The Late Madrigals of Luca Marenzio

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T h e la te m a d rig a ls o f L uca M arenzio: S tu d ie s in th e in tera ctio n s

o f m u sic, lite r a tu r e , an d p a tro n a g e a t th e en d o f th e six teen th
cen tu ry
Macy, Laura Williams, Ph.D.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1991
C o p y rig h t © 1 9 9 1 b y M a c y , L a u ra W illia m s . A ll rig h ts reserved .
t t A yr t
U ' 1V X 'A
300 N. Zeeb Rd.
Ann Aibor, MI 48106
THE LATE MADRIGALS OF LUCA MARENZIO
STUDIES IN THE INTERACTIONS OF MUSIC, LITERATURE, AND

PATRONAGE AT THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
by
Laura Williams Macy
A Dissertation submitted to the faculty of The

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in th e Department cf Music <
Chapel Hill
1991
Approved by;
Advisor
Reader
')
fl^Reader
1991
Laura Williams Macy
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ii
LAURA WILLIAMS MACY. The Late Madrigals of Luca Marenzio:
Studies in the Interactions of Music, Literature, and
Patronage at the End of the Sixteenth Century. (Under the
direction of James Haar.)
ABSTRACT
This dissertation is designed as four independent but
interrelated essays on Luca Marenzio's late madrigals.
After a general introduction to the various channels of
traditional music patronage available in late sixteenth-
century Rome, Chapter I reconsiders Marenzio's unorthodox
career in the broader perspective of Roman intellectual
patronage.
The three other essays address issues surrounding the
music itself. Chapter II places Marenzio's Ouinto libro a
sei (1591) in the context of Medici Florence— comparing it
to the composer's contributions to the wedding festivities
of 1589. Chapter III considers the sixth and seventh books
for five voices, both of which are dominated by texts drawn
from Giambattista Guarini's II pastor fido. Marenzio's
Pastor fido madrigals are stylistically distinct from those
of his northern contemporaries Giaches Wert and Claudio
Monteverdi. It is argued here that Marenzio's Fastor fido
style reflects the play's reception in Rome as opposed to
the northern courts. In Chapter IV. Marenzio's striking use
of Petrarch's poetry in three late publications is placed in
the contextof late Renaissance poetics. The books discussed
in this chapter are the Madriqali (1588), the Sesto libro a

• / 1 r or t au J - i . _ 1- x.i %t 1 û S
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OCX | 1 J 7 J ) ^ ClllUL 11X 0 XC4 . 0 L. U U U J\. j UUC 11U11U XXXTXU CL U \ Z?) •
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Broude Brothers Limited and to the
American Institute of Musicology for permission to reproduce
musical examples from their editions. I would also like to
thank Dr. Steven Ledbetter for sharing with me his
unpublished editions of Marenzio's Nono libro a cinque, and
for allowing me to include musical examples from that
edition. Without Dr. Ledbetter's enthusiasm and remarkable
generosity of both materials and ideas this project would
have been both more difficult and less fun.
Many friends and colleagues at Chapel Hill, Williams
College, and Penn State have cheered me on through what
sometimes seemed a very long haul. Special thanks are due
to Katherine Bergeron, Liane Curtis, Cynthia Cyrus, and Ken
Kreitner; in addition to reading and discussing my work all
at one time or another have kept my mind from atrophy and my
spirit from defeat.
I was very fortunate in my committees Jon Finson, John
Nadas, Howard Smither, Gary Tomlinson, and Thomas Warburton
all read the document with care and offered advice in
matters of both style and content. Gary Tomlinson's
influence is everywhere in this dissertation. His own music
criticism has influenced my thinking at the deepest level;
in conversations with him over the years I have sharpened my
own critical skills.
iv
In James Haar I have the most inspiring and challenging
of mentors. The depth and breadth of his understanding of
the Renaissance and its music are an inexhaustable resource;
his intellectual integrity makes him a rare and inspiring
model for emulation.
To the memory of my mother, Alice Macy
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction.„........ ., ,............. 1
Chapter I Marenzio and Roman Patronage in the 1590s.... 6
Chapter II Marenzio and Florentine Style of Patronage...45
Chapter III Marenzio and the Pastoral Drama.............. 88
Appendix to Chapter III................................ ,.155
Chapter IV Marenzio and Petrarch....................... 158
Bibliography.................................... 205
vii
INTRODUCTION
If I never believed that the dead could hear me, and if

I knew that the dead could not speak, I was nonetheless
certain that I could re-create a conversation with
them. Even when I came to understand that in my most
intense moments of straining to listen all I could hear
was my own voice, even then I did not abandon my
desire. It was true that I could hear only my own
voice, but my own voice was the voice of the dead, for
the dead had contrived to leave textual traces of
themselves, and those traces make themselves heard in
the voices of the living.
Stephen Greenblatt^
When I was a child my mother taught me a form of dream
therapy in which I engaged the characters of my dreams— some
frightening, others merely fantastic— in conversation. I
would sit in a chair facing another, empty, one and ask
these inventions of my subconscious to tell me about
themselves. Then, moving to the other chair, I answered my
questions. This is the way I understand Greenblatt's notion
of dialogue with the past. The characters that I have
engaged in conversation in this dissertation— Marenzio, his
companions and contemporaries, and his madrigals themselves,
are no more accessible than the shades that populate my
*In Shakespearean Negotiations; The Circulation of

Social Energy in Renaissance England (Berkeley, 1988), p.l.
dreams. And I know that the voices in which they answer me
are all mine. But I have done my best to color those voices
with the textual traces of that distant world.
The questions I asked gave the dissertation its form.
They were originally two: Why does Marenzio's career seem to
have fallen apart in his last decade? And, more difficult,
what were the directions of his musical style, and what
influenced them? Not surprisingly, these two questions
proved inseparable. As I began to understand Marenzio's
career, it became clear that the answers to my questions
about his madrigals lay not just in their contexts— the
twists and turns in his remarkable biography— but in the way
that these contexts differed from one another.
The "problem" with Marenzio's career in the 1590s lies
not in him but in us— in particular in our limited
understanding of the nature of the complicated set of
relationships that fall under the rubric "patronage."
Chapter I . on Marenzio's biography, therefore does not
answer the mysteries of his last decade by supplying new
evidence of hitherto unknown successes. Rather it seeks to
expand our model of success to one in which Marenzio—
clearly one of the most beloved composers of his day— is
comfortable.
Greenblatt's image of conversation with the past
appeals to me not only because it evokes the therapy of my
childhood, but because voice is an evocative image for a
study of the madrigal. A composer of vocal music speaks
through the voices of others. In my chapters on Marenzio's
madrigals, my conversation has been with the madrigals
themselves. And I have tried to be as honest as possible in
allowing them to lead the dialogue in the most fruitful
direction. The result is three chapters that explore groups
of works from very different points of view.
These madrigals, and the biographical circumstances
surrounding them, are puzzling. After spending the first
ten years of his career developing a distinctive (and widely
influential) style Marenzio began experimenting. In the
second half of his career he turned in a new direction in
almost every book. This eclecticism matches his peripatetic
career. In contradiction to the long and steady tenure with
Cardinal Luigi d'Este that marked his first decade, his last
is characterized by restlessness. Yet during these years
Marenzio produced some of the most exquisite of all
madrigals.
The repertory of Chapter II is that of Marenzio's two
years in Medici Florence. The musical legacy of this brief
but important phase of his career consists in his
contributions to the famous intermedii for the wedding of
Ferdinand I de' Medici in 1589, and in his Ouinto libro de
madriqali a sei. published shortly after his return to Rcme
in 1591, with a dedication to his new patron, Virginio
Orsini. Although the intermedii and the madrigals of the
Va6 differ in purpose and in style, each in its own way
reflects the context of sixteenth-century patronage at its
most demanding. The grace and charm with which Marenzio
responded to the Florentine encomiastic style is testimony
to his almost chameleonic adaptability.
Chapter III takes as its subject the sixth and seventh
books for five voices, in which Marenzio developed his own
musical response to the pastoral drama— in particular,
Guarini's Ii pastor fido. The context of these works was
Marenzio's stay in the circle of Cardinal Cinzio
Aldobrandini in Rome. Cinzio was a very different kind of
public figure than the Medici, or even Virginio Orsini, and
Marenzio's role in his household seems to have been both
less formal and perhaps more intimate. Thus the patron-
composer relationship surrounding these works, and in
particular, the role of this relationship in Marenzio's
poetic and musical choices, was very different. Marenzio's
Pastor fido settings stand apart from contemporary settings
stylistically; I argue that he was influenced, in his
reading of Guarini's drama, by literary figures in Cinzio's
circle.
Finally, Chapter IV is a study of Marenzio's Petrarch
settings. The three books under discussion here cover the
span of his late career. The Madriqali a guattro. cinque e
sei voci. published in 1588, is the earliest of the books
under discussion; the Sesto libro a sei voci was published
in late 1595; the Nono libro a cinque voci. Marenzio's last
publication, appeared in May 1599, three months before his
death. In this chapter I argue that considerations of his
patrons' tastes were secondary, in these works, to his need
to work through certain musico-poetic issues.
My aim is not to offer a developmental analysis of
Marenzio's late madrigals, nor to place him in the context
of contemporary madrigal styles— though both of these
considerations inform my narrative. Rather, I offer a set
of essays on three different combinations of patronage,
literary fashion and musical style represented in Marenzio's
late works.
CHAPTER I
MARENZIO AND ROMAN PATRONAGE IN THE 1590s
Luca Marenzio's last ten years have been something of
an embarrassment for his modern admirers. From the look of
the documentary evidence this star of the late cinquecento
madrigal seems to have spent his last decade— half of his
creative life— without a steady job.
No one doubts that Marenzio was respected and admired
by his contemporaries. Almost all of his eighteen books of
madrigals went through several editions, and individual
works appeared in anthologies in France, Germany, and
England. Marenzio was one of the few sixteenth-century
madrigalists for whom an opera omnia was begun during his
own lifetime: as early as 1593 Peter Pnalese published a
collected edition of Marenzio's first five books of five-
voice madrigals, and a companion six-voice volume followed
in 1594. After the composer's death both Phalese and his
German rival Kaufmann published complete editions of his
madrigals. Marenzio was acclaimed by his contemporaries as
the gem of his age; yet his employment record seems unequal
to this reputation.
A reconciliation of this apparent contradiction begins
with a careful reexamination of the available documentary
evidence. Luigi d'Este, Marenzio's first major patron, died
in December 1586, leaving tha composer to his own resources.
Marenzio stayed in Rome for some time— in early 1587 he was
negotiating with the Mantuan ambassador in Rome for a
position at the Mantuan court— but he may have done some
travelling in the north of Italy as well. A visit to Verona
is alluded to in the dedication of his Madriqali a quattro
cinque, e sei. (1588).-*-
By February 1588 he had been hired by the Florentine
court as part of the musical establishment for the wedding
festivities of 1589. Ferdinando de' Medici, Cardinal of
Florence, had become grand duke in October 1587 upon the
childless death of his brother and sister-in-law, Francesco
de' Medici and Bianca Capello. Though he did not actually
relinquish his cardinal's hat until November 1588,
Ferdinando initiated the complicated political process of
"mi e paruto con 1'occasione del mio passaggio per

Verona presentarle questi madrigali da me ultimamente
composti..." Facsimile in Madriqali a quattro cinque, et sei
voci. ed. Steven Ledbetter (New York, 1977) p.xv. The
dedication, to Mario Bevilacqua, is dated 10 December 1587
from Venice. Although the actual presence of the composer in
the city from which the dedication is signed is never quite
certain, the pattern of Marenzio's dedications strongly
suggests that the city of signature is genuine: fourteen of
the composer's eighteen dedications are signed from Rome,
and of the four that are signed from Venice, there is other
circumstantial evidence to suggest his presence in northern
Italy at the time of the signing.
finding an appropriate consort immediately upon his
inheritance of the title. Rumors were circulating by early
1588, and preparations for the ceremony were begun in
February, though the bride's identity was not officially
disclosed until April. Marenzio was apparently one of the
first of a stream of musicians, many of them Romans, to be
hired over the ensuing months.
Marenzio's appointment was undoubtedly a part of
Ferdinando's attempt, upon his succession, to establish his
independence as a music patron and surround himself with
familiar faces. One would like to know more about the
specifics of Marenzio's duties. If he had a performing role
it was insignificant enough to escape notice; and he cannot
have had prominent duties in artistic direction, or he would
certainly have been mentioned in the voluminous reports and
letters that document the day-to-day progress of the
preparations.^
The coronation and wedding of the new grand duke of
Tuscany was occasion for visits from high-ranking
representatives from all the Italian courts, from important
members of the church, and even from dignitaries from other
countries. Among the visiting luminaries were two of
O
For a thorough discussion of the documentation of
Marenzio's time in Florence, see Steven Ledbetter, Luca
Marenzio: New Biographical Findings (Ph.D. dissertation: New
York University, 1971) pp.102-124 and documents 67-89. See
Chapter II, below, for further discussion of the musical
legacy of Marenzio's Florentine sojourn.
Marenzio's future patrons, Cinzio Aldobrandini and Virginio
Orsini. Marenzio may have been introduced to Cinzio when
the latter passed through Florence en route to Poland with
his uncle Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini in June 1588. On
the party's return trip in April 1589, they were treated to
a dress rehearsal of La Pelleqrina with its intermedii.
Cinzio was apparently not among the party on this latter
occasion, having been sent ahead to Rome by his uncle; but
Diego de Campo, a close associate of Aldobrandini's , and the
dedicatee of Marenzio's seventh book for five voices- was in
the entourage on both visits.
Marenzio's acquaintance with his other important future
patron, Virginio Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, surely dates
from this period as well. Virginio was still living in
Florence at the time of Marenzio's arrival (he moved to Rome
the following June) and he was undoubtedly a highly visible
figure during the ensuing months.
Marenzio's tenure at Florence ended in November 1589,
and he returned to Rome, where he probably joined the newly
established Orsini household almost immediately. In the
dedication of his fifth book for six voices, dated 1 January
1591, he thanked Virginio for his protection and asserted
that the book's contents were "born and nurtured in your
[Virginio's] house."J This last may be something of a
rhetorical flourish: many of the madrigals of this book have
a Florentine stamp and may well have been written during
Marenzio's stay in that city. Nevertheless, it is clear
that the composer had been living in the Orsini household
for some time by the beginning of 1591. He was gone by 22
July 1593, when a certain Venturi wrote a letter to Virginio
Orsini requesting the use of Marenzio's vacated rooms.^
Marenzio dedicated his next publication, the sixth book
for five voices, to Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini on 1
January 1594, and we may infer an association between the
two men as early as 1593. By sometime in 1594 he was a part
of the cardinal's Vatican household: his name appears on a
list, dated 1594, of Cinzio's famiglia and their Vatican
lodgings.^ Though Cinzio was not raised to the cardinalate
until 17 September 1593, he was living in the Vatican by
November 1592, and was already gathering around him the
■5
J"01tra che per essere nate, & nudrite m casa sua."
The dedication is reproduced in Ledbetter, Marenzio. doc.
90.
^The letter is reproduced in Ledbetter, Marenzio, doc.

95.
^The list is reproduced in Prinzivalli, Tasso a Roma

(Rome, 1895) pp. 79-81. The passage concerning Marenzio
reads "II s[igno]r Luca Merentio tiene una stantia con un
Camerino s'entra da una sala per dove si va all'Appartamento
del S[igno]r Statilio. E pifc. tiene un altro Camerino fuori
tra una sala e l'altra." See Ledbetter, Marenzio, doc 97.
10
circle of intellectual figures for which he would become
famous.®
In late 1595 the cardinal recommended Marenzio for the
position of maestro di cappella at the Polish court of

• •
Sigismond III.'7 Marenzio got the job and left Rome in
October. It was a remarkable position for a musician with
Marenzio's apparently limited administrative experience.
Sigismond was revamping his musical establishment, adding an
Italian division, and the evidence suggests that Marenzio
was given the responsibility of recruitment; Ledbetter has
suggested that the astonishing salary of 1500 scudi was
probably meant to cover the other musicians as well.® It
was undoubtedly the high recommendation of his patron
®Tasso was a guest of Cinzio at his Roman palace by

June 1592, and followed him to the Vatican in November. See
Ludwig von Pastor, History of the Popes from the Close of
the Middle Aces. English edition by Frederick Antrobus, et
al., 40 vols. (London, 1906-1953), vol. 24, pp. 452-58.
n
'The first evidence of the negotiations is a letter
from Marenzio to Flavia Orsini, dated 11 August 1595, asking
her leave in her husband's absence. An a w i s o of 19 August
1595 reports that Marenzio is preparing to leave for Poland,
that he is to be paid 1500 scudi per year, and that he is
responsible for bringing other Italian musicians with him. A
long letter from Cinzio to Sigismond (5 October 1595)
singing the composer's praises completes the Italian
documentation of the Polish sojourn. See Ledbetter,
Marenzio. docs. 101-103, pp. 231-33.
Q ,
See Ledbetter, Marenzio. p.134.
11
Cinzio, who had a close association with Sigismond reaching
back to 1588, that secured the post for Marenzio.^
The Polish sojourn appears to have been less than
successful for Marenzio:10 he was back in Italy by 20
October 1598, when he signed the dedication of his eighth
book for five voices from Venice. When he died, on 22
August 1599, he had been in Rome for at least three months:
he had signed the dedication of his last book, the IXa5,
from that city on 10 May 1599.11
The composer's movements and associations during his
last year, from his departure from Poland in mid-1598 until
his death, are undocumented; but we may be able to
reconstruct a hypothetical itinerary. In the fall of 1598,
when Marenzio returned to Italy from Poland, neither of his
patrons from the early nineties was in Rome. Virginio and
Flavia Orsini had been living mostly in Florence since 1594
Q
Cinzio was the papal secretary of state m charge of
Polish affairs. His relationship with Sigismond dated back
to 1587 when Cinzio accompanied his uncle, then Cardinal
Ippolito Aldobrandini, on a diplomatic mission to Poland
which resulted in the placement of Sigismond on the throne.
10Marenzio's position at the Polish court is not well

documented. The Polish royal archives record the arrival of
a group of Italian musicians and their maestro on March
1596. Further documentation is restricted to a single
reference, from September 1596, to Marenzio as maestro di
cappella. A new maestro is mentioned on 12 June 1598
providing a terminus ante quern for Marenzio's departure.
11The dedications to the eighth and ninth books are

reprinted in Ledbetter, Marenzio, docs. 107-108. See note 1
above, on the cities of Marenzio's dedications.
12
when Virginio had been drafted by his uncle the grand duke
of Tuscany to lead the Tuscan troops in the war against the
Turks in Hungary. Flavia spent most of her husband's
absence in Florence, where Virginio joined her on his
return, and where the couple would make their primary home
for most of the rest of the decade. ^
Marenzio's other patron, Cinzio Aldobrandini, was away
from Rome for a year, from April 1598 until the following
May. Cinzio had left Rome for Ferrara in the entourage of
his uncle, Pope Clement VIII, in April 1598. Clement
remained in Ferrara, newly acquired by the Papal States on
the death of Alfonso II, until November. Cinzio, however,
left the city in a huff in October, angered by the political
ascendancy of his cousin, Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini. He
travelled to Venice and then on to Milan, where he
embarrassed and annoyed the pope by paying an unauthorized
visit to Margherita of Austria, the bride of the new king of
Spain, Phillip III. Cinzio remained in Milan until the
following April when he was reconciled with the pope. He
returned to Rome in the first days of May 1599.^
19
•^The couple's movements have been determined from the
Orsini correspondence in Rome, Archivio Capitolino, Fondo
Orsini, Ser. I, pacco nos. 104-108, 112, and 128.
1 9 . .
iJCinzio's biographers are vague and occasionally
contradictory on his exact itinerary during these months.
Lorenzo Cardella describes the cousins' quarrel in Ferrara
and Cinzio's departure. He gives Padua, Venice, and Milan as
the itinerary and May 1599 as the date of Cinzio's return to
Rome. See Memorie storiche de' Cardinali della Santa Romana
13
I dwell on the cardinal's itinerary during these months
because it intersects with what we know of Marenzio's own,
suggesting a possible meeting between the two men at this
time. If Marenzio was in Venice on 20 October 1598, as the
dedication of his eighth book for five voices indicates, his
path must surely have crossed that of Cinzio, who had left
Ferrara for that city on 13 October. Marenzio next surfaced
in Rome with the dedication of his IXa5, signed from Rome on
10 May within days of Cinzio's return to that city. Might
Marenzio have joined the cardinal's party in Venice? If so,
he would have continued on to Milan— host, in late 1598, to
Phillip III of Spain and Margherita of Austria, who arrived
in the city at the end of November. The couple stayed for
two months and, according to an early biographer of the
queen, were host to all the major princes of Italy or their
ambassadors.^ The circumstances would have been ideal for
a musician, especially one who may have been looking fcr
Chiesa (Rome, 1793), vol. VI, pp. 11-16. Angelo Personeni

includes Vicenza in the itinerary, noting that Cinzio stayed
with the Capra family in that city. See Notizie Geneoloqiche
storiche critiche e letterarie del Cardinale Cinzio
Personeni da Ca' Passero Aldobrandini (Bergamo, 1786) .
Cinzio's travels are also discussed in Francesco Parisi,
Della Epistoloqrafia. II libro Primo contiene le memorie
della vita del cardinale Cinzio Aldobrandini (Rome,1787).
Cinzio's correspondence from this period further establishes
his itinerary. Busta 29 of the Aldobrandini archives in the
Doria Pamphilij Archive in Rome includes three letters: 22
October 1598 from Vicenza, and 25 January 1599 and 9 March
1599 from Milan.
Diego de Guzman, Vida v Muerte de D. Marquerita de

Austria Revna de Espanna (Madrid, 1617). See especially pp.
47-92.
14
employment. This is speculation, of course, but it does
provide a plausible itinerary for most of Marenzio's last
year. He died on 22 August 1599 at the Villa Medici on the
outskirts of Rome, apparently in the company of his brother,
Marenzio Marenzii, an employee of the grand duke. He was
buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina.^
Two years in the household of a duke, his exact
position unclear at best, a few more under the protection of
a cardinal; a somewhat abortive stint as maestro di cappelia
at a foreign court, returning to Rome to die in the care of
his brother. This is not the story of a successful
musician— not, at any rate, by the standards we usually
apply to sixteenth-century composers.
It is important to remember that the sixteenth century
knew no such profession as "composer." The figures that we
revere today were employed principally as church musicians
(singers, organists, maestri di cappelia) or as musici
segreti. members of secular establishments kept by the
courts of northern Italy for their private entertainment.
Their chief duty was in performing— either singing or
playing instruments— and composing was just a useful skill a
l ^ M death is reported in an a w i s o di Roma of

a r e n z i o ' s
24 August 1599 and recorded in the Register of San Lorenzo

in Lucina. See Ledbetter, Marenzio. doc. 109 for the text of
the a w i s o .
15
musician could (may have been expected to) bring to a
fundamentally performance-oriented career.
Rome certainly had plenty of opportunities for private
secular patronage. The city had several wealthy and
powerful native dynasties— the Orsini and Colonna to name
the two most illustrious. And each new pope brought with
him an "aristocracy" of family and hangers-on. Rome's
cardinals were Renaissance Italy's ultimate nouveaux riches:
they were often exceedingly wealthy, and their need to
establish their influence through display was at least equal
to that of the nobility. The Rome of Clement VIII was
dominated by two tremendously influential cardinal-patrons:
Pietro Aldobrandini and Alessandro Peretti, Cardinal
Montalto.
Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of Ippolito Aldobrandini,
Clement VIII, was not originally destined for a career in
the church.^-® The possibilities of a powerful
ecclesiastical career, occasioned by his uncle's election to
the papacy, undoubtedly influenced his decision to take
^ F o r a compact and thorough biographical sketch of

Pietro Aldobrandini see E. Fasano Guarini, "Aldobrandini,
Pietro," Dizionario bioorafico deali Italian!. (Rome, 1960)
vol. I pp. 107-112. My brief precis of the cardinal's music
patronage is based on two recent studies: Frederick Hammond,
"Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, Patron of Music," Studi
Musicali 12 (1983), 53 and Claudio Annibaldi, "II mecenate
'Politico': Ancora sul patronato musicale del Cardinale
Pietro Aldobrandini," Studi Musicali 16 (1987), 33. A second
installment of Annibaldi's article, covering the latter part
of Pietro's career, is forthcoming.
16
minor orders in September 1592, six months after Clement
VIII's election. He was promptly rewarded with the
appointment of joint secretary of state with his cousin
Cinzio Aldobrandini, and he received the cardinal's hat in
September 1593. Pietro proved an adept politician, and he
quickly became one of the most powerful churchmen in
Clementine Rome. Cardinal Bentivoglio, an early chronicler,
noted that Pietro's apartments were always full of favor-
seekers and that the Cardinal travelled with a large
retinue. Bentivoglio remarked Pietro's love of the external
trappings of power, reporting that he was chastened for this
quality by the pope himself. 1 7
Pietro's need of the tangible features of power
manifested itself in an extroverted style of patronage,
marked more by quantity and visibility than by genuine
aesthetic sensibility. Clement's papacy saw a marked
decline in artistic endeavors from the active period of
Sixtus V. Pietro stands out in this undistinguished field
particularly with respect to the visual arts. He supervised
a number of church renovations, for which he relied heavily
on the conservative Sistine artist Giuseppe Cesari, Cavalier
d'Arpino. Cesari was a member of Pietro's household during
the 1590s, and it was largely thanks to the cardinal's
*7Guido Bentivoglio, Memorie e Lettere. ed. Costantino

Panigada (Bari, 1934). Cited in Pastor, History of the
Popes, vol. 23, p.51.
17
influence that the artist received most of the important
public commissions of the decade.
Pietro's large private art collection— the bulk of
which was acquired en masse from Lucrezia d'Este— forms the
basis of the modern Doria Pamphilij museum in Rome. An
inventory of 1603 shows the collection to be of high
quality, boasting an impressive representation of the work
of the avant-garde Bolognese, Annibale Carracci. The
contrast between the conservatism of Pietro's public works
and the forward-looking content of his personal collection
is striking. Art historians credit this contradiction to
the influence excercised on the private collection by
Giambattista Agucci, Pietro's private secretary and an
important patron of art in his own rig h t . ^
Pietro Aldobrandini's patronage of music may be
compared with his patronage of art. Similar to his
wholesale acquisition of Lucrezia d'Este's art collection
was his looting of the Ferrarese musical establishment upon
the papal takeover of the city in 1598, when he added
Luzzasco Luzzaschi, among others, to his retinue. He was
the recipient of more music dedications than any other Roman
of the period with the possible exception of Cardinal
^■®See Peter Haskell, Patrons and Painters in

Seventeenth Century Italy (New Haven and London, 1980),
Chapter 1, on church decoration as a manifestation of
clerical power.
•^See Haskell, Patrons and Painters, pp. 397-98.
18
on
Montalto. u In particular a rash of dedications, many of
them from Ferrarese musicians, followed the takeover of
Ferrara.
Alessandro Peretti was fourteen when his great uncle,
the newly elected Sixtus V, made him Cardinal Montalto in
1585. Four years later he was ensconced in the Palazzo
della Cancelleria as cardinal vice chancellor, succeeding
the great Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in that post; he was
eighteen.
Like Pietro Aldobrandini, Montalto was an important
patron of public art. But his patronage bears a different
stamp than Pietro's. Montalto patronized the new,
progressive Bolognese school, most notably Domenichino. In
architecture he favored the popular Carlo Maderno. And
Montalto did not show himself to be as image-conscious as
Pietro. In fact, his greatest contribution to Roman public
art, the completion of Sant' Andrea delle Valle, was
undertaken against the advice of friends, who warned that
the completion of a church begun by someone else was not
politically prudent.
Montalto was famous for his love of spectacle and
lavish theatrical entertainments. He was part of a circle
^®The dedications up to 1600 are listed and reprinted

in Annibaldi, "II mecenate 'Politico'," app. II, pp. 85-99.
91
■
“ See Haskell, Patrons and Painters, p.71.
19
of friends, devoted to theatre and spectacle, that included
Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, later grand duke of
Florence, and Cardinal Francesco del Monte. The three men
took turns entertaining each other and selected friends with
expensive banquets, which included musical and theatrical

• 99
entertainments. ^ A frequent visitor to Florence, Montalto
was a guest at the wedding fesivities of 1600 and 1608, the
latter of which borrowed some of his musicians.
Montalto's musical establishment was unrivalled in
Rome, especially after 1600. ^3 From as early as 1608, he
maintained two separate choirs: his private cappelia and the
cappelia of his titular church, San Lorenzo in Damasco. He
frequently lent his musicians to the Florentine court and
vice versa.
For all the opportunities individual secular patronage
may have offered, it remained supplementary— at least in
Rome— to a steady church job. Rome was and is a city of
churches, and churches need music. The city's churches
provided an extensive network of choral institutions within
which composers rotated. At the center were the two Vatican
99
^ M y discussion of Cardinal Montalto's music patronage
is based on James Chater, "Musical Patronage in Rome at the
Turn of the Seventeenth Century: the Case of Cardinal
Montalto," Studi Musicali 16 (1987), 179.
23see Chater, "Musical Patronage," and Alberto Cametti, "Chi
era l'Hippolita, cantatrice del Cardinal di Montalto,"
Sammelbande der Internationalen Musikqesellschaft 15 (1913-
14), 111.
20
choirs: the pope's own Cappelia Sistina and the Cappelia
Giulia of San Pietro. Around these two institutions circled
a constellation of prestigious satellites, including the
choirs of the four Basilicas, especially San Giovanni in
Laterano and Santa Maria Maggiore, the choirs of the English
and German colleges, and a host of smaller institutions.
For many Romans entrance into the Roman church
"fraternity" began in childhood with a position as choirboy
in one of the city's prestigious churches. Thus Felice
Anerio began his career at the young age of eight as a
choirboy at Santa Maria Maggiore. The maestro di cappelia
at Santa Maria Maggiore was Giovanni Maria Nanino, one of
Rome's most distinguished and influential musicians.^
Nanino undoubtedly helped nurture Anerio's career; there are
hints of this in the frequent crossings of the two men's
paths. In 1575 Nanino left Santa Maria Maggiore to take the
post of maestro di cappelia at San Luigi dei Francesi.
Anerio served as an alto at San Luigi from December 1579 to
May 1580, and though Nanino had moved on by this time, he
retained connections with San Luigi until the end of his
life and he may well have recommended the young singer to
the new maestro, his friend Francesco Soriano. Anerio
became composer to the papal choir in 1594 at the
^See Klaus Fischer, "Anerio, Felice," The New Grove

Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), vol. 1,
pp. 417-19 and Anthony Newcomb, "Nanino, Giovanni Maria,"
New Grove, vol. 13, pp. 20-21.
21
recommendation of Clement VIII and Cardinal Pietro
Aldobrandini. They too may have been influenced by Nanino,
who was a papal singer and sometime maestro di cappelia from

OC
1 5 7 7 . The peripatetic nature and apparent interdependence
of these two careers is typical of Roman musicians: it
suggests a tight community which, once one gained entree,
more or less assured steady employment. And a place on the
church circuit could provide access to the supplementary
secular jobs as well, as Pietro Aldobrandini's championship
of Anerio suggests.
Marenzio's career, particularly after the death of
Cardinal d'Este, suggests that he never quite broke into the
Roman good-old-boy network. This may have been partly
because, born in Brescia, he was by Roman standards a
foreigner.^ The date of his arrival in Rome is uncertain
but he was, at any rate, an adult. He came to Rome with
Cardinal Madruzzo of Trent and passed immediately, on the
cardinal's death in 1578, into the household of Madruzzo's
friend, Cardinal Luigi d'Este. In 1582 Luigi tried to
nc
^ T h e position of maestro of the papal chapel was a
rotating one.
^®Most Roman musicians of the time were natives of Rome

or its environs. Both Felice and Giovanni Francesco Anerio
were natives of Rome; Giovanelli and G. M. Nanino were from
Velletri and Tivoli respectively, both in the immediate area
of Rome; and, of course, Palestrina was from Palestrina,
another Roman suburb.
22
obtain for Marenzio a position in the papal choir and was
rebuffed. 9 7 If Marenzio made any further attempts to join
the ranks of the Roman church circuit they were apparently
unsuccessful.
Nor did he serve the major churchmen with any
regularity. There is no documentation of an association
with Pietro Aldobrandini. His relationship with Cardinal
Montalto is complex. In a postscript to a letter to
Virginio Orsini, dated 5 June 1592, Pietro Aldobrandini^®
informed the duke that Cardinal Montalto had expressed a
willingness to take Marenzio into his service:
Parlai a monsignor Illustrissimo Montalto per il

Marenzio et Sua Signoria Illustrisimo si contenta
di darli la medesima provisione et lui tutto
riceve per favore. ®
Although the letter is clear enough in its general
content, its nuances are not so straightforward. To what,
for example, does the "same provision" ("medesima
provisione") refer? The best interpretation would seem to
be that the phrase refers to the "provision" that the
composer was currently receiving from Virginio, that is,
97
‘
‘ Ledbetter, Marenzio. pp. 36-39 and docs. 6-7, pp.
147-150.
98
This is not the cardinal of that name but his father.
See Patricia Myers, ed., Luca Marenzio: II Settimo Libro de'
madriqali a Cinque Voci (1595) (New York, 1980), fn. 17, p.
xvii.
99
* Reproduced m Ledbetter, Marenzio. doc.94.
23
room and board. Also problematic is the phrase "et lui
tutto riceve per favore." Ledbetter translated the phrase
as "and he [Montalto] receives him [Marenzio] entirely as a
favor [from you]".^® But the context suggests that the
favor is the other way around: "he receives him entirely as
a favor rto you1". This may seem strange at first, but upon
consideration it makes some sense. Virginio had taken
Marenzio into his home, perhaps impulsively, after the
composer's dismissal from Florence. Since he himself did
not keep a regular musical establishment, his brother-in-law
would have seemed most able to provide a stable position for
his client.
Did the move ever take place? James Chater argues that
it did, citing as evidence the dedication of Sebastien
Raval's Primo libro a 5 (10 May 1593) to Montalto's brother,
Michele Peretti. In the dedication, Raval described an
evening in the cardinal's palace during which Marenzio,
Scipione Dentice, Cavaliere del Liuto, and Scipione Stella

j
sang Raval's madrigals. ^ Raval implied that all were in
o n ,
•^Ledbetter's translation reads "I spoke to Cardinal

Montalto for Marenzio and his Lordship is content to give
him the same salary, and he receives him entirely as a favor
[from you]." See Marenzio. p. 129.
JJ-Chater, "Musical Patronage," p. 191. The passage in

question reads "...si degno Vfostra] Eccfellenza] nel
Palazzo udirmi alcuni Contraponti, & altre habilita che
all'improviso fece innanzi del Sig[nor] Cavaliere del Liuto
universal nel Mondo, del Sigfnor] Scipion Dentici rarissimo
nel Cimbalo, il Sig[nor] Luca Marentio divino Compositcre, &
il mio 3ig[nor] Stella virtuosissimo in differenti Virtu,
24
Montalto's service. It is just possible that Marenzio did
enter Montalto's service sometime after June 1592 (the date
of the letter indicating Montalto's willingness to hire
him), though the position would have been short-lived, since
the composer was living in the Vatican by 1594.
But there is circumstantial evidence to argue against a
formal employment relationship between Marenzio and
Montalto. First, that his allegiance was ultimately to the
Orsini family is suggested by his letter of 1595, requesting
Virginio's leave to go to Poland. And second, Marenzio's
name is conspicuously absent from another contemporary
account of Montalto's musical establishment. In his
Discorso sopra la musica. Vincenzo Giustiniani discussed
Montalto's music patronage, naming some of his musicians;
among those he mentions are two named by Raval: Scipione
Dentice and Cavaliere del L i u t o . S u r e l y , if Giustiniani
had known that Marenzio worked for Montalto, he would have
mentioned it. There is no reason to doubt Raval's claim
that Marenzio participated in musical evenings at the
con i quali & altri Gentilhuomini dell'Illustriss[imo] Suo

fratello [il Cardinale Montalto], e di V[ostra] Ecc[ellenza]
in differenti volte Cantassimo di queste operine..." See
Ledbetter, Marenzio. doc.96.
3^See above p. 10 for my argument that Marenzio's

relationship with Cinzio actually dates from 1593.
JJSee above note 7.
3^Vincenzo Giustiniani, Discorso sopra la musica, ed.

Carol MacClintock, Musical Studies and Documents 9 (American
Institute of Musicology, 1962), p. 71.
25
cardinal's— we have noted the closeness between the two
households. But until further documentation of specific
employment turns up, it seems safest to assume that
Virginio, not Montalto, remained Marenzio's primary
benefactor.
Two more documents suggest at least a loose connection
between Marenzio and Cardinal Montalto. On 28 June 1588
Montalto wrote to his friend Francesco Del Monte in
Florence, highly recommending Marenzio (in a general way—
there is no specific reference to his musical abilities) and
expressing his gratitude for any kindness Del Monte might
show the composer.33 As Chater points out, this pushes
Marenzio's aquaintance with Montalto back to before the
composer's move to Florence. It is unlikely, however, that
Marenzio was actually in the cardinal's service at this
early date. Montalto's activities as a patron cannot have
predated 1588 by much, and there is evidence that Marenzio
spent a good deal of 1587 travelling in northern Italy.
In May 1595 Marenzio was presented with a chain worth
thirty-five scudi d'oro in payment for his contribution to
the Lenten services at the Oratorio del Santissimo
33See Chater, "Luca Marenzio: New Documents, New

Observations," Music and Letters, p. 4.
3®See above, pp. 7.
26
Crocifisso di San M a r c e l l o . San Marcello's Lenten
services were underwritten to the amount of 400 scudi by
Cardinal Montalto that year."*® We may assume that he
exercised some influence on the choice of musicians, and
Marenzio may have been among his recommendations.
These documents suggest at least a casual patronage
relationship between Marenzio and Montalto from almost the
beginning of Montalto's cardinalate until at least 1595. In
this light it is seems all the more curious that the
cardinal with the largest musical establishment in Rome, who
obviously appreciated Marenzio's talents, did not include
the composer among his permanent musical establishment.
The ostentatious patronage of Pietro Aldobrandini and
the round of extravagant entertainments of Cardinal Montalto
are but one facet— a slightly unusual one at that— of Roman
patronage. For Pietro, patronage of musicians was part of
his establishment of his power and influence; it was fed by
his role in the takeover of Ferrara, where he was in a
position to plunder the richest secular musical
establishment of the century. Montalto's interest in
07
Domenico Alaleona, Storia dell'Oratorio musicale m
Italia (Milan, 1945) p. 334. The document reads, "A di 6
Maggio [1595] sc 42 pagati a me. Cam. p. tanti pagati a m.
Angelo Cugino per prezzo d'una catena di paso di scudi 35
d'oro per donare al Sr Luca Marentio per haver servito sopra
la musica nella passata Quadragesima."
^®Chater, "Musical Patronage," p. 206.
27
theatrical spectacle and large-scale musical entertainment,
no doubt encouraged by his close association with the
Florentine court, was supported by his prodigious wealth and
incurable overspending. Both are more in the style of large
courtly princes than Roman dignitaries.
Far more typically, music formed part of a cultivation
of the arts and humanities in a more financially modest, if
no less passionate, way. Individual churchmen and nobles
hired musicians ad hoc, and musicians sought protection and
financial remuneration through dedications. In this last—
the solicitation of patronage through the dedication of
one's work— the value of compositional skill is recognized.
And here the usually practical musical patronage intersects
with the more product-oriented practice of intellectual
patronage.
Renaissance intellectual patronage was a nebulous
phenomenon. Literary figures, philosophers, and scientists
were assisted by a network of patrons in a variety of ways.
Patronage might mean anything from employment— as a
secretary, ambassador, or not infrequently a spy— to the
exercise of political and legal influence, to gifts of money
and valuables. In cases of exceptional figures it could
take the form of actual support: room and board.
Intellectual patronage, like music patronage, was
sometimes indulged in more or less casually, by anyone with
a title and a bit of loose cash. But as with its musical
28
counterpart, it too was dominated by a smaller group whose
financial resources and genuine interest attracted a large
circle of dependents, including some of the greatest figures
of the age. Marenzio's patrons belong to this latter,
select group; and their relationships with Marenzio must be
seen in this context, as a part of a general sponsorship of
intellectual and artistic figures.
C1NZI0 ALDOBRANDINI
Cinzio Aldobrandini was born in 1551, the son of

OQ
Aurelio P a s s e n and Elisabetta (or Giulia) Aldobrandini.
He was brought to Rome in 1566, and responsibility for his
education was undertaken by his uncle, Cardinal Ippolito
Aldobrandi, later Pope Clement VIII. It was somewhere
around this time that he adopted his mother's family name
for his own. Cinzio's early studies were at the German
college in Rome; he later studied at Perugia and then
Padcva, receiving his doctorate in 1578.
Cinzio's ecclesiastic apprenticeship began in 1588,
when he accompanied his uncle on a diplomatic mission to
•Ê. Fasano Guarini, "Aldobrandini, Cinzio," Dizionario

bioqrafico deqli Italiani. I (Rome, 1960), pp. 102-104. The
name of Cinzio's mother is the subject of some dispute.
Guarini and Lorenzo Cardella (Memorie Storiche de'
Cardinali. p. 11) give it as Elizabetta; Pompeo Litta
Famiglie Celebri Italiana (Milan, 1819-1867), vol. 1, pp.
140-61, and Pastor, History of the Popes give it as Giulia;
Patricia Myers, following Pastor, calls her Giulia. Myers
also gives Cinzio's date of birth as 1543. See Luca
Marenzio: Il Settimo Libro. p. xvi.
29
Poland.^® When Ippolito became Pope Clement VIII in 1592,
Cinzio and his cousin Pietro Aldobrandini were made joint
secretaries of state. Cinzio was given dominion over the
affairs of Germany, Poland, Transylvania, Sweden, and
Switzerland, as well as the city-states of Italy, excluding
Savoy. In September 1593 the two cousins were raised to the
cardinalate.
Cinzio is most famous, and justly so, for his
intellectual patronage. It is this aspect of his public and
private personality on which his biographers dwell; and his
own biographers' word is supported by the testimony of the
biographers of Tasso, his most famous client, as well as by
numerous contemporary dedications from an impressive array
of poets, philosophers, and other intellectual figures.
In his Vatican apartments, Cinzio hosted an academy
that, included among its members the most illustrious
literati and scholars. His secretary and early biographer
Cardinal Bentivoglio testified that the group met every
morning for the seventeen years of Cinzio's cardinalate.^*
Among the regular members were Tasso, Francesco Patrizi the
famous platonist, the orientalist Giambattista Raimondi, and
^ S e e Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 22 p.173. This

is significant, for on this visit the party was treated to a
production of the wedding entertainments, including
Marenzio's intermedii.
^*Guido Bentivoglio, Memorie e Lettere ed. Ccstantino

Panigada (Bari, 1934). Cited in Ludwig Pastor, History of
the Popes. vol. 23-24 passim.
30
the historian and poet Antonio Querengho. Giambattista
Guarini was a frequent participant during his extended
visits to Rome in 1593-95, and Gabriele Chiabrera is also
named among the academy's visitors. Of the members Tasso,
Patrizi, and Raimondi were all supplied by Cinzio with
accommodations in the Vatican.^
The literary works dedicated to Cinzio are perhaps the
greatest testament to his patronage. Cinzio is the
dedicatee of at least twenty-five publications, including
poetry, literary and political theory, and biblical
exegesis.^ Among the most important are two works by
Tasso— the Gerusalemme Conauistata and the Dialoqo delle
Imprese— and poetic anthologies by Isabella Andreini and
Angelo Grillo.
Cinzio is the subject of a body of encomiastic poetry
copious even by the standards of an age of dedicatory verse
In addition to individual poems in collections by Tasso,
Chiabrera, Isabella Andreini, and a host of less well-known
poets, an entire collection was published in his honor in
1605. AA
* This anthology, collected and edited by one Giulio
^Personeni, Notizie Geneoloqiche. p. 112.
^Personeni, in Notizie Geneoloqiche, gives a fairly

complete list, pp.131-44.
^ Giu l i o Segni, ed., Tempio all'illustrissimo et

Reverendissimo Signor Cinthio Aldobrandini Cardinale S.
Giorgio Nipote del Sommo Pontefice Clemente Ottavo (Bologna
1600) .
31
Segni, includes over four hundred poems in Italian, Latin,
and Greek by some two hundred authors. Here too, the major
poets of the day are represented along with more obscure
poets and other writers. Much of the poetry is standard
dedicatory verse of an undistinguished kind; but a few poems
stand out for their style and immediacy of content. One
such is a contribution by Isabella Andreini. In a canzone
addressed to Chiabrera, she defined the true prince. He is
made not of wealth and power, she declared, but of nobility
of spirit. Thus, she continued, the mark of a true prince
is support and appreciation of the arts, and Cinzio was such
a prince. 45
J
Cinzio's most famous client was Tasso. The poet came
to Rome in 1592 at the invitation of the newly elected Pope
Clement VIII and was taken into Cinzio's household,^® Tasso
was treated with the respect befitting his fame, as was
^ " N o n argento, non or, non gemme, od Ostro,/ Non gli

alti tetti, non le travi aurate/ Fanno i Prencipi veri, a
piu pregiate/ Convengon doti in questo basso chiostro./
Principe e quei, che generoso affetto/ Sempre ha nel cor,
che sol lo squardo porge,/ La, ve stuol pellegrin d'ingegni
scorge,/ Che sol d'alma virtu s'adorna il petto./ Prencipe e
quei, cui crudeltate, o sdegno,/ 0 vana ambizion l'alma non
punge,/ Che da i morsi del volgo sen va lunge/ Non per
timor, ma per sublime ingegno./ Tal e CINTHIO, splendor del
Vaticano,/ Che sotto i pie l ' a w e r s o fato hor tiene,/ Onde
non ha piu d'oltraggiarlo spene/ L'empio, di cui rende ogni
studio vano." Segni, Tempio. p. 298-299 [mistakenly numbered
289].
^ M y discussion of Cinzio's relationship with Tasso is

based on Angelo Solerti, Vita di Torquato Tasso. 2 vols.
(Turin, 1895).
32
stressed by his early biographer, Giambattista Manso, who
wrote that Cinzio promised the poet that he would be left to
his work and not required to play the role of courtier.^7
But although he was given free rein and a position of honor,
he was not without obligation to his new benefactor. In
1594 he was peremptorily summoned back to Rome from Naples,
where he had gone on family business. The summons was
worded as a request, but there is little doubt as to how
much choice Tasso had in the matter.
When Tasso arrived in Rome in 1592, he was at work on
the adaptation of his epic, the Gerusalemme liberata. that
was to result in the Gerusalemme conauistata. The poet was
in poor physical and mental health, and progress on the
Conauistata was slow. Cinzio hired Angelo Ingegneri to edit
the work and, no doubt, to prod Tasso toward completion.
The work was completed and published with an effusive
dedication to Cinzio— signed by Ingegneri— in November 1593.
If Cinzio showed a selfish streak in pressing the unhappy
poet to complete his work, his affection for Tasso, and his
respect for the poet's artistry were by all accounts
genuine. He was in the process of making arrangements for
Tasso to be crowned with laurel on the Campidoglio, an honor
much coveted by the poet, when Tasso's final illness
interrupted the plans. Cinzio later arranged for Tasso's
^7Giambattista Manso, Vita di Torquato Tasso (Venice,

1621).
33
funeral and gave the funeral oration himself. Among the
correspondence published by Solerti concerning Tasso's death
are frequent references to the depth of Cinzio's grief.
Four musicians dedicated prints to Cinzio. In addition
to Marenzio's sixth book for five voices of 1594 he was the
dedicatee of the Penitential psalms of Giovanni Croce, a
book of madrigals by the Roman musician Curzio Mancini, and
the first and only book of madrigals by an otherwise unknown
woman composer, Caterina Ricci.
Marenzio was probably already living in the Vatican
when he dedicated his sixth book for five voices to Cinzio
in January 1594. He was there by some time in that year
when a roll of the cardinal's famiqlia was drawn u p . ^ The
roll identifies the members of Cinzio's household and their
accommodations in the Vatican. Topping the list are six
persons identified by their titles only: maestro di casa,
auditor, steward, wine steward, doctor and one "capitan
fideli." Marenzio appears next— the first to be listed by
name and without further indication of his duties in the
household. Some members are identified by both name and
position in the household identified; five names besides
Marenzio's appear with no further indication of their
Ap .
*°Emil Vogel, Alfred Einstein, Frangois Lesure, and
Claudio Sartori, comps., Biblioqrafia della musical italiana
vocale profana pubblicata dal 1500 al 1700 [Hereafter, Nuovo
Vogel], 3 vols. (Pomezia, 1977).
^ S e e above p. 10.
34
duties. Marenzio's allotment of three rooms, one large and
two small, is an assignment of medium size: accommodations
ranged from one room with a smaller room, to an apartment of
three rooms and a kitchen for one Giovanni Battista

Santio.
Marenzio's position in Cinzio's household invites
comparison with Tasso's. Both men were, to use Werner
Gundersheimer's term, "cultural s u p e r s t a r s — figures whose
world-class reputation had already been established. To
have one's name linked as patron to such a figure was a
distinction. Cinzio's active interest in the completion of
the Gerusalemme conauistata shows his eagerness to have the
great man's work associated with him. And his cultivation
of Marenzio is perhaps best seen in this light.
VIRGINIO ORSINI
Virginio Orsini was born in 1573 to Paolo Giordano
Orsini I and Isabella de' Medici.^2 jn 1576, when Virginio
was three, Paolo Giordano conspired with his mistress,
^®See note 5, above.
^ W e r n e r Gundersheimer, "Patronage in the Renaissance,"

in Patronage in the Renaissance (Princeton, 1981), p.3.
c9
Biographical sketches of Virginio can be found in
Vincenzo Celletti, Gli Orsini di Bracciano: Gloria, traqedie
e fastosita della casa patrizia piu interessante della Roma
dei secoli XV. XVI e XVII. Rome: Fratelli Palombi, 1963, pp.
121-37 and Pompeo Litta, Famiglie celebri italiana. vol. 5,
pp. 642-57.
35
Vittoria Accoramboni Peretti, to murder not only Isabella
but Vittoria7s husband as well. The successful plot
resulted in the conspirators7 banishment from Rome and both
died soon thereafter, leaving Virginio an orphan.
Virginio was raised in Florence by his maternal uncles
Francesco and Ferdinando d e 7 Medici. In 1589, at age
seventeen, he married Flavia Peretti, grandniece of Pope
Sixtus V, and the couple settled in Rome. The union
consolidated Roman power by linking the pope7s family with
the oldest and most powerful family in Rome, the Orsini.
The Peretti/Orsini network was to prove vital for musical
and literary patronage.^3
Virginio and Flavia were the subject of much envious
admiration for their talent for producing male children.
The sixteen-year marriage produced eleven children, eight of
them boys, most of whom lived to adulthood. The couple
divided their time between their townhouse in Rome, their
country villa at Bracciano, and the various residences of
the Florentine court, including summers at Pratolino, the
elysian villa built by Francesco I for Bianca Capello.
Virginio7s interest in the humanities had been nurtured
in his youth, under the tutelage of his uncle Ferdinand.
The late sixteenth century was the age of intellectual,
literary, and musical academies, and Florence was the seat
^ S e e above pp. 19-20 on Cardinal Montalto, Flavia7s

brother.
36
of some of the most illustrious. Virginio was an active
member of the famous Accademia della Crusca. the powerful
Florentine arbiter of Tuscan language and literature. He
participated in literary circles in Rome as well; Chater
noted his membership in the Pastori della Tiberine, a Roman
academy known to us only through a book by one of its
members.^ The Pastori betray the Roman fascination with the
pastoral. Each member took a pastoral sopranome; Virginio7s
was Tirsi. Other members included Tasso, who took the name
of Clonico, and Giambattista Strozzi the younger, called
Silvano.55
Virginio's correspondence shows him to be a patron and
correspondent to a host of literati. F e l l o w Cruscan
Giambattista Strozzi the younger was a regular
correspondent, as was Guarini. The Duke was the recipient
of numerous gifts of poetry, often accompanied by letters
discussing poetic theory in a way that attests his knowledge
of, and interest in, current literary issues. Chiabrera, in
sending him an ode, accompanied it with a defense of his new
Antonio Piccioli, Prose Tiberine del Pastor Erqasto,

(Treviso, 1597). See James Chater, "Fonti Poetichi per i
madrigali di Luca Marenzio," Rivista Italiana di Musicologia
13 (1978) 70-71,
RR.
-TjlccioIi, Prose Tiberine.
^Correspondence consulted is cited above in note 12.
37
poetic s t y l e . A letter from Strozzi discusses at length
the literary merit of the Orlando furioso.®® Cruscan
theorist Diomede Borghese wrote a series of pedantic
criticisms of Tasso's work, some of which he addressed to
Virginio. *
Virginio's correspondence is full of supplications for
assistance, ranging from requests for financial relief to
the use of his influence in legal matters. In 1601 Guarini
wrote a carefully phrased letter obliquely asking Virginio
to block the publication of an attack on his II pastor fido.
In later letters the poet asked Virginio's intercession in
favor of the publication of Guarini's own works.®® In 1597,
®^See Ferdinand Boyer, Virginio Orsini ed i poeti del

seicento. Lettere inedite (Rome, 1924).
CO ,
3°Rome, Archivio Capitolino, Fondo Orsini, Ser. I,
pacco 104 vol. 2 fol. 183. Debate on this work, which began
with its publication in the early sixteenth century, gained
new vigor with the publication of Tasso's Gerusalemme
liberata. The two very different works were compared and
contrasted ad nauseam, and the Cruscans entered into the
polemics with enthusiasm. On the controversy see Bernard
Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian
Renaissance (Chicago, 1961), pp. 954-1073.
®®Borghese dedicated on of his Orations, "Intorno a gli

onori et a' pregi della poesia e della eloquenza" (Siena,
1596), to Virginio.
®®0n Virginio and Guarini see A. Tessier, Dieci lettere

del Cavaliere Battista Guarini al Signor D. Virginio Orsini.
and the companion Dodici lettere (Venice, 1874). See also
Boyer, Virginio Orsini ed i poeti.
38
Isabella Andreini, the famous poet and actress, applied for
and was granted a pension.*^
Virginio's music patronage follows the same pattern as
his literary patronage: practical assistance and support
exist in a general context of interest in and appreciation
of the art. His musical and literary ties reveal his
upbringing in Florence: he corresponded with a number of
musicians at the Florentine court, receiving gifts of
musical compositions from Francesco Rasi and Caccini, who
set one of Virginio's own poems. Scipione Dentice also set
Virginio's poetry and was a frequent correspondent.^^
And musicians themselves often turned to Virginio for
assistance. A singer, Onofrio Gualfredducci, wrote a series
of letters recruiting Flavia's assistance in legal matters

•
in 1595. 6 3° When Caccini was left with no income and heavy
®^Boyer, "Les Orsini et les musiciens d'ltalie au debut

du xviie siecle," in Melanges de philoloqie. d'histoire. et
de litterature offerts a Henri Hauvette (Paris, 1934), p.
304.
6 ?:Ledbetter, Marenzio. discusses and reprints
0,<
correspondence between Virginio and Luigi Montecuccoli of
Ferrara about Dentice's setting of Virginio's verse. (p.
128 and docs. 91-92, pp. 224-26). A long and interesting
letter from Dentice to Virginio, dated 14 February 1597, is
in Rome, Archivio Capitolino, fondo Orsini, 107 vol. 3, fol.
667.
63
OJRome, Archivio Capitolino, Fondo Orsini, pacco 106,
vol. 3, ff. 610, 662, and 689. Presumably, the letters were
addressed to Flavia as head of the household in her
husband's absence. Correspondence between Cardinal Montalto
and Ferdinando de' Medici on the same subject is cited by
Chater ("Musical Patronage," p. 197). Gualfredducci was a
sometime musician in the household of the grand duke of
39
debts on the death of Ferdinand de' Medici in 1609, he and
his two daughters all wrote pathetic pleas to Virginio for
financial support (Virginio's response is undocumented).^
In 1609 Virginio was host to the virtuosa Adriana
Basile, who apparently had the status of a houseguest.
Recently hired by the Mantuan court, the famous singer
stopped in Rome, en route from Naples to Mantua. She was
lodged first at the Orsini palace in Rome and then at the
villa in Bracciano. From here she moved on to Florence
where she was introduced to the court by Virginio's son and
heir Paolo Giordano.
Virginio's patronage was that of a wealthy, educated
nobleman with a genuine interest in the arts and humanities.
His patronage of music was a system of benign sponsorship
rather than the maintenance of a formal musical
establishment. It is not surprising that when a musician of
Marenzio's gifts found himself at loose ends in 1589,
Virginio offered him his hospitality.
Marenzio's dedication to Virginio, in his fifth book
for six voices, is one of the most personally worded of his
dedications. He thanks the duke for supporting and
Florence: he was on the payroll for the 1589 wedding. He is

named by Giustiniani as one of musicians in the household of
Cardinal Montalto; but Chater believes he was never actually
on the cardinal's payroll. See "Musical Patronage," p.197.
^Boyer, "Les Orsini," p. 306.
^^Boyer, "Les Orsini," p.304.
40
protecting him during difficult times. These madrigals, he
says, belong by right to Virginio, since they were born and
nurtured in his house. Marenzio did in fact live in the
Orsini palace in Rome for at least two years. His departure
may have been precipitated by the impending break-up of the
household in 1594. Whatever the reason for his leaving the
Orsini home, his fealty to the duke did not end with his
residency. In 1595 he felt compelled to request Virginio's
leave before accepting the position in Poland.
This image of a kind of dependent houseguest, while not
unusual in intellectual patronage, is somewhat unorthodox
for music patronage. Most strikingly, it suggests that
Marenzio was patronized for his compositional skills rather
than paid for practical services.
Composing for a living and living to compose is a
notion that we associate with nineteenth-century romantic
attitudes toward art. Such a notion seems incongruous with
the pragmatic world of the Renaissance. Yet I would like to
propose that this is just what sets Marenzio apart, what
makes his career so unsettling in terms of traditional
Renaissance studies: he was a composer, recognized and
patronized by men and women who, by the nature of their own
interest in music within the broader context of the
humanities, were in a position to appreciate him as such.
^^Ledbetter, Marenzio. doc. 101.
41
Descriptions of Marenzio, culled from contemporary
documents from his late career and, we shall see, reaching
back almost to the beginning, support this view. Two of
these have been discussed in another context. In his
description of the musical evening at Montalto's palace in
the dedication to his Primo libro a 5 , Sebastien Raval gave
each of the participants a descriptive epithet.®^ Scipione
Dentice was "rarissimo nel cembalo"; Scipione Stella
(Raval's teacher) was described as "virtuosissimo in
differenti Virtu;" Marenzio is called "divino compositore."
Both Dentice and Stella were composers themselves but, at
least to Raval, this was secondary to their performance
skills. Marenzio, though, needed no other designation than
"divino compositore."
And Marenzio's contribution for the Lenten ceremonies
at San Marcello in 1595 seems to have been entirely in the
role of composer. His payment by means of a gift of a chain
at San Marcello is unique in the documents for this
occasion. All musicians who were specified as performers
received cash.*’® The implication is that Marenzio supplied
music, rather than participating as a performer.®^
fi 7
Quoted in note 31, above.
Alaleone, Storia dell'Oratorio, p. 334.
®^This is Chater's assumption. See "New Documents,"

p.6.
42
We may be able to trace the beginning of this
phenomenon in the composer's early years with Luigi d'Este.
Luigi fits the profile we have drawn for Marenzio's later
patrons: he was an interested and sympathetic early
supporter of Tasso, and the major patron of the multi
talented Giambattista della Porta.7® In the earliest
documents of his career with Luigi, Marenzio was frequently
called "cantore." This was replaced, in the early 1580s, by
the term "musico" or simply his name.7^ Although
terminology is too slippery to give much weight to such
evidence, it is suggestive. On the title page of his first
publication, the Primo libro a 5 , Marenzio titled himself
maestro di cappella to Luigi d'Este. This was an
exaggeration: in his study of Marenzio's career with Luigi,
Ledbetter gathers together all available documentary
information covering a musical establishment in Luigi's
household; he finds evidence of a not inconsiderable
performance tradition— the household included various
singers, and there were occasional payments to
instrumentalists— but not of a formal cappella. Yet
7D # •
On Luigi and della Porta see Louise Clubb,
Giambattista Della Porta, Dramatist (Princeton, 1965).
71
'■‘■See documents m Ledbetter, Luca Marenzio. especially
nos. 2-4, pp. 144-46. It is interesting, though, that
Marenzio is given the epithet "Magnifico" as early as upon
his entry into the household in 1579. See doc. 2 [f.155].
Note also doc. 4, [f.65v] where "cantore" has been crossed
out.
43
Marenzio's adoption of this inaccurate title for his
inaugural publication does him no discredit. His position
was unusual; he was, as the documents say, Luigi's "musico"
-the resident musician in the household of an important
prelate. Maestro di cappella undoubtedly came closest to
describing, in the language of professional musicians, his
status if not his actual duties.
44
CHAPTER I I
F L O R E N C E A N D T H E M U S IC A L E P IT H A L A M IU M
In February 1588 Marenzio found himself in Florence, at
the center of preparations for the show of shows, the
wedding of the new Grand Duke Ferdinand de' Medici. The
wedding was still fourteen months away, and the bride had
not yet been formally announced, but preparations for the
theatrical and musical entertainments that were to accompany
the event were already underway.
The direct compositional legacy of this odd interlude
in Marenzio's career is his contribution to the famous
intermedii for the comedy La Pelleqrina. An indirect legacy
may also be found in the composer's first publication after
leaving Florence, the Ouinto libro de' madricali a sei.
published in 1591 with a dedication to his new patron, the
Florentine-raised Virginio Orsini.
The intermedii and madrigals show, in different ways,
the remarkable ease with which Marenzio adapted himself to
Florentine life. The Medici were the quintissential
Renaissance ruling family. In the Renaissance world of
self-made aristocracy, ostentation often stood in inverse
proportion to pedigree. The Medici— a nouveau riche banking
family struggling to turn a republic into a Duchy— were the
most grandiose of Italian ruling families. In 1587, when
Ferdinand inherited the Grand Duchy upon the unexpected
death of his brother and sister-in law, the Medici dynasty
was at last secure, but already on the wane. There is an
air of desperation in the extravagance of the celebrations
surrounding Ferdinand's 1589 wedding. And though Ferdinand
would live to host two more such occasions,^ and the Medici
would continue to rule Florence for another century and a
half, in retrospect the 1589 celebrations have a valedictory
air.
Marenzio was part of a Roman contingent, hired by
Ferdinand both to augment his dead brother's musical
establishment, and to put his own personal stamp on it.
Plans for the wedding festivities— still a year and a half
away— were already underway when Marenzio arrived. Over the
next eighteen months the Florentine court was caught up in
the frenzy of preparations.
Marenzio's precise duties in Florence are nowhere
recorded. He may have done some performing— most composers
did— but undoubtedly his primary duties were as a composer.
Marenzio's only certain musical contribution were his two
intermedii; but these cannot have occupied much of his time.
În 1600 for the wedding of Maria de' Medici and Henry
IV of France, and in 1608 for that of Cosimo II de' Medici
and Maria Maddelena of Toledo.
46
They were completed and in rehearsal by November 1588, six
months before the wedding and one year before Marenzio left
Florence. Yet he was no doubt kept busy; life with the
Medici— even with no wedding on the horizon— was a continual
round of state visits and celebrations, all requiring
suitable Medici pageantry. During the months between
Ferdinand's inheritance and his wedding, the city was host
to a steady stream of imortant personages. Theatrical and
musical entertainment, ranging from dinner music to full-
scale staged comedies (no doubt involving some music) must
have been a nearly daily routine. Finally and significantly
for Marenzio, the grand duke's was not the only Florentine
wedding in the spring of 1589. That spring Virginio Orsini
married Flavia Peretti by proxy. Though overshadowed by the
granducal festivities the wedding must surely have
occasioned some ceremony.
And it should be noted that the music for the grand
duke's wedding itself was not limited to the intermedii.
Musical entertainments on a grand scale accompanied the
bride's entry into Florence on 23 April: a procession
escorted her to the Duomo where the occasion was celebrated
by a Te Deum, motets and choruses.^ The procession
^Roland Jackson has suggested, plausibly, that Marenzio

contributed sacred music for the occasion as well. He
points specifically to Marenzio's nine-voice Te Deum,
published posthumously in 1605. See Roland Jackson ed., Luca
Marenzio: Collected Works. Volume I: Sacred Music (American
Institute of Musicology, 1978) p. x.
47
continued, with more music along the way. The bride's
arrival inaugurated the offical wedding festivities, which
lasted until 15 May and culminated in the performance of the
Girolamo Bargagli's comedy, La Pelleqrina. adorned with the
most extravagant intermedii ever seen or heard.^
Intermedii were musical interludes between the acts of
comedies. Most amounted to no more than a short madrigal
after each act. But for special occasions the intermedii
could become a dazzling spectacle, which swallowed the drama
they were meant to adorn. The intermedii for the 1589
wedding were, by all measurements— musical, theatrical, and
scenographical— the most brilliant ever produced.
The importance of the intermedii— for the early history
of opera, for the history of Florentine theatre, and as a
locus of musical power struggle— tends to obscure the
relatively insignificant role of music in these spectacles.
Like the dance numbers that adorn awards ceremonies and
beauty pageants today, they had the strange character of
being at once secondary to the main event and— whether well
or poorly done— the most diverting part of the evening.
Each intermedio had an allegorical "story" involving
mythological characters engaged in some semblance of a plot.
The intermedii for a given drama might— but need not be—
O , , , .
The intermedii, origxnally xntended for Bargaglx's
comedy, were actually performed four times: twice with La
Pelleqrina (on 2 and 15 May) and once each with two other
comedies, La zinqara (6 May) and La pazzia (13 May).
48
interrelated. The allegories for the 1589 intermedii have
been given great significance by modern scholars; but in
fact, contemporary accounts filled with misidentification of
characters and misreadings of the allegory suggest that,
classical pretensions notwithstanding, the mythological
plots and characters were more prized for their visual
possibilites than their latent significance. Much of the
time, energy, and money went to the costumes and stage
machinery, both of which were magnificent.^ Sketches for
both costumes and sets, by their designer, Bernardo
Buontalenti, survive. They are breathtaking in their
luxurient detail.
The six intermedii are related only by the very loose
theme of the power of music. Each intermdio tells a
mythological story (See table II.1 for the intermedii and
their contents).
^My discussion of the intermedii is based on Nino

Pirrotta and Elena Povoledo, Music and Theatre from
Poliziano to Monteverdi, trans. Karen Eales (Cambridge,
1986), chapter 5.
49
TABLE II.1 THE 1589 INTERMEDII5
I THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
Dalle piu alte sfere Archilei/Bardi 5w*

Noi che cantando Malvezzi/Rinuccini 8w
Sinfonia Malvezzi/Rinuccini 6w
Dolcissime sirene Malvezzi/Rinuccini 6w
A voi reali amanti Malvezzi/Rinuccini 15w
Coppia gentil Malvezzi/Rinuccini 6w
II THE SINGING CONTEST OF THE MUSES AND PIERIDES
Sinfonia Marenzio 5w
Belle ne fe natura Marenzio/Rinuccini 3w
Chi dal delfino Marenzio/Rinuccini 6w
Se nelle voci nostre Marenzio/Rinuccini 12w
0 figlie di Piero Marenzio/Rinuccini 18w
III APOLLO AND THE PYTHON
Qui di carne si sfama Marenzio/Rinuccini 1 2 w

0 valoroso Dio Marenzio/Rinuccini 4 w
0 mille volte Marenzio/Rinuccini 8 w
IV CELESTIAL AND INFERNAL DEMONS
[Io che dal ciel Caccini/? lv/continuo]**

Sinfonia Malvezzi 6w
Or che le due grand'alme Malvezzi/Strozzi 6w
Miseri habitator Bardi/Strozzi 5w
V ARION RESCUED FROM THE SEA BY VIRTUE
Io che l'onde raffreno Malve z zi/Rinucc ini 5w

E noi con questa Malvezzi/Bardi 5w
Sinfonia Malvezzi 6w
Dunque fra forbid'onde Peri/? 3w (echo)
Lieti solcando il mare Malvezzi/Rinuccini 7w
5This list is based on D.P. Walker, Les Fetes de

Florence (1589), I: Musique des intermedes de la Pelleqrina.
(Paris, 1963) and Pirrotta's description in Music and
Theatre.
50
VI JOVE'S GIFT TO THE MORTALS OF RHYTHM AND HARMONY
Dal vago e bel sereno Malvezzi/? 6 w

O qual resplende nube Malvezzi/Rinuccini 6 w
Godi turba mortal Cavalieri/Rinuccini 5 w *
O fortunato giorno Malvezzi/Rinuccini 3 0 w
0 che nuovo miracolo Cavalieri/Lucchesini 5 w
*Qnly the top voice is texted.
**Not in published score.
The delegation of responsibility for the texts and
music of these intermedii is interesting. The whole project
was overseen by the noble dilettante Giovanni de' Bardi, who
devised the order and content of the plots. Most of the
poetry was by Rinuccini, with contributions by Giambattista
Strozzi and Bardi. The music was similarly distributed.
Emilio de' Cavalieri, the music director, assigned most of
the polyphony to Cristoforo Malvezzi and Marenzio.
Malvezzi, the ranking Florentine composer, had contributed
to two previous sets of Florentine intermedii; he was the
logical choice for chief composer**. He composed all of the
polyphony for the first, fourth, fifth and sixth intermedii.
Each of these included at least one novelty number: a florid
solo for Vittoria Archilei, composed by her husband Antonio
in the first, a similar aria by Giulio Caccini in the
^Malvezzi's previous contributions to intermedii were

one for the comedy Le due Persilie. sponsored by the Counts
of San Secondo in 1583, and two for Bardi's L'amico fido.
performed for the wedding of Virginia de' Medici and Cesare
d'Este in 1586. See Pirrotta, Music and Theatre, chap. 5.
51
n
fourth , a three-voice virtuosic echo aria written by Jacopo
Peri for himself in the fifth, and a virtuosic aria by
Cavalieri, for the castrato Onofrio Gualfredducci in the

• O
sixth . The grand finale was Cavalieri's famous ballo. The
only polyphony not by Malvezzi or Marenzio was a simple
chordal madrigal by Bardi. This may have been an attempt by
Cavalieri to smooth over the rift between the Florentine old
guard, of which Bardi was the leader, and the Roman
newcomers of whom he— as musical director— was the most
conspicuous member.
To Marenzio fell the task of the second and third
intermedii, both with poetry by Rinuccini. It is
interesting that, in spite of the opportunities for solo
vocal writing offered by the two stories, Marenzio's were
the only intermedii with no solo singing. The second
intermedio, depicting the singing contest between the Muses
and the Pierides, seems to beg for some virtuosic work;
instead Marenzio wrote two polyphonic madrigals: a six-part
one for the Pierides and a twelve voice piece in two choirs
for the winning Muses. The larger forces are the only
distinction between the two; evidently the Hamadryad judges,
like the Medici, valued size above all. Oddly, it is the
Hamadryads who are given the most interesting music in this
7 j
'Caccini's arxa was not printed in the official score
and may not have been performed.
O
See above Chapter One, p.39 on Gualfredducci.
52
intermedio. They open the scene with a three-voice madrigal
scored for three sopranos, in the style made famous by the
Ferrarese concerto delle donne (the piece resembles one of
Luzzaschi's three voice works for that ensemble). The
intermedio closes with an eighteen-voice triple-choir work.
The madrigals for six, twelve, and eighteen voices are
essentially the same in style. The scoring is predominantly
homophonic with frequent reduced textures especially in the
multiple-choir works.
Marenzio's other intermedio, on the theme of Apollo and
the Python, is in the same style. Here too he ignored the
opportunity for solo writing offered by the role of Apollo.
The god appears, dispatches the beast-, and departs— all
without singing a note. Clearly the star of this intermedio
was Buontalenti's python, which arose from out of the stage
in the middle of the opening two-choir madrigal.^
As in the first intermedio, Marenzio chose an almost
unrelieved homophony that is essentially the same in four-,
eight-, and twelve-voice combinations. Two factors help us
to understand the simplicity of these works. First, all of
the music was accompanied by instruments. The simple
texture of the works is alleviated by the use of instruments
doubling every line. The instruments contribute the aural
^The place is marked in the score by a rest in all

parts.
53
interest that is provided by polyphonic texture and
melismatic style in the chamber madrigal.
Second, it must be remembered that the visual spectacle
was the raison d'etre for these works. The python of the
third intermedio is only the most spectacular effect in an
evening filled with marvels. The singers were perched on
moving and precarious stage machinery; the music, which was
never meant to be any more than an adornment, was
necessarily kept simple.
Neither of these rules holds true for the chamber
madrigal, the idiom for which Marenzio is justly famous.
And this difference in performing forces and context is at
the heart at the difference between Marenzio’s intermedii
and his Florentine madrigals, published in his Va6 of 1591
with a dedication to Virginio Orsini.
The Va6 is a musical Nuptialia, celebrating the newly
married state of its dedicatee in every text. The book
opens with an encomiastic madrigal in honor of the
newlyweds, Leggiadrissima eterna, and the rest of the book
continues in an epithalamic vein. There are two other
wedding songs, Leggiadre ninfe (#2) and Spiri dolce Favonio
(#6), I® ancj other texts contribute an appropriate pastoral
1°"Leggiadre ninfe" was originally commissioned of

Marenzio for the wedding anthology II Trionfo di Pori
(Venice: Gardano, 1592), a nuptialia dedicated to Leonardo
Sanudo. In the dedication to Sanudo, the compiler
54
eroticism. Tasso's Nel dolce seno is a wordy imitation of
Guarini's notorious Tirsi morir volea, and the five-part
Canzon de' b a d is Guarini's dissertation on the kiss.
The encomiastic nature of this book thus extends beyond
the conventional nod of one or two dedicatory madrigals: the
whole book celebrates the dedicatee and his recent
marriage.^ The employment of a single unifying literary
theme, though becoming increasingly common among mixed-
composer anthologies, was still unusual in a single-author
collection. The impetus for a collection of this particular
bent surely came from Marenzio's wedding-obsessed months in
Florence. And the influence may run even deeper: Marenzio's
new experience as part of a large support staff for a
apologized for Marenzio's having already published his

contribution. See Vogel 1962 1592^ for contents and
dedication. Marenzio drew the text of "Spiri dolce Favonio"
from a mid-century anthology. In its original form the poem
names Annibale [Gattola] and Lucrezia [Cavalcanti] as the
bridal couple. Marenzio changed the names to the pastoral
Tirsi and Amarilli. See Einstein, Italian Madrigal. 11:667.
The bride's last name and the poem's source are identified
in Chater, Luca Marenzio. Appendix II, p. 205.
11
■'•■‘•Though the tradition of dedicating a book of
madrigals to a newlywed patron, and opening it with a piece
in honor of the occasion, was common and venerated, thematic
unity was generally limited to an opening encomium and,
perhaps, one other celebratory piece. Wert's seventh book
for five voices is typical: dedicated to Vincenzo Gonzaga on
the occasion of his marriage to Margarita Farnese, the
contents of the book are framed by two madrigals in the
couple's honor. But the rest of the collection is comprised
of miscellaneous poetry, some of it— for example Petrarch's
Solo e pensoso— of a decidedly unfestive character. The
wedding madrigals which frame the collection were probably
written for celebrations surrounding the event. They then
provided the composer with a means of personalizing an
otherwise miscellaneous collection.
55
dynasty in need of complete and total service, may have
influenced him to compile a book so completely given over to
the glorification of the dedicatee. The book's contents
were surely composed in Florence. Though Marenzio claims in
the dedication that the madrigals were "written under your
[Virginio's] roof" this is a standard dedicational claim and
need not be taken l ite r a l l y ^ . Certainly his service in
Florence offered plenty of opportunities to compose wedding
madrigals.
That Marenzio gathered the best of his recent
compositions together into a volume for his recently married
new patron is hardly remarkable, and yet the thematic
singlemindedness of this book is noteworthy, for it places
the volume in the predominantly literary tradition of the
nuptialia— volumes of poetry in honor of a bridal couple.
The literary nuptialia began as a Latin tradition reaching
back to classical times. The vernacular nuptialia arose in
the sixteenth century and had its origin in collections of
verse in honor of a person or event that became increasing
popular during that century. Among the first vernacular
anthologies published specifically to honor a wedding were
two for the 1579 wedding of Francesco de' Medici and Bianca
19
•Ît is also possible that Marenzio lived with Virginio
in Florence, which would make the dedication true in the
literal sense.
56
1 "3
Capello. J Nuptialia were plentiful in the 1580s— there
were, in fact, two in honor of Virginio Orsini and Flavia
Peretti.-^ The contents of these books are not uniform? the
verse is dominated by the sonnet, but canzoni are also
prevalent. Some collections are the work of a single
author, more are collections of various authors, often the
members of an academy.
It was apparently Florence that produced the first
musical nuptialia. Two madrigal collections were
1^
They are Niccolo Oddi, Rime dell'accademico Fortunato
detto il Costante nelle nozze d i ...Francesco de' Medici con
Bianca Capelli (Padua: Meietti, 1579) and Giovanni Maria
Verdizzotti, XII sonetti nelle nozze di ...Francesco de'
Medici...e Bianca Cappello (Venice: Farri, 1579). The
volumes are cited, along with a Latin nuptialia on the
occasion, in Olga Pinto, Nuptialia: Saqqio di biblioqrafia
di scritti Italiani pubblicati per nozze dal 1484 al 1799
(Florence: Olschki, 1971). On Renaissance wedding poetry in
general see Virginia Tufte, The Poetry of Marriage: The
Epithalamium in Europe and Its Development in England (Los
Angeles: Tinnon-Brown, 1970).
•^Giovanni Girolamo Fiorelli, Nelle felicissime nozze

di...Verqinio Orsini e ...Flavia Peretta. Canzona (Rome:
d'Antonio Blado, 1589) and Alessandro Guarnelli, Epithalamio
nello sponsalitio delli...S.ri Duca et Duchessa di Bracciano
(Rome: Blado, 1589).
1^
A Perhaps the most famous musical nuptialia is II Lauro
verde (Ferrara: Baldini, 1583), dedicated to the Ferrarese
virtuosa Laura Pevarara on the occasion of her wedding in
1583. The book forms a pair with another volume II Lauro
secco (Ferrara: Baldini, 1582), published a year earlier.
The two anthologies were dedicated to Peverara by the
members of a Ferrarese literary academy, I rinnovati. The
poetry was collected and organized by Tasso, and settings of
the selected texts were commissioned of local composers and
famous foreigners. See Anthony Newcomb, "The three
anthologies for Laura Peverara, 1580-1583, Rivista Italiana
di Musicoloqia 10 (1975): 329-45.
57
occasioned by the 1579 wedding of Bianca Capello and
Francesco de' Medici. The Trionfo di musica^ was dedicated
to the bride by Tiburtio Massaino, composer of ten of the
book's madrigals and apparently the organiser of the
collection. The book opens with a sonnet (called
"Epitalamio" in the table of contents) in honor of the
couple; an encomiastic sestina, with each stanza set by a
different composer, follows. The final stanza and "chiusa"
were set by Massaino himself, and he must have commissioned
the other settings as well. The anthology Corona di dodici
sonetti was also in honor of Bianca on the occasion of her

• 17
wedding. ' The book is a collection of twelve sonnets by G.
B. Zuccarini, who commissioned settings by twelve famous
musicians.
It is significant that both of these books are multi
composer anthologies and that one was overseen by a poet.
Like their literary relatives, musical nuptialia frequently
were supervised by a poet or were the collective effort of
an academy. Marenzio's Va6 is an unusual example of a book
of this kind by a single composer. Single-composer madrigal
16II Trionfo di musica di diversi. A sei voci. Libro

primo. (Venice: Scotto, 1579) . See Vogel 1962 1579 p. 693
for contents and description.
17 . . . . . .
'Corona di dodici sonetti di Gio. Battista Zuccarini
alia Gran Duchessa di Toscana posta in musica da dodici
eccellentiss. auttori a cinque voci. (Venice, 1586). See
Vogel 1962 1586 . p. 713 for contents and description.
58
collections with literary unity remained the exception well
into the 1590s.
The madrigals of the Va6 show their debt to the
Florentine festivities in their encomiastic style. But for
his musical nuptialia Marenzio drew not on the intermedii
themselves but on the related style of the Florentine
celebratory madrigal. At Florence the encomiastic
pastoralism of the vernacular epithalamium combined with the
opulent musical style of Florentine festive music to produce
a uniquely Florentine musical genre.
The poetry of Marenzio's Va6 is the poetry of the
sixteenth-century vernacular epithalamium. For three of the
book's texts Marenzio drew on mid-century verse; two
sonnets, by Girolamo Troiano, he drew from an anthology of
verse that had been originally published in 1 5 6 5 , and
Giovanni della Casa, the author of another sonnet, A ffliger
chi per voi, was a distinguished mid-century Petrarchist.
The newer texts in the book are stylistically
indistinguishable from these older selections. All of the
*®We will see that this was not the only one of
Marenzio's late books organized around a poetic theme.
Indeed, attention to literary unity is one of the most
striking characteristics of Marenzio's literary
sophistication.
James Chater has identified Marenzio's source for the

sonnets as D. Atanagi ed., De le rime di diversi nobili
toscani...Libro primo (Venice: Avanzo, 1565). See Chater,
Luca Marenzio. App. II, p.205.
59
book's poetry is characterized by the discursive, measured
style of mid-century Petrarchism. The endecasyllabic line
prevails and the mode is descriptive. Most of the poems set
a scene— often a nature setting— and describe it in vivid
detail. Particular, though not unique, to encomiastic verse
is the highly restricted vocabulary of pastoral and
classical imagery: the book is full of shepherds, nymphs,
and various mythological figures.
A comparison of two of the texts in the Va6 will serve
as an example of this style. Leggiadrissima eterna, which
opens the book, is a two-part madrigal in honor of Virginio
and Flavia. The poem looks very much like a parody of an
encomiastic sonnet, and the Va6 includes a possible model:
Girolamo Troiano's Spiri dolce f a v o n i o The two poems
share enough vocabulary to suggest a modelling relationship.
Spiri dolce Favonio Arabi odori

Desti la terra fior vermigli e gialli;
Cantin gl'augei per le dipinte valli
Salutando 1'aurora ai novi albori.
Le vaghe Ninfe e i fervidi Pastori.
Facciano insieme amorosetti balli
E i pesci entr'i bei liquidi cristalli
Temprin con dolce trieguai lor ardori.
Tacciano i venti e Febo con piu chiari

Rai dell'usato al lumi d'oqn'intorno
L'aria e senza'onde sian tranquill'i mari;
Et hoggi e sempre questo sacro giorno
Che Tirsi et Amarilli a giogo pari
Lega sia lieto e d'ogni gratia adorno.
0 fi
•*wThe poem was originally written to honor the wedding
of Annibaldi Gattola and Lucrezia Cavalcanti who were named
in the penultimate line. See footnote 2 above.
60
Leggiadrissima eterna Primavera
Vive scherzand'a questi colli intorno,
E senza mai temer nuvole o sera
Ride piu lieto e piu sereno il giorno.
Gia le Muse e le Gratie in bella schiera

Cantand'al suon de' liguidi cristalli.
Fan dolcemente risonar le valli;
E garreggiand'i pargoletti Amori
Chiaman ninfe e Pastori
A novelle dolcezze, a nuovi balli.
Fiammeggia'1 ciel, di piu pregiati ardori
Che'l tutt'ardorna, il tutt'informa e accende
L'honor ch'in Flavia e ch'in Virginio splende.
A local amateur poet, or perhaps Marenzio himself, may
have adapted Troiano's sonnet for the occasional
Leggiadrissima eterna
Whether or not the two share a modelling relationship,
their common vocabulary and style is representative of— if
more extensive than— that of the book as a whole.^2 jn both
poems a lengthy description of rejoicing nature culminates
in a couplet honoring the bridal pair. The scene is set in
standard epithalamic imagery: a natural setting is described
21
^xLedbetter suggested Virginio as a possible author of
this poem. See Luca Marenzio. p.129. It seems unlikely that
the duke would have written a verse in his own honor. A more
likely candidate would seem to be the composer himself. In
any case it is the kind of verse that any self-respecting
courtier could have produced.
22
Shared vocabulary and style is of course the basis of
imitatio. The difference between the relationship between
these two poems and that of, for example, "Leggiadrissima
eterna" and "Leggiadre ninfe" (quoted below p.86) is really
only one of degree.
61
in topographical detail and populated with mythological
characters— nymphs, muses, graces, and personified nature
(Spring in Leggiadrissima eterna and the Wind and Sun in
Spiri dolce Favonio). The vocabulary is both vigorous and
highly descriptive: the two poems set their nymphs and
shepherds singing and dancing and both make use of vivid
physical description with bright colors and images of
blazing light.
The descriptive style extends to those poems that are
not encomiastic. Both Tasso's Nel dolce seno, and Guarini's
B a d soave e cari sacrifice lightness of touch for richness
of imagery. The Tasso contribution is especially telling.
Nel dolce seno della bella Clori

Tirsi che del suo fine
Gia languendo sentia l'hore vicine.
Tirsi, levando gl'occhi
Ne' languidetti rai del suo desio,
"Anima" disse "homai felice mori?"
Quand'ella: "Ahime, ben mio,
Aspetta" sospiro dolce anhelando.
"Ahi crudo, ir dunque a morte
Senza me pensi? io teco, e non me'n pento.
Morir, promisi, e gia moro e gia sento
Le mortali mie scorte
Perche l'una e l'altr'alma insieme scocchi."

Si string'egli soave e sol risponde
Con meste voci a le voci gioconde.
0 fortunati, l'un'entro spirando
Ne la bocca de 1'altro, una dolce ombra
Di morte gl'occhi lor tremanti ingombra;
E si sentian, mancando i rotti accenti,
Agghiacciar tra le labbra i baci ardenti.
62
For all its suggestive images, this parody of Guarini's
Tirsi morir volea lacks the erotic acutezza of its model. ^
The poem is twenty lines of nearly all endecasyllabi. The
lovers' dialogue, central to erotic poetry, is wordy enough
to be unintentionally humorous. Clori's response to Tirsi's
"Sweetheart I'm dying" takes five lines and, in Marenzio's
setting, continues into the madrigal's second part. Even
the closing conceit— the image of the passing of life's
breath between lovers— loses its erotic power in its
discursive exposition.
The effectiveness of this verse is therefore based not
on brevity and acutezza. certainly not on seriousness or
originality of subject matter, but rather on the very
excessiveness of its imagery. The pictorialisms almost
weigh the poetry down, like jewelled robes which at once
sparkle and oppress. And it needs a musical setting that
can support its weight. In response to this need, Marenzio
began with a six-voice palette. Six voices gave him a wider
selection of voicings to choose from, and he took advantage
of the opportunities for variety.
The thirteen madrigals represent six different clef
combinations (see Table II.2). The difference between the
cleffings g2g2c2c3c3f3 and clclc3c4c4f4 is merely one of
But for an example of Tasso beating Guarrni at his

own game see my discussion of Stillo 1'anima in pianto
(VIIa5) below pp.101-105.
63
total range; the distribution in both cases is that of
doubled cantus and tenor. But the two madrigals with the
distribution clc3c3c4c4f4 (7 and 8) explore a significantly
different sound space by doubling the altus instead of the
cantus. And in Amatemi ben mio (#9) Marenzio approximated
an even distribution of voices across the total range, an
unusual voicing in the madrigal.
The six-voice texture lends itself to division into
smaller three- and four-voice groupings. Juxtaposition of
smaller blocks like this is a feature of Marenzio's
canzonetta style, and he exploited the possibilities here as
well. Most often, in this book, he contrasted high and low
tessituras, making the middle voices do double duty as the
bottom of a high group or the top of a low one. In the
opening measures of Con la sua man (#10) the first four
lines of verse are homophonically declaimed in the top four
voices, followed by a switch to the bottom four for the next
verse, and then disolving to various combinations. (See
example II.1 mm.1-30).
64
TABLE II.2 VOICE DISTRIBUTION IN MARENZIO'S Va6.
# CAPOVERSO PARTS &

CLEFFING
1 Leggiadrissima eterna C Q A VI T B
cl cl c3 c3 c4 f 4
2 Leggiadre ninfe C Q A VI T B
cl cl c3 c4 c4 f 4
3 Candide Perle* C Q A VI T B
cl cl c3 c4 c4 f 4
4 Come fuggir C Q VI A T B
g2 g2 c3 c3 c3 f 3
5 Ecco che'l ciel c Q A VI T B
g2 g2 c2 c3 c3 f 3
6 Spiri aolce Favonio c Q A VI T B
g2 g2 c2 c3 c3 f 3
7 Giunta un bel fonte c A Q T VI B
cl c3 c3 c4 c4 f 4
8 Nel dolce seno c Q A VI T B

cl c3 c3 c4 c4 f4
9 Amatemi ben mio C Q A VI T B

cl c2 c3 c4 c4 f 4
10 Con la sua man C Q A VI T B

cl cl c3 c4 c4 f4
11 S'a veder voi C Q A VI T B

g2 g2 c2 c3 c3 f 3
12 Baci soavi e cari c Q A VI T B
g2 g2 c2 c3 c3 f 3
13 Vivro dunque lontano c Q A T VI B
g2 g2 c2 c3 c3 f 3
♦Setting by Antonio Bicci
65
The gradual expansion of the texture to a full six
voices in this example is also typical. Marenzio rarely
allowed this reduced texture to continue for long.
Frequently, as here, a section in reduced texture opens a
madrigal. An opening trio or quartet— especially of high
voices— expanding to a full six voice texture makes a good
exordium, and Marenzio was ever sensitive to the need to
begin a madrigal with a rhetorical flourish.
The exordium of Con la sua man is leisurely; we do not
get the impact of all six voices until around measure 30,
almost halfway through the madrigal. And here the fullness
of the texture is kept light by the highly motivic part-
writing, which continues as the dominant texture to the end
of the madrigal. The busy motivic work and the constant
flux of participating voices keep the thick texture from
seeming heavy.
66
EXAMPLE II. 1 Con la sua man la mia (#10)^
c
Con la a M a - d o n - n’ un d i m'
O
C on la sua a M a - d o n - n ’ un d i m ’ a - v in
C on la sua man la mi a M a -d o n -n ’ u n d i m’ a - v in
VI
C on a M a - d o n - n ’ un d i m ’ a - v in
d o l • ce s t r in Che m i sen -
d o l • ce s t r in t ia dal p ia
d o l - ce s t r in t ia dal g ra n
d o l • ce s t r in C he mi sen -
t ia dal g ra n p ia
ce r, che mi sen t ia d a l g ra n p ia
t ia dal g ra n p ia
Reproduced with permission from Luca Marenzio, Opera

Omnia, edited by Bernhard Meier. Corpus mensurabilis musicae
72 (Nuehaussen-Stuttgart: American Institute of Musicology)
vol. 6, pp.69-73.
67
Che - . 1_ g ia I ’ aL . ( m’e • ra a i la • b ri
ft m ---------m — ft— • m -----------------1----------- i
* El - la che se n ’ac . cor - se

>
** El - la che se n ’ ac - cor - se Che g ia l'a l m ’e - r a a i la - b ri
* El - la che sc n’ ac - cor - sc Che g ia l ’al m ’e • r a a i la - b ri
- la che ic n ’ac • cor C he g ia l ’a l - m’ e • r a a i la - b r i
To - i t o la b o c - ca por
s to la &u la re ia b o c . ca por
s to la su la m ia b o c - ca por
per To s to la su la m ia b o c . ca por
sue* gen
.sug
gen sug gen
sug gen
gen do in - v o - lb , i n - v o - lb
sug gen - do
68
s p ir s p ir
s p ir s p ir
in - v o - lo s p ir s p ir
in - vo - lb s p ir s p ir li m ie
s p ir s p ir
in -v o - lo s p ir s p ir
35
s p ir
ti rr.ic On d ’ in
s p ir - On
On d ’ in me
t i m ie On
t i m ic On
to
to
m or to
69
45
sug gen
sug gen
gen do, sug
sug
sug gen do in - v o - l o .
£ sug • gen • do
do in - v o - lo s p ir
s p ir s p jr
in - v o - 16 s p ir
i n - v o -16 s p ir
s p ir
s p ir
50
s p ir ti m ie s p ir
s p ir s p ir -
s p ir ti m ie -
s p ir s p ir t i m ie
70
On
On d ’ ia
On d ’in to
On
On d ’ in rr.e m cr to
ho
v i - v o in Ic ho
ho
ho
ho
ho
ho ra rc i v i- v o in le i
71
Reproduced w ith permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Marenzio achieved this bouyancy within a full, strong
texture by other means in Spiri dolce Favonio. (Example II.2
gives the prima parte of this two part madrigal.) In this
madrigal, the blocks of voices retain their integrity, but
they alternate and are recombined frequently enough to
maintain a busy texture.
Thus these madrigals combine fewer-voice combinations
and motives into a musical fabric that is actually quite
robust. And it needs to be, for Marenzio matches the
glitter of the lyrics with a dazzling array of iconic
madrigalisms.
72
25
Example II.2 Spiri dolce Favonio (#6) prima parte
c
Spi
Q
A
dol .
VI
dol .
B
S pi ri dol
i ’io r,
f io r ,
v o - n io A • ra -b i o *
v o -n io A - ra -b i o .
v o .n io A • ra -b i o - Oe • s ti la te r •
v o -n io A - ra -b i o - De
HI
t io r v c r- r r i- g li e g ia l
Dv - it i la t e r • r a t io r g ia l
9. nor
te r • ra lio r ve r * mi - g lie g ia ] ♦ - li;
^^Reproduced with permission from Opera Omnia 6, pp. 37-

42.
73
ca n
tin , co n
t in g l'a u
t in g l au
tin g l'a u g ci per
tin gei per p in - t c val •
tin g l ’ au per val • per
tin l ’ au per
g ei per
tc val li,
p in - te val S a - lu - ta n sa - lu -
per p in - t c val >a- lu - ta n
p in • t c do
p in S a - lu - ta n
74
ta n Le
do 1’ a u • v i a l- b o
l ’ au
l ’ au
s a - lu - t a n Le
.L e
ghc ie e i fe r vi - di Le
Le
Le
sto
ghe fe e i i'e r sto
ghe N in te r sto
ghe fc e i i'e r s to
ghc N in fe e i fe r v i - di s to
ghe fe e i fe r v i ■di s to
75
Fac r o - set bal
Fac r o • set bal
set bal
Fac r o • se t bal
Fac r o • set bal
76
r * — ........... - ■ r — IT IT ft ft ft ft u - , ..
en - t r ’ i bei li - qui -d i c r i- s ta l li, E i pe - J
^ J p
sc i en - tr ’i bei li- q u i- d i c ri ♦ s ta l . li, E i pe -
.. j_
l i • qui • di c ri-s ta l li. Ei pe
5 b -■ - r -------------
3 F _ - ------------------ =------- " J---------------
fi c j pe - sci e n - tr ’ i b e i l i • •;u i- d i c r i- s ta l
L ,f .----------------------- I f . — J
> r
------------- — L - - —
n ei pe - sci,
^=.=.0 . r 1 r r - y L ^ .g . g g
ei pe • sci e n - tr ’ i b e i l i - qui - d i c r i- s ta l
SCI, pc s c i en ♦ t r ’i bci li - qui • d i c r i * s ta l
s ta l
sci e n - tr ’ i b c i li - qui - di c ri • s ta l
en - t r ’ i bei
SCI,
E i
s c i e n - tr ’ ib e i
li- q u i- d i c r i - s t a l
en - t r ’ i b e i li- q u i- d i c r i - s ta l
pc
T p.p nppi
sc i e n -tr’ ib e i l i - q u i - d i c r i- s t a l
77
Tom pnn dol
T em pnn dol
Tcm pnn dol
T cm p r in dol
T cm p r in dol
Tcm pnn. co n dol ce
t r ie g u a i lo r .
do
t r ie lo r
gua i lo r
t r ie guai lo r
t r ie guai lo r
78
The dynamic imagery of this poetry— dancing, singing,
fire, water, and so forth— lends itself very well to iconic
depiction. But the madrigalisms here are of a specific
kind. Within the sixteenth-century dictionary of musical
signs the kind of imagery with which this poetry abounds are
set to active musical figures; so the book glitters with
short minim turns and runs, dancing dotted rhythms, and
sections of triple meter. Like the poetry it sets,
Marenzio's musical vocabulary is utterly conventional— even
mundane; but also as in the poetry, it is redeemed by its
own excessiveness. The affect of the music, like that of
the poetry, is based on assailing the audience with physical
imagery.
Leggiadre ninfe may serve as an example of how Marenzio
encrusted his musical fabric with musical text-depictive
figures.
9 fi
The madrigal was Marenzio's contribution to T n o n f o
di Pori.
79
Example II.3 Leggiadre ninfe (#2)^97
N in fe e Pa - s to - r c l- li a - m an. ti
fe e Pa - s to -rc M i a • m an - t i
fe e Pa - s lo -re l- li a - m a n - t i.
Che con lie
Che con lie
gia - d re N in
gia • d re j ^ jn - le e Pa • s to - rc l - l i a - man - t i Che con lie
q uc - s t’om b ro ^1
sem - bian que - j l ’ om b ro val
sem • bian que • s t’ om b ro val
sem • bian que - s t’cm b ro
sem • bian que - s t’ om b ro

7S
sem - b ian que - s t’ om b ro ^•>7
val
^Reproduced with permission from Opera Omnia 6, pp.10-

15.
80
hog -
al - I’on fo n
de c h ia
fon
hog -
de c h ia fo n * te h o g - gi
gi vi I r a s - sc A
fio -
s c ie - g lle r fio r da fio
vi tra s -s e A
tra s scie - g lic r f io r .
P er det
Per la n . det
Per tes - ser
Per te s - se r g h ir - la n det
re
81
per la c
-C3-
g h ir la n • det g h ir
per t e * - se r g h i r - la n det te
g h ir * la n • det per tes - se r
per g h ir la n
d et
la n • d e t
c co ro na
re ,
.Vin fa gen
N in
ir.ia ti U
82
La m ia N in
La
fa gen
s tra
83
60
D an - zan con
ca n
84
E k r J - : - ,s = fr = : „ =
r ------------------------
v i - \a , v;
, = ■■ = ; ■ jF = = = !
£ 5 = 3 = = ?
--=5.j _ |_= = f- — =:■■■==
te s p a r - g e n - d ’e ■ - y . P
ro - se e fio - r i- —----------------------- V i* va,
r £ = - p =w -r r f r !=grr^lr
:1 1 -y gJ v- f ___________ f = = !
^ - = ==■ n
* spar - gen - d e I ro - te e fio - ri*. V i - v a , vi - va,
:
z f c ------ -------- =--------= -------P . - 1 P ----------------- 0 -----------------
sp-*- r -r 1
* t p a r - gen -d ’ e ro ie c fio r i: V i- v a , vi
8 -----------
3F Vi - va, vi
e a - r ....'■ !■==' ^■■^=:-=r Iff p = r =- r p = a = =

spar - g c n - d ’e ro - i« e fio - r i: v i- v a , vi • va, v i- v a ,
vi - va , v i- v a , vi - va la b c i - la Do • r i, V i- v a , v i
bei Do
bei Do
V i - va.
v i - va, v i • va la Do
bei Do
bei Do
85
Leggiadre Ninfe e Pastorelli amanti
Che con lieti sembianti
In guest'ombrosa valle all'onde chiare
Di vivo fonte hoggi vi trasse Amore
A scieglier fior da fiore
Fer tesser ghirlandette e coronare
La mia Ninfa gentile
Mentre vezzosi Satiri e Silvani
Nei lor'habiti strani
Danzan con mod'humile,
Voi cantate spargend'e rose e fiori:
Viva la bella Dori.
The poem has all the gualities that we saw in
Leggiadrissima eterna and Spiri dolce Favonio: the setting
is a country scene with dancing nymphs and shepherds, and
there is plenty of physical imagery for depiction— shady
valleys, garlands and crowns of blossoms and the requisite
singing and dancing. Almost every phrase of Marenzio's
setting is built on the iconic depiction of at least one o
these images. An analysis of the piece (example II.3) may
be summarized in a table.
86
TABLE 11.3 ANALYSIS OF LEGGIADRE NINFE
Verse Meas. Musical description
1-2 1-11 opening exordium of reduced texture.
3 12-18 black notes paint "ombrose"

downward melodic leap depicts "valle"
short minim run paints "all'onde."
5 21-24 "fior" is set to a turn.
6 24-43 "ghirlandette" and "coronare" both receive

long, elaborate musical "garlands."
8-10 47-60 Satyrs and SyIvans dance in triple meter.
11 61-76 "cantate" is set to a shower of turns.
12 77-85 "Viva" is treated with active motivic work.
The fact that the madrigal lends itself so well to such
a tabular analysis is revealing in itself; and yet such a
presentation risks encouraging a superior attitude toward
madrigalisms. Seeing the text-expressive devices laid bare
in this manner makes the madrigal seem naive, even trivial;
but this music is in no way trivial. These gestures form
the tiles of a musical mosaic; and as in mosaic, they
combine to produce an artwork that is at once a collection
of glittering fragments and an indissoluble whole. We
needn't be afraid to laugh at these devices— Marenzio and
his audience surely did— but we should laugh with
appreciation, not derision.
87
CHAPTER I I I
M A R E N Z IO AND T H E P A S TO R A L DRAMA:
THE S IX T H AND S E V E N T H BOOKS FO R F I V E V O IC E S
Battista Guarini's pastoral tragicomedy II pastor fido
played a crucial role in the stylistic development of the
madrigal in the 1590s and the first decade of the
seventeenth century. As a literary source the drama
dominated the last works of Giaches Wert, held a significant
place in the late style of Marenzio and Filippo di Monte,
and served as the proving ground for Monteverdi's dramatic
style. Guarini's play also influenced the early opera:
librettists modeled their works on II pastor fido in both
style— the mixed genre of tragicomedy— and form, organizing
their librettos primarily in irregular alternations of
settenari and endecasvllabi punctuated by rhyming couplets.
Though not published until 1589,^ II pastor fido was
completed by 1585 and circulated widely in manuscript. It
sparked an immediate controversy— the last of the great
literary quarrels of the sixteenth century. In essence, the
debate continued the sixteenth-century battle between the
■^The play was published in December 1589 but dated

1590.
Ancients, who would make modern poetry conform to a strict
interpretation of Aristotle's poetics, and the Moderns, who
interpreted Aristotle and other classical sources more
liberally, arguing for the adaptation of literature to
modern tastes. The conservatives objected to II pastor fido
on the basis of its mixture of the two classical genres,
tragedy and comedy; its defenders contended that it
represented not a mixture of genres but a new hybrid form
whose justification lay in the changed needs of the modern
audience.
The debate was initiated in 1586 by the conservative
literary critic Giason Denores, who attacked II pastor fido
in the final section of his first treatise on poetics.^
Though the play was not mentioned by name, the details of
Denores' argument against the genre of the tragicomedy made
his point of reference clear. Guarini responded, defending
himself anonymously in 1588 in his II Verrato.^ and the
^The controversy up to 1600 is discussed at length in

Bernard Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the
Italian Renaissance (Chicago, 1961), pp. 1074-1105 and in
Nicolas J. Perella, The Critical Fortune of Battista
Guarini's "II Pastor fido" (Florence, 1973). Perella follows
the controversy into the seventeenth century.
O , , ...
JDiscorso intorno a que' p n n c i p n , cause, et
accrescimenti, che la comedia, la traqedia. et il poemo
heroico recevono dalla philosophia morale, e civile, e da'
qovenatori delle republiche (Padua, 1586).
^11 Verrato o w e r o difesa di quanto ha scritto Messer

Giason Denores contra le traqicomedie. et le pastorali. in
un suo discorso di poesia (Ferrara, 1588).
89
quarrel began in earnest after the play's publication in
1589: to further contributions by Guarini and Denores were
added the opinions of a wide variety of critics. The debate
culminated, for Guarini, in the publication of a heavily
annotated edition of the play in 1601, in which he included
his Compendio della poesia tragicomica. a collection of his
writings in defense of the work.'*
The play's career on the stage began more slowly. In
1584 Vincenzo Gonzaga requested a copy from Guarini in order
to produce it for his wedding to Leonora de' Medici; Guarini
declined on the grounds that the fifth act was incomplete.
This exchange marked the beginning of Vincenzo's fourteen-
year effort to produce the play. An attempt in 1592, for
which Giaches Wert and Francesco Rovigo were to provide
music, went no further than rehearsals. Vincenzo finally
suceeded in 1598— a fully staged production, with music by
Giovanni Gastoldi, provided the entertainment for a visit
from the newlyweds Philip III of Spain and Margherita of
Austria.® Frequent attempts at a Ferrarese production, also
beginning in 1584, never reached fruition, although a 1595
5Venice, 1601.
®The best account of the play's history at the Mantuan

court is Iain Fenlon, "Music and Spectacle at the Gonzaga
Court," Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 103
(1976-77): 90. Gastoldi's music for the four choruses of
the Gioco del Cieco (III;2) was published in his VIa5
(1602).
90
attempt progressed far enough to influence the Mantuan
production three years later.^
Most of the major composers who first explored the
musical possibilities of II pastor fido were involved
directly or indirectly with these efforts to stage the play.
Wert was intimately associated with the 1592 production;
Monteverdi, employed at Mantua by 1589, would have been
witness to preparations for both the aborted 1592 effort and
the later successful production; and Pallavicino, who set a
number of excerpts from the play in 1600, was also employed
at Mantua. Of major composers who set a significant number
of texts from the play before 1600, only Marenzio and

O
Filippo di Monte were not a part of this milieu.0
Marenzio first set texts from II pastor fido in his
sixth book for five voices of 1594, where he included four
Anthony Newcomb, The Madrigal at Ferrara 1579-97 2

vols. (Princeton, 1980), 1:42-46. It is now generally
believed that the Gioco del cieco of Act III was probably
the only part of the II pastor fido involving sung text, and
that the madrigals of composers such as Wert and Monteverdi
were not written to be interpolated into a production of the
play. See Gary Tomlinson, Monteverdi and the End of the
Renaissance. (Berkeley, 1987) p.116-17. But for the argument
that Wert's settings were written for the aborted Mantuan
attempt of 1592 see Carol MacClintock, Giaches de Wert: Life
and Works. (American Institute of Musicology, 1966) pp. 179-
83.
®De Monte is an interesting figure in this context. His

settings, including a book titled Musica sopra II pastor
fido. date from 1599 and 1600. Di Monte was employed at the
Imperial court at Vienna and was therefore perhaps even more
isolated from the stage productions of the play than
Marenzio.
91
excerpts. His seventh book, published a year and a half
later, was dominated by II pastor fido; twelve of its
seventeen texts were drawn from the drama.^ Settled in
Rome, Marenzio had no apparent connection with any
production, and his poetic choices were not influenced by
other composers— most of his Pastor fido madrigals were set
for the first time by h i m . ^ And if his attention had been
drawn to the play through northern channels, we might expect
to find this influence reflected in his dedications.
Instead, the sixth and seventh books are dedicated to two
patrons firmly in the Roman sphere: Cardinal Cinzio
Aldobrandini, and the papal secretary, Diego de Campo. We
must therefore seek a context for Marenzio's sudden and
absorbing interest in II pastor fido in the cultural and
^The dedication of book VIa5 is dated 1 January 1594;

that of book VIIa5. 20 October 1595. Three more Pastor fido
settings are found in book VIIIa5 of 1598.
^•^The exceptions are Ah dolente partita (Book VIa5) set

by Girolamo Belli in his IIIa6 (1593) and Quell'augellin che
canta (Book VIIa5) set by Leone Leoni in Bella Clori of
1591. Settings of Ah dolente partita and Cruda Amarilli in
Wert's XIa5 of 1595 are contemporary with Marenzio's. Gary
Tomlinson, noting the textual variants between Monteverdi's
version of Quell'augellin che canta, and the version in the
play, suggests a separate existence of this text as a
madrigal, though no such text has been found in print. See
Tomlinson, Monteverdi. p.78. Ah dolente partita is a rare
instance in the play of a madrigal rhyme scheme; it seems a
likely candidate for such a separate existence as well.
92
intellectual circles of Rome— specifically in the circle
around Cinzio Aldobrandini.^
The most illustrious literary figure in Cinzio's circle
was Torquato Tasso. Invited to Rome in 1592 as Cinzio's
guest, Tasso lived there until his death in April 1595. The
poet had been an important influence on the madrigal during
the 1580s, when he resided at the Ferrarese court. Both
Wert and Monteverdi seem to have been inspired by personal
contact with Tasso to set texts from the poet's epic, the
Gerusalemme liberata. during these y e a r s . ^
The nature and extent of the poet's influence on
Marenzio is difficult to assess. Marenzio's own settings of
Liberata texts also date from the 1580s and were inspired
not by personal contact with Tasso but, apparently, by
Wert's settings.^ Did Tasso, Marenzio's fellow guest at
•^Cinzio and his ridotto are discussed at length in

Chapter One, above. Marenzio was a guest of Cinzio at the
Vatican sometime during 1594 and perhaps as early as July
1593, by which time he had left the Orsini household. Cinzio
was also apparently instrumental in procuring Marenzio's
post in Poland.
lÔn Wert and Tasso see MacClintock, Giaches de Wert

pp. 58-61. On Monteverdi see Tomlinson, Monteverdi chapter
3, especially p. 59.
■^Marenzio's Liberata settings are the three-section

Giunto alia tomba in his IVa5 of 1584 and Vezzosi Augelli in
book Ia4 of 1585. Giunto alia tomba shows clear indebtedness
to Wert's setting of 1581 in both textual detail and musical
style. For a comparison of the two settings see Nino
Pirrotta, "Notes on Marenzio and Tasso," in Music and
93
the Vatican, influence the composer's poetic choices in his
late books? If so, why is this influence not reflected in a
greater representation of his own verse?
Marenzio's neglect of the Liberata during these years
may have been due, at least in part, to Tasso's own attitude
toward the work. These were the years of Tasso's recasting
of the epic under the new title Gerusalemme conauistata.
Many of the sections that had attracted composers were the
very ones that suffered the most heavy-handed editing by the
author.^ Clearly this was not the best time to mine the
riches of the Gerusalemme liberata. especially since Cinzio
himself enthusiastically supported the epic's revision.
What of Tasso's pastoral verse? Tasso was, of course,
a premier pastoral poet, whose pastoral drama Aminta was an
important and popular contribution to the genre. Marenzio
surely knew Aminta, yet he set no passages from it. Tasso
is represented in Marenzio's late works only by a handful of
Culture in Italy from the Middle Ages to the Baroque

(Cambridge, MA, 1984), pp.204-209.
■^Comparisons of the two versions are telling. In the

Conauistata. for example, the descriptive Vezzosi augelli is
expanded from one to two octaves (XIII;11-12) elaborating
and embellishing the nature imagery. The expanded version is
not unsuited to madrigalian setting; on the contrary it is
well suited to the lush Ferrarese style, perhaps even more
so than the Liberata version. But this descriptive type of
text did not inspire, and was inappropriate to, the
recitational style of the 1590s. Erminia's Misera non
credea, (XIX;106-107), which provided the text for one of
Wert's most expressive recitational madrigals, was entirely
cut in the Conauistata.
94
pastoral madrigals and a group of excsrpts drawn from two
eclogues, the Arezia ninfa and Convito de' pastori.
Marenzio's source for the Convito d e ' Pastori was a
poetic anthology, the Rime di diversi celebri Poeti dell'eta
nostra, edited by Giovanni Battista Licino, an important
figure in late cinguecento literary circles. Licino
played a central role in the publication of Tasso's works,
editing his Rime (1587) and various prose volumes, including
two volumes of letters and the Discorsi dell'arte poetica. ^
Extensive correspondence between Cinzio Aldobrandini and
Licino survives, mostly regarding Licino's role as editor of
Tasso's works. Furthermore, the cardinal apparently
entrusted Licino with Tasso's autoaraphs in his

. 1 7 . • •
possession. Marenzio's use of Licino's Rime di diversi
(Bergamo, 1587) On this and Marenzio's other literary

sources see James Chater, "Fonti poetiche per i madrigali di
Luca Marenzio," Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 13 (1978):
71-72. Marenzio's sixth and seventh books include only one
Tasso setting each. A passage from the Convito de' pastori.
Donna dell'alma mia (#3 in Marenzio's VIa5) was printed
twice in 1587— once in Licino's anthology and once in II
rimamente delle rime di Siq Torquato Tasso (Ferrara, 1587)—
and again in a Tasso publication of 1592. Chater argues
convincingly that Licino's anthology is Marenzio's source
for this text. Al lume de le stelle (#5 in Marenzio's VIIa5)
was first published in 1586. See James Chater, Luca Marenzio
and the Italian Madrigal 1577-1593 2 vols. (Ann Arbor,
1981), 1:210. Biographical information on Licino has been
gleaned from Angelo Solerti, Vita di Torquato Tasso. 3 vols.
(Turin, 1895) and various library catalogues which index him
as editor.
*®Licino also edited the Rime of Abate Angelo Grillo

(Bergamo, 1589).
•^Solerti, Vita. 1:822.
95
must have been influenced, if not specifically requested, by
Cinzio. His selection of Tasso's poetry, drawn largely from
that volume, thus probably reflects Cinzio's influence more
than Tasso's.
The extent of Tasso's influence on Marenzio is, in
fact, questionable for a number of reasons. After his
release in 1586 from Santa Anna, the institution to which he
had been committed by Alfonso II of Ferrara for seven years,
the poet's mental health continued to decline. In his final
years, those spent in Rome, he fell victim to increasing
paranoia and self-imposed isolation, breaking with many
friends and distrusting even his devoted benefactor, Cinzio.
Marenzio's contact with Tasso would have been limited by the
poet's intermittent absences from Rome and his increasing
physical illness: personal business took him to Naples from
June through November of 1594 and upon his return to Rome he
was confined to his bed until his death in April 1595.
If Tasso's influence on Marenzio was minimal, the same
cannot be said of Guarini. The author of II pastor fido was
in Rome twice during the period of composition of Marenzio's
sixth and seventh books: once from November 1593 until the
summer of 1594 and again from December 1594 until April
1595. At the time of his first visit, Guarini had just

• 18
completed the second of his defenses of II pastor frdo. °
^ 11 Verrato secondo. See above note 4.
96
His views must have found support in Cinzio's circle, which
included the Platonic philosopher and progressive literary
critic Francesco Patrizi-^ and the dramatic theorist Angelo

on , . .
Ingegneri.^'"' Guarini's presence m Rome must have inspired
lively and favorable discussion of his work and of the new
genre of the pastoral tragicomedy in general.
Marenzio's sixth and seventh books are interesting as
poetic collections, most especially for their profusion of
named pastoral characters. Although named characters are
not at all uncommon in pastoral verse (especially in
dramatic excerpts), the sheer number of characters
inhabiting the world of these two books is striking.
Interesting too, in this context, is Marenzio's treatment of
the Pastor fido texts. In nearly all of them, he changed
the names of the pastoral characters as if to remove them
from the immediate context of Guarini's drama.
Patrizi never entered into the polemics over II

Pastor fido (he died in 1597). His poetic theory was
outlined in his Parere (1585) in defense of Ariosto and the
Della Poetica: La Deca disputata (1586).
9n
■“^ I n g e g n e n argued rn favor of the genre of the
tragicomedy in his Della poesia rappresentative e del modo
di rappresencare le favole sceniche (Ferrara, 1598) which
was essentially a practical treatise on the pastoral drama.
Ingegneri was brought to Rome by Cinzio in 1592 in order to
assist Tasso with the preparation of the Gerusalemme
conquistata for publication. See Anthony Oldcorn, The
Textual Problems of Tasso's Gerusalemme Conauistata
(Ravenna, n.d.), p.47.
91
xSee for example, Ombrose e care selve (#17) and
Quell'augellin che canta (#2) where Tirsi is substituted for
Mirtillo and Silvio respectively. In 0 fido, o caro Aminta
97
The frequency of names and Marenzio's apparent care in
selecting them suggest that they held some deeper
referential meaning for Marenzio's audience. Sixteenth-
century pastoral poetry frequently celebrated real persons
in the guise of Arcadian nymphs and shepherds. This was a
common feature of the ecloga rappresentativa. an ancestor of
the pastoral drama that was still in vogue at the end of the
century. The earliest example of the allegorical eclogue is
perhaps instructive: in 1506 an eclogue titled Tirsi,
composed and recited by Baldassare Castiglione and Cesare
Gonzaga, was performed at Urbino. The main characters of
the eclogue represented members of the court: the two
authors were represented respectively by the characters Iola
and Dameta, and there were characters representing Cardinal
Bembo and the Duchess of Urbino as well.22 Though this
simple eclogue was far removed from II pastor fido. the
example is especially appealing for its representation of a
circle of courtiers and literati which must have been very
like that around Cinzio Aldobrandini some ninety years
later. A similar example— one closer to Marenzio— is
Guarini's eclogue in honor of the wedding of Margarita
Gonzaga and Alfonso d'Este, in which three pastoral
(#11), Amarilli's name is added where there was no name and

where, according to the drama, she does not belong.
22walter Greg, Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama (New

York, 1959 [Originally published, 1905]), pp.31-32.
98
characters, Aminta, Dafne, and Licori, praised Margarita's
virtues.
Veiled references to contemporary personages could form
an underlayer to an otherwise fictional work as well. In
Act I;i of Tasso's Aminta. Dafne digresses from her chiding
of Sylvia to tell a story which is an allegorical
description of the Ferrarese court. Among the characters in
the story who represent real figures are Batto as Guarini,
Licori as Lucrezia Bendidio and, most interestingly, Tirsi
as Tasso himself. ^ Tasso's identification as Tirsi was
taken up again in 1601 in Giovanmaria Guicciardi's pastoral
drama, II soano. ^ The play, which was dedicated to Cinzio
Aldobrandini, ended with a speech by Ergasto in praise of
Cinzio and his funeral oration for Tasso. In the
O O
The poem is published in Qpere di Torquato Tasso,
colle controversie sulla Gerusalemme. edited by Gio. Rosini,
33 vols. (Pisa, 1821-32), 4:125-127. Solerti, Vita. 1:308,
notes the mistaken attribution and assigns the work to
Guarini whose authorship is generally accepted. The poem was
the source of Marenzio's Lucida perle [VIa6]
^ W a l t e r Greg, Pastoral Poetry, p. 186. Tasso's

association of Licori with Lucrezia Bendidio is interesting
in light of Guarini's use of that character to sing the
praises of Margarita Gonzaga, Bendidio's patroness (see
above). Bendidio was first associated with Licori in some
Latin epigrams by the Ferrarese courtier Giambattista Pigna.
She was also celebrated by the Ferrarese poet Annibale
Pocaterra under the same name. See Torquato Tasso, Aminta.
ed., Ernesto Grillo (New York, 1924), p.24 and "Bendidio,
Lucrezia," Dizionario Bioqrafico deqli Italiani (Rome,
1960), 8:235. Another poem of Guarini's entitled Dono Licori
a Batto may continue this theme. This poem was set by
Marenzio as Dono Cynthia a Damone in his IIIa6 of 1585.
^ 5Ferrara, 1601.
99
description Cinzio wanders through Arcadia and Parnassus
along with their natural inhabitants. Tasso is referred to
throughout this passage (quoted in the appendix to this
chapter) as Tirsi.
This unselfconscious insertion of a cardinal of the
Roman Catholic church into a fictional Parnassus, where he
mingles with shepherds and nymphs, suggests the intimacy of
the role of pastoralism in cinquecento life. And the
appearance of real personages in the guise of pastoral
characters in fictional contexts has a parallel in Italian
literary circles. The Roman literary academy known as the
Pastori della Tiberine assigned pastoral sopranomi to each
of its m e m b e r s . 2® Among the Pastori Tasso was known as
Clonico while Virginio Orsini took the name Tirsi.
Was Marenzio's Tirsi meant to represent either Virginio

« • 97
Orsini or Tasso? Arguments could be made for both. But
much more to the point is the way these madrigal books
belong to the late-cinquecento aesthetic world. Pastoralism
filled every facet of life: poetry, both lyric and dramatic,
was pervaded with it; intellectual academies discussed its
^ S e e Chapter One on the Pastori and Virginio Orsini.

97 . •
James Chater argues, on the basis of Virginio's
adoption of Tirsi as his sopranome, that the Tirsi and Clori
who dominate Marenzio's VIa5 represent Virginio and his
bride Flavia Peretti Orsini. This seems unlikely in light of
the book's dedication to Cinzio Aldobrandini and the absence
of this pairing in book Va6. which was dedicated to
Virginio. See Chater, "Fonti poetiche," pp. 76-77.
100
literary merits; literati adopted its names for themselves
and each other and peopled their poetic Arcadias with their
friends, lovers, and patrons. We need not decode Marenzio's
sixth and seventh books for references to real personages:
these works created for Marenzio's audience an Arcadian
world which, for them, was completely real and utterly
natural. In doing so, they capture the spirit of their age
in the same way, and every bit as vividly, as their literary
siblings.
Marenzio's discovery of the pastoral drama led him, in
his sixth and seventh books for five voices, to the
development of a new style. Ke developed this style only
gradually: in Book VIa5 experimental forays into a new,
dramatic form of expression stand side by side with earlier
styles. The texts of this book are typically light, highly
descriptive scenes of Arcadian flirtations. These poems
recall the pastoral verse that was the staple of the
canzonetta madrigal of the 1570s and 1580s; it is thus not
surprising to see Marenzio expanding and developing his own
canzonetta style here. Stillo l'anima in pianto (#6) will
serve as an example.
101
1 Stillo l'anima in pianto
Tirsi, quando partire
Dovea da Clori e ne volea morire.
Ma la ninfa pietosa,
5 Con la bocca amorosa
Quell'humor colse e poi
Lo ridiede al pastor coi baci suoi.
Onde per gl'occhi uscita,
Rientro per le labbra in lui la vita.
Tirsi poured out his soul in tears when he had to

part from Clori, and he wanted to die. But the
pitying nymph, with her amorous mouth, collected
that humor and then returned it to the shepherd
with her kisses. Whence his life, having escaped
through the eyes, reentered through his lips. °
The text recalls the pastoral eroticism of Guarini's
infamous lovemaking scene, Tirsi morir volea. The first
period, of three lines, is in effect a trope of the first
three words of Guarini's poem:
Stillo l'anima in pianto

Tirsi. quando partire
Dovea da Clori e ne volea morire.
Though the poem continues without further direct reference
to Guarini's text, the intimate sensuality of the poem's
imagery and its post-coital setting place it in the literary
tradition around Tirsi morir vol e a . ^
Marenzio responded to his text with a richly depictive
setting (see Example III.l for measures 1-45). In the
98
^ Translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
9Q
^W h e t h e r or not the connection is intentional is
difficult to say. Given the widespread popularity of
Guarini's text, a conscious relationship does seem likely.
At any rate Marenzio, who set Guarini's text in 1580, would
have been aware of the relationship between the two texts.
102
three-voice homophonic treatment of the first line the alto
and quinto lag behind, and the voices drop out one at a
time, leaving the quinto alone at its plaintive falling
fifth. In adding "Tirsi," the first word of the second
line, to the end of his setting of the first line, Marenzio
vividly rendered the "evaporation" of Tirsi's spirit, and
achieved musically what the enjambment did poetically. Note
here also the expressive use of the B-flat on "Pianto" among
a field of G-sharps and the piquant dissonances on "Tirsi."
The sensual image, in lines 6-7, of Clori drinking Tirsi's
tears from his face and returning them with her kisses
inspired another rich musical image. "Colse" (collected) is
set to an upward flourish in two voices, and "Lo ridiede al
pastor coi baci" is treated motivically, with the motives
repeated throughout the texture as if in a shower of kisses.
103
EXAMPLE III.l, Stillo l'anima in pianto mm. 1-45
m - pvd-rt - TD
nt mojrt piOJl- TV-
Pa- ru - m a jfl p u in - to T ,r-
d-io par- +i - ^ jea_ ^q_ £.10 - nt \zo-l-co_ mc-fi
ne. vfl- l«(L mo - n
qo par- -k- r*. fto-v<a- ^ Go-ri
-do par- ix_ rt <â. Clo-rtf n t v6-l<a m a -rL -
-do par- ti - rt Do-*e<L aa. tlo- riât i/«-ka.
H j. i t _N W k p it- + © - io - Ccn l a doc- caam cr o • 5a C a ^ ll w - w c CflL - - “
J Hoi «a Vi in. ft pu.-to-Sa Curv l»- boc- CAjunc"’ - 0 - id- Ck<l HhMTOT cj(_-
u
1—t—I
-H- ' i ' ---- -I‘i i 1I ■ [111
Muli Urn- fo. pit to- So. lim !i DetCfi. ircfO -So. duil’l'tn.-nnor
104
SC jt r - i - d ;t-d « « !P » .-s W
St 1. Uo ri-dit- dj£ L
P°- Lo r \- dU-t-dtjd Rjl-
t-o r i - d i t - dtpalPa-Stor cot bft-ii- suo -
l 6- ipo- i Lo ri-cLe dfalft-jJorut-bi-ci- Suo-
Lo v - i- ii« . - dool P a - s L h " U c> - d i-c- Pa- ster Uo r i - d ke-d ftlfo-S lo 'toib ici
Lo r i - i i f - d e a l ? i- s ta r
Uo o -A ix . - <U a l P a -S iw
Lo ri-cUi- ital Pa-ShfrUî-da-doalPa.-sfciCaiiba-a
105
In the five excerpts from II pastor fido and the
selection from Tasso's Convito d e ' pastori Marenzio broke
new literary ground. In these texts pastoral verse gains a
new dramatic power and literary weight. Most important is
the change from the descriptive mode to dramatic speech.
Most of the Pastor fido passages that attracted composers—
and Marenzio was no exception— were drawn from the
passionate laments of the play.
For a musical rhetoric to match his new dramatic texts
Marenzio turned to a declamatory style forged by Wert in the
1580s and developed to new expressive ends by Monteverdi in
the early 1590s. Wert's "recitational" style drew its power
from its delivery of the text in a clear and rhetorically
affective manner as well as from a musical-expressive
vocabulary based on vertical sonorities. In the best
works of this style the music bonds to the textual rhythm so
closely that the result resembles heightened speech. A
fundamentally homophonic texture is necessary for the
effectiveness of this declamation, and such a texture
demands an expressive harmonic language. Wert and
Monteverdi both exploited such harmonic expressive devices
on
JUI borrow the term recitational for this style from
Anthony Newcomb, "Madrigal 11,9" New Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians (London, 1980): 11:470-471.
106
as the juxtaposition of major and minor sonorities, the pull
between the flat and sharp side, and third relationships.
Wert forged his recitational style in the Gerusalemme
liberata settings of his eighth book for five voices of
1586, and developed it further in the Pastor fido settings
of his last book, the IXa5 of 1595. Monteverdi first
explored this style in his own Liberata settings of his
third book of 1593. In the Pastor fido settings of his
fourth and fifth books (1603 and 1605) he developed the
style to even greater homophonic extremes that seem to look
forward to his operatic recitative.
Marenzio, too, turned to Wert when confronted with the
dramatic laments of Guarini's drama. But he developed
Wert's recitational style in a very different direction from
his stage-struck northern colleague, Monteverdi. After some
experiments with a strict homophonic texture, Marenzio
incorporated declamation into a style that was firmly
polyphonic in its expressive language.
Ah dolente partita, one of his severest homophonic
works, shows how affectively he could use this style (see

O1
example III.2). x Stripped of contrapuntal interest and
31xMarenzio's setting may have been the source for

Monteverdi's treatment of this text. See Einstein, Italian
Madrigal. 11:726. For stylistic comparisons of settings of
this text see also Lorenzo Bianconi, " vAh dolente partita'
espressione ed artificio," Studi Musicali 3 (1974): 105 and
Pierluigi Petrobelli "vAh dolente partita': Marenzio, Wert,
Monteverdi," in Raffaello Monterosso ed., Claudio Monteverdi
e il suo tempo (Verona, 1969) pp. 361-76.
107
with a restricted melodic profile, the opening passage of
this madrigal depends heavily on its speech-like
presentation of the text and its rich harmonic palette. In
the opening measures, the extremity of Mirtillo's distress
is portrayed in the jagged rhythm of "Ah fin de la mia
vita." Throughout the piece, in the top line especially,
phrases begin on the off-beat and proceed with a rhythmic
flexibility that evokes a breathlessness of declamation. In
the setting of the fifth line, "e sento nel partire,"
Marenzio used a simple technique of repeating and rescoring
as a symbol of the speaker's mounting distress.
108
EXAM PLE I I I . 2, Ah dolente partita
Fin d«- k
de- L£n - par - ti - ti Pw de k nuA v k -
p^4lj ■■■r
- to. D o.k p a r- -b-encn no-re ? pur I’ pro - da L o. p e - no. 0.0. la
•to. D ate par - btrtmmo.ro? pair <■' fro-Va U pe- no. i * . la
-tft. tkftfar- Jênenmoro? piLT i- p ro - Jo Lo. p € .- n fi- S'C la_
H J k
■Fd Dakyor- totrfvmmo- ro? par t pro- La pe- rva Ae lamor
=§ll
-k par l p r o -i/o L a p e .-n o . d'e.
(nor- tt £t e o - o n e i p a r - h i e f s a n o n d p a r h r t d n < i - v a - itm o - r i - re.

— a— — ^ — —- - i - l"*
II.jMj-i 1* 1 \*1 •* IIIJ M*i 1 1 1,1L iI "i 1 „ J J l Oi l l t o -= - r- j
mor- it. £i t n f e e d purri ro f ioifereLfnWi <t U r n / w o . - u m o r i _ |-t
N i l ! — > T If f t f d J [ t— 1- ;
- I f f a - * * J ■!■ - i
mor- to. £s o i b o t l p a r t i re £ ie*tj o d p e r k r e
_ ti_ ° - 'I'1-* f | |1 ^ ite— t— j - = - - k » - n - - ij - - ° - - 1
tt fsertonelpur-ti-fe. dn/i-ra- u t m o - r ' i - re.
T ^ - - '
■— <no— r - = ~ ‘ ° i i i h I r -j i n — n~i = — 5— i
£ aeWlfiurLi-ra ifovi-to.- ume- ri - r<_
109
-©-
Per 'nt chi - 3-
r c r -o r chi r r : - . u
jju L ni-- L O - jm - wc<"- -Pc£-
?ef Par P>er +<ur CJvjL 0,10 ‘ La^ l m " m c r - P a '-m e n -H )^ co
men- mo - u x _ im - n n o r - Pa.1 Co
CM. mo - Ui\m- mor-
w- Kior - HXmGrteîlco-
3S
P er P a r c h i mo iA - in v m o r - P a l- nrven - tp i| c o -
re.
per Par c h i. m o -i.O m -rn o r-'ta J -n 'e n -P v ! t o -
Ptr pur chi mo- im- mor-PaX-M<«tîl CO- f-C
<-t ir«- m o r . _ + ^ ,1 co _
110
Marenzio's tonal language appears on the surface to
differ from that of his contemporaries. In their
homophonically conceived pieces, Wert and Monteverdi favored
the first and second modes, especially in their
transposition to G. ^ This transposed Dorian, with its 13-
flat allowing for the contrast of major and minor triads on
which harmonic expressiveness in part relied, had been the
preferred mode for homophonic genres since the middle of the
century. While Marenzio used a broader spectrum of tonal
types in his madrigals, his harmonic language operated in
much the same way as that of his contemporaries. Anima
cruda (#4) will serve as an example (see example III.3).
The madrigal begins and ends on an F sonority, but the tonal
language of the piece is G-Dorian. The opening F sonority
is abandoned immediately to be reinstated almost as an
afterthought in the repetition of the final line, and the
primary cadences are on G and D. The strict homophonic
texture of this piece lays the burden of text expression on
its contrasting tonal areas and on the chromaticism that
results from the juxtaposition of third-related chords. The
opening harmonic seguence moves quickly and decisively from
*5O
J Over half of the madrigals in Wert's books of the
eighties and nineties are Dorian, with increasing dependence
on the transposed form. Monteverdi's Books III-V, those in
which he cultivated the recitative style, are similarly
weighted toward Dorian.
Ill
F to A major through a descending circle of fifths framed by
third-related progressions: F > D > G > C > A .
EXAMPLE III.3 Anima cruda, si
- mo. ocu-
0. S> ° 4 fe> * ,
crudo. s,i ma je-fo
rvi- ma. enu- da- "v<.pe-r5 bcl-
Mon mi (\t_-<jaT g_
j. Idii- ti-inosospira Undufl so-Uso-spn" b e -t-h -w o r- tt bt-O--'ij-~rncr_ ^
pm, -tr^ m
1’u.l- +i - mo So- spi - ro (Jn tui> bc-a-h. msf-+c b .- a - H m or- te. St
sta
a. pî- pi-mojo-Spi-To Un tosa-lma-sp"' be-<i--ttL onor-te bt-a- Va.-wor - d* i t
*
i r ii|ii;i '.iiiinh in ; j i.i-rf'r T T ^
,i frt-tjaf O. I'u l- 'H -moSO-5fi''r’0 Uf\-htOSD-toSo-S^'^ b€-A-K +C.
Pul-
p
f
-ii-mo to - Yo i/n -+uj>ao-toso-^sit*
i
bt- CL- in. nw-iobt-a-to- mor- be. Se
iS
Pad-AoL as-Si +u- condos SK.£o-U \Jo- ct cô.te-iepi-a. Vampa.- tl- Vam p i '
f r m n
t? -e- ITl H J Ji U t-- ij j -i»iVJ l i > i lij» 4 *j7 ' ijr J------ l-- ^ i
l'a4- d o l - t i i - s i f iL cc»m*-Si*So-l4 ’i o - 06 cor-bt-it pi - a. Vi.* pa-- t t V tin p o .-ta _
I'ad-ifll-OA-ii Vw_ c<r-+t - s t p i- a . Vain pa- ct
i\sJ-Jol-cis-si fu- Vainpu-W' \fampa.- c i-
Oi.4- dot-tii-Si Vu.

-M’ if
Vainpa-tSL Vain pa - tS-
112
nru hi r«OMCnc-<J-^ m r r '-
Cl- iu rna rvu- be A-tu ror-tec* a- r& rv\of* 3 3 -e

*-t ''-€■ I’ac-ccl *u<- s< Vw.
i j __________^
D(4 -fi mof- tr S« I'ad-dal-lis-Si hu.
a,- ru-rnc tvu - G. w-d-tii met- pe St fiiaol-tis- Si -ht
be-4-hi mor-l* tw-a-U. tv\c»-- t-e t,e I'sd-dol-cw-Si Hi_
jo- Ul vW - tL coc-+aSt pi- cl vC'npci-Cl- vampa- Cta-n:-noq 01.1
So- 14 YO ce. ajc-ttr-se o. i/«,npa- CX Vawipft.- Cx a- m-mx tvu.

--- 1
I -- k--- 1
Voiripa- CL vam pL- Ol a-ru-nvv. ivu
varapa - CLL-
V am pa- cl 7a. in p a - (U —
a.a-ru.-ma m.i
a£U.-iu tna nu - Cl V<wn J4- cea-ru-rM. rrtl- Q~
Cia-tu-ma nu - C.ejX- ru-rm nu -
aa-^ mt oti- &-
c e a - iu - iw nu _ (x . C.c 0- - 4 L - CYVtt iv u - C l-
113
The chromaticism, a by-product of the third-
relationships, works with the contrast of the flat and sharp
sides as an affective setting of the opening line "Anima
cruda, si." The swiftness of the harmonic movement in this
passage is dizzying, and its diseguilibrium is enhanced by
an abrupt return to the flat side in measure 12,
Marenzio developed and expanded his new style in Book
VIIa5: in particular in a group of settings of dramatic
soliloguies. There are eight of these, mostly drawn from II

pastor fido; ^
VII 3 Cruda Amarilli (I;ii)
VII 4 0 disaventurosa acerba sorte (Bembo, canzone

stanza)
VII 7 0 dolcezze amarissime d'amore (III;i)
VII 11 0 fido, 0 caro Aminta (I?ii)
VII 12 0 Mirtillo (III;iv)
VII 14 Com'e dolce il gioire (IUjvi)
VII 15 Care mie selve (IV;v)
VII 16 Tirsi mio, caro Tirsi (IV;v)
*3O
JJAct and scene numbers m parentheses refer to II
pastor fido. For texts not drawn from the drama I have
indicated the poet and form.
114
Lighter pastoral verse, and an attendant lighter
musical style, is represented by eight other madrigals
VII; 1 Deh poich'era ne fati (I;ii)
VII; 2 Quell'augellin che canta (I;i)
VII; 5 Al lume de le stelle (Tasso madrigal)
VII;6 Ami Tirsi (anonymous madrigal)
VII; 8 Sospir nato di fuoco (anonymous madrigal)
VII; 9 Arda pur sempre (Guarini madrigal)

TTT .n A
V X X } X \J Questr vaglii concent! (anonymous canzone
stanze)
VII;17 Ombrose e care selve (V;viii)
In the lighter pastoral madrigals the influence of the
earlier canzonetta style is still in evidence, especially
its imitative blocks and unrelenting ( U f f rhythms. In
example 4 from Arda pur sempre o mora (#9), a common variant
of this rhythmic motive is passed through the texture in a
manner suggestive of Monteverdi.
3În some of these texts, the line between literary

genres is blurred. And not surprisingly, the musical styles
overlap as well. For example, three excerpts from II pastor
fido fall into the lighter group either because of the
descriptive nature of their texts or their musical
treatment. Still, the distinction is a valid and useful one:
study of the difference in musical treatment between the two
groups does much to illuminate Marenzio's unique musical
response to the pastoral drama. I have excluded Antonio
Bicci's setting of Deh Dolce Anima mia (#13) from this
discussion.
115
EXAMPLE III.4, Arda pur, sempre o mora, mm. 25-28"^
l
a cagion, Per a
i bel- l
a ca
-
Pictorial madrigalisms are still to be found in these
pieces, as are embellishments without textual inspiration;
but these are not nearly as frequent as they were in the
madrigals of the sixth book. The decrease of pictorial
madrigalisms and virtuosic display is matched by increased
incorporation of the recitational style.
Al lume de le stelle (#5) exemplifies this hybrid form.
The mixture of styles begins with the text, a miniature
scena in madrigal form.^®
■^Luca Marenzio, II Settimo Libro de' Madriqali a

Cinque Voci. ed. Patricia Myers, Luca Marenzio: The Secular
Works. (New York, 1980) vol. 14. Copyright (c) 1980 by
Broude Brothers Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the
publisher.
Êinstein, again looking forward to monody, compared

it to a cantata. See, Italian Madrigal. III;680.
116
1 A1 lume de le stelle
Tirsi sotto un alloro
Si dolea lagrimando in questi accenti:
"0 celesti facelle,
5 Di lei ch'amo ed adoro
Rassomigliate voi gli occhi lucenti.
Luci serene e liete,
Sento la fiairana lor mentre splendete."
By the light of the stars under a laurel tree Tirsi

lamented with these words: "Oh heavenly little candles,
You resemble the shining eyes of her whom I love and
adore. Lights, clear and cheerful, I feel their flame
as you gleam."3
Marenzio instinctively distinguished the narrative from
the dramatic portions of the text, but not in the way we
might expect. Here it is the narrative section that is set
recitationally. The texture is reduced to three voices and
the rapid homophonic declamation brings us quickly to the
words of the unhappy shepherd, which are further emphasized
by an expansion to a full five-voice texture. For the
remainder of the madrigal— the lament proper— Marenzio
reverted to the canzonetta style. This is most evident in
his treatment of the end of the final couplet, which is
repeated and expanded so that it equals in length the
setting of the first six lines. The repetition is literal,
with the tenor and quinto reversed, a standard Marenzian
technique. The recitational style serves here not as an
imitation of speech but as the narrative voice.
^Translation after Patricia Myers ed, II settimo

libro, p. xxx.
117
The repetition of the final couplet served one of
Marenzio's continuing concerns— the promotion of overall
structural coherence. The setting of line 8 recalls both
melodic and textural features of line 6. (Compare mm. 25-31
with mm. 38—44 and 50=62.) Marenzio would curtail non-
dr amatic large scale repetition in his dramatic soliloquies;
but the coherence which he developed through the use of this
device would inform all of his most affective music.
118
EXAMPLE III.5 A1 lume de le stelle
C a n to
s te l-
A lto
Q u in to
Tir- sot-
Tir-
s te l-
38
Luca Marenzio, II Settimo Libro. Copyright (c) 1908
by Broude Brothers Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with
the publisher.
119
do le s
- t o un a l- do- le a gn-
do in s t i ac-
d o in que- s ti ac- cen-
120
le - s ti fa- c e l-
le- s ti fa- c e l-
le- fa- c e l-
le - fa - c e l-
le - sti fa- c e l- le Di le i
mo e t do-
ch’a- mo et do-
mo et do-
mo et do-
ch ’ a- mo et a- do- ro
121
voi. gUa-
g li oc-
v o i,
H as- so- m i- g lia - te voi
g li o c - chi lu - ce n -
- t i. Lu-
g ii o c - Lu-
g li_ o c - ch i lu- Lu-
glili occhi lu - ce n - ti. Lu-
122
lie -
lie -
lie -
ci se- re - ne e lie -
Sen- fiam -
te Sen to
123
S en- fia m - ma
S en- fia m - ma
lo r , f ia m - ma, S en- fia m - lo r ,
S en- fia m -
lo r ,
lo r tre splerv* de- te , Lu-
lo r tre s p le n - de- Lu-
Lu-
Io r tre s p le n - te , Lu-
Lu-
124
lie —
lie —
lie *
ci se - ne e
S en-
Sen* to la fia m * ma
125
Sen- fia m - ma, Sen- ma,
Sen- fia m - ma, S en- f ia m - ma,
S en Sen-
io r , Sen- fia m - ma, S en-
lo r
Sen io r tre s p le n - de-
Sen- lo r tre s p le n - de-
fiam' lo r m en- tre sp le n -
lo r
m en-
126
-te , t r e s p le n - de-
-te , Sen- fja m - ma lo r
-te , t r e s p le n - de-
t r e s p le n - d e - te, Sen- fia m -
-tre s p le n - de-
59
tre s p le n - de-
tre s p le n - de- te .
tre s p le n - de- te .
lo r m en- tre s p le n - d e - te .
m en- tre s p le n - de- te .
127
With their lengthy discursive style, the dramatic
excerpts set in this book are one step further removed from
the literary madrigal than those of the sixth book. The
recitational works in the sixth book are drawn from the most
•5Q ,
madrigalesque passages of Guarini's drama. 27 Only xn Udite
lagrimosi (#5) and Deh Tirsi (#11) did Marenzio begin to
explore the discursive, open-ended form of the dramatic
lament. When pursuing this path in the seventh book, he
faced the challenge of imposing the closed form of the
musical madrigal onto the open form of the dramatic excerpt.
He approached this task from two directions, one purely
textual and one musical. Many of his textual emendations
reveal an effort to impose madrigalian closure on dramatic
excerpts. The first and last lines are most often altered:
"E tu" becomes "Deh," "Ma, poi" becomes "Deh poi." On the
musical side he banished, or severely restricted, such
features of the non-dramatic madrigal as pictorial
madrigalisms and purely musical devices like virtuosic vocal
writing and large scale repetition. In the dramatic
soliloquies the declamatory style is integrated into a rich
textural vocabulary that includes a developed form of
Marenzio's own canzonetta style and a personalized version
of the classical counterpoint of the midcentury madrigal.
■^See above, footnote 10, for my suggestion that Ah

dolente partita is textually as much a madrigal as a
dramatic excerpt.
128
Care mie selve addiol (#16), Amarilli's climactic
lament, demonstrates Marenzio's use of stylistic variety as
a means both of structural delineation and ofrhetorical
expression. The text, Amarilli's touching soliloquy upon
her threatened execution, was one of the longest excerpts
from II pastor fido that Marenzio set, The two-part
madrigal sets twenty-six of the twenty-eight lines of the
original. The soliloquy takes place in Act IV, scene 5 of
the play. Amarilli laments her fate in the familiar guise
of an adieu to nature.
1 [Dunque addio, care selve]

Care mie selve, addio.
Ricevete questi ultimi sospiri,
Fin che, sciolta da ferro ingiusto, e crudo
5 Torni la mia fredd'ombra
A le vostr'ombre amate.
Che nel penoso inferno
Non puo gir innocente
Ne puo star tra beati
10 Disperata, e dolente.
0 Mirtillo, Mirtillo,
Ben fu misero il dl che pria ti vidi,
E'l di che pria ti piacqui;
Poiche la vita mia
15 Pih car a te, che la tua vita assai:
Cosi pur non dovea
Per altro esser tua vita,
Che per esser cagion de la mia morte.
Cosi (chi'l crederia?)
129
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
20 Per te dannata more
Colei, che ti fu cruda
Per viver innocente
0 per me troppo ardente,
E per te poco ardito. Era pur meglio
25 O peccar, o fuggire.
In ogni modo i'moro, e senza colpa,
[E senza frutto; e senza te cor mio
Mi moro. oime, Mirti...]40
My dear woods, farewellI Receive these last sighs

until, released by a sword, unjust and cruel, my cold
shade returns to your beloved shadows. For an innocent
cannot walk in painful hell, nor a desperate and
sorrowful soul stand among the blessed. Oh Mirtillo,
Mirtillol Miserable, indeed, was the day when first I
saw you, the day when first I charmed you: because my
life, dearer to you than your own, was not destined to
be yours in any way except for being the cause of my
death. Thus (who would believe it?) for you dies she
who was cruel to you in order to live in innocence. Oh,
for me [there was] too much passion and for you too
little daring1 It would have been better either to sin
or to flee. Either way I die, without guilt, without
issue and without my heart. I die, alas, Mirti...41
Guarini's loosely constructed soliloquy style is not
without internal organization. The text divides into three
sections, roughly equal in length (lines 1-10, 11-18, 19-
27). The first two sections are marked by parallel
syntactic design: each has an opening invocation (lines 1-3
and 11) followed by a lengthy section divided into
exposition (lines 4-6 and 12-13) and explication (lines 7-10
4®The text here is after the 1601 edition of II Pastor

fido. The bracketed text was not set by Marenzio. For lines
27-28 Marenzio has "E senza te dolcissimo ben mio."
^ T h e translation is after Patricia Myers ed., II

settimo libro p . xxxiv.
130
and 14-18).^ In content, the first two sections progress
from a generalized statement of Amarilli's fate, addressed
to nature at the beginning, to a personalized restatement,
addressed to Mirtillo, in the second section. For the
listener who is familiar with the drama, the invocation "0
Mirtillo, Mirtillo" opening the second section has another
point of reference: this is the exclamation with which
Amarilli began her confession of love in Act III.
The third section is characterized by shorter periods,
increased parataxis^ (lines 23-24: "0 per me troppo
ardente/e per te poco ardito"), enjambment (of lines 24-25),
and asyndeton (line 26-27: "e senza colpa, e senza frutto, e
senza te")— all affective rhetorical gestures that heighten
the dramatic impact as the lament draws to a close.
Finally, Guarini avoided closure by cutting Amarilli off in
mid-sentence (line 28 "Mi moro, oimei Mirti...). ^
Myers omits the stop at the end of line six,

rendering the sections as two long periods and pointing up
the syntactic parallelism of the sections. I have included
the stop, following the 1601 edition. Either way the
parallel construction of the two sections is evident.
^ T h e difference between parataxis, in which the lines

are syntactically independent, and hypotaxis, in which
successive lines are subordinated, is central to the
structure of this poetry and is often a key to musical
treatment.
4^Guarini was proud of this touch. In his extensive

notes to the 1601 edition, he called attention to this
device and cited Brandimarte's death scene from Ariosto's
Orlando Furioso (Canto 42;14) as its source.
131
Marenzio's textual revisions were minimal; he omitted
the first line in order to sever the text from its immediate
dramatic context and, at the other end, he cut the final
interrupted line and altered the penultimate line for the
same purpose. This change from the rhetorical repetition of
"senza" to the less dramatic ending is a subtle move toward
a greater sense of closure: the speech winds down
emotionally instead of winding up, and though less
satisfying as drama, the text works better as an independent
entity.
Marenzio underscored the syntactic parallelism of the
first two periods by opening both with homophonic
declamation. (An example of the complete madrigal follows
this analysis. See example III.6.) He was then free to
develop the text of the explications according to their
individual details. The setting of lines 7-10 exemplifies
the complexity of Marenzio's musico-rhetorical style. Here
Guarini set up a contrast: "An innocent cannot walk in Hell,
nor is a tortured soul at home in heaven." Both the
tortured and innocent souls are of course the speaker, and
Marenzio acknowledged this by setting lines 8 and 10 to
variants of the same motive. For the innocent this motive
is treated in four-voice block imitation borrowed from the
canzonetta style. For the desperate and sad soul the motive
is rescored for five voices, obliterating the canzonetta-
like opposition of high and low voices and resulting in the
132
favorite Marenzian pathetic device of shifted homophony.
(Compare measures 26-36 with measures 37-44).
For the hypotactic explication of the second section,
(Ins. 14-18), Marenzio had recourse to an extended passage
of three-voice monotonal homophony, relieved only by the
off-set cantus part at the beginning of the passage (mm.56-
69). This is an efficient means of getting through a
lengthy passage: we saw it in Al lume de le stelle, where it
was used to set off the opening narration. The consistency
of texture and the overall root position harmonic movement
through the circle of fifths give the impression of
swiftness and make sense of the complex syntax of the
passage. The clear texture and fleetness of the passage
also contrast with the traditional imitative treatment of
the last line which closes the first part of the madrigal.
Marenzio gave a highly sophisticated musical treatment
to the second part of Care mie selve. The first line (line
19), with its parenthetical aside, evokes a classical point
of imitation. Marenzio set the line in two motivic units(a
and b in mm. 82-85) the second of which appears with an
accompanimental motive (c) that immediately becomes a motive
in its own right. The fragmented motivic treatment reflects
the fragmentation of the parenthetical phrase.
The rest of the period is dispatched with a homophonic
passage in which the pathos is brought out by a brief
movement toward the sharp side with G- and D-major
133
harmonies. For the enjambment of lines 24-25, Marenzio
followed the punctuation, severing "Era pur meglio" from
line 24. In this way he was able to oppose line 23, "0 per
me troppo ardente," with line 24, "E per te poco ardito."
The impassioned "0 per me troppo ardente," declaimed in
five-voice homophony, resolves into a simple canzonetta
block-imitation at "E per te poco ardito" (mm.99-107).
The style contrast reflects the textual contrast, and
Marenzio7s choice of the lightweight canzonetta style for
"too little ardor" may have been a deliberate rhetorical use
of style as well.
For the last three and a half lines Marenzio created a
sophisticated musical structure that reveals his virtuosic
control of thematic unity within the overall form. He
contrasted "Era pur meglio"— in block imitation, involving
motivic imitation within the blocks themselves— with "0
peccar o fuggire," set to a more sprightly theme in
imitation. The entire section was then rescored (mm.108-
119). The musical framework is doubly served by this
passage: the repeated motive of "Era pur meglio" not only
underscores the text, but also recalls the setting of "che'l
crederia" that opens the second part of the madrigal (motive
b in example 7). "0 peccar o fuggire" is, in turn, a
filled-in, bouncy version of this motive. The motives are
developed differently and cast in different stylistic modes
134
so that the overall sense of unity is as subtle as it is
pervasive.
The setting of the last couplet links the two parts of
the madrigal in a similar manner. The exclamatory "e senza
colpa," set in three voice homophony, expands both in note
value and texture (to five voices) at "e senza te" (mm.126-
132). This is, in turn, a development of the setting of "In
ogni modo i moro" (mm.119-126). Thus the final couplet
expands and develops a descending line of suspensions. The
source of this melodic and textual material is the setting
of the end of part one, "Che per esser cagion de la mia
morte." (Compare mm. 137-146 with mm. 71-81.)
135
EXAMPLE III.6 Care mie selve45
C a sto
Ca-
A lto
sel-
Ca-
Basso
Ca- re m ie v«* a
l|U«*
Di o! ce- ve- li
AK
Luca Marenzio, II Settimo Libro. Copyright (c) 1980
by Broude Brothers Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with
the publisher.
136
-s ti u i- s p i-
ti- s p i-
s p i-
- s tija l- ti- spi
s ti ul mi so- spi n
F in ch e s c io l fe r- g iu - s to e
F in ch e s c io ) fe r- s to e
F in che s c io l- fe r- g iu - s to e
F in che s c io l- fe r - g iu -
F in ch e s c io l- ta da fe r - g iu - cru-
137
J* 17
do T o r- ni la m ia fre d - d 'o m - b ra A le
-d o T o r- ni la m ia fre d - d 'o m - b ra A le
T o r- ni la m ia fre d - d 'o m - b ra A le
-d o T o r- ni la m ia fre d - d 'o m - b ra .A le
s tr ’ om - b r*
s tr* o m - b r 'a -
s tr' om - b r’ a-
s tr ’ om - b r’
vo- s tr’ om - b r* a - ma- te
138
Che nel
Che nel
Che n el pe- fe r .
C he n el pe-
n el pe- no- so in
fe r Non puo
'f e r Non puo
Non puo gj
fe r .
fe r- no Non puo gi r in - no- cen
139
puo s ta r tra be-
pu6 s ta r tra be-
-te puo s ta r tra be-
puo s ta r be-
-te N'e puo s ta r tra be- a- ti
D i- spe- le n -
D i- spe- len*
D i- spe- ta e do- le n -
spe- le n -
Di spe- ra - ta e do- len-
140
-te . M ir -
-te . M ir - til-
M ir - t il-
-te .
-te . O M ir - t il- lo , M ir - til-
-lo Ben che pna
- lo B en che p r ia
- lo che p ria
B en che
- lo B en fu m i' se- ro il dl che p r ia
141
E 'l che p r ia
E’l che pna
che pna
pna
ti VI di E’l d*i che pna ti
cqui Poi che la
p ia cqui Poi che la
cqui Poi
p ia - cqui
p ia - cqui
142
P iu che
P iu che
P iu che
t a as- pur
pur
t a as- Co- pur
143
Per a t- tro e s- tu a
Per t r o es* tu a
Per al- t r o e s-
C he per
-la C he
C he
Che per
C he per es-
144
g io n
per
per
g io n
•s e r ca- g io n de
la m or- te.
145
S econds p a r te
Cos'i chi *1 crederia?
Co-
C o- de-
C.>-
CU
Co- si c h i’ l e re - de- n- a.
c h i’ I e re - de- Per dan -
chi'l cre- dan- na-
chi'l cre de nt P er
P er te dan -
c h i'I e re - de- n- a? P er te na- ta
146
Co- che
C o- che
che
Co- che
mo re le i che ti fu c ru -
P er
Per
-d a P er v i- ver in - no- cer>-
147
per tro p - p o j» r - den-
per me tro p - p o _ a r- d en -
-te . per tro p - p o _ a r- den-
-te . per me tro p - po_ ar- den -
O per me tro p - p o _ a r- der>-
103
per po d i-
pe r po-
-te per te
te E te
148
106
to ! pur
pur
- d i- to ! pur g lio
poco a r - d i - to !
- d i- to ! E- ra pur me-
no
pur glio O pec- c a r
E- pur glio 0 p e c- c a r
O peccar o fu g - g i- re ,
pur E- pur gliot
g lio 0 peccar o f u g - g i- re ,
149
113
- g i- re , pur
re , pur g lio
pur g lio . pur
pur
E- ra pur m e- Er ro pur
116
0 pec- c a r re ,
O pec- c a r re , 0 p e c -c a r o fu g -
glio O p e c -c a r
pur glio O p e c -c a r
glio O p e c -c a r re .
150
gm
- g i- gni
g ni
gm
In o- gni modo i ’
sc n - za c o l-
c o l-
se n- za c o l-
moro
151
128
E sen* za te
133
dol* ben
dol* ben
dol* ben
dol* ben
dol* CIS- mo ben mi*
152
t J7
•o, E senza te
142
dol- ben
ben
doi- ben
ben
C IS - 91- mo ben mi- o.
153
Marenzio adopted Wert's recitational style into his
ever-broadening palette of textural colors whose purposes
are defined by their relationship to one another within the
local context. Whatever their practical purpose, the Pastor
fiao settings of Wert and Monteverdi were written with the
concept of the play as a staged work in mind, and probably
even with the sound of rehearsals in the ear. These
composers' experience of the play was an aural one— their
settings were musical "recitations." Marenzio encountered
the play in Rome, far from the northern staging attempts.
But in the circle of Cinzio Aldobrandini he must have been
aware of, if not involved in, the lively controversy over
the work's literary merit. Marenzio's Pastor fido settings
are not musico-dramatic readings. Rather, in these works
recitational declamation, canzonetta texture, and dense
counterpoint work together to produce critical explications
of the poetry.
154
APPENDIX
Ergasto: Ma no e meraviglia,
Or che me ne ricordo.
Son tutti intorno al tempio,
Ove per la gran festa,
Che'n Partenio diman dee celebrarsi,
Vanno ordinando giochi,
Van concertando canti,
E divesando ufici
Vari a vari pastori.
Anch'io debbo trovarmi
Nel funeral di TIRSI.
Cosi il gran CINTIO nostro
Vuol che la mia sampogna,
Qual si sia roca, e vile,
Ma molto affettuosa,
In giorno cosi acerbo, ed onorato
Per 1'Arcadia, e per lui
Pianga la morte sua,
Canti la loda sua.
Ed io pur anco debbo
Convenir tra voi altri,
Che tra saettatori
A tirar d'arco eletto
Stato ne son. Cosi comanda CINTIO.
A pastor cosi saggio,
E cosi venerando Sacerdote
Non solamente e l'ubbedir devuto,
Ma caro, e ch'ei comandi
M'e non picciola grazia.
Florindo: Ma, Ergasto mio, perch'ordinato ha CINTIO
Esequie si solenni a questo TIRSI?
Ergasto: Virtu virtute onora.
Ma tu dunque non sai che'l dotto TIRSI,
Quel si caro a le Muse
Quel si caro ad Apollo,
E di quelle, e di questo onor sopremo;
Quel che gia in riva nacque al bel Sebeto,
0 pur (com'altri vuol) dal Brembo, e visse
Felice peregrin longa stagione
In quei fecondi campi
Ch'irriga il Po, cantando
Ivi d'AMINTA, e SILVIA
1 non men dolorosi,
Che fortunati amori,
Quando ne gli error suoi
(Errori awenturosi)
Se ne passo del Tebro
A l'onorate sponde
155
Vi trovo questo CINTIO?
Questo, dic'io, che de le sue sventure
Mosso a pieta non meno,
Ch'acceso ancor de le virtute sue,
Caramente l'accolse, e accolse insieme
La virtu, che con lui sen'giva errando.
Florindo, al fin ritrova,
Do[v]unque ella si sia, grazia del Cielo,
La sbattuta virtute
Grato ccnoscitore,
E gratissimo albergo.
Cosi dico a la fine
Ha gran valor gran merto.
Quel merto, che maggior puo darsi in terra
A l'umana virtute,
D'huom lodato l'onor, d'huomo onorato
La lode, e questa, e quel ebbe allor TIRSI,
E fu il premio maggiore,
Ch'ei potesse bramar, l'onor di CINTIO:
Di questo Cintio i'dico,
Onor di noi pastori,
Onor di queste selve,
Onor di questa etate,
E non men, che del Mondo, onor del Cielo,
Che l'un lo 'nchina qui, l'altro l'aspetta,
Perche'l faccia piu bello
Con novello splendor CINTIO novello.
Florindo: Ma come poi dal Tebro
Passo CINTIO in Arcadia?
Ergasto: Ando prima in Parnaso,
E TIRSI, ancor che ne l'eta canuta,
Ando seco, e canto: ma cosi dolce
Tocco la cetra, e sciolse altero il canto,
Poiche serbato ancor lo 'ngegno avea
Del suo spirto primier, ma sovraumane
Gloriose reliquie, che le Muse
Stupide l'ascoltaro,
E gradendo il suo canto,
De la lor sacra fronde
Gli coronar la fronte in Elicona.
In grembo a quelle Dive,
Al suo gran CINTIO, al suo novello Apollo
Chiuse il di, chiuse gli occhi, e chiuse al
fine
Felicissimamente i suoi pensieri
Il virtuoso TIRSI.
Non molto dopo in questa Arcadia nostra
Fe' CINTIO a noi ritorno,
E qui, dov'or sen vive,
E dove Sacerdote al sommo Giove
Se ne siede secondo a gli onor primi
sin ora al merto suo premi devuti,
156
Molto pietosamente
Del caro amico estino
Tra noi altri pastori
E rinova, ed onora
ogn'anno in giorno tale
Queste funebri pompe
Si famose, e felici
D'onorato pastor novello Orfeo
Glorioso trofeo.
157
CHAPTER IV
M A R E N Z IO A N D PETRARCH
Marenzio set Petrarch's verse more often than any other
poet except Guarini— there are twenty-nine settings in all.
As was often the case with Marenzio, his Petrarch settings
appeared in clusters, suggesting that he turned to the poet
deliberately and with specific aesthetic goals in mind.
(See table IV.1 for a complete list of Marenzio's Petrarch
settings.)
Seven Petrarch settings are scattered throughout the
first five books for five voices and the first two books for
six. Few generalizations can be made about these seven
madrigals; they include light, pastoral works such as Laura
serena of the Primo libro a cinque voci (1581), and the
vivid Due rose fresche, in the Ouinto libro a cinque voci of
1585. At the other end of the spectrum are three works in
an expressionistic vein that looks forward to Marenzio's
late style. Two of these 0 voi che sospirate IIIa51 and
Nessun visse (IIa6) are drawn from Petrarch's dark sestina,
^■Marenzio set 35 texts of Guarini's, 27 of Tasso's and

26 of Sannazaro's. My figures are from Chater, Luca
Marenzio. Table 1, p.20.
Mia benigna fortuna, a poem that we shall see held a
particular fascination for Marenzio throughout his career.
TABLE IV.1: MARENZIO'S PETRARCH SETTINGS
BOOK CAPOVERSO FORM CANZONIERE

NUMBER
Ia6 (1581) L'aura serena sonnet 196
IIa5 (1581) 0 voi che sospirate sestina stanza 332

I piango ed ella canzone stanza 359
Se'l pensier che canzone stanza 125
IIIa5 (1582) Oime il bel viso sonnet 267
IIa6 (1584) Nessun visse sestina stanza 332

Del cibo onde sonnet 342
Va5 (1585) Consumandomi vo sestina stanza 237

Due rose fresche sonnet 245
Ia4 (1585) Non vidi mai canzone stanza 127

0 bella man canzone stanza 199
Non al suo amante madrigal 52
Hor vedi amor madrigal 121
Apollo s'ancor vive sonnet 34
Nova Angeletta madrigal 106
Ahi dispietata ballata (inc) 324
Tutto'l di piango sonnet 216
Zefiro Torna sonnet 310
Ia4,5,6 (1588) Ov'e condotto sestina stanza 332

Se la mia vita sonnet 12
Fuggito e'l sonno sestina stanza 332
VIa6 (1595) Giovane Donna sestina (comp) 30
IXa5 (1599) Amor i ho sestina stanza 332

Dura legge d'amor terze rime *
Chiaro segno sestina stanza 332
Se si alto sestina stanza 332
L'aura che'l verde sonnet 246
Solo e pensoso sonnet 35
Crudele acerba sestina stanza 332
* From the Trionfi d'amore 111:148-159
159
Marenzio's Petrarchism made its definitive debut in the
Madriqali a guatro voci of 1585; nine of the book's twenty-
one madrigals set Petrarch's verse. By 1585 the four-voice
madrigal had a somewhat archaic aura; though four voices had
been the texture of choice in the early madrigal, by the
mid-century the five-voice texture had risen to prominence,
As early as the works of Cipriano de Rore we see four-voice
texture taking on a special character and purpose, and
Marenzio's book is no exception. His four-voice madrigals
have a textual and musical classicism that looks back to the
early madrigal.
The book's classicism begins with the texts. Alongside
Petrarch's nine texts Marenzio included seven from the great
pastoral monument, Sannazaro's Arcadia. He chose his texts
from the Arcadia's most pastoral vein, including three
madrigals in Sannazaro's rustic verse sdrucciole. The
Petrarch selections in this book continue the pastoral
ethos. Included are three of Petrarch's four madrigals and
part of a ballata— the two verse forms used sparingly by
Petrarch and reserved for his most pastoral idiom.
The music is conservative as well. Marenzio shunned
the mid-century arioso style, often favored in the later
Êinstein noted the book's pastoralism. See Italian

Madrigal. II;653-659.
160
four-voice madrigal, in favor of a clarity and balance that
harks back to the early madrigalists, especially Arcadelt.
Marenzio turned to Petrarch in three of his late
publications, each time with stunning results. The three
books appeared under similar circumstances: all were
published during periods of instability or transition for
the composer, and all were dedicated to figures outside
Marenzio's immediate circle. The Madriqali a quattro.

q
cinque e sex voci. dedicated to Mario Bevilacqua of Verona
on 10 December 1587, was Marenzio's first publication after
the death of his patron Luigi d'Este. He did not publish
again until 1591 when he was apparently comfortably settled
in the Orsini household in Rome. The Sesto libro a sei
voci. dedicated to Margherita d'Este, Duchess of Ferrara,
appeared shortly before Marenzio left Rome for Poland in
1595;^ it too was followed by a three-year silence.
Finally, the Nono libro a cinque voci. Marenzio's last book,
appeared in May 1599, three months before the composer's
Madriqali a quattro. cinque e sei voci. libro primo

(Venice: Vincenti, 1588). Modern edition by Steven Ledbetter
in Secular Works, vol. 7. Henceforth abbreviated as
Madriqali.
^11 sesto libro de' Madriqali a sei voci (Venice: A.

Gardano, 1595). Modern edition by Patricia Myers in Secular
Works vol. 6. The dedication was signed on 30 March 1595.
161
death.® He had only recently returned to Rome and was quite
possibly unemployed. The book's dedication, to Vincenzo
Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, has been interpreted as an attempt
to reopen negotiations for employment at Mantua.®
Thus none of these books emerged from a context of
literary and/or musical influence, and none is easily placed
in such a context. Rather than fulfilling a musical need,
as he did with the madrigals of the Va6, or responding to an
intellectual milieu, as he did in his Pastor fido madrigals,
in each of these books Marenzio seems to be grappling with
personal aesthetic issues. In the Madriqali he strove to
transform a group of independent lyrics into a musical
canzoniere, capable of the same unity and rhetorical weight
as its literary model, Petrarch's Canzoniere. In the VIa6,
he explored for the last time, and with a sureness of having
the last word, the ability to sustain the expressive
qualities of the madrigal accross a larger structure— the
madrigal cycle. And finally, the IXa5, at the end of his
career and life, found him testing the expressive limits of
the polyphonic language of his century. For each of these
5I1 nono libro de madriqali a cinque voci (Venice: A.

Gardano, 1599). To be published in Secular Works. I am
grateful to Steven Ledbetter for providing me with his draft
edition of the book. The dedication was signed on 10 May
1599.
®Ledbetter, Luca Marenzio. p. 139.
162
challenges he turned for material and inspiration to the
patron saint of the Italian madrigal, Francesco Petrarch.
MARENZIO'S CANZONIERE: THE MADRIGALI A QUATTRO CINQUE E SEI
"Ove e condutto il mio amoroso stile?"— "Where has my
amorous style been led?" Marenzio asked in the opening
madrigal of his Madriqali a quattro. cinque, e sei voci. and
the question lends the book its identity. The text, from
Petrarch's sestina Mia begnina fortuna, is one of three
Petrarch selections in the book. (The others are Fuggito
e'l sonno, another stanza from the same sestina, and the
sonnet, Se la mia vita.) But Marenzio borrowed more from
Petrarch in this book than a few texts; the book is
Marenzio's own Canzoniere. which echoes Petrarch's in its
theme of immortality achieved through love and suffering.
His choice of two stanzas from Mia benigna fortuna is
significant in this context. Appearing in the morte section
of the Canzoniere. the double sestina is one of the poems
that considers Laura's death for its effect on Petrarch's
poetic voice. Thus it combines the poet and his persona—
when the persona loses his love, the poet's voice is
altered.'
^The literature on Petrarch is vast. On the

relationship between the poet and his persona see especially
Sara Sturm Maddox, Petrarch's Metamorphoses: Text and
Subtext in the Rime Sparse (Columbia, 1985) and John
163
The continual recontextualization of the carefully
chosen endwords lieto. pianto, rime, stile, morte. and notti
is in itself a formal evocation of the emotional and
stylistic metamorphosis of the poem's content. This self-
conscious wedding of the poet and his persona is central to
the Canzoniere; the suggestion of autobiography provides the
narrative thread that binds the collection together and
gives it its famous "unity."
That Marenzio was seeking a similar unity in his
Madriqali is clear from his selection and ordering of the
book's texts. The opening madrigal, with its provocative
first line, takes an autobiographical stance that gains its
authorial voice in part from its relationship with the
volume's dedication, addressed to the Veronese connoisseur,
Mario Bevilaqua. The significant passage in the dedication
reads:
...it seemed to me fitting on the occasion of

my passage through Verona to present to you
these madrigals composed by me very recently
in a style quite different from that of the
past, inasmuch as I have aimed, through the
imitation of the words and the propriety of
the style, at a sombre gravity (so to speak),
which will perhaps be more pleasing to
connoisseurs like you and your most virtuoso
ensemble.°
Freccero, "The Fig tree and the Laurel: Petrarch's Poetics,"

Diacritics 5 (1975); 34-40.
°"mi e paruto con l'occasione del mio passagro per

Verona presentarle questi Madrigali da me ultimamente
composti con maniera assai differente dalla passata,
havendo, & per l'imitatione delle parole, & per la proprieta
164
The dedication's claim to a new style— a "mesta
gravita"— personalizes the opening text, and the straying
"amorous style" becomes the composer's own. Together, the
preface and the first madrigal set up this tension between
the artist and his persona. In the dedication, Marenzio the
composer is in control, announcing his new style. But in
the madrigals themselves, the composer and his persona
become one, and this combinative being has no control over
his own genius— his artistic voice is changed by love
against his own will. The texts of the Madrigali take us on
a journey of metamorphosis that leads, in the last madrigal,
to the author's own transformation, soaring "on other wings"
to the immortality of the laurel crown.
At the heart of Marenzio's narrative are four sestina
stanzas distributed like cornerstones evenly throughout the
book. From Mia benigna fortuna, he drew two texts, the
opening Ov'e condotto ii mio amoroso stile, and the fifth
madrigal Fuggito il sonno. And from two sestinas of
Sannazaro's Arcadia he drew #9, Fiere silvestre, che per
lati campi and #14, 0 fere stelle, homai datemi pace.
The four stanzas, though drawn from three different
sestinas, combine to form an interreferential web of their
dello stile atteso ad una (diro cosi) mesta gravita, che da

g l 'intendenti pari suoi, & dal virtuosissimo suo & ridutto
sara forse via piu gradita." The dedication page is
reproduced in Steven Ledbetter, ed., Madrigali a guattro.
cingue e sei voci libro primo (New York, 1977) p. xv. My
translation is after Ledbetter's (ibid. p. xvi) .
165
own, involving shared endwords and thematic substance.
Words and phrases reappear from text to text, successive
texts with unrelated origins are juxtaposed so as to
interlock, and meanings of individual words are transformed.
Here are the four texts in the order of their appearance.
#1 Ov'e condot.to il mio amoroso stile?

A parlar d'ira, a ragionar di morte.
U'son'i versi, u'son giunte le rime.
Che gentil cor udia pensoso e lieto;
Ov'e'l favoleggiar d'Amor le notti?
Hor non parl'io, ne penso, altro che pianto.
#5 Fuggito e sonno [a] le mie crude notti,

E'l suono usato a le mie roche rime,
Che non sanno trattar altro che morte,
Cosi e'l mio cantar converso in pianto.
Non ha'l regno d'Amor si vario stile,
Ch'e tanto hor tristo quanto fu mai lieto.
#9 Fiere silvestre, che per lati campi

Vagando errate, et per acuti sassi,
Udiste mai si dolorose rime?
Ditel, vi prego. Udiste in alcun giorno,
0 pur in questa over in altra valle,
Con si caldi sospir si lungo pianto?
#14 0 fere stelle, homai datemi pace,

E tu, Fortuna, muta il crudo stile:
Rendetemi a'pastori et a le selve,
Al cantar primo, a quelle usate fiamme,
Ch'io non son forte a sostener la guerra
Ch'Amor mi fa co'l suo spietato laccio.
Along with the final madrigal, these four stanzas
provide the book's narrative voice. All are in the first
person and take the point of view of the artist, making
references to changed style (#s 1 and 14), songs (#5), and
rhymes (1, 5, and 9). The book's remaining ten madrigals
are distributed in between these four stanzas and interwoven
166
with them through an extension of the shared words and
topoi. They effect a troping of the tale of artistic
metamorphosis.
The three love laments that follow the nostalgic
opening madrigal share the theme of passing time— in
particular the passing of youth into age. Se la mia vita
(#2) looks ahead to the day when "Lady, the light [is] spent
from your fair eyes, and your hair of fine gold turned to
silver."^ The text is by Petrarch— one of the poems that
looks forward to Laura's old age. For Marenzio, loss of
youth was a metaphor for changed style. He made this clear
in his next madrigal (#3): "I sigh because today the
unfortunate lover / no longer enjoys the flowery and verdant
May."^® The passing of time causes change and a loss of
youthful beauty; winter replaces spring, golden hair turns
silver, and so passes the amorous style.
The fifth madrigal (and the second of the sestina
stanzas) speaks of "rhymes, which can treat of nothing but
death," and indeed death becomes the subject of the next
three madrigals: at the end of Senza il mio vago sol (#6)
Q ,
"Donna, de'be'vostr'occhi xl lume spento / E x capex
d'oro fin farsi d'argento" [Ins. 4-5].
■^"Sospiro che un fiorito e verdi Maggio/Piu sfortunato

amante hoggi non gode" [Ins. 3-4].
167
the speaker first asks for the comfort of death, and this
dark shadow falls over the next two madrigals.11
The third sestina stanza, Sannazaro's Fiere silvestre
(#9) introduces a turn to nature imagery— subsequently
developed in the following three madrigals. Ecco
ch'un'altra volta (#10) and Valli riposte il sole (#12) are
laments addressed to nature, and in Com'ogni rio (#11) the
author's pain is compared to the turbulence of the sea.
Finally, O fere stelle, the last of the stanzas, asks
to be "restored to the shepherds and the woods, to my first
song." The conceit continues in the last madrigal where the
ultimate object of desire is revealed: the laurel crown.
Basti fin qui le pen'e i duri affani

In tante carte e le mie gravi some
Haver mostrato, e come
Amor i suoi seguaci al fin governa
Hor mi vorrei levar con altri vanni,
Per potermi di lauro ornar le chiome
E con piu saldo nome
Lasciar di noi qua giu memoria eterna.
(Enough then, here the pains and harsh anxieties /

in so many pages and [by] my grave burdens / have
been shown, and how / love governs his followers
to the end. / Now I would like to soar with other
wings / so that I may be able to decorate my brow
with laurel / and, with a steadier name, / leave
some eternal memory of us down here.)12
11Numbers six and seven are a pair, bound by a common

opening— "Senza il mio sole"— and shared subject matter:
life without the beloved. The book is filled with
interreferences like these. The sun image here, for example,
is first introduced in #4, Della Casa's Affliger chi per
voi.
12Translation after Ledbetter, Secular Works, vol. 7,

p . xxvi.
168
Together these last two poems are the key to the book's
Petrarchism. Petrarch earned his immortality by
transcending his unhappy and earthly love for Laura through
the act of telling it. Marenzio asked for the same: now
that he has spoken "in so many pages" of pain and of love's
power, he begs redemption— to soar on other wings and
receive the laurel crown. In this madrigal, which is
stylistically unique in the book, he returned, quite
literally, to his "former songs" his famous canzonetta
style.
According to the book's dedication these madrigals were
written with a new "gravita," consisting of "imitatione
delle parole" and "proprieta delio s t i l e . M a r e n z i o ' s
propriety is immediately evident in the deliberateness of
the book's poetic and musical syntax. With three
exceptions, all of the texts are in poetic forms composed
exclusively of endecasyllabi. (There are four sestina
stanzas, five complete sonnets, one sonnet quatrain, one
ottava stanza, and three madrigals). And the subject matter
is unrelievedly serious. Petrarch's sonnet, Se la mia vita,
may serve as an example.
l^See above p. 164.
169
Se la mia vita da l'aspro tormento
Si puo tanto schermire, e da gl'affanni,
Ch'i veggia per virtu de gl'ultim'anni
Donna, de'be'vostro'occhi il lume spento,
E i capei d'oro fin farsi d'argento,
E lassar le ghirlande e i verdi panni,
E'l viso scolorir che ne' miei danni
A lamentar mi fa pauroso e lento:
Pur mi dara tanta baldanza Amore

Ch'i'vi discovriro de'miei martiri
Quai son stati gl'anni, e i giorni e l'hore;
E se'l tempo e contrario a i bei desiri,
Non fia ch'almen non giunga al mio dolore
Alcun soccorso di tardi sospiri.
If my life from harsh torments

might be shielded, and from these anxieties,
so that I might see, by virtue of long years
Lady, the light spent from your fair eyes,
And your hair of gold at last made silver,

And abandoned the garlands and green garments,
And the face discolored which to my loss
makes me lament fearfully and dully:
Then love will give me such boldness

that I shall reveal to you of my martyrdom
how many have been the years, and the days and the
hours;
And if time is contrary to fair desires,

let at least be joined to my sorrow
some succour of belated sighs.14
The terzets resolve a conceit erected in the quatrains.
The sonnet's opening "If" is left unresolved until the
"Then" that opens the first terzet. The quatrains are
joined by their recitation of what the poet hopes to live
long enough to see: the decay of his beloved, the elements
14My translation is after Ledbetter's. I have

sacrificed Ledbetter's more elegant translation in order to
to match as closely as possible the syntax of the original
Italian.
170
of which are catalogued in lines four through eight. Eight
endecasyllabi is a long time to wait for resolution, and
Petrarch is in no hurry. There is a haltingness in his
recitation of the signs of age that underscores his theme of
long years of waiting.
Marenzio was an expert at manipulating the rhetorical
pace of his poetry; we have seen him dispatch, enliven, or
otherwise tamper with such passages in his pastoral
madrigals. But the poetry of this book depends on its
measured pace for its seriousness; and Marenzio's musical
setting emphasizes, rather than conceals, the poetry's
inherent pace.
The madrigals are all in the outmoded misura di breve,
and Marenzio employed a restricted range of note values.
The individual phrases are long: each line of poetry is set
complete, with little or no repetition or rearrangement of
partial lines, and with neither the motivic fragmentation
nor the recitational fluidity that we have seen elsewhere in
Marenzio's works. The melodic profile in these madrigals is
severe, and the severity is unrelieved by rhythmic vitality;
the stepwise, often scalar, melodies unfold in a stately
progression of semibreves and minims, disrupted only
occasionally by an expressive interval or a rhythmic
fluctuation. Ben mi credeva (#8) will illustrate the
proorieta of Marenzio's melodic and rhythmic language. The
text is one of three poetic madrigals in the book.
171
Ben mi credeva, lasso,
Che'l mio cantar un tempo
Grato fosse a l'orrecchie alpestre e crude;
Che non e sterpo o sasso
Ch'almen tardi o per tempo,
Vedendo le mie piaghe aperte e nude
E cio che 1'alma chiude,
A pieta non si mova
Del mio doglioso stato.
Ahi sorte, ahi crudel fato,
Et a costei perche'l mio pianger giova?
Perche mi giung'affano,
Se'l mio morir gl'e danno?
I firmly believed, alas, / that once my singing /

was pleasing to hard-hearted, merciless ears, /
because there is neither twig nor stone / which,
soon enough, even if late, / seeing my open and
naked wounds / and that which my soul contains, /
is not moved to pity / for my grievous state. / Ah
destiny, ah cruel fate, / of what benefit is my
weeping to her? / Why does travail come to me / if
my death is an injury to her?15
Marenzio's opening is exemplary of the expressive
potential of this restrained style. Within the context of
the madrigal as a whole the half-step movement of the
opening melodic gesture is strikingly expressive (see
Example IV.1, below). The rest of the madrigal is dominated
by a deliberately impassive melodic contour of primarily
scalar motion (see, for example, mm. 23-34).
The predominantly imitative texture, in which each
point of imitation melts into the next, is broken only
occasionally by brief homophonic passages, and these are
incorporated into the texture in such a way as to provide
textural relief without taking on any syntactic or semantic
15Translation is from Ledbetter, Secular works, vol. 7,

p.xxiv-xxv.
172
significance. In measures 17-23 for example, the texture
becomes homophonic for the lines "Che non e sterpo o sasso /
Ch'almen tardi o per tempo." There is no textual reason for
this texture change and it blends unassumingly into the
larger context. Later in the madrigal, Marenzio declined to
texturaily set off the poem's dramatic climax, the
exclamation, "Ahi sorte, ahi crudel fato" (mm. 41-46).
173
EXAM PLE I V . 1 Ben me credeva ^
Ben C h e 'I m io c a n -ta r.
A lto
la s-
Tenote
B en mi ere- de-
Q ainto
Ben
Banao
Ben mi ere-
•- ,
— i----------- ‘------------
mi c ro - de- va la s- so. Ben mi e re - de-
— -t
_ J ----------1_------- ,-------- 1
va lasso Che' I m io can-
Luca Marenzio, Madrigali a auattro. cinque e sei

Z9ci, ed., Steven Ledbetter, Luca Marenzio: The Secular
Works, (New York, 1977) vol. 7. Copyright (c) 1977 by Broude
Brothers Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the
publisher.
174
C h e 'l m io can* ta r G ra *
• ta r tern* po. Che’ l m io can* ta r un tern*
G ra * to fo s * s e a l ’ o r * r e c * c h je
la s* ta r tern*
•ta r, Che’ l m io can* ta r un te m po G ra * to
fo s * s e a 1’ o r - r e c * c h ie a l* pe- s tre e
•p o G ra * to f o s - s e a l ’ o r* r e c * c h ie a l* p e * s tre e c ru * de
G ra * to fo s -s e a I ’ o r - r e c * c h ie a l* pe* s tre e
fosse a l ’ o r* re c * c h ie a l* pe* s t r e e c ru * de
175
s te r- po o sa s-
C he s te r- po o
s te r- po o sas-
• de
non s te r- po o sasso
te m po
ta r- po V e- den-
C h ’ a l- ta r - po
ta r- tem * po
176
ghe a* p e r-
g he a - p e r- te e n u - ■de,
Ve- den - do le m ie p ia - te e
• de c id che
p e r* te e c id che
c id
c io che
177
p ie * ta
ma ch iu *
Del do* s ta * Ahi
g lio * sta *
Del sta *
va D e l m io do* g lio * sta * Ahi
Ahi
178
Ahi del
Ahi Ahi del
A hi te ! A h i c ru - del fa -’
te ! Ahi del
s o r- te ! Ahi cru - d e! fa
to !
s te i p e r- c h & * 1 m io ger
•to ! g io -
p e r- che’ l m io p ia n - ger
to ! Et a co - c te i p e r- ch e* I m io p ia n -
179
p ia n - ger g io - P e r-
no,
P e r- che
g»o- fa n -
va? P e r- che mi g iu n - g ’a f- fanno Se' 1 m io mo-
•che mi g iu n - g ’ a f- fa n -
no Se’ l m i o m o - r ir g l ’ fc dan-
g iu n - g ’ a f- fa n - no, P e r- che
Se’ I m io m o no,
n r no, P e r- che,
180
no, S e l m io
P e r* che mi
S e 'l mio
P e r* che mi g iu n * g 'a f * fan* no
• r ir g l ’ £ dan* n o, g l'S dan*
dan*
S e 'l m io mo- r ir g l 'i d a n *
•n o ,
S e 'l m to mo* r ir dan* no?
181
What Marenzio called "imitatione delle parole," we call
madrigalisms. Madrigalisms have not met with much respect
in the modern critical literature; we are uncomfortable with
such a fundamentally iconic approach to musical expression.
Madrigalisms are often viewed as an embarrassing weakness to
which even the best composers occasionally succumbed.
Einstein saw them this way; for him (and for others after
him), madrigalisms were the antithesis of gravita. Einstein
denied the role of madrigalisms in this book; citing a
handful of instances, he deemed them exceptions within an

17
otherwise more dignified musical language. '
But the word painting in this book is the rule, not the
exception. Marenzio was not giving in to his baser
impulses; he was attempting to represent his text in music
in the manner recognized by his c u l t u r e . T h e depictive
musical vocabulary that he had at his disposal was large and
versatile. We can get a sense of the versatility of this
kind of expressive language by comparing Marenzio's use of
^ Italian Madrigal. II, 664.
•^Much is made in the modern literature about the

scattered sixteenth-century criticisms of word painting. But
these were, in fact, the exceptions. Composers, theorists,
and critics alike were generally persuaded by the idea that
a vocabulary of musical signs could represent (imitate) the
vocabulary of their verse, and that by doing so, the music
and verse became one.
182
madrigalisms in the Madrigali. with the very different
treatment in his Va6.
The difference originates in the two books' very
different poetic styles. The iconic imagery of the Va6 is
responsive to an energized poetic vocabulary. The verbs are
physically active, the adjectives vivid. The poetic imagery
of the Madrigali. on the contrary, is subdued. The singing
and dancing of the Va6 are replaced by weeping and sighing.
Adjectives are of physical debilitation— the signs of age
quoted above in Se la mia vita, and the evocation of
physical exhaustion in Affliger chi per voi (#4) are
typical. Even the nature imagery is darker, more sober. In
Ecco che un'altra volta (#10) the slopes, forests, and
breezes are left undescribed; they are the silent and
faceless auditors of the speaker's tears, sighs, and
laments.
The poetic vocabulary of this book calls upon a
different musical vocabulary than did that of the Va6. and
the gravita of Marenzio's style led him to incorporate his
madrigalisms into a more restrained musical texture. Many
of the depictive gestures in this book are long melismas,
which are incorporated into the texture by becoming points
of imitation. Contrast Marenzio's depiction of the valleys
of Valli riposte e sole (#12, Example IV. 2, mm. 1-7) or the
rivers of Com'ogni rio (#11, Example IV.3, mm.1-12) with the
183
motivic treatment of "involo li spirti miei" in Con la sua
man of the Va6 (above, example II.1, p. 67).
EXAMPLE IV. 2 Valll riposte e sole mm. 1—7 ^
i .-1-1m .....r 1r r
3
=i = 5 = ' 1
V a l-
A lto
V al* li ri- po* s te , V a l-

Q utnto
■ H * T 'f - » -r -ir .
Va -1
Sesto
cl ' i ’l l '
V a l-
Teaore
V a l* li r i* po* ste *
Basso
V a l-
po-
po- s tc e
ste e so-
V a l* po
ll ri po* s te e so-
19,Luca Marenzio, Madrigali. Copyright (c) 1977 by

publisher.
184
EXAMPLE I V . 3 Com'ogni rio, mm. 1 - 1 2 20
C a it o
Tr
Co* pm
A lto
•w
Co*
Q u in to
Co* gni
S e s to
Co*
che d ‘ ac- c)iia -
C o-
che d ' ac-
Co-
Co-
C o-
2®Luca Marenzio, Madrigali. Copyright (c) 1977 by

publisher.
185
THE VIA6 AND THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE MADRIGAL CYCLE
At the end of the Madrigali Marenzio asked Fortune to
restore him "to the shepherds and to the woods, to my first
song." And in his next three publications he did indeed
return to the pastoral idiom.
When he turned again to Petrarch— in his sixth and last
book for six voices (1595)— it was to explore one last time
the musical/literary properties of the madrigal cycle. The
book is dominated by two massive cycles, a complete setting
of Petrarch's sestina Giovane Donna and a cycle in ten parts
on Tansillo's capitolo, Se quel dolor. The VIa.6 is a
curious book: dedicated to Marguerita Gonzaga, its two grand
cycles are framed by three madrigals which can be tied to
the dedicatee. The text of the opening madrigal, Lucida
perle, is from an eclogue by Guarini, written in honor of
Margherita's wedding to Alfonso II of Ferrara. And the two
closing madrigals, both on texts by Tasso, are more
generally associated with Margherita and the Ferrarese

• 99
orbit. ^ But the tie to Margherita apparently ends here;
^ T h e fifth book for six voices (1591) and the sixth

and seventh books for five voices (1594 and 1595) marked a
further exploration of pastoral styles, for which Marenzio
turned first to the celebratory pastoralism of the
encomiastic madrigal and then to the dramatic pastoralism of
Guarini's II pastor fido. See chapters II-III above.
^ L a dove sono i pargoletti Amore was dedicated by

Tasso to Margherita's "nana," and the original version of 0
verdi selve referred to Mantua and Ferrara. See Myers, II.
186
at the heart of this book are the two cycles, Marenzio's
last and greatest efforts in the genre. ^
The madrigal cycle was at its most popular in the
middle of the century, when Petrarch and Petrarchism
dominated madrigal verse. With the rise of the short,
epigrammatic madrigal, larger verse forms, and settings of
them,, diminished. ^ Marenzio himself published only six
cycles over the course of his career.^ (See Table IV.2 for
a summary of Marenzio's cycles.)
sesto libro. introduction p.xiv. Myers and Steven Ledbetter

both argue, on different grounds, that Lucida perle was
composed at the time of Margherita's wedding in 1579 or soon
thereafter. Ledbetter argues that Marenzio's emphasis of the
line "and you will be the mother of Demigods" ("E sarai
maare ancor dei Semidei") would have been inappropriate by
1595 when it had become clear that Margherita and Alfonso
were going to be childless. Myers bases her dating on style,
arguing that the distribution of ornamentation throughout
the texture— rather than restricted to the top voices— is
more typical of the early 1580s than the mid-nineties. A
better comparison is with the encomiastic madrigals of the
Va6, which all three of these works resemble in their use of
ornamental madrigalisms as a permeating textural device. I
see no reason to doubt that Marenzio wrote these madrigals
shortly before their publication, as a musical dedication to
Margherita.
9 *3
*JPatricia Myers suggests that the prominence of the
Laurel in Giovane donna is a reference, for Margherita's
benefit, to Laura Pevarara, the Ferrarese virtuosa. I see no
reason to make this connection; certainly the cycle is far
from Ferrarese in style.
^Patricia Myers cites a telling statistic. Out of 101

settings of cycles from the Petrarch's Canzoniere published
before 1614, only nine (including Marenzio's) postdate 1585.
See Myers, Il sesto libro. introduction, p.xviii.
9c ■
I am considering only works of four or more parts, m
stanzaic verse forms, as madrigal cycles. Marenzio composed
five three-part madrigals, including settings of two long
madrigals (Tirsi morir volea [Ia5j and Blanche cigni [Laura
187
TABLE IV.2 MARENZIO'S MADRIGAL CYCLES
BOOK CAPOVERSO POETIC SECTION

FORM CADENCES
Madrigali Non fu mai cervo Sestina G-D-C-G-D-G

Spirituali
Va5 Giunto a la tomba Ott. rima A-C-A-E
Va5 Sola angioletta Sestina G-D-C-G-A-G
Va6 Baci soavi Canzone G-D-G-D-G

(flat signature)
VIa6 Giovane donna Sestina G-C-G-G--E-C-G
VIa6 Se quel dolor Capitolo G-Bb-D-D-G-

Bb-D-A-Bb-G
(flat signature)
Unlike many earlier madrigalists, Marenzio always
maintained a single voicing throughout his cycle: both the
number of voices and their cleffing remain consistent from
section to section.
Typically of the madrigal cycle in general, in
Marenzio's cycles the first and last section generally
cadence on the same fina l ^ (the exception is Giunto alia
verde1), a caccia (Passando con pensier [IIa61), an excerpt

from Sannazaro's Arcadia, (Vienne Montan [Ia4]) and one from
Guarini's II pastor fido (Se tu dolce fVIIa51j. The texts of
all of these are fundamentally madrigalian, and the settings
are multi-part madrigals more than multi-madrigal cycles.
* Non fu mai cervo, from the Madrigali Spirituali is

unpublished; my analysis is based on Chater, Luca Marenzio.
p. 107.
188
Tomba, his phrygian cycle, where A substitutes for E as the
cadence of the prima parte). In the earlier cycles, the
inner cadences are appropriate to the mode. Thus in B a d
soavi e cari, the sections alternate between the final G and
the co-final D. Giunto a la tomba and Sola angioletta are
slighty more varied, but still within the range of cadence
points appropriate to the mode. In the two 1595 cycle''
Marenzio experimented with more distant cadences: E in
Giovane donna and B-flat in Se quel dolor.
Although Marenzio's cycles are stylistically
consistent, actual melodic relationships between sections
are rare, even in sestina settings where the endwords might
seem to suggest such thematic unity. This too is typical of
the madrigal cycle in general. ^
Both cycles of the VIa6 are unified by the superficial
means of voicing and, in a general way, mode. (Although
Marenzio wanders further afield in the inner sections, the
cycles begin and end in the same mode and re-establish that
mode often within the cycle; he stretches— not abandons— his
tonal organization.) But the musical integrity of these
cycles is grounded in a more subtle relationship between the
27
James Kaar, rn his discussion of mid-century cycles,
observes the use of a melodic type that gives unity to an
early cycle, Jacquet Berchem's Alla dolc'ombra delle belle
frondi (1544). The thematic unity in this cycle arises from
the adoption by the composer of a melodic formula from the
improvisatory tradition. See James Haar, Essays on Italian
Poetry and Music in the Renaissance. 1350-1600 (Berkeley,
1986) pp.91-92.
189
sections. The key to their unity lies in the musical style,
which in turn arises from Marenzio's approach to the poetry.
The musical language is a six-voice version of the musical
language he was developing at the same time for his Pastor

• 9 ft
fxdo madrigals.'60 Just as each of the Pastor fido madrigals
is an explication of its text, these cycles explicate the
multi-part poetic works that they set, and they call upon
the same integration of styles that Marenzio brought to bear
on his five-voice madrigals of the same period. By
considering these long poems as single entities rather than
as groups of independent stanzas, Marenzio produced a
"reading" of the work that supported and reflected the
poem's unity.
In his setting of Petrarch's sestina Giovane donna,
Marenzio used stylistic variation as a musical version of
the mutation within continuity that is the key to the poetic

9Q
sestina. Here, as in the Pastor fido madrigals, he forged
a single style out of the considerable range of musical
techniques at his disposal: the complex imitative
counterpoint of the mid-century madrigal, the reduced
9 ft . . .
•
6°It is important to remember in this context that the
VIa6 appeared between the VIa5 and the VIIa5. The dedication
to the VIa5 was signed 1 January 1594. The dedications to
the VIa6 and the VIIa5 were signed only eight months apart,
in March and October of 1595, respectively.
9Q •
i7S m c e I am discussing general unifying features of a
lengthy cycle, musical examples are not practical. The
reader is advised to consult an edition of the cycle.
190
textures of his own canzonetta madrigal, recitational
homophony, motivic fragmentation, and the musical symbolism
of the madrigalism in its various guises. He put these
techniques to local use, to serve the expression of the
individual stanza, line, or word.
But the integration of techniques between and within
the sections gives the cycle its overall musical integrity
as well. Marenzio allowed the change of musical technique
to shape the cycle, by establishing its own rhythm. The
first three stanzas are each characterized by a distinctive
and internally consistent setting. The first (mm. 1-68) is
dominated by a somewhat severe imitative counterpoint; the
second (mm. 69-138) contrasts sharply with a texture of
recitational homophony; and the third section (mm. 139-208)
returns to counterpoint, but this time the imitative texture
is text-inspired: it depicts the poet's vow to follow the
laurel to the end of his life. The change in texture in
the second stanza effects a quickening of the musical pulse,
and an increase in emotional intensity. Equilibrium is
restored in the third section not only by the return to the
slower-paced polyphony, but by the return to the tonal
center of G (see Table IV.2) Beginning in the fourth
section the musical fabric becomes more complicated; in the
last four sections, different techniques and textures are
juxtaposed with increasing frequency until the sixth
section, and last full stanza of the poem. This stanza, in
191
which the poet speaks of immortality ("perhaps to find pity
in the eyes of those who will be born after a thousand
years") is the richest madrigal in the cycle. It is a full
ninety measures long (nearly twenty measures longer than any
of the others) and achieves for the first time in the cycle
a total integration of techniques. Like the best Pastor
fido madrigals, in this cycle Marenzio created a style that
was neither pure homophony nor counterpoint, but a
declamatory ethos within a fundamentally polyphonic idiom.
E X P R E S S IO N IS M A N D T H E M A D R IG A L : T H E NONO L IB R O A C IN Q U E
Marenzio turned to Petrarch one last time in his IXa5,
published in May 1599, three months before his death. The
IXa5 has not yet appeared complete in modern edition and our
understanding of it has been heavily reliant on those items
that we know, in particular the intensely expressionistic
Solo e pensoso and Crudele acerba.^® The book's style is
more varied than these two madrigals would lead us to
believe (see Table IV.3 for the contents).
3°The iXa5 is to appear in the Broude Brothers series

edited by Steven Ledbetter. I am very grateful to Dr.
Ledbetter for sending me his transcriptions of the book.
192
TABLE IV.3 Contents of the Nono libro a cinque
No Capoverso Poet Form
1 Cosi nel mio parlar Dante terza rima

2 Amor i'ho molto Petrarch sest. stanza
3 Dura legge d'amor Petrarch terza rima
4 Chiaro segno Petrarch sest. stanza
5 Se si alto Petrarch sest. stanza
6 L'aura ch'el verde Fetrarch sonnet
7 11 vago e bello Celiano madrigal
8 Solo e pensoso Petrarch sonnet
9 Vivo in guerra Ongaro sonnet
10 Fiume ch'a l'onde Ongaro sonnet
11 Parto o non parto Guarini madrigal
12 Credete voi Guarini madrigal
13 Crudele Acerba Petrarch sest. stanza
14 La bella man Guarini madrigal
For two sonnets by Antonio Ongaro, Marenzio adopted a
style very close to his encomiastic style. And Celiano's II
bello vago Armillo is a pastoral scene of narration and
lament in the tradition of A 1 luma de le stelle from the
VIIa5.^ Marenzio set II vago bello Armillo in two parts,
dividing the opening narrative from the .lament proper. As
we might expect, the lament opens with a striking, full-
textured passage of homophonic declamation.
Three madrigals by Guarini, La bella man vi stringo,
Credete voi ch'i vivo, and Parto o non parto were to become
very popular in the solo song repertory of the next decade.
These madrigals are perhaps the closest Marenzio came to the
•^For a discussion of A1 lume de le stelle see above

pp.116-127.
193
style of the Ferrarese expressionist madrigal of the 1590s.
In his setting of Guarini's La bella man vi stringo the
cantus and altus proceed in a canon at the fourth, one
semibreve apart. This is a bizarre example of an academic
musical device used to highly erotic effect. The two voices
are locked in the embrace that is the central conceit of
Guarini's madrigal. (See Guarini's poem below and example
IV.4, La bella man, mm. 1-31).^
La bella man vi stringo

E voi le ciglia per dolor stringete
E mi chiamate ingiusto et inhumano
Come tutto il gioire
Sia mio vostro il martire e non vedete
Che se questa e la mano
Che tien stretto il cor mio giust'e il dolore
Perche stringendo lie string'il mio core.
•^This example, and example IV.5 (Solo e pensoso) below

pp.198-203, are reproduced from Luigi Torchi, ed. L 'arte
musicale in Italia; Dal secolo XIV al XVIII. vol. II.
(Milan, 1968).
194
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197
But Marenzio's most expressionistic writing in this
book is to be found in the seven Petrarch settings, and the
book's opening madrigal on Dante's dark Cosl nel mio parlar.
The Petrarch settings are drawn from the poet's darkest and
most death-obsessed verse. Solo e pensoso explores the
depths of artistic isolation; and for four texts Marenzio
turned one last time to Petrarch's grim sestina, Mia benigna

fortuna.^4
In these works Marenzio explored the extremes of
expressionism. Nearly every one is informed by a virtuosic
expressive gesture; and many of these strain Marenzio's
polyphonic language. Solo e pensoso includes one of the
most wrenching instances of "imitatione delle parole" of the
entire madrigal literature.
Solo e pensoso i piu deserti campi

Vo mesurando a passi tardi e lenti,
In Marenzio's setting the soprano line rises slowly,
untangling itself from the other voices in an evocation of
^This brings his total number of settings from this

sestina to eight. See Table IV.1 above p.159. The two
stanzas he set in his early career are both striking for
their uncharacteristic expressionism. One is "0 voi che
sospirate," one of Marenzio's most famous early works. Here,
in the last full stanza of the poem (discounting the
commiatio) the poet asks for death. Though Laura is not
mentioned, the previous stanza, with its refernce to Laura
in heaven, makes it clear why death will for once be
welcome. Interestingly, this is the only stanza of the poem
in which the important endword "stile" does not refer to
Petrarch's own style.
198
unfathomable isolation. (See example IV.5, Solo e pensoso,
prima parte.
OC
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199
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201
It is difficult not to hear Marenzio's own voice in
this amazing musical tale of artisic isolation. Solo e
pensoso was published in 1599; in 1600 the first operas
appeared and in 1601 they were followed by the first book*of
solo songs with basso continuo. The polyphonic madrigal
continued to flourish; but the most successful madrigalists
of the seventeenth century were those, like Claudio
Monteverdi, who absorbed the new musical ideals into their
polyphonic style.
In the introduction to this dissertation I emphasized
the independence of each of its chapters. Marenzio's
unusual career and his ever-changing style called for a
critical approach that was adaptable to each new repertory
and context. But diversity is only one side of the
Marenzio's story. And I would like to conclude by pointing
to some continuities.
Marenzio has emerged here as a creative artist of
remarkable sensitivity to his surroundings. The very
diversity of his relationships with his patrons, and the
impact of those relationships on his compositional style,
are testimony to his continuing adaptability.
My own criticism of Marenzio's works has been most
powerfully guided by his unerring sensitivity to the poetic
text. This sensitivity is manifested not in a singleminded
preference for ”high-quality" texts, as has sometimes been
202
suggested, but in the unfailing suitability of his setting,
no matter what the text. This is true Renaissance decorum?
and Marenzio is one of its greatest masters.
Accross the span of his late career we find Marenzio
returning to certain literary and musical concerns. Primary
among these is his ongoing search for unity that extends
beyond the boundaries of the single madrigal. He seems to
constantly challenge himself to make a disparate group of
madrigals something more than that. His answers are
ultimately literary ones: in the Madriqali, the VIIa5. and
the Va6, he assembled unrelated literary works and gave them
a collective integrity— by their proximity to one another
and by enveloping them in a single stylistic ethos. In his
cycles, especially his two last great ones, the organicism
of the cycle springs from that of the text it sets.
Marenzio has been compared to both Mozart and Schubert.
Both comparisons are apt in his consistent and seemingly
effortless mastery of the musical language at his disposal.
He could adopt an individual style wholesale, as he did in
his contributions to the Florentine intermedii, he could
absorb a style and make it his own, as in his madrigals of
the same period, or he could integrate and redefine existing
styles into a fresh response to a new repertory, as he did
in his dramatic pastoral style. His musical eclecticism was
successful because it was firmly grounded in an
extraordinary compositional skill. He seems never to
203
falter; from clear-textured homophony to the densest
polyphony his hand is unerring.
It is hard to say how Marenzio's style would have
developed had he lived another ten or twenty years. He had
proven himself to be extraordinarily adaptable; but it is
hard to imagine him as a seventeenth-century composer. The
densely polyphonic settings of the IXa5 seem to turn their
back on the coming musical revolutions. They are a fitting
final testament for a quintessentially Renaissance composer.
204
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The Late Madrigals of Luca Marenzio

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INFORMATION TO USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by

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T h e la te m a d rig a ls o f L uca M arenzio: S tu d ie s in th e in tera ctio n s

Macy, Laura Williams, Ph.D.

C o p y rig h t © 1 9 9 1 b y M a c y , L a u ra W illia m s . A ll rig h ts reserved .

STUDIES IN THE INTERACTIONS OF MUSIC, LITERATURE, AND

Laura Williams Macy

A Dissertation submitted to the faculty of The

This dissertation is designed as four independent but

interrelated essays on Luca Marenzio's late madrigals.

After a general introduction to the various channels of

traditional music patronage available in late sixteenth-

century Rome, Chapter I reconsiders Marenzio's unorthodox

career in the broader perspective of Roman intellectual

The three other essays address issues surrounding the

music itself. Chapter II places Marenzio's Ouinto libro a

sei (1591) in the context of Medici Florence— comparing it

to the composer's contributions to the wedding festivities

of 1589. Chapter III considers the sixth and seventh books

for five voices, both of which are dominated by texts drawn

from Giambattista Guarini's II pastor fido. Marenzio's

Pastor fido madrigals are stylistically distinct from those

of his northern contemporaries Giaches Wert and Claudio

Monteverdi. It is argued here that Marenzio's Fastor fido

style reflects the play's reception in Rome as opposed to

the northern courts. In Chapter IV. Marenzio's striking use

of Petrarch's poetry in three late publications is placed in

the contextof late Renaissance poetics. The books discussed

in this chapter are the Madriqali (1588), the Sesto libro a

I am grateful to Broude Brothers Limited and to the

American Institute of Musicology for permission to reproduce

musical examples from their editions. I would also like to

thank Dr. Steven Ledbetter for sharing with me his

unpublished editions of Marenzio's Nono libro a cinque, and

for allowing me to include musical examples from that

edition. Without Dr. Ledbetter's enthusiasm and remarkable

generosity of both materials and ideas this project would

have been both more difficult and less fun.

Many friends and colleagues at Chapel Hill, Williams

College, and Penn State have cheered me on through what

sometimes seemed a very long haul. Special thanks are due

to Katherine Bergeron, Liane Curtis, Cynthia Cyrus, and Ken

Kreitner; in addition to reading and discussing my work all

at one time or another have kept my mind from atrophy and my

spirit from defeat.

I was very fortunate in my committees Jon Finson, John

Nadas, Howard Smither, Gary Tomlinson, and Thomas Warburton

all read the document with care and offered advice in

matters of both style and content. Gary Tomlinson's

influence is everywhere in this dissertation. His own music

criticism has influenced my thinking at the deepest level;

in conversations with him over the years I have sharpened my

own critical skills.

of mentors. The depth and breadth of his understanding of

the Renaissance and its music are an inexhaustable resource;

his intellectual integrity makes him a rare and inspiring

model for emulation.

Chapter I Marenzio and Roman Patronage in the 1590s.... 6

Chapter II Marenzio and Florentine Style of Patronage...45

Chapter III Marenzio and the Pastoral Drama.............. 88

Appendix to Chapter III................................ ,.155