ð −Ð ð ð Ð
bi? Quid fe - ci ti - bi?
− Ðý ð −ð ð Ðý Ð ¦ ð Ðý
T
%Š + bi? Quid fe - ci ti - bi? Aut in quo con - tri - sta -
$Ý −ð ð ð
B.c.
% − Ðý ð Ð ð ð ð Ð
ý
Ðý Ð ð ð Ð
$27 ÿ ÿ ÿ
A Š − −ð ð ð −Ð ð ð ðý Ł Ð ý −ð ð ð
Ł ¦ Ł Ðý ð ð −ð Ð ð ð Ð
Aut in quo con - tri - sta - vi te? Aut in quo
T
% Š − Ðý Ðý Ð Ðý
+ - vi te? Aut in quo con - tri - sta -
$Ý −ð ð ð
B.c.
% − Ðý Ð ð ð Ð Ðý Ð ð ð Ð Ðý
example 3. (continued )
$35
A Š − −Ð ð ð ðý Ł Ð ý ½ ½ ð −Ðý Ð ý ÿ ½ ½ ð −Ðý
con - tri - sta - vi te? Re - spon - de, re - spon -
− Ðý Ð Ł ¦ Ł Ðý ÿ ÿ ½ ½ ð −Ðý Ð ý ÿ
T
% Š+
vi te? Re - spon - de,
$Ý
B.c.
% − Ð ð ð Ð Ðý Ð
ý Ðý Ð ý Ðý Ð
ý Ðý
$44 ÿ ÿ
A Š − Ðý −ð ð ð Ðý Ðý −ð ð ð Ðý Ðý
de, re -spon-de mi - hi, re -spon-de mi - hi.
− ÿ ð −ð ð Ðý Ð ¦ ð Ðý ð −ð ð Ðý Ð ¦ ð Ðý
T
% Š+
re-spon-de mi - hi, re-spon-de mi - hi.
$Ý
% − Ðý ð Ð
266
ý ý
ð ð ð Ð Ðý ð Ð ð ð ð Ð Ðý
B.c.
$53
− ð ý Ł −Ł Ł Ðý Ð ð
A
% Š −ð ý Ł Ł Ł −Ð ý ð ð ð Ð ð
E - go te e - du - xi de Ae - gy - pto, et tu me tra - di - di - sti,
$Ý −ð −Ðý −Ðý
B.c.
% − Ðý Ð Ðý Ðý Ðý
$60 ½ ½ ð ðý Ł
−
A
% Š ð ð ð Ð ð Ð ð ð ð ð Ð ð −Ð ð −ð
et tu me tra - di - di - sti, et tu me tra - di - di - sti prin - ci - pi-bus
$Ý −Ð ý Ðý −Ðý −Ðý −ðý Ł ð

B.c.
% − Ðý Ðý Ðý
$68 ½ ½ −ð ðý Ł ð q
−
A
%Š Ð ð ð Ð Ðý −Ð ð ð Ð Ðý
sa - cer - do - tum, prin - ci - pi-bus sa - cer - do - tum.
$Ý −ð ð Ð Ðý ð ý −Ł −ð Ð ð q
% − Ð Ðý ð Ð Ðý
B.c.
weaver
example 3. (continued )
$76 ½ ð ð Ð ð Ð ð ½ ð ð
− Ð ð Ðý Ðý
T
% Š+
E - go te prae - i - vi in co - lu - mna nu - bis,
$Ý
ð ð ð Ðý
B.c.
% − Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý
$83 ½ ð ð −ð ð ð ý
Š − Ð ð ½ ð ð −ð ð ð Ð ð ½ ð ð ð Ł ð
T
%+
et tu me du - xi - sti, et tu me du - xi - sti ad prae - to - ri-um
$Ý
B.c.
% −Ð ð Ðý Ðý Ð ð Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý
$91 ½ ½ ð Ð ² ð Ð ý
− ½ ð ð ð ý Ł ð ½ ½ ð Ð ²ð Ð ý
T
% Š+
Pi - la - ti, ad prai - to - ru-um Pi - la - ti.
267
$Ý
B.c.
% − Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý
$99 ÿ ÿ ÿ
A Š− ðý Ł ð −Ð ý Ðý
Po - pu - le me - us,
− ðý Ł ð Ðý Ðý ÿ ÿ ÿ
T
% Š+
Po - pu - le me - us,
$Ý
B.c.
% − Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý Ðý
the recurring tutti refrain acts as a kind of internal commentary on the

work, emphasizing Christ’s great sorrow and disappointment in his peo-
ple. Such commentary was an important aspect of the operatic lament
convention; the most famous example of a lament with a commenting
chorus is Monteverdi’s celebrated Lamento della ninfa from the Eighth
Book of Madrigals, in which the chorus of three male singers not only
introduces and concludes the nymph’s triple-meter ground bass aria
but also sings throughout, remarking on her grief. From very early on it
was also common for commentary to be provided by the lamenting
character herself, in the form of a recurring refrain.
Popule meus also shares specific similarities with both Sances’s and
Monteverdi’s Pianti della Madonna. For instance, Sances’s motet, like the
emperor’s, is based on a traditional plainchant text that is transformed by
the music into a dramatic utterance. Sances achieved this without even
rearranging or changing the original text; instead, he set the more
narrative passages (e.g., “the blessed mother stood by the cross” and
“she saw Jesus”) as recitative in duple meter, alternating with expressive
triple-meter sections based entirely on the minor descending tetra-
chord filled in with chromatic passing tones (see Ex. 4). Although per-
formed throughout by the same singer (who speaks entirely in the third
person), the end result is that of a vivid and heart-wrenchingly emo-
tional outpouring of grief punctuated with choral commentary in ex-
actly the same vein as Monteverdi’s Lamento della ninfa (with which it,
perhaps not coincidentally, shares the descending tetrachord).80 Fur-
thermore, like Monteverdi’s Pianto Ferdinand III’s work is a highly-
charged soliloquy declaimed in the first person and addressed to a sec-
268 ond party who does not respond. As does Jesus in Popule meus, the
Virgin Mary of Monteverdi’s lament displays an uncharacteristic harsh-
ness when she, following Ariadne’s lead, forcefully rebukes her son for
not answering her questions. It should also not be forgotten that in its
original operatic context (which may have been known at the imperial
court) the individual sections of Ariadne’s lament were separated by a
chorus of fishermen commenting upon the princess’ misfortune.
Although this discussion of Ferdinand III’s Popule meus by no means
confirms that either Monteverdi or Sances intended their Marian
laments for Eleonora’s Fifteen Mysteries Devotion (there are, after all,
just as many—if not more—differences between the pieces than similar-
ities), it should still be clear that these Pianti della Madonna would have
been welcome additions to this annual service. This is something that
Sances must have known when he placed his lament in the place of
honor at the end of his motet book dedicated to Eleonora Gonzaga.
And perhaps even Monteverdi was aware of this when he borrowed
80 After the fourth section of Sances’s motet, the strict allocation of narrative in the
duple-meter recitative and emotional response in the triple-meter lament breaks down,
only because the text remains emotionally consistent from there on. The final duple-
meter section thus serves a purely musical function, breaking up the triple-meter lament.
Sances’s lament, which contains the first known example of the chromatic descending
tetrachord bass, is not mentioned in Ellen Rosand’s groundbreaking article, “The De-
scending Tetrachord: An Emblem of Lament,” Musical Quarterly 65 (1979): 346–59.
weaver
example 4. Sances, Pianto della Madonna, mm. 1–28
Š ¼ Ł Ł ð ý
Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ¼ Ł Ł ð Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł ¼ Ł Ł Ł Ł
Sta-bat Ma - ter do - lo - ro - sa Ju-xta Cru - cem la - cri-mo - sa Dum pen-de - bat
$Ý
% Ð ð ²ð Ð ð ²ð Ð
8 9

6
Š Łý Ł ð ¼ Ł Ł Łý Ł Ł ² Ł ² Ł Ł ¼ Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł Ł

fi - li - us Cu - ius a - ni-mam ge - men - tem Con - tri - stan-tam et do - len - tem
$Ý Ð ²Ð ¦ð ²Ł ¦ Ł
% ð ð −
7 6 ²

10
Š Ł Ł Ł ² Ł Łý Ł Ð /- ô ô ô
Per - tan - si - vit gla - di - us.
$Ý Ð /- þ Ð ²Ð ¦ þ ²Ð ¦ þ
% Ł7 Ł ð
²3
269
²63 7 6 4
ÿ ð ð Ð þý þ
15
Š ô Ð Ð Ð Ð ô ÿ ððÐ
O quam tri - stis, quam
$Ý þ Ð þ Ð ²Ð ¦ þ ²Ð ¦ þ þ Ð þ Ð ²Ð ¦ þ
%
ý
22
Š þ Ð Ðý ð þ Ð ÿ Ð Ð þ Ð þý ô
tri - stis et af - fli - cta
$Ý ²Ð ¦ þ þ Ð þ Ð ²Ð ¦ þ ²Ð ¦ þ þ Ð þ Ð
%
from the younger composer the idea of concluding his Selva morale et
spirituale with his own Pianto della Madonna.
IV
Despite some solid evidence (including Monteverdi’s documented
relationship with the Habsburgs, the similarities between the two prints,
and the liturgical appropriateness of the Proverbs text), my argument

depends on quite a bit of circumstantial evidence and therefore cannot
offer a completely definitive account of Monteverdi’s intentions in com-
piling the Selva morale et spirituale. After all, by its very nature as a public
commodity, Monteverdi’s print was designed to be as general as possi-
ble and appeal to the widest possible audience. Ab aeterno may have
held polyvalent readings for 17th-century listeners, and any number of
reasons could be postulated as to why Monteverdi decided to conclude
his print with the Pianto della Madonna.81 Nevertheless, when consid-
ered together, the circumstances presented here add up to be more
than a coincidence. There can be no doubt that Sances knew that both
his Dominus possedit me and Pianto were especially appropriate for his
employer’s devotional needs, and in light of the similarities between
the two composers’ prints as well as Monteverdi’s own connections to
the Habsburg court, Monteverdi might very well have chosen his two
prominently positioned, anomalous motets for precisely this reason.
These new insights into two of the motets in the Selva morale et spirituale
may not have answered all of the questions surrounding this enigmatic
print; if anything, the Habsburg implications of Ab aeterno and Pianto
270 della Madonna raise new issues about the rest of the music in the publi-
cation. (Why, for instance, aren’t there more Marian works?) Yet locat-
ing these two motets in their Habsburg context does more than just lay
the groundwork for more questions. It also provides further evidence
of Monteverdi’s close artistic ties to the imperial court—and even to
Sances himself—while helping to illuminate the varied political and
devotional functions of 17th-century sacred music.
Catholic University of America
ABSTRACT
Despite recent scholarly interest in Monteverdi’s Selva morale et spir-
ituale (1641), many aspects of this large, complex print remain enig-
matic, and the intended context for much of the music in the collec-
tion has long been a matter of pure conjecture. Yet two of the most
anomalous features of the Selva morale, the solo motets Ab aeterno ordi-
nata sum and Pianto della Madonna, can now be placed into the context
of the Habsburg court in Vienna during the reign of Ferdinand III
(1637–57).
81 In addition to the commercial appeal of Ariadne’s lament and the relationship of
the Pianto to Habsburg Marian devotion, another factor that may have played into Mon-
teverdi’s inclusion of the work is that it could serve as an homage to the Gonzagas, who of
course financed the original production of the opera that made Monteverdi a star.
weaver
Both of these works play directly into the most important aspects of
Habsburg Marian devotion. Ab aeterno is a setting of Proverbs 8:23–31, a
text that although very rare for seventeenth-century motets would
nonetheless have been widely understood as a celebration of the Im-
maculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. The Pianto, a Latin con-
trafactum of Monteverdi’s celebrated Lamento d’Arianna, would have
been perfectly suited for the Habsburgs’ Fifteen Mysteries Celebration,
a Lenten devotion in praise of the Most Holy Rosary. Various types of
evidence, including liturgical and other religious writings, Habsburg
sermons, and additional musical works, support these interpretations of
Monteverdi’s motets and reveal their importance to the imperial court.
That the composer did indeed include the motets in his print with the
Habsburg court in mind is further indicated by similarities between the
Selva morale and an earlier publication stemming directly from Ferdi-
nand III’s court: Giovanni Felice Sances’s Motetti a voce sola of 1638.
Keywords:
Claudio Monteverdi
Selva morale et spirituale
Habsburg 271
Giovanni Felice Sances
Motets

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Weaver_pp237-271 4/23/07 9:29 AM Page 237

Divine Wisdom and

Claudio Monteverdi’s Selva morale et spirituale,

largest and most perplexing of his publications, particularly in its ad-

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 68th An-

1 Claudio Monteverdi, Selva morale et spirituale (Venice: B. Magni, 1641). Facsimile

the journal of musicology

wished.5 The third, however, is problematic. Immediately following Ju-

the journal of musicology

with the five opening madrigals to create an extra-liturgical “Italian”

Tomlinson has commented, “Monteverdi’s strengthened urge to schematic clarity . . . is

the journal of musicology

cle refuting Moore’s conclusions.

played in his long career. (This interpretation is reinforced, moreover,

the journal of musicology

19 For a provocative interpretation of Monteverdi’s guerrieri madrigals as a whole,

ing,” Early Music 21 (1993): 577–90, esp. 580 and 587.

to Ferdinand II in 1622 served only to strengthen this relationship; un-

(West Lafayette: Purdue Univ. Press, 2004).

the journal of musicology

apex, being frequently lauded in printed historical works.32 It is un-

32 Examples include Wenceslaus Adalbert Czerwenka, Annales et acta pietatis augustis-

Florenz,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 15 (1962): 495–99; Saunders, Cross,

the journal of musicology

and almost immediately after his move to Vienna he began publishing

40 A facsimile edition of this print is available in Schnoebelen, Solo Motets, vol. 8. In

the journal of musicology

cum eo eram cuncta componens then I was with him

seem to have been more popular among Venetian composers.

the journal of musicology

Antwerp: J. Meursius, 1659), 181–94; idem, Commentaria in Ecclesiasticum (Antwerp, 1634;

52 “Dominus creavit et possedit B. Virginem, utpote Christi matrem, quasi princi-

throughout Europe) is attested to by printed 17th-century service books such as Missae de

the journal of musicology

setting of Proverbs 8, which includes several musical details that rein-

the journal of musicology

example 1. Sances, Dominus possedit me, mm. 17–25

to dismiss these similarities as merely conventional approaches to the

example 2. Sances, Dominus possedit me, mm. 151–67

the journal of musicology

the journal of musicology

Pianto Della Madonna. Soprano Solo.

the 1639–40 season undoubtedly tempted Monteverdi to capitalize

a factor in the inclusion of the Pianto in the Selva morale.

pointed out, the Venetian confraternities were an important part of the

1260–1807 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003), esp. 252.

the journal of musicology

The Immaculate Conception was the most prominent aspect of the

dition extending back to the origins of the celebration is supported,

the journal of musicology

Ego te eduxi de Aegypto, I led you out of Egypt,

Popule meus . . . Responde mihi. My people . . . Answer me.

Ego te exaltavi magna virtute, I exalted you with great power,

Popule meus . . . Responde mihi. My people . . . Answer me.

example 3. Ferdinand III, Popule meus, mm. 1–104

the journal of musicology

$Ý −Ð ý Ðý −Ðý −Ðý −ðý Ł ð

the recurring tutti refrain acts as a kind of internal commentary on the

the journal of musicology

example 4. Sances, Pianto della Madonna, mm. 1–28

the journal of musicology

and the liturgical appropriateness of the Proverbs text), my argument