A Florentine Wedding of 1608

A Florentine Wedding of 1608Author(s): Tim CarterSource: Acta Musicologica, Vol. 55, Fasc. 1 (Jan. - Jun., 1983), pp. 89-107Published by: International Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/932663 .

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Th. Warburton: Sicher's "Johannes Zela zons plus": A Problem in Identity 89

Appendix 2. Sicher's version of "Cela sans plus" (Sicher, fol 65r, variants with Setting A)

M. 7, altus: dotted quarter, d'; eighth, c'; quarters, f and b flat M. 11, altus: half, g; dotted quarter, a; eighth, g M. 15, altus: begins with eighth rest replacing d' eighth tied

from the previous measure bassus: begins with eighth rest replacing b flat eighth tied

from the previous measure M. 17, altus: begins with quarter rest replacing f tied from the previous measure

bassus: begins with quarter rest replacing d tied from the previous measure M. 31, superius: begins with eighth rest replacing g' tied from the previous measure M. 34, altus: eighth rest; three eighths, a-b flat-c; quarter, e';

quarter, d' tied forward M. 37, tenor: begins with eighth rest replacing g tied from the previous measure

A Florentine Wedding of 1608* TIM CARTER (LANCASTER/ENGLAND)

In October 1608 Cosimo de' Medici, heir to the throne of Tuscany, married Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria. The wedding ceremony was accom- panied by festivities on a scale to which Florence was well accustomed: banquets, balls, masques, tournaments, a naval battle on the Arno, an equestrian ballet in the Piazza S. Croce and a performance of Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger's play II giudizio di Paride with spectacular intermedi. Such entertainments clearly belong to a tradition that goes back to Cosimo I's wedding to Eleonora of Toledo in 1539.1 Only eight years earlier, however, at the wedding of Maria de' Medici to Henri IV of France in October 1600, the Florentine court had apparently flaunted its progressive orientation by staging two entertainments in a new style, Ottavio Rinuccini and Jacopo Peri's Euridice, the first opera to have survived complete, and Gabriello

* All dates in this article falling between 1 January and 24 March inclusive have been given in both Florentine- and new-style dating: thus 9 January 1607/8 is 9 January 1607 in the Florentine style and 9 January 1608 in the new style. Where a primary source uses new-style dating this is indicated thus: "(n. s.)". Quotations adhere to the original, although 'v' has been converted to 'u' and vice versa and abbreviations have been expanded within square brackets. The following RISM sigla are used to denote libraries and archives: F: Pn - Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale; I: Fas - Florence, Archivio di Stato; I: Fc - Florence, Conservatorio di Musica Luigi Cherubini; I: Fl - Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana; I: Fr - Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana. I take great pleasure in acknowledging my gratitude to the staff of these libraries for their unfailing courtesy and assistance. 1 The best study in English of Medici court entertainments in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is ALOIS M. NAGLER, Theatre Festivals of the Medici, 1539-1637 (New Haven, Conn. 1964). See also ANGELO SOLERTI, Gli albori del melodramma, 3 vols. (Milan 1904; repr. ed. Hildesheim 1969); ANGELO SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica alla corte medicea dal 16oo al 1637 (Florence 1905; repr. ed. Hildesheim 1969); D. P. WALKER, ed., Les fetes du mariage de Ferdinand de Medicis et de Christine de Lorraine, Florence 1589, vol. I: Musique des intermedes de "La Pellegrina" (Paris 1963); ANDREW C. MINOR and BONNER MITCHELL, A Renaissance Entertainment: Festivities for the Marriage of Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, in 1539 (Columbia, Miss. 1968); and HOWARD MAYER BROWN, Sixteenth-Century Instrumentation: The Music for the Florentine Intermedii, Musicological Studies and Documents 30 ([Rome] 1973).



90 T. Carter: A Florentine Wedding of 16o8

Chiabrera and Giulio Caccini's Il rapimento di Cefalo.2 This suggests that the 1608 festivities marked a step backwards for Medici court entertainments and that the transition from sixteenth-century intermedi to seventeenth-century opera was less smooth or sudden than historians might like to think. Opera, it seems, took some time to gain a sure foothold among the many and varied types of entertainment available to an Italian court in the early seventeenth century. This was no doubt due to the rather unusual circumstances surrounding its birth.

Grand Duke Ferdinando I's choice of a suitable bride for his eldest son was dictated, as usual, by political necessity. From the beginning of his reign in 1587 his

foreign policy had hinged on compensating for his predecessors' over-reliance on

Spain and the Empire by providing financial and political support for Henri IV of France. The 1600 wedding was a direct result of this policy and was indeed its

crowning glory. In the early 1600s, however, Ferdinando began to regret his enthusiasm for the French. His doubts were prompted in part by the fact that Henri was proving a less helpful ally than had been expected. Furthermore the survival of

any small Italian state depended on maintaining a precarious balance between the

leading powers in Europe, and Florence could ill afford to favour one so obviously at the expense of the others. As if to emphasize this point, the Spanish were building a fortress on the island of Elba, not twenty miles off the Tuscan coast. Accordingly the Grand Duke set his sights on one of the daughters of Archduke Karl of Austria, whose sister Johanna had married Grand Duke Francesco and whose daughter Margarete was the wife of Philip III of Spain. The negotiations, conducted by the Cardinals del Monte and Paravicino, began as early as 1602. They dragged on as the Austrians and Spanish attempted to make the most of their superior bargaining

position.3 The story is familiar both from the dealings between Florence and France in the 1590s and from the contemporary marriage negotiations between Mantua and

Savoy.4 In the end Ferdinando received only 200,000 ducats as a dowry, a third of what he had received for Christine of Lorraine in 1589 and had paid Henri IV in 1600 and a sure indication of the extent to which he had to yield to imperial pressure. Archduchess Maria Magdalena, however, was a fair bargain. As sister to the Queen of Spain, daughter of the Archduke of Austria and first cousin to the Emperor Rudolf II she conveniently enabled Florence to forge an alliance with both the

Spanish and the Austrian wings of the Empire. By June 1607 the court was evidently confident enough of the outcome of the

negotiations to make plans for the entertainments to accompany the wedding. On the 27th Curzio Picchena, one of the Grand Duke's secretaries, wrote to

Michelangelo Buonarroti to ask if he had "some poetry or invention" that could be

2 On the 1600 festivities, see MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, Descrizione delle felicissime nozze ... della Cristianissima Maestsa di Madama Maria Medici, Regina di Francia e di Navarra (Florence 1600); and CLAUDE V. PALISCA, The First Performance of "Euridice", in: Queens College Department of Music:

Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Festschrift (1937-1962) (New York 1964), p. 1-23.

3 Documents relating to the negotiations are contained in I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 6068. 4 For an excellent account of the Mantuan negotiations, see STUART REINER, La vag'Angioletta (and others) Part I, in: Analecta Musicologica 14 (1974), p. 26-88.



T. Carter: A Florentine Wedding of 26o8 92

worked up into a comedy.5 In fact Buonarroti had to hand his newly completed Il giudizio di Paride. The slight difficulty over the work - it had been commissioned in 1605 by Ferdinando Gonzaga of Mantua, who hoped to have it performed at the forthcoming wedding of his elder brother Prince Francesco to Margherita of Savoy 6

- was resolved by a hurried exchange of letters between Buonarroti and Prince Ferdinando.7 During this exchange Buonarroti offered as a replacement for Paride a work by a fellow member of the Accademia della Crusca, Francesco Cini's Le nozze di Peleo e Tetide. Cini had already offered Tetide, with music by Jacopo Peri, to the Grand Duchess for the Florentine festivities and had seen it rejected. It fared little better in Mantua. Although Ferdinando Gonzaga took great pains to secure the play and to initiate rehearsals, it was eventually cancelled in favour of Ottavio Rinuccini and Claudio Monteverdi's Arianna.8

The second half of 1607 saw the preparations for the Florentine festivities well under way. At the same time as Curzio Picchena made his approaches to Buonarroti, or shortly after, it was decided to perform Cini's veglia La notte d'Amore. On 28 July Marco da Gagliano apologized to Ferdinando Gonzaga for being unable to come to Mantua as requested because of his being occupied with the approaching wedding.9 By December 1607 much of the music had been written, for on the 11th of that month the Grand Duke wrote to Duchess Eleonora of Mantua refusing to lend her Giulio Caccini's donne for the impending Mantuan festivities because rehearsals had begun in Florence and the parts were already being learnt.10 But the date originally set for the wedding, New Year 1608, was quickly forgotten amid the delays in the negotiations with Philip III of Spain. In a letter to Ferdinando Gonzaga of 29 September 1607 Cini assumed that the wedding would not take place

5 Curzio Picchena to Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florence, 27 June 1607, I: FL, Archivio Buonarroti, 51, no. 1437: "Trsa alcune altre commessione che Madama Ser[enissi]ma mi ha mandato con una sua poliza, m'ha comandato di scrivere a' V[ostra] S[ignoria] che se ella ha fra le cose sue qualche poesia 6 invenzione donde si possa cavare una Commedia, ella si contenti di mandarla all'A[ltezza] Sua, desiderando di vederla e considerarla, et che poi gliene rimandera ..." Buonarroti had made his debut as a playwright for the Florentine stage with his Il natale d'Ercole of 1605. 6 Ferdinando Gonzaga to Buonarroti, Pisa, 31 December 1605, I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 48, no. 988, perhaps refers to the original commission: "Dal soggietto che V[ostra] S[ignoria] s'ha eletto per compor' la favola che mi scrive, son' caduto in un' desiderio molto grande di veder' quest'opera fornita, figurandomi che debba riuscire conforme alla felicita' del suo ingegno. Et in questa parte le sue liti habbino a servir' a lei in favoleggiar' de' discordie, come serve la causa per disposition' dell'effetto." That the play was originally commissioned by Prince Ferdinando is made clear in Buonarroti's letter to him of 10 November 1608 given in SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 76, n. 1. 7 Buonarroti to Ferdinando Gonzaga, Florence, 31 July, 14 August, 21 August 1607, given in SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 75-77; Ferdinando Gonzaga to Buonarroti, Mantua, 20 July, 3 August, 10 August, 17 August 1607, I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 48, nos. 989-92; Ferdinando Gonzaga to Grand Duchess Christine, Mantua, 21 September 1607, Marmiruolo, 28 September 1607, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5993. In the first of his letters to Buonarroti, Ferdinando refers to another "favola", probably his own performed in Pisa during Carnival 1606/ 7: see SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 38. It is probably this play (and not Paride, as REINER, La vag'Angioletta, p. 50, n. 82 suggests) to which Marco da Gagliano refers in a letter to Ferdinando of 23 July 1607 given in EMIL VOGEL, Marco da Gagliano. Zur Geschichte des florentiner Musiklebens von 1570-1650, in: VfMw 5 (1889), p. 550. Ferdinando seems to have sent the verses to Buonarroti and the music to Gagliano for comments and corrections. ' The Tetide affair is documented by letters from Cini and Peri to Ferdinando Gonzaga given in STEFANO DAVARI, Notizie biografiche del distinto maestro di musica Claudio Monteverdi (Milan 1885), p. 97-104, 107, and in SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 75-85. See also TIM CARTER, Jacopo Peri, in: ML 61 (1980), p. 121-35. 9 VOGEL, Marco da Gagliano, p. 551. 10 DAVARI, Notizie biografiche, p. 13; SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 104, n. 1; and REINER, La vag'Angioletta, p. 34.




before the spring," and when Grand Duchess Christine officially appointed Buonarroti, Pietro de' Bardi and Gino Ginori to organize the casting, scenery and rehearsals for Paride, on 24 January 1607/8, she stipulated that all should be ready by the end of April.12 Once again the date passed, with Spain still loth to bring things to a conclusion. The contract was finally signed in Madrid by Cardinal del Monte only on 28 June 1608,13 but the undesirability of travelling in the hot summer months eventually caused Maria Magdalena's arrival in Florence to be postponed until October, over a year after the preparations had begun.

That the preparations were initiated so far ahead of the eventual date of the

wedding was undoubtedly due to the fact that the court was working to an uncertain time-table and that accordingly the festivities had to be ready for performance at short notice. But the unusual thoroughness of these preparations seems to have been

prompted in part by another consideration. Buonarroti, for example, repeatedly emphasized the necessity of adequate rehearsal:

We must not delay in rehearsing the machines and the music onstage, for as I have said, any skill demands long, hard practice; otherwise things turn out badly, as we have seen in years past. This is extremely important, for since the invention of the intermedi and the composition of the music have been delegated to various people, each has looked to his own, and I know that if we do not discover early on the problems of combining the machines of this and that invention, and likewise the music, then we could find ourselves so late in finding a remedy that the problems could increase ...14

Giovanni de' Bardi, co-director of the festivities with Buonarroti, reinforced the

point while clarifying Buonarroti's veiled reference to "years past": I should also say that I cannot begin to rehearse the music on the stage because there are

men at work in the theatre and the machines are not yet ready. It is necessary to rehearse extensively, for we do not want things to turn out as they did at the wedding of the Queen [of France, Maria de' Medici]."5

" SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 79. On the delays, see also SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 42. 12 Grand Duchess Christine to Buonarroti, Livorno, 24 January 1607/8, I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 45, no. 664, also given in MARIA GIOVANNA MASERA, Michelangelo Buonarroti il giovane (Turin 1941), p. 102-103. Buonarroti had requested this official appointment in his own letter to Andrea Cioli (one of the court secretaries), Florence, 21 January 1607/8, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 1693, no. 451. The casting for Paride was completed by early March: Curzio Picchena to Buonarroti, Livorno, 10 March 1607/8, I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 51, no. 1438; Buonarroti to the Grand Duchess, Florence, 12 March 1607/8, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5994. Details of the cast are given in I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 60, f. 65r. Pietro de' Bardi, like his father Giovanni, was a keen patron of the arts. He was a member of the Accademia della Crusca and also frequented Buonarroti's conversazione, the Pastori Antellesi: ANDREA CAVALCANTI, Ricordanze, I: Fr, MS 2270, f. 60r. He was also connected with later court entertainments: SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 176 et passim. 13 FRANCESCO SETTIMANNI, Memorie fiorentine VI (1596-1608), I: Fas, Manoscritti, 131, f. 560r. 14 Buonarroti to Picchena, Florence, undated (August 1608?), I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 6068, f. 387r-v:

"... non mi par da indugiare a esercitar le macchine, e le musiche in sul luogo p[er]che come ho detto ogni magistero vuol lunga, e diligente pratica, altrimenti le cose vanno p[er] mala via e ne abbiamo agli anni passati veduto l'esempio e questo e un gran viluppo, perche essendosi fatte le invenzioni delli intermedi e le musiche ancora, da diversi, ciascuno ha atteso al suo proprio, so che se non si viene presto in cognizione di quelle difficulta che si posson dar le macchine di questa con quella di quella invenzione, e il simile le musiche, ci

potremmo trovar tanto tardi al procurare il rimedio che le dificulta s'accrescessero . .." 15 Bardi to Picchena, Florence, 13 July 1608, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 6068, f. 386rv: "Mi occorre ancora dire che io non posso cominciare a provar le Musiche in sul Palco, p[er] che vi sono huomini al lagoro nella Sala e le Macchine sono imperfette et convien provar assai, che non vuole che riesca come alle nozze della Regina." The court responded to Buonarroti and Bardi's complaints about the tardiness of the scene-builders: Picchena to Buonarroti, Villa Ferdinanda, 19 August 1608, I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 51, no. 1442: "Ho poi havuto la l[ette]ra di V[ostra] S[ignoria] intorno alla tarditta di quelli che lavorano alla scena, et havendola letta a'




The reason for their anxiety now becomes clear. In the eyes of Buonarroti and Bardi, if not of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, the court artists had disgraced themselves during the 1600 festivities, when scenery had been left unfinished and more time had been spent on petty bickering than on getting the entertainments ready for performance.16 The directors of the 1608 festivities had no intention of letting history repeat itself.

In view of the desire to succeed where their immediate predecessors had failed, it is significant that the 1608 entertainments returned in spirit to those of 1589 celebrating the marriage of Grand Duke Ferdinando I to Christine of Lorraine. Opera seems to have been tainted by the overall deficiencies of the 1600 festivities, and the court was now turning back to the traditional format of a comedy with intermedi. This must also be attributed in part to the presence of Giovanni de' Bardi, who had returned from Rome after the death of Pope Leo XI in 1605. Before moving to Rome in 1592, prompted or forced by Emilio de' Cavalieri's dictatorial control of the court music, Bardi had long been involved in court entertainments, culminating in his direction of the magnificently successful festivities of 1589. He had also made objection to the dramatic innovations of 1600 and especially to Euridice.17 His views were matched by an apparently widespread criticism of the new recitative style used in both Euridice and II rapimento di Cefalo. Euridice was, according to one source, "like the chanting of the passion",'8 while a member of Cardinal Pietro Aldobran- dini's retinue reported of II rapimento that "the style of singing easily led to boredom".19 With the possible exception of Monteverdi's Arianna, operas perhaps afforded rather limited, somewhat academic pleasure to audiences of the first decade of the seventeenth century. Although they were performed in court circles this was often only at the instigation of private patrons (as with Jacopo Corsi's patronage of Euridice and the Accademia degli Invaghiti's staging of Monteverdi's Orfeo) or, at least in Florence, for celebrations of only minor importance in the court calendar. Even the fact that opera took firmer roots in Mantua was largely due to the enthusiasm of individual members of the Gonzaga family, and a work like Orfeo has close ties with the intermedio tradition. Indeed, one could argue that opera did not establish itself as a self-sufficient dramatic genre until it escaped the artistic confines of the courts, as occurred in Rome and, especially, Venice in the second quarter of the century. Intermedi, on the other hand, were a tried and tested formula. Judging by the experience of 1589 their splendour and magnificence was

Madama, ella m'ha comandato di darne una gagliarda spronata al Cap[ita]no Gio[vanni] bat[tist]a Cresci, si come non ho mancato di fare .. ." Cresci was provveditore of the fortresses and in charge of building the scenery for the comedy. 16 On the disorganization apparent throughout the 1600 festivities, see CLAUDE V. PALISCA, Musical Asides in the Diplomatic Correspondence of Emilio de' Cavalieri, in: MQ 49 (1963), p. 350-51. 17 PALISCA, Musical Asides, p. 352. Is PALISCA, Musical Asides, p. 351. '9 Diario del viaggio fatto dal Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini nell'andare legato a Firenze per la celebrazione del sponsalizio della Regina di Francia, et in Francia per la pace, F: Pn, MS 1323, f. 33V, quoted in SARA MAMONE, Feste e spettacoli a Firenze e in Francia per le nozze di Maria de' Medici con Enrico IV, in: Il teatro dei Medici (= Quaderni di teatro II/7 [March 1980]), ed. LUDOVICO ZORZI (Florence 1980), p. 218: "il modo di cantarla venne facilmente a noia . .. oltre che non sempre il movimento delle macchine e riuscito felice." This view conflicts, of course, with BUONARROTI, Descrizione, p. 24-42, but there is good reason to be suspicious of Buonarroti's gushing enthusiasm for the machines and music of Il rapimento.




sure of delighting an audience. For wedding festivities, there is little doubt which

type of work the Florentine court preferred. The texts of the 1608 intermedi were provided by the leading poets of the city

(with the notable exception of Ottavio Rinuccini) and as usual the subject-matter was chosen primarily for its spectacular possibilities. The first intermedio (II palagio della Fama - Lorenzo Franceschi) involved the magical appearance and

disappearance of Fame's palace and the descent of gods on clouds to greet the bridal

pair; the second and third (II ritorno d'Astrea - Alessandro Adimari; II giardino di

Calypso - Giovanni de' Bardi) were pastoral scenes with spectacular transforma- tions; the fourth (Amerigo Vespucci - Giovanni Battista Strozzi "il giovane") -

providing the first instance of a recent historical character, and a Florentine one at

that, entering the mythological world of the intermedi - was a sea scene; and the fifth (La fornace di Vulcano - Buonarroti) provided a variation on the usual inferno scene. As was common in Florentine entertainments, the old clich6s, and doubtless old scenery and costumes, were clearly being employed with a novelty that was more apparent than real.20

It is in the sixth intermedio (Ii tempio della Pace - Buonarroti) - the grand finale in which gods and goddesses descended to exalt the bride and bridegroom - that the

parallels with the 1589 intermedi are most apparent: The sixth [intermedio] will show onstage the temple of Peace, made entirely of gold, full of

statues and open to the audience. From underground will appear a throne, with a large number of priests and other people associated with Peace. Peace will descend from the heavens on a cloud with twelve Virtues to judge the competition between four gods each vying for the favour of the Prince. These gods, Bellona, Berecynthia, Pluto and Neptune, will descend from the heavens at the same time each on their own cloud to give the impression that they have come to find Peace. When Peace has reached the throne they will rehearse several arguments and she will decree that each of them should attend him, favouring him with their respective attributes. Then the stage will open to reveal two grottoes, one of minerals and gems in which sits Proserpine with many gods, and the other of mother-of-pearl, coral and other sea-treasures, containing Amphitrite and other marine gods. Pluto and Neptune each descend into their respective grottoes while Berecynthia and Bellona stay on the ground. The heavens open and a sung ballo is begun by zephyrs in the heavens and several people around the throne on the ground. At the end of this Bellona and Berecynthia each call up their own gods and goddesses, Bellona's military and Berecynthia's civil, who come to the new celebration. From one side of the stage Bellona's gods, and from the other Berecynthia's, appear in two groups to renew and augment the dancing and singing. With an epithalamium to the bride and groom, sung now by many, now by a few, now by solo voices, the celebration ends with great harmony.21

2' Detailed plans for the intermedi survive in I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 60, and in I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 6068; and they are described in CAMILLO RINUCCINI, Descrizione delle feste fatte nelle reali nozze de' Serenissimi Principi di Toscana D. Cosimo de' Medici e Maria Maddalena Arciduchessa d'Austria (Florence 1608), p. 38-49. See also NAGLER, Theatre Festivals of the Medici, p. 104-111 and plates 68-74.

'2 Buonarroti's scenario for the sixth intermedio, I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 60, f. 39'-40': "II sesto mostrera nella scena il tempio della Pace tutto d'oro, e pieno di statue, e aperto. Di sotterra verra un seggio dove sara gran numero di sacerdoti e altre persone attribuite alla pace. La pace verra dal Cielo sopra una nugola con dodici virtu

p[er] temperar la compete[n]za che quattro Dej hanno tra loro per voler ciascuno assistere al favor del Sig[no]r Principe. Verranno questi Dei in un medesimo tempo ciascuno sopra la sua nugola dal cielo, dove si finge che

fussero andati a trovar la pace. E sono Bellona, Berecintia, Plutone, e Nettunno. La pace giunta sopra'l seggio sentenziera dopo che avranno detto alcune ragioni, che ciascuno di essi assista favorendolo col proprio attributo. Apresi innanzi il palco in due grotte l'una di minerali, e gemme dove siede Proserpina con molti dei, e l'altra di



T. Carter: A Florentine Wedding of 2608 95

75 or so musicians (with sixteen dancers) were divided into two six-part choirs, with three voices to a part, and an "orchestra" of a flute, a violin, cornetts, trombones, viols, guitars, triangles, lutes, chitarroni, harpsichords and organs (see Appendix).22 This was very much in accordance with the typical scorings of sixteenth-century intermedi. Within this large group was a smaller one of six sopranos (singing two to a part), a bass and instrumentalists who performed a ballo within the intermedio. This high-voiced texture is strikingly reminiscent of Emilio de' Cavalieri's famous final ballo of the 1589 intermedi, even down to the guitar accompaniment. The music, which does not survive, was composed by the madrigalist Santi Orlandi under the supervision of Giulio Caccini, the musical director of the whole celebration.23

Buonarroti and Bardi's well-laid plans for the intermedi did not entirely escape interference from higher authorities. On 13 July 1608 Bardi wrote to Curzio Picchena:

Giulio Parigi has shown me certain notes wherein Madame [the Grand Duchess] writes that she does not want the heavens to open in the third intermedio, which is mine. She seems to have been moved to this by an impression that the heavens open several times, which is not the case, for the heavens open only twice, in the third and in the last intermedio, just as was done in other beautiful comedies. Moreover, in this intermedio, it is necessary for them to open, for I have taken the subject from Homer's Odyssey, when the gods together plead with Jupiter to free Ulysses from the hands of Calypso, who keeps him imprisoned, so that he can return to his wife, and thus Jupiter commands Mercury to go to Calypso and order her to release Ulysses. As you see, the strength and beauty of this intermedio rests entirely in the heavens, without which the intermedio would seem disfigured and the people seeing or reading it would impute this to ignorance; and to produce another intermedio would be time- consuming, arduous and costly.24

madreperle coralli, e altre cose marine dove & collocata Anfitrite con altri dei marini. Dove appresso scendono ciascuno nella sua Plutone, e Nettunno. Berecintia, e Bellona fermansi in terra. Apresi il cielo affatto cominciasi in cielo dallj zeffiri, e in terra da alcuni p[er]sonaggi del seggio, e nelle due grotte dalli altri dei un ballo cantato. Nel fine del quale Berecintia, e Bellona chiamano ciascuna d[e]l loro le loro Dee, e Dei, questa militari, e quella civili, che vengano alla nuova allegrezza; si che da una parte quei, di Bellona, e dall'altra quei di Berecintia compariscono in due schiere rinnova[n]do e augumentando il ballo e '1 canto, e con un epitalamio a gli sposi cantato or da molti, e or da meno, e or da voci sole, si da fine alla festa con grandissima armonia." For the final version of the intermedio, see RINUCCINI, Descrizione, p. 52. 2 The list of musicians used in the sixth intermedio and given in the Appendix is taken from I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 60, f. 61v--62r. Further details, which have been used to clarify the list, are given on f. 67r. About half the musicians named were employed by the court or were closely connected with it, five or so were imported from outside the city, and the rest were working in Florentine churches such as the Duomo, S. Giovanni Battista, Ss. Annunziata and S. Spirito. I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 60 also contains several sketches of the positions of the performers onstage during the intermedio. 3 I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 60, f. 45 , 74v-75r. RINUCCINI, Descrizione, gives no details of the composers of

the music. 24 Giovanni de' Bardi to Curzio Picchena, Florence, 13 July 1608, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 6068, f. 386r: "... m[esser] Giulio Parigi mi ha mostrato certe postille, ove Madama scrive che non vuole del terzo intermedio, che & il mio, s'apra il Cielo, e par mossa da credenza che il Cielo s'apra piui volte, la qual cosa non & vera p[er] che il Cielo non s'apre se non due volte nel terzo, e nell'ultimo Intermedio, come si & fatto nell'altre Commedie belle, anzi in questo Intermedio & necessario, che ci s'apra, poiche io l'ho tratto dall'Odissea d'Omero, quando gli Dei congregati insieme pregono Giove, che liberi Ulisse dalle mani di Calisso, che lo tiene relegato, onde se ne possa ritornare alla sua moglie, cosi Giove comanda a' Mercurio, che vada ai Calisso e gli comandi che lasci Ulisse, come ella vede la forza di q[ues] to Intermedio & bellezza, e tutta fondata in Cielo, e senza esso l'Intermedio sarebbe storpiato e le genti che lo vedessero, 6 leggessero ci imputerebbono ai ragione d'Ignorantia, et p[er] far' un'altro Intermedio sarebbe cosa lunga, difficile e di spesa."



96 T. Carter: A Florentine Wedding of 2608

It is typical of the thinking behind the intermedi as a dramatic genre that Bardi, true academic that he was, had such faith in the ability of the audience (and, significantly, of the readers of the printed account of the festivities) to identify the locus classicus from which his intermedio was derived and to which it would be

compared. The sixth intermedio, too, ran into difficulties, as Caccini wrote to Picchena on 6

August 1608:

Finding myself yesterday evening in the Piazza S. Giovanni, numerous gentlemen told me that Most Serene Madame no longer wanted our balli of the sixth intermedio because Signor Don Grazia Montalvo had composed one to be danced by many Florentine gentlemen and this would suffice. Meeting with Signor Michelangelo Buonarroti I confirmed that this was true, even though he wished to renounce the idea to Her Highness because of the fact that any other plan would spoil his own and that a new one would have to be begun from scratch. If this is true, then we must be informed to avoid wasting time in teaching it to the ladies. But Her Highness should be told that all the beauty was reserved for this sixth intermedio, in which Signora Ippolita, Signora Vittoria [Archilei] and Melchior [Palontrotti] the bass, all three belonging to my school, sing alone, and solo, as a duo and as a trio joining together one after the other. There is also a ballo of six ladies, sung, played and danced to instruments, that is different from all others, and then at the end there is another ballo performed by 20 or 30 dancing-masters and sung and played by 64 musicians. Inform Her Highness that this

type of sung, played and danced ballo has always been prized above all other balli and much more so than the morescas performed in Mantua as I described them from an account by Signor Chiabrera, their author. Invention is more necessary than dancing-masters in

producing novel balli, and since Chiabrera represented the Olympic Games in the Mantuan

comedy the ballo of our sixth intermedio cannot produce this effect, for the subject-matter is different. If Signor Don Grazia invents another, not for this will it be more beautiful than the ballo performed in Mantua, for it will destroy our ballo, which needs nothing added to it. If Most Serene Madame will recall that the ballo most praised in Mantua was the one devised

by Signor Ottavio Rinuccini [II ballo delle Ingrate] and performed outside the comedy, then she could take advantage of the present occasion and of my advice, which if ignorant is not without good intentions, so that the festivities may pass with the grandeur and nobility appropriate to Their Highnesses and to the custom of this city.25

25 Giulio Caccini to Picchena, Florence, 6 August 1608, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 6068, f. 389r'-390r': "Ritrovandomi io hier sera su la Piazza di S[an] Giovanni mi fu detto da molti Gentilhuomini come Madama Ser[enissi] ma non voleva piz' i nostri Balli del 6 Intermed[i] o e questo perche il S[igno] r Don Grazia Montalvo ne haveva fatto uno, che andava Ballato da molti Gentilhuomini fiorentini, e che questo bastava, onde riscontrandomi nel S[igno] r Michelagnolo Buonarroti, mi ratifico il tutto esser vero anzi che lo voleva rinunziare i S[ua] A[ltezza] e questo per che ogni altro concetto disgug[n] ava dal suo, e che faceva di mestiero pi' tosto un altro di nuovo, e da capo; la q[u]al cosa se vero e, sara necessario saperlo perche non si getti via questo tempo a insegnarlo a queste Donne Ma sappi S[ua] A[ltezza] che tutta la squisitezza era riserbata in questo 60 Intermed[i] o nel q[u] ale canta sola la S[igno] ra Hipolita, la S[igno] ra Vittoria, Melchior Basso tutte tre le mia di Casa, e una e dua, e tre l'una dopo l'altra congiungendosi insieme, con un Ballo di 6. Donne cantato, sonato, e Ballato, con Conserto, diverso da tutti gli altri, e poi nell'ultimo, un altro Ballo fatto da 2o, 6 30 maestri, e cantato, e sonato da 64 Musici, per6 avverta S[ua] A[ltezza] che questa forma di Ballo sonato, e cantato e Ballato, e stato sempre stimato sopra gli altri Balli, e molto pifi che le Moresche fatte ai Mantova come l'ho descritte io di propria mano del S[igno]r Chiabrera Autore di esso, onde volendo far Balli nuovi e piu' necessaria l'Invenzione, che i Maestri del Ballo, per che per haver rappresentato il Chiabrera nella commedia di Mantova i Giuochi Olimpici, non pu6 far questo effetto ii Ballo del n[ost] ro 60 Intermedio, per che il concetto, e diverso, che per farne un'altro nuovo, il s[igno]r Don Grazia, non per questo sarta piW bello del fatto a Mantova per che con esso guastera questo, che non ricerca altro, la dove se Madama Ser[enissi] ma si ricordera, che il piui lodato di Mantova, e stato quello del S[igno]r Ottavio rinuccini fatto in occasione fuor della Commedia, potrat ancor lei valersi dell'occasione p[rese] nte e dell'avviso ricevuto da me cosi ignorantem[en] te ma non gita senza buona volontta, che le sue feste passino con quella grandezza, e nobilta che e proprio di loro Alt[ezze] et anco il costume di questa citta." Grazia Montalvo had played the theorbo in the first performance of Peri's Euridice, JACOPO PERI, Le musiche ... sopra L'Euridice (Florence 1600 [=1601]), preface.



T. Carter: A Florentine Wedding of 2608 97

One suspects that Caccini's objections to the planned ballo were rooted primarily in the fear that his donne would have no chance to shine in something not composed with them in mind. Buonarroti, however, was more concerned with the unity of the intermedi:

I should add that having heard of plans to perform a balletto by gentlemen on the stage after the final intermedio I judge that in no way can this be permitted, for it would destroy the unity of the entertainment. When the audience is full, it does not need anything more to eat ... I am greatly concerned for the unity of this entertainment, and God forbid that this be destroyed by something accidental or badly thought out without seeking things that will certainly disintegrate and confuse it... I am well aware that I have not devised all the intermedi, but only two of them. Since I have written the comedy, however, and since I have regard for the whole, I believe that I can see in part the needs of this spectacle, and I have no other interest than the reputation of my patrons and of this most serene wedding.26 The directors of court festivities frequently had to put up with such outside intervention threatening the "unity" of their entertainments (as with Giovanni de' Bardi in 1586 and 1589), and it is typical that the Grand Duchess should have taken a direct hand in court entertainments. Eventually, however, she heeded the advice of her artistic directors: the heavens opened in the third intermedio and Don Grazia's ballo for the sixth was abandoned.

Caccini's reference to the Mantuan celebrations played on a concern close to the hearts of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess; the Florentine festivities should not be outshone by those held in Mantua in May 1608. The decision taken in December 1607 to hold a naval battle on the Arno,27 for example, may well have been prompted in part by the news that a similar battle was to be staged in Mantua (the staging of a naval battle is also another link between the 1608 and 1589 festivities). But Florence does not seem to have attempted to compete with Mantua in the field of opera. Mantua had planned two operas, Gagliano's Dafne and Monteverdi's Arianna, each to a libretto by Rinuccini, although in the event Dafne was staged in advance of the festivities during the Carnival of 1608. It is just possible, however, that an opera was planned for performance in the Florentine festivities. When writing in December 1607 to Vincenzo Gonzaga refusing him Florentine singers, the Grand Duke

26 Buonarroti to Picchena, Florence, undated (August 16087), I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 6068, f. 387'-388r: "E sovviemmi di dire che avendo inteso che si trattassi dopo l'ultimo intermedio di fare un balletto di gentiluomini su la scena, io la giudico cosa che in conto nessuno no[n] possa stare, e che guasterebbe l'unita della festa. Ne quando gli uditori son pieni, hanno bisogno di altro pasto ... Io amo l'unita di questa festa - e dio volesse, che non ci fusse p[er] esser qualche cosa fortuita o mal pensata, che la disunisse, senza andare ora cercando di quelle cose che la disuniscono e sconsertano al certo ... Io so bene non ho fatto tutti li intermedi, ma solo due, p[er]che ho fatto la commedia, e considero il tutto insieme mi do ad intendere di vedere in parte il bisogno di q[ues]to spettacolo, e non ci ho altro interesse che l'onor de padroni, e di q[ues]te sereniss[im]e nozze." The new plan seems to have been that the dancing in the intermedio should fall into two parts. There was to be a ballo on La Pace's cloud (to which Buonarroti, loc. cit., objected that it would be impracticable and "sarebbe una cosa poco garbata che 8o persone in su la scena stessino oziosi a vedere 12 ragazzi ballare in cielo a guisa di chi guarda i nugoli"). Then Santi Orlandi's final ballo was to be performed without dancing (which prompted Buonarroti to remark: "e sara una sconcia cosa che un lungo ca[n] to no[n] abbia l'interposizione del ballo") and was to lead into Montalvo's "ballo di Ge[n]tilhuomini, e forse tra loro alcuni principi". Buonarroti finally complained - and this was probably the clinching point in his argument - that should this plan go ahead an excessive amount of money would be wasted. 27 Presented by Virginio Orsini: see Carlo Macigni to Grand Duchess Christine, Florence, 12 April 1608, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5994; and FERDINAND BOYER, Les Orsini et les musiciens d'Italie au debut du XVIIe siecle, in: Melanges de philologie, d'histoire et de litterature offerts a' Henri Hauvette (Paris 1934), p. 302.




mentioned that as many as three "commedie" were to be performed in the Florentine

festivities.28 Unless the Grand Duke was exaggerating to reinforce his refusal or to

impress the Duke of Mantua, there is an apparent discrepancy between this statement and the actual staging of only two entertainments that could be called "commedie" (Il giudizio di Paride and La notte d'Amore, excluding the mascherata which formed part of the Balletto de' cavalli) in October 1608.

It is unclear whether this discrepancy is related to other plans for an opera made in July 1608. On 10 July Bardi informed the Grand Duchess that "many gentlemen and literati have founded an academy of music so as to pass the time virtuously. This is well advanced, but they do not wish to put the finishing touches to it until Your Highness has been informed."29 This academy was probably Gagliano's Accademia degli Elevati, founded in June 1607 and presumably already known to the court.3o Bardi's remarks, therefore, were perhaps intended to preface an offer from the Elevati to stage an entertainment during the festivities. Indeed on 21 July Gagliano told Ferdinando Gonzaga that plans were underway to perform a "commedia" (perhaps Narciso) by Ottavio Rinuccini at the wedding.31 By 5

August, however, the idea had been dropped. This is hardly surprising: the festivities were fast approaching, and the Elevati's plans do not seem to have had the official sanction of the court. Gagliano himself complained of the shortage of time and of "many other difficulties", surely a veiled reference to renewed squabbling among the court artists.32 These difficulties may well have been increased by the fact that Rinuccini was not a member of the Accademia della Crusca, which saw itself as

having the sole right to organize court entertainments.33 Caccini, who was very much at odds with the Elevati musicians, may also have had a hand in the affair, although if it was Narciso that was to be performed then the casting would have

given him and his donne plenty of opportunity to distinguish themselves on the

28 Grand Duke Ferdinando to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, Florence, 4 December 1607, given in SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 104, and REINER, La vag'Angioletta, p. 33-34. See also n. 41 below. 29 Giovanni de' Bardi to Grand Duchess Christine, Florence, 10 July 1608, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5994:

""... molti gentilhuomini, e letterati anno eretto una Accademia di Musica p[er] poter a' tempi debiti passare il

tempo virtuosam[en] te la quale e molto avanti, ma non se gli vuol dare l'ult[im] a perfett[io] ne fino fa tanto, che loro A[ltezze] non l'habbino saputo." 30 On the Accademia degli Elevati, see EDMOND STRAINCHAMPS, New Light on the Accademia degli Elevati of Florence, in: MQ 62 (1976), p. 507-35. 31 VOGEL, Marco da Gagliano, p. 553-54; SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 105-106 (where it is suggested that it was for this occasion that Rinuccini wrote Narciso); and STRAINCHAMPS, New Light, p. 520-22. Ferdinando Gonzaga was using Gagliano as a lever to have one of his own works performed, but the majority of the Elevati

evidently preferred a contribution from Rinuccini. 32 Marco da Gagliano to Ferdinando Gonzaga, Florence, 5 August 1608, given in SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 106: "La commedia non si

farft, per quanto scorgo, giat che il tempo e breve e ci sono molte altre difficoltat, quale per non l'infastidire taccio .. ." Francesco Cini had already complained to Ferdinando Gonzaga of "il vitio di questa nostra aria" in a letter from Florence, 29 September 1607, printed in DAVARI, Notizie biografiche, p. 98, and SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 78-80. Similarly, in a letter to Ferdinando Gonzaga from Florence, 23 April 1608, Jacopo Peri complained of "le petechie che qui si fanno sentire": DAVARI, Notizie biografiche, p. 105-106, and SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 88-89. 33 GIOVANNI BATTISTA ZANNONI, Storia della Accademia della Crusca e rapporti ed eloghi editi ed inediti detti in varie adunanze solenni della medesima (Florence 1848), p. 7. Buonarroti and Cini were both members of the Crusca, CARTESIO MARCONCINI, L'Accademia della Crusca dalle origini alla prima edizione del vocabolario (1612) (Pisa 1910), p. 277-80.




stage.34 The same fate probably befell the two "favolette per recitar cantando" which Chiabrera presented to the Grand Duke for the 1608 festivities.35 In the end, the only part taken by Rinuccini in the wedding celebrations was to accompany Lorenzo Salviati to Berzighella to meet Maria Magdalena on her journey to Florence,36 a reflection of his gradual fall from favour at court.

Members of the Elevati nevertheless did contribute to the festivities. Gagliano and Peri took part in the rehearsals and performance of Paride and its intermedi, and both provided music for the occasion. Thus Gagliano published his setting of Fortune's concluding speech in the fifth intermedio, "Ovunque irato Marte in terra scende", in his 1615 Musiche,37 and Peri's setting of the final chorus of Act III of Paride, "Poiche la notte con l'oscure piume", survives in manuscript and to a different text in print.38 Similarly Lorenzo Allegri, another member of the Elevati, composed music for Cini's La notte d'Amore.39 Caccini clearly dissociated himself from Gagliano and his circle, probably recruited Santi Orlandi to his faction and

may well have tried to prevent the Elevati from playing any major role in the festivities. But the court did not employ musicians to bicker among themselves, and, as in 1589, the music was shared between all the court composers.

The provision of the large musical forces required for such entertainments caused

problems for both Florence and Mantua. Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga and his wife Eleonora both wrote to Ferdinando I in late November 1607 asking to borrow Florentine singers. Ferdinando Gonzaga added his own appeal on 20 December 1607, asking specifically for the castrato Fabio Fabri, the alto Antonio Brandi and Caccini's donne and promising faithfully to return them by the first or second day of Lent.40 The Grand Duke refused on the grounds that rehearsals were underway for the Florentine festivities and that the ladies might not be able to withstand the rigours of a winter journey to Mantua.41 He eventually relented, however, and sent

34 The prologue to Narciso is given to Giulio Caccini and contains some interesting biographical details: see SOLERTI, Gli albori II, p. 191-92. The cast of Narciso includes four nymphs. This was one of the reasons why Monteverdi rejected it as the basis of an opera (Monteverdi to Alessandro Striggio, Venice, 7 May 1627, given in SOLERTI, Gli albori I. p. 115-116, and DENIS STEVENS, trans., The Letters of Claudio Monteverdi (London 1980), p. 315-16), but it made it ideal for the forces available in Florence in 1608 (i. e. Caccini's donne and Ippolita Recupero). 31 SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 110-11. 3 RINUCCINI, Descrizione, p. 85. 37 MARCO DA GAGLIANO, Musiche a una, dua e tre voci (Venice 1615), p. 24-25, ed. PUTNAM ALDRICH, Marco da Gagliano: Musiche (.615) II (Bryn Mawr, Pa. 1972), p. 2-3. The text is given in I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 84, f. 169v; RINUCCINI, Descrizione, p. 51. 38 See CARTER, Jacopo Peri, p. 130. 39 LORENZO ALLEGRI, II primo libro delle musiche (Venice 1618), p. 13-18: "Primo Ballo della Notte d'Amore danzato nelle nozze dell'AA Serenissimi da Paggi e Dame". 40 Ferdinando Gonzaga to Grand Duchess Christine, Mantua, 20 December 1607, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5993. On the same date Rinuccini had written to Alessandro Striggio reasserting the need for Antonio Brandi and Caccini's donne in Arianna: SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 89-90. 41 Grand Duke Ferdinando to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, Florence, 4 December 1607; see n. 28 above. Also Belisario Vinta to Curzio Picchena, Florence, 20 December 1607, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 1693, no. 426:

... Et la sig[no]ra Duchessa di Mantova, se ben la scusa d[e]l non le poter concedere le Donne di Giulio Romano non si fond6 solam[en]te sopra il pericolo d[e] l'accozzarsi q[ue]lle con q[ues]te Nozze, ma che piit si hanno a fare tre Comedie, et che si sono anche chiamate Donne forestiere, et ce ne mancano ancora, et le n[ost] re, et le altre, che ci sono, ha[n] no di gia in mano le parti d[e] lle Comedie, per impararle, et che alle Assenti si son' anche mandate le lor parti, et che bisogna, che tutte studijno, et q[ue] lie, che son quai, se ragunino, et se essercitino; ha ad ogni modo la sud[dett] a Sig[no] ra Duchessa replicato, come sentiranno le A[ltezze] loro dalla sua l[ette]ra."




Brandi, Livia Schieggia and "the wife of Pompeo" (probably either Pompeo Caccini or the lutenist Pompeo di Girolamo da Modena) to join Gagliano in Mantua at some time in early 1608.42 Brandi sang in the first performance of Gagliano's Dafne43 and either Livia Schieggia or Pompeo's wife was probably the unnamed Florentine who was originally to replace Caterina Martinelli (the young soprano whose death was so lamented by Monteverdi) and who eventually sang the role of Venus in Arianna." Santi Orlandi and a "putto" were also sent to Mantua by mid-January 1608, and another Florentine, Domenico Belli, also took part in the Mantuan

festivities.4 Ferdinando Gonzaga's promise to return the Florentine musicians by Lent was

soon forgotten with the repeated postponements of the Mantuan wedding caused, as in Florence, by delays in the signing of the marriage treaty. On 8 March 1608 (n. s.) Marco da Gagliano wrote to Buonarroti saying that his return was being prevented by the Duke and Duchess of Mantua and reporting that Peri had been asked to

supervise the rehearsing of "my songs for one, two and three voices" and Giovanni Benci "the eight-part madrigals". These were presumably for the Florentine

festivities.46 Brandi echoed Gagliano in a letter to the Grand Duchess of 9 March 1608 (n. s.):

As Your Most Serene Highness commanded, I came here to Mantua to serve Their Highnesses without regard for either expense or inconvenience, or for the leaving of my affairs in God knows what state. Now Signor Giovanni de' Bardi has written saying that you are angry with me because I have not returned when I promised. I would have done so were it not for the fact that first the Duke and then the Duchess ordered me not to leave. Indeed this very morning, when messer Marco da Gagliano and I went to ask Her Highness for permission to leave, she told us both that we should not do so until she had received a reply to her request to Your Most Serene Highness for permission to have us serve her in these wedding festivities. Although we remonstrated several times and showed her the letters written to me by Signor Giovanni she repeated the same thing, confident that Your Highness would not take it amiss that we should stay here and should leave everything to her. I have dwelt upon her words and have decided to write to Your Highness so that you might command what I should do. Were it not for the fact that I hesitated to cause you displeasure, since you sent me to serve these monarchs, I would have come in response to Signor Giovanni's first letter, but it seemed to me to conform more to service to Your Highness to obey Their Highnesses and to give them time to write ...47

42 Giovanni de' Bardi wrote to the Grand Duchess on 29 December 1607 saying that Brandi was needed for all the music of the approaching festivities and that he could not be spared - I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5993 - but this was ignored. On the offer of Livia Schieggia (who sang in the 1611 performance of Gagliano's Dafne in Florence - see BOYER, Les Orsini, p. 304) and "la moglie di Pompeo" to Mantua, see Camillo Rinuccini to Grand Duchess Christine, Florence, 5 February 1607/8, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5994. 43 MARCO DA GAGLIANO, La Dafne (Florence 1608), preface. 4 SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 94, and REINER, La vag'Angioletta, p. 55, n. 103. Both Solerti and Reiner suggest that the unnamed Florentine was Settimia Caccini, but this is unlikely. 45 SOLERTI, p. 91, n. 1, and Domenico Belli to Ferdinando Gonzaga, Florence, 11 June 1616, printed in ALESSANDRO ADEMOLLO, La bell'Adriana ed altre virtuose del suo tempo alla corte di Mantova (Citta di Castello 1888), p. 216.

46 Marco da Gagliano to Michelangelo Buonarroti, Mantua, 8 March 1608 (n. s.), I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 46, no. 686, printed in MASERA, Michelangelo Buonarroti, p. 105-106. 47 Antonio Brandi to Grand Duchess Christine, Mantua, 9 March 1608 (n. s.), I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5994: "Come mi f~ comandato da V[ostra] A[ltezza] S[erenissima] venni qui in Mantova p[er] servir queste Alt[ez]ze non guardando, ne a spesa, ne a disagio, ne a lasciar le cose mie nel termine che Dio ssa, hora mi viene scritto dal Sig[no]r Giovanni Bardi ch'ella si mostra sdegnata contro di me p[er] ch'io non sono tornato al tempo



T. Carter: A Florentine Wedding of 16o8 lo0

The Florentine musicians returned only after the Mantuan festivities, in late May or early June. Since the Florentine wedding had itself been postponed, however, less damage was done than might have been feared.

Ferdinando I's reluctance to lend musicians to Mantua was partly prompted by the fact that he was having to import singers for his own festivities. He and Cardinal Montalto operated a reciprocal arrangement of lending musicians,48 and the Cardinal sent at least two of his singers to Florence, the virtuoso soprano Ippolita Recupero (or Recupito), the wife of the composer Cesare Marotta, and the bass Melchior Palontrotti, who had taken the part of Pluto in the first performance of Peri's Euridice.49 According to Severo Bonini "Giulio Caccini spent three months teaching them the recitative style which they were to use for the verse of the

intermedi."o5 Twelve French "sonatori di viole" were also brought to Florence, two of whom, Antonio Gai and Giovachino Biancotto, were to stay on in court service.5' As always, too, the court was on the look-out for more native talent, but at least one singer was not as flattered by the offer of singing in the festivities as might have been expected:

Madame gave the order that that French girl [Maddalena Mallevieglia] should leave the convent, but she replied that she was a gentlewoman and that it did not seem fitting for her to sing in a comedy. It could easily be that her father has brought her up with such ideas, but Her Highness has commanded that she be spoken to again and perhaps this time she will be ready to put aside her pride. I should tell Your Lordship that when this girl is ready to sing I gather from well-qualified people that messer Santi is not capable of teaching her the art of good singing because he does not know it himself, and that perhaps it would be better, since

che havevo promesso, come sarebbe seguito, se dal Sig[no]r Duca prima, e dalla Sig[no]ra Duc[hes]sa poi, non mi fosse stato comandato ch'io non mi partissi, e pure questa stessa mattina, che m[esser] Marco da Gagliano, et io, siamo andati p[er] chieder licenza S[ua] Alt[ez] za ci ha detto a tutti a due che non partiamo in modo nessuno fino a che non ha risposta dall'Alt[ez]za V[ostr]a S[erenissi]ma sperando ch'ella sia p[er] concederci licenza di serv[ir]la in queste Noz[z]e, et havendo l'un e l'altro di noi replicato pir' volte, e mostro le l[ette]re che mi scriveva il sig[no]r Giovanni, ci replic6 lo stesso, assicurandosi, che V[ostra] Alt[ezz]a non ha[v]rebbe p[er] male, che noi ci tratteness[er]o qui, e che ne lasciassimo a lei ogni carico, Io su4 sue parole mi sono fermato, e preso risoluzione di darne conto a V[ostra] Alt[ezz]a acci6 comandi quello ch'io debba fare, e se non fussi che io ho dubitato di non darle disgusto havendomi lei mandato a servir questi Principi me ne sarei venuto alla p[ri] ma l[ette] ra del S[igno]r Gio[vanni] ma mi e parso pir' servizio di V[ostra] Alt[ez]za obbedire a queste Al[tez]ze e darle tempo di scrivere . .." 4 BOYER, Les Orsini, p. 305. On Montalto's musicians, see Giustiniani in ANGELO SOLERTI, Le origini del melodramma (Turin 1903; repr. ed. Hildesheim 1969), p. 110. 49 Cardinal Montalto to Grand Duchess Christine, 28 July 1607, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5993: "Havevo gia inteso, e con mio sommo piacere le feste, che si preparano costi nelle quali compiacendosi V[ostra] Alt[ez]za, che habbiano da servire i miei Musici, come essi si preggiano di questo honore, e sono tutti concordi di mettere ogn'arte, et ogni studio loro in quello, che di costa' gli sara' ordinato, e di venirsene a' Fiorenza ad ogni cenno, che se gli ne faccia .. ."; also Francesco Cini to Ferdinando Gonzaga, Florence, 26 October 1608, given in SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 82-85. On Ippolita, see ALBERTO CAMETTI, Chi era l'<<Hippolita), cantatrice del cardinal di Montalto, in: SIMG 15 (1913-14), p. 111-23. She was in Florence by July 1608: Horatio della Rena to Grand Duchess Christine, Rome, 8 July 1608, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 5994. 50 SEVERO BONINI, Prima parte de' discorsi e regole so[v]ra la musica, I: Fr, MS 2218, f. 100r-v: "Giulio Caccini dur6 tre mesi ad insegnar lori cantare lo stile recitativo del quale si doveano servire nelle parole degl'intermedij . ." 51 The "sonatori di viole" were also offered to Mantua, but they were refused: Lelio Arrigoni to Belisario Vinta, Mantua, 18 April 1608, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 947, f. 363. Gai and Biancotto were taken into court service on 1 December 1608 - I: Fas, Depositeria Generale, 389, appendix no. 878 - at a monthly wage of ten scudi each. They formed the nucleus of the "franzesi", the string group used to provide dance music for the court in the 1610s.



102 T. Carter: A Florentine Wedding of i6o8

Giulio Romano [Caccini] would not want this inconvenience, to have Zazzerino [Peri] teach her.52

In the end, however, the girl remained obstinate in her refusal to take to the stage. Maria Magdalena made her triumphal entry into Florence on 18 October 1608

with the customary pageantry, and the procession's short pause in the Duomo occasioned the usual music for four choirs, each descending on a cloud from the

cupola."3 On the next day, a Sunday, there was the nuptial banquet, with, again, musicians descending on a cloud and Apollo and Cupid appearing in their

respective chariots. On Monday the 20th there was a calcio match in the Piazza S. Croce and on Tuesday a festa in S. Lorenzo when the Grand Duke distributed dowries to paupers. Cini's La notte d'Amore, a series of loosely related tableaux

interspersed with dancing, was performed on the Wednesday evening lasting until

dawn, and "Signora Ippolita, musician to the Signor Cardinal Montalto, distin-

guished herself marvellously in the singing."54 On the next day there was a palio and on Friday the general council of the Knights of St. Stephen, brought to Florence

specially for the occasion, met in S. Lorenzo with much pomp and pageantry,

"'particolarmente di musiche"".5 Il giudizio di Paride was performed on Saturday 25 October: At four o'clock we moved to the theatre, where all the royalty and cardinals sat on the same

level, but in no fixed order. The comedy owed its success to the intermedi, which were a beautiful sight, and to the machines, which although they did not perform miracles are nevertheless to be praised for having done their job well without any mishap. The best part of the music was Cardinal Montalto's Signora Ippolita, and this was well recognized, for the audience was continually noisy except for when she was singing, when there was universally

52 Curzio Picchena to Michelangelo Buonarroti, Villa Ferdinanda, 15 August 1608, I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 51, no. 1441: "Madama dette l'ordine, che quella fanciulla franzese uscisse del Monastero, ma ella rispose, che era Gentildonna, et non le parva conveniente cantar' in commedia, et pu6 facilmente essere, che suo Padre l'habbia allevata con questa opinione, ma S[ua] A[ltezza] ha commesso che le sia parlato di nuovo, et forse per questa volta ella si contentera di metter da banda il fumo. Debbo ben dire a V[ostra] S[ignoria] che quando questa fanciulla habbia da cantare, io intendo da persone pratichissime, che m[esser] Santi non e atto ad insegnarle ii garbo del cantare, poi che non lo debbe sapere per se stesso, et che sarebbe forse meglio, perche Giulio Romano non vorrebbe questa briga farla ammaestrare dal Zazzerino." Other letters concerning Maddalena Mallevieglia survive in I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 51, nos. 1440 and 1442 (Picchena to Buonarroti, Villa Ferdinanda, 12 and 19 August 1608), and in I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 949, f. 929r (Maddalena Mallevieglia to Belisario Vinta, Florence, 13 August 1608). The comment on Santi Orlandi's teaching qualifications is slightly surprising, for at least three boys from his "scuola" sang in the festivities. Peri, it seems, was often employed as a teacher. In 1602 Antonio del Frate Cinatti is recorded as being a pupil of his (I: Fas, Depositeria Generale, 389, appendix no. 502), and in June or July 1608 the Ferrarese Angela Zanibelli was sent to him from Mantua: ADEMOLLO, La bell'Adriana, p. 67, and REINER, La vag'Angioletta, p. 41-42. On the search for singers for the festivities, see also Enea Vaini to Andrea Cioli, Florence, 10 January 1607/8, I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 1693, no. 442. sa The following account of the festivities draws upon RINUCCINI, Descrizione; SETTIMANNI, Memorie

florentine VI, I: Fas, Manoscritti, 131, f. 571r-614r; SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 40-57; and NAGLER, Theatre Festivals of the Medici, p. 101-115. See also Ottavio Rinuccini to Ferdinando Gonzaga, Florence, 2 September 1608, given in ADEMOLLO, La bell'Adriana, p. 60-61. Details of the inscriptions on the

triumphal arches for Maria Magdalena's entry into the city and plans for the reception of the many visitors to Florence, etc., are given in I:Fas, Strozziane I, 361, f. 50r-64r. Letters and notes relating to the festivities are also contained in I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 1693, and Guardaroba Medicea, 291.

s4 Dispatch of Alfonso Fontanelli to the Duke of Modena, Florence, 27 October 1608, given in SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 45: "la Sig[no] ra Hippolita musica del Sig[no] re Car[dina] le Montalto si segnal6 mirabilmente nel canto ..." Also Marco da Gagliano to Ferdinando Gonzaga, Florence, 30 September 1608, given in VOGEL, Marco da Gagliano, p. 555; SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 106; REINER, La vag'Angioletta, p. 27, n. 4. " RINUCCINI, Descrizione, p. 37.




a delightful silence... The comedy was The Judgment of Paris, to which the audience paid little attention, either because the beauty lay in the intermedi or because the story was too well known to arouse any curiosity.56

Evidently the careful rehearsals had paid off, even if Buonarroti's play received a typical, and probably deserved, fate.

The new altar and tabernacle in S. Spirito were unveiled on the 26th,57 and on the 27th the Balletto de' cavalli was held in the Piazza S. Croce. This was a new type of entertainment, which became extremely popular in Florence in the second decade of the century. The 1608 Balletto incorporated a tournament, with Prince Cosimo taking part, a mascherata devised by Lorenzo Franceschi on the subject of Aeolus and the Winds, and a ballo danced by the cavalry "to the sound of violins".58 For the rest of the week bad weather permitted only a giuoco del ponte on the Ponte S. Trinita on the Tuesday and a joust, performed by the Sienese, on the Thursday. Because of rain the grand naval battle on the Arno was postponed until the following Monday. This had been devised by Francesco Cini and took as its theme the story of Jason and the Argonauts. As well as the fighting and intricate naval manoeuvres there were short allegorical scenes enacted on boats before the bride and groom."9 This mock battle marked the official end of the festivities. Il giudizio di Paride, however, was repeated in November 1608 for the benefit of the Duke of Mantua, who had been unable to attend the October festivities,60 and La notte d'Amore was repeated on 25 January 1608/9.61

The official accounts of the festivities are replete with mentions of "dilettevoli sinfonie" and "dolcissime musiche", but more experienced listeners seem to have told a different story. The singer Francesco Campagnolo reported to Ferdinando Gonzaga, perhaps with intentional exaggeration, that the music "seemed ugly, with innumerable defects... and indeed this was due to bad direction and simply the treachery of men who are more vicious than virtuous."62 Evidently petty bickering, ' Fontanelli's dispatch, given in SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 47: "su le vintidue hore si pass6 alla sala della Comedia, stando tutti i Principi e Cardinali in un palco medesimo, ma senza ordine fermo. La Comedia riusci per gli intermedij d'assai buona vista, e le machine, le quali non operarono miracoli, sono per6 da lodare in questa parte, che adempirono senz'alcun sinistro l'uffitio loro molto acconciatamente. II vanto nella musica tocc6 alle S[igno] ra Hippolita del S[igno]re Car[dina]le Montalto, e ben si conosceva, poiche sempre vi era strepito, se non quando essa cantava, ch'allora si serbava universalmente uno esquisito silentio... La Comedia era il Giuditio di Paride, onde, o perche la vaghezza consisteva negli intermedij, o perch&, come favola troppo nota, non generava molta curiosita di sentirla, fu ascoltata con pochissima attentione ..." 57 RINUCCINI, Descrizione, p. 58. I: Fas, Mediceo del Principato, 6068, f. 402r, gives details of plans for "una Rappresentazione spirituale, ai imitazione di quella, che fu fatta nella Chiesa di S[an] to Spirito l'anno 1565". It is not known if this was performed. 58 RINUCCINI, Descrizione, p. 62. 59 GIORGIO PIRANESI, Di un pubblico festeggiamento tenuto in Firenze il III. di Novembre MDCVIII. in occasione delle nozze di Cosimo II. de' Medici con Maria Maddalena d'Austria (Florence 1905). Thetis appeared on a barge and sang before the bridal couple: RINUCCINI, Descrizione, p. 73. Perhaps Cini had found a use for part of his Tetide after all. 60 SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 54; Benedetto Barchetti to Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pitti Palace, 16 November 1608, I: Fl, Archivio Buonarroti, 42, no. 285: "Madama Ser[enissi] ma m'ha comandato di scrivere a V[ostra] S[ignoria] che presenti al Sig[nor] Duca di Mantova quando sarsa alla Commedia un libretto 6 due della Commedia con le canzone dell'Intermedij perch[e] quest'Alt[ez]za gusta molto di queste cose et solleciti dalla parte S[ua] A[ltezza] al piz% ch[e] si possa perche vogliono Madama, et il Granduca ch[e] si cominci di giorno ai buon hora." 61 SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 57. 62 Francesco Campagnolo to Ferdinando Gonzaga, Florence [?], 31 October 1608, given in DAVARI, Notizie biografiche, p. 17, and SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 57, n. 1: "queste musiche . . . a me sono parse



104 T. Carter: A Florentine Wedding of 2608

no doubt with Caccini at the head, had once again spoilt the artistic endeavours of the court. However, the squabbles do not seem to have come as much into the open as in 1600, and the general opinion was that the festivities had been entirely successful. Indeed Gabriele Bertazzuolo reported to the Duke of Mantua that, with certain reservations, the comedy "surpassed the one in Mantua in every way".63

The conflict between Caccini and the Elevati did not end here, although subsequent events were to place Caccini firmly on a downward path. Luca Bati, the Grand Duke's maestro di cappella, died on 17 October 1608. Marco da Gagliano and Santi Orlandi, supported respectively by Ferdinando Gonzaga (by now a

cardinal) and Cardinal del Monte, competed for the post, and Gagliano won.64 This was certainly a blow to Caccini and his faction; Caccini was no longer young and was also in financial difficulties,65 and he seems to have taken Gagliano's appointment as a cue for semi-retirement from court life. Another, more obvious

change in court politics was caused by the death of Grand Duke Ferdinando I on 7

February 1608/9. He had always retained a certain prejudice against Florentines, stemming from his residence in Rome before succeeding to the throne.66 His heir Cosimo II, however, was born and bred in Florence and showed none of his father's

prejudice. From now on Caccini (who had always ostentatiously styled himself

"Romano") appears less and less in court records, while Gagliano and his

colleagues, notably Peri, come into increasing prominence. Santi Orlandi, however, still bore a grudge. In mid-1609 he led a breakaway group of Elevati members who set themselves up as a rival group to Gagliano's academy. He attracted to his cause some of the most prominent of Florentine patrons, including Michelangelo Buonarroti and Giovanni Battista Strozzi, and the new academy gained official

recognition.67 Even Ferdinando Gonzaga, weary of having his repeated requests for music unanswered, deserted Gagliano and attended some of the meetings of the new

group. But it was short-lived and had little effect on the new maestro di cappella's control over the Florentine musical establishment. During the reign of Cosimo II, who loved extravagant festivities and whose court calendar was full of tournaments and equestrian ballets in the Piazza S. Croce, naval battles on the Arno and scenic

extravaganzas in the Pitti Palace, it was Gagliano and Peri who enjoyed the musical

limelight and who continued the tradition of spectacular entertainments for which Florence was so famous.

molto brutte la maggior parte di loro, con molti ed infiniti difetti ... et questo veramente e proceduto da un mal governo et mera perfidia d'uomini piuttosto viziosi che virtuosi.. ." See also n. 32 above. 63 SOLERTI, Musica, ballo e drammatica, p. 55: ".... ha superato quella di Mantova in ogni cosa." For later comments on the festivities, see GIULIANO GIRALDI, Orazione .. . delle lodi di Ferdinando Primo Granduca di Toscana, in: Prose fiorentine raccolte dallo Smarrito Accademico della Crusca, ed. CARLO ROBERTO DATI, 6 vols. (Florence 1661-1723), I, p. 271; CLAUDE-FRANCOIS MENESTRIER, Traits des tournois,

joustes, carrousels et autres spectacles publics (Lyons 1669), p. 55-56, 153-54, 174-76, 321; and IDEM, Des

representations en musique anciennes et modernes (Paris 1681), p. 255-63. 64 See the letters printed in VOGEL, Marco da Gagliano, p. 555-57; see also AMELIA CIVITA, Ottavio Rinuccini e il sorgere del melodramma in Italia (Mantua 1900), p. 196. 65 BOYER, Les Orsini, p. 306.

6 Giovanvettorio Soderini to Silvio Piccolomini, Florence, 22 December 1587, in SETTIMANNI, Memorie

florentine V (1587-1595), I: Fas, Manoscritti, 130, f. 30v: "Il Cittadino sta rimesso, gli Amici son diventati Servitori, e questi tramutati in schiavi; ma Forestieri pilu di tutti graditi, ed antesignani." See also CARTER, Jacopo Peri, p. 124. 67 SOLERTI, Gli albori I, p. 112-13, and STRAINCHAMPS, New Light, p. 524-30.



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A Florentine Wedding of 1608

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