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Francesco Landini and the Florentine cultural élite*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Michael P. Long
Michael P. Long*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin at Madison
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Extract

The French orientation of Florentine music in the second half of the Trecento, particularly with regard to the practice and theory of notation, has been recognised by music historians since the surveys of medieval sources and style made by Johannes Wolf and Friedrich Ludwig at the beginning of this century. The evidence for the ‘contenance française’ that has been most frequently cited includes texting procedures in three-voice compositions, structural features (such as the appearance of verto and chiuso endings in the polyphonic ballata), textual gallicisms and the presence of French compositions in Florentine musical manuscripts. The network of transmission which accounts for the appearance of these features in Italian music and musical sources has remained a matter for speculation. The fusion of French and Florentine traits of style in the last quarter of the fourteenth century has traditionally been viewed, at least in part, as a result of presumed personal contacts between French and Italian composers. The changing face of musical style does not, however, reflect a totally independent musical process; style is a function of the tastes and demands of an audience, as well as of the artistic personalities of specific composers. Florentine receptivity to French stylistic influences was determined by a number of factors, not the least important of which was the nature of the audience for music.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 3 , January 1983 , pp. 83 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 Here, and throughout this paper, I use the term ‘French’ in the broad cultural sense to include not only the French Kingdom but also the papal dominion of Avignon.

2 See, for example, Wolf, J., ‘Florenz in der Musikgeschichte des 14. Jahrhunderts’, Sammelbände der Internationalen Musik-Gesellschaft, 3 (1901/1902), p. 605 Google Scholar, and Wolf, Geschichte der Mensuralnotation von 1250–1460, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1904; repr. 1965), i, pp. 304ff.Google Scholar See also Ludwig, F., ‘Die mehrstimmige Musik des 14. Jahrhunderts’, Sammelbände der Internationalen Musik-Gesellschaft, 4 (1902/1903), pp. 60–1;Google Scholar and idem, ed., Guillaume de Machaut: Musikalische Werke, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1926–1929; repr. 1954), ii, p. 28.Google Scholar The seminal modern study is von Fischer, K., Studien zur italienischen Musik des Trecento und frühen Quattrocento (Berne, 1956), esp. pp. 111–13.Google Scholar

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8 Kent, F. W., Household and Lineage in Renaissance Florence (Princeton, 1977), pp. 284–5.Google Scholar

9 See Gallo, F. A., ‘Lorenzo Masini e Francesco degli Organi in S. Lorenzo’, Studi Musicali, 4 (1975), pp. 57–64;Google Scholar D'Accone, F., ‘Music and Musicians at the Florentine Monastery of Santa Trinità, 1360–1363’, Quadrivium, 12 (1971), pp. 131–52;Google Scholar and idem, ‘Giovanni Mazzuoli: a Late Representative of the Italian Ars Nova’, L'ars nova italiana del trecento: Convegni di studio 1961–1967, ed. Gallo, F. A. (Certaldo, 1968), pp. 23–38 Google Scholar. Concerning Santo Spirito, see below, pp. 94–5.

10 Bowsky, W., ‘The Impact of the Black Death upon Sienese Government and Society’, Speculum, 39 (1964), p. 16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

11 D'Accone, , ‘Music and Musicians’, pp. 145 n. 53, 147Google Scholar; also the evidence of Prato, Il Paradiso.

12 de Roover, R., ‘The Story of the Alberti Company of Florence, 1302–1348, as Revealed in its Account Books’, Business History Review, 32 (1958), p. 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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14 Brucker, , Renaissance Florence, p. 68.Google Scholar

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16 Renouard, Y., ‘Le compagnie commerciali fiorentine del Trecento’, Études, I, pp. 519–26Google Scholar, includes a list of the Alberti houses throughout Trecento Europe. See also the biographies of Diamante and Altobianco degli Alberti in Passerini, L., Gli Alberti di Firenze (Florence, 1870), pp. 79, 89.Google Scholar

17 Brucker, , Renaissance Florence, p. 69.Google Scholar

18 Renouard, , ‘Affaires et culture’, p. 487 Google Scholar, and Brucker, , Renaissance Florence, p. 70.Google Scholar

19 See Pirrotta, N., ‘Ballata’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Blume, F., 16 vols. (Kassel, 1949–1979), i, col. 1162.Google Scholar

20 da Tempo, Antonio, in Summa artis rithimici vulgaris dictaminis (1332), ed. Andrews, R. (Bologna, 1977), p. 74 Google Scholar, dictates that the sonus (musical setting) of a madrigal should be altered at the ritornello, along with the rhyme. That this alternation was intended to be primarily metrical is borne out by the number of madrigals which exhibit a metre change at the end of the terzetti.

21 See Antal, F., Florentine Painting and its Social Background (London, 1947);Google Scholar also Spitzer, L., ‘Note on the Poetic and the Empirical “I” in Medieval Authors’, Traditio, 4 (1946), pp. 414–22Google Scholar, and Schulz-Buschhaus, U., Das Madrigal (Bad Homburg, 1969), pp. 14–27.Google Scholar

22 Spitzer, , ‘Note on the Poetic and the Empirical “I”’, pp. 416–17.Google Scholar

23 Renouard, , ‘Affaires et culture’, p. 495.Google Scholar

24 The Works of Francesco Landini, ed. Schrade, L., Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century 4 (Monaco, 1958–1959), p. 177.Google Scholar

25 von Fischer, K., ‘Ein Versuch zur Chronologie von Landinis Werken’, Musica Disciplina, 20 (1966), p. 42.Google Scholar

26 ‘Contemplar le gran cose c'è onesto/Di chi tutto ghoverna;/Ma cerchar le ragion non c'è richiesto./Che metter tempo e sottigliar la mente/In voler cerchar quel che c'è negato./Che quanto lo ‘ntelletto è più possente/Nelle ragion più mancha d'ongni lato./Ma vengnamo a rimedio che a te dato/Che toglie il viver mesto,/Del creder puro e stian contentia questo’ (text after Schrade, , The Works of Francesco Laudini, p. 177).Google Scholar

27 Von Fischer, , ‘Ein Versuch’, p. 37.Google Scholar

28 A good introduction to Ockham's works and bibliography is provided by Leff, G., William of Ockham: The Metamorphosis of Scholastic Discourse (Manchester, 1975).Google Scholar

29 Boehner, P., ed., Ockham: Philosophical Writings (Edinburgh, 1957), pp. 125–6.Google Scholar

30 Stephenson, C., Medieval History (New York, 1943), p. 602.Google Scholar

31 See the citations in Lanza, A., Polemiche e berte letterarie nella Firenze del primo quattrocento (Rome, 1971), pp. 39ff.Google Scholar

32 Fols. 132r–135v. The best edition of the poem is in Lanza, , Polemiche, pp. 233–8.Google Scholar An English translation by Blank, David is included in my dissertation, ‘Musical Tastes in Fourteenth-century Italy: Notational Styles, Scholarly Traditions, and Historical Circumstances’ (Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1981), pp. 136–41.Google Scholar Excerpts in the present text are drawn from Blank's translation; line-numbers refer to Lanza's edition of the Latin text.

33 The scribe identifies himself on fol. 49: ‘Johannes de Empoli clericum florentine diecesis et cubicularium Reverendissimi in Christo patris et Domini mei Domini Petri de Corsinis de florentia Portuensis et s. Rufine episcopi S. Romane ecclesie Cardinalis’. Corsini continued to be referred to in Avignon as the Cardinal of Florence even after the events of 1378 described below. See, for instance, Meier, A., ‘Ein Leihregister aus der Bibliothek des letzten Avignonese Papstes Benedikt XIII’, Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, 20 (1966), p. 314.Google Scholar

34 An inventory (though incomplete and often incorrect) is given in Boehner, P., ‘Ein Gedicht auf die Logik Ockhams’, Franziskanische Studien, 26 (1939), pp. 7–80.Google Scholar Some of the lesser-known authors whose works are included in the manuscript are discussed in Mehus, L., Historia litteraria fiorentina (Florence, 1769), p. 207 Google Scholar, and Coville, A., La vie intellectuelle dans les domaines d'Anjou-Provence de 1380 à 1435 (Paris, 1941), pp. 369ff.Google Scholar Among the more widely circulated works included in the collection are excerpts from the Speculum historiale of Vincent of Beauvais and Petrarch's Africa. The latter inspired considerable interest among Italian intellectuals in the second half of the Trecento, particularly in the period immediately following Petrarch's death in 1374. See Billanovich, G., Petrarca letterato (Rome, 1947), pp. 359ff.Google Scholar

35 ll. 1–12, 28–30.

36 ll. 60ff.

37 ll. 69–73.

38 ll. 118.

39 ll. 134–9, 151–2.

40 ll. 174–80.

41 The literary manifestations of early humanist polemic are discussed in detail in Baron, H., The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (Princeton, 1966).Google Scholar

42 Lanza, , Polemiche, ll. 100–2.Google Scholar

43 Saitta, G., Il pensiero italiano nell'Umanesimo e nel Rinascimento, 3 vols. (Bologna, 1949), i, pp. 143ff.Google Scholar

44 See Martines, , The Social World, pp. 307–8.Google Scholar

45 Mariani, U., Il Petrarca e gli Agostiniani (Rome, 1946), p. 83.Google Scholar

46 For a list of manuscript sources, see Mariani, , Il Petrarca, pp. 92–6.Google Scholar

47 Cesare Vasoli suggested both as possible objects of Landini's invective, in ‘Polemiche occamiste’, Rinascimento, 3 (1953), p. 126.Google Scholar Lanza, , Polemiche, pp. 48ff Google Scholar, argued for Niccoli.

48 Salutati appears to have been a friend and supporter of Landini. In 1375 he recommended Landini as an organist to Cardinal Piero Corsini (the letter of recommendation is published in Wesselofsky, A., ed., Il Paradiso degli Alberti, 2 vols., Bologna, 1867, i, pp. 323–6).Google Scholar Niccoli was born in 1364, and thus would have been in his teens at the time the poem was written. His earliest academic training was undertaken (in part under Marsili's tutelage) only after his retirement from the family wool business around 1385, following the death of his father. Consequently, Niccoli must be considered an unlikely candidate for the demagogue described by Landini. On Niccoli's career, see Martines, , The Social World, p. 160 Google Scholar, and da Bisticci, Vespasiano, Le vite degli uomini illustri, ed. Greco, A., 2 vols. (Florence, 1970), ii, p. 225.Google Scholar

49 Petrarch, F., Sine nomine: Lettere polemiche e politiche, ed. Dotti, U. (Bari, 1974)Google Scholar. See, for example, Marsili's letter to Guido del Palagio ‘al tempo della guerra tra i fiorentini et la chiesa’, in Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 1080, fols. 36v–39r.

50 Mariani, , Il Petrarca, pp. 66–92 Google Scholar. See also Hay, , The Italian Renaissance, pp. 120–1.Google Scholar

51 Petrarch, F., Le familiari, ed. Rossi, V., 4 vols. (Florence, 1933–1942), i, pp. 35–8.Google Scholar On the dating of this letter, see Wilkins, E., Petrarch's Correspondence, Medioevo e Umanesimo 3 (Padua, 1960), p. 50.Google Scholar

52 Epistolae rerum senilium, v 2: 28 August 1364; trans. Bishop, M.. Letters from Petrarch (Bloomington, Indiana, 1966), p. 246.Google Scholar

53 Bishop, , trans., Letters, p. 295.Google Scholar

54 Ibid., p. 298.

55 Ibid., pp. 206–7.

56 Ibid., p. 191.

57 Struever, N., The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism (Princeton, 1970), pp. 146–7.Google Scholar

58 In the light of Petrarch's death in 1374, a dating of c. 1380–1 for Landini's poem (based on the biography of its intended recipient, Antonio da Vado, as well as its inclusion in a manuscript of the early 1380s) argues against the possibility raised in my dissertation that the poem may have been aimed at Petrarch himself. On Antonio da Vado's career in Florence, see Novati, F., ed., Salutati: Epistolario, 4 vols. (Rome, 1891–1911), ii, p. 52 n. 1.Google Scholar Lanza's objection that Marsili and Landini were friends on the basis of the evidence provided by Prato's Il Paradiso may not be sustained, in view of the noted historical inaccuracies of that work. See Baron, , The Crisis, esp. p. 90.Google Scholar

59 Schrade, , ed., The Works of Francesco Landini, pp. 213–15.Google Scholar

60 Trexler, R., ‘Economic, Political and Religious Effects of the Papal Interdict on Florence, 1376–1378’ (Inaugural thesis, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1964), pp. 147–8.Google Scholar

61 See Brucker, G., The Civil World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton. 1977), p. 117.Google Scholar

62 Fol. 142r. De musica secundum filippum de vitriaco, quoted in full in Long, ‘Musical Tastes’, pp. 223–5.

63 See especially the anonymous vernacular ‘Notitia del valore delle note’ in Florence. Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, MS Redi 71, fols. 13r–24r. The citations of French theorists are discussed by Carapetyan, Armen in his edition of the ‘Notitia’, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica 5 (Rome, 1957), pp. 27–8.Google Scholar

64 On the geographical boundaries of Marchettan notation, see Long, , ‘Musical Tastes’, pp. 116–18.Google Scholar

65 Hay, , The Italian Renaissance, p. 120 Google Scholar, and Voigt, G., Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1893; repr. 1960), i, p. 340.Google Scholar See also Brucker, G., ‘Florence and its University, 1348–1434’, Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of E. H. Harbison, ed. Rabb, T. K. and Seigel, J. E. (Princeton, 1969). p. 234.Google Scholar

66 Gutierrez, D., ‘La Biblioteca di Santo Spirito in Firenze nella metà del secolo xv’, Analecta Augustiniana, 25 (1962), pp. 6–7 Google Scholar, and Weiss, R., ‘An English Augustinian in Late Fourteenth-century Florence’, English Miscellany, 9 (1958), p. 18.Google Scholar

67 Vonschott, H.. Geistiges Leben im Augustinerorden am Ende des Mittelalters und zu Beginn der Neuzeit (Berlin, 1915). p. 23.Google Scholar

68 Ibid., pp. 23–3. See also Arbesmann, R., Der Augustinereremitenorden und der Beginn der humanistischen Bewegung. Cassiciacum 19 (Würzburg, 1965), pp. 73ff.Google Scholar

69 Marsili conducted embassies to Louis of Anjou and Charles of Durazzo in 1382 and 1383. See Martines, . The Social World, p. 307 Google Scholar, and Becker, M., Florence in Transition, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1967). ii. p. 55.Google Scholar

70 Guillemain, B.. La cour pontificale d'Avignon (1309–1376) (Paris, 1962), pp. 598–601.Google Scholar

71 The office of chamberlain, for instance, was typically held by an Augustinian. Ibid., p. 372.

72 Pansier, P.. Histoire du livre et de l'imprimerie à Avignon du xive au xvie siècle, 2 vols. (Avignon, 1922). i. pp. 6–7, 22, 33–4.Google Scholar

73 One of the flyleaves bears an inscription referring to Francesco di Altobianco degli Alberti. His father. Altobianco di Niccolo, was exiled from Florence in 1401 through the influence of his enemies in the powerful Albizzi faction. He eventually took up residence in Paris, where the family already had firm contacts. Altobianco's father Niccolo had taken part in diplomatic missions to the Avignon court during the 1350s and 1360s. Passerini, , Gli Alberti, p. 89.Google Scholar and Alberti, L. B., I primi tre libri della famiglia, ed. Spongano, R. (Florence, 1946). p. XXXV.Google Scholar A further piece of evidence linking the Chantilly Manuscript with Florentine circles is the number of works it shares with the Florentine source Biblioteca Xazionalc Centrale, MS Panciatichi 26. See Günther, U., “Die Anwendung der Diminution in der Handschrift Chantilly 1047’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 17 (1960), p. 3.Google Scholar

74 Günther, U., ed., The Motets of the Manuscripts Chantilly, Musée condé, 564 (olim 1047) and Modena, Biblioteca estense, α. M. 5, 24, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicac 39 (1965), pp. 40–5Google Scholar. The work is attributed to Egidius of Orleans, an Augustinian.

75 Ibid., pp. xliii–xlv.

76 Pirrotta, N., ed., The Music of Fourteenth-century Italy, V, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8 (Rome, 1964), p. II.Google Scholar

77 Ibid., pp. 28–9.

78 The attributions to Guiglielmus are: ‘Frate guglielmo di santo spirito’ (Panciatichi 26); ‘M. frater guilelmus de francia’ (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, MS Palat. 87, Squarcialupi Codex); ‘Frate guiglielmo di francia’ (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds ital. MS 568); and ‘Fratte guiglielmo di santo spirito’ (London, British Library, Add. MS 29987).

79 Fol. 173V.

80 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, MS Ashburnham 574, fol. 21v.

81 Formerly Florence, Archivio di Stato, Conventi Soppressi, 122, 36.

82 Conventi Soppressi, 122, 76.

83 Conventi soppressi, 122, 76, fol. 14.

84 ‘Rotulus facultatis artium Parisiensum ad Urbanem V missus’, ed. Denifle, H., Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, 4 vols. (Paris, 1889–1891), iii, p. 82.Google Scholar

85 Florence, Archivio di Stato, Museo Diplomatico, Pergamene di S. Spirito: 16 June 1371. No French Guiglielmus appears among the extant records of the convent after 1371, nor is Guiglielmus mentioned in the letters which Marsili sent to his friends from abroad in the years 1373–4. Those letters do include references to two of Guiglielmus's compatriots whose names appeared in the Pergamena of 1371, suggesting that Guiglielmus was no longer in residence at the time the letters were written. Marsili's name was included among those present in 1371, and he therefore must have been acquainted with the musician.

86 The period is marked by Landini's growing reputation as a composer, poet and organist, as well as by the incipient shift away from the madrigal and monophonic ballata of the Lorenzo Masini–Gherardello da Firenze generation.

87 Günther, U., ‘Das Manuskript Modena, Biblioteca Estense α. M. 5, 24’, Musica Disciplina, 24 (1970), pp. 17–67. Fascicles 1 and 5 are later interpolations.Google Scholar

88 Ibid., p. 45.

89 Fol. 31v.

90 ‘Fr. Coradus de Pistorio ordinis herimitarum’: fol. 36V. Concerning the text, see Günther, , ‘Das Manuskript Modena … α. M. 5, 24’, pp. 25–6.Google Scholar

91 Günther, cites a document published by Frank D'Accone in ‘A Documentary History of Music at the Florentine Cathedral and Baptistry during the Fifteenth Century’ (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1960), p. 76.Google Scholar

92 Florence, Archivio di Stato, Museo Diplomatico, Pergamene di S. Spirito: 11 January 1385.

93 Martines, , The Social World, p. 308.Google Scholar

94 When Corsini died in 1405, his funeral ceremony was conducted at the Augustinian convent in Avignon, suggesting a further link between the conventual élite surrounding the pope and the Florentine ecclesiastical patriciate. See Passerini, L., Genealogia e storia della famiglia Corsini (Florence, 1858), p. 74.Google Scholar

95 The balance of power shifted in favour of Marsili's opponents, at least temporarily, after 1388. Marsili's final bid for a bishop's chair was rejected, and an English Ockhamist lecturer was brought to Santo Spirito to teach logic and philosophy. See Martines, , The Social World, p. 308 Google Scholar, and Weiss, , ‘An English Augustinian’, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

96 Another name appearing in the list of Augustinians residing at Santo Spirito in 1385 is that of a ‘Fr. Johannes de Janua’. The Modena manuscript includes a virelai and a ballade by a ‘Fr. Johannes Janua’ (or ‘J. de Janua’). Günther, , ‘Das Manuskript Modena … α. M. 5, 24’, p. 42 Google Scholar, has speculated that the composer of these works may have been one of the two new singers bearing the name Johannes who enrolled in the papal chapel in 1405 (J. Burec and J. Desrame). Their surnames, however, appear to be French rather than Italian. The composer in question may have been the ‘Frater Johannes’ from Genoa who was, as the 1385 document indicates, Corrado's contemporary at the Florentine convent, a hypothesis which could explain their joint, anonymous citation in Alma polis religio.