Recercare rivista per lo studio e la pratica della musica antica journal for the study and practice of early music. abstract in inglese Jamuna Samuel

Transcript

1 XIX/ LIM

2 Recercare XIX/

3 2 Recercare rivista per lo studio e la pratica della musica antica journal for the study and practice of early music organo della / journal of the Fondazione Italiana per la Musica Antica autorizzazione del Tribunale di Roma n con decreto del direttore / editor Arnaldo Morelli comitato scientifico / advisory board Patrizio Barbieri, Mauro Calcagno, Philippe Canguilhem, Ivano Cavallini, Étienne Darbellay, Marco Di Pasquale, Norbert Dubowy, Lowell Lindgren, Lewis Lockwood, Stefano Lorenzetti, Renato Meucci, Margaret Murata, John Nádas, Noel O Regan, Franco Piperno, Giancarlo Rostirolla, Luca Zoppelli direzione e redazione / editorial office Fondazione Italiana per la Musica Antica via Col di Lana, 7 C.P Roma (Italia) tel/fax recercare@libero.it abstract in inglese Jamuna Samuel grafica e copertina / graphics and cover Ugo Giani stampa / printed by Genesi Gruppo editoriale. Città di Castello LIM Editrice srl I Lucca, via di Arsina 296/f P.O.Box 198 tel fax lim@lim.it Abbonamenti e arretrati / subscriptions and back issues Italia / Italy Eu. 24 estero / abroad Eu. 29 pagamenti a / payments to LIM Editrice srl (c/c postale / postal account n ; (carta di credito / credit card Eurocard; Mastercard or Visa) direttore responsabile / legal responsability Giancarlo Rostirolla ISSN ISBN

4 RECERCARE XIX/ Anthony M. Cummings Clement VII s musical patronage: evidence and interpretation 5 Emily Wilbourne Isabella ringiovinita : Virginia Ramponi Andreini before Arianna 47 Patrizio Barbieri Pietro Della Valle: the Esthèr oratorio (1639) and other experiments in the stylus metabolicus. With new documents on triharmonic instruments 73 Barbara Nestola L Egisto fantasma di Cavalli: nuova luce sulla rappresentazione parigina di Egisto ovvero Chi soffre speri di Mazzocchi e Marazzoli (1646) 125 Antonella D Ovidio «Sonate a tre d altri stili». Carlo Mannelli violinista nella Roma di fine Seicento 147 Anthony DelDonna An eighteenth century musical education: Francesco Mancini s Il zelo animato (1733) 205 Luisa Clotilde Gentile Orlando di Lasso pellegrino a Loreto (1585): vicende di un ex voto musicale 221

5 4 Libri e musica 231 G. MASTROCOLA, Il primo libro dei madrigali a cinque voci di Geronimo Vespa da Napoli (Venezia 1570) (am). S. FRANCHI, Annali della stampa musicale romana dei secoli XVI-XVIII, vol. I/1 (A. Addamiano). «Ruscelletto cui rigido cielo». Studi in occasione del III centenario del musicista Giovanni Andrea Angelini Bontempi ( ), a c. di B. Brumana (D. Rossi). Francesco Cavalli. La circolazione dell opera veneziana nel Seicento, a c. di D. Fabris (am). Masses by Alessandro Scarlatti and Francesco Gasparini. Music from the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, ed. L. Della Libera (am). D.A. D ALESSANDRO, I Mozart e la Napoli di Hamiltom. Due quadri di Fabris per Lord Fortrose (am). Mozart. Note di viaggio in chiave di violino, a c. di M. Botteri Ottaviani, A. Carlini, G. Fornari (am). E. PASQUINI, L «Esemplare, o sia Saggio fondamentale pratico di contrappunto». Padre Martini teorico e didatta della musica (S. Gaddini).

6 Patrizio Barbieri Pietro della Valle: the Esthèr oratorio (1639) and other experiments in the stylus metabolicus. With new documents on triharmonic instruments The main scope of this study is to provide new documentation on the experiments of Pietro Della Valle ( ), aimed at restoring the ancient Greek tonoi. His experiments begin in 1629, with La valle rinverdita (and not in , as maintained up to now). They are consequently the first in this sector, since those of Giambattista Doni the movement s founder, to whose theories Della Valle stated that he was eternally grateful began to be reported only around Della Valle s text has finally emerged (with notes on performance) and a fragment of the music of Esthèr, the first composition known to us that can be classified in any absolute sense as an oratorio, and more accurately as oratorio volgare ( 1.1). Fresh information will also be provided on this author concerning: the Triharmonic harpsichord he commissioned from Giovanni Pietro Polizzino and donated to João IV of Portugal, following events that also involved the harpsichord maker Girolamo Zenti ( 2); the dating of some manuscript works by Doni and other composers in that circle, including Della Valle himself ( 1.2, 3.1); the failure of the attempt to build a triharmonic organ, in order to extend the practice of the new music to the liturgy ( 4); the inventory of goods and other unpublished documents, some concerning the printing of the accounts of his famous trips to Turkey, Persia and India ( 5, 7). Della Valle s importance as a writer on music is evidenced by his treatise Della musica dell età nostra (dedicated to the man-of-letters Lelio Guidiccioni, who we learn was employed in 1637 to obtain a pardon from the pope on behalf of Pietro, in exile at Gaeta for having killed one of the Barberini servants). Known too is the fact that unlike Doni, still tied to the old polyphonic style he actively championed and practised the more modern manner derived from the recitar cantando ( 3.2). Less known, on the other hand, is the fact that his attempt to restore the

7 74 PATRIZIO BARBIERI Greek tonoi, albeit a failure, provided a positive stimulus to the modulatory style already set going by Carlo Gesualdo and others at the end of the Cinquecento, concerning which, in 1650, Athanasius Kircher actually coined the term stylus metabolicus. This style was then improperly known as enharmonic owing to the fact that the said metabolic notes were located on the superior rows of harpsichords provided with split enharmonic keys, which were capable of intervals such as G8-A7, E8-F, G-A77, &c. As late as 1768, the same enharmonique is mentioned by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as the style of which les Italiens made un usage admirable ( 6.1-2). Also in this connexion, 6.3 presents historical testimony on the much-debated problem concerning terminology relating to so-called chromatic and enharmonic harpsichords. Abbreviations used: ADV = Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Della Valle-Del Bufalo, vol. ASR = Rome, Archivio di Stato Doc. = Document cited in the Appendix ( 7) S = ANGELO SOLERTI, Lettere inedite sulla musica di Pietro Della Valle a G.B. Doni, Rivista Musicale Italiana, XII, 1905, pp The compositions ( ) 1.1. La valle rinverdita and Esthèr. Having had the misfortune of killing a servant of the powerful Barberini family, Della Valle had to leave Rome and from April 1636 to March 1638 took refuge at Paliano, Naples and Gaeta. During this period, he kept in contact by letter with Doni, then living in Rome; in the absence of any earlier documentation in this connexion, their acquaintance was deemed to date to around 1635, i.e. immediately after Della Valle s departure for exile. In actual fact, it goes back to 1627, since in March of that year for the ceremony of transferring to the church of Aracoeli the remains of his first wife, who had died during their travels in the East (1621) Della Valle received from Doni a long composition of Latin verses, by way of sharing in his mourning. 1 In December 1629 to celebrate the birth of Romibera, his first daughter Della Valle staged a veglia drammatica in three acts, the verses of which he com- 1. ADV 86 (Carte varie), fasc. 23, p This composition bears the title Ad C.V. Petrum de Valle in obitum uxoris and is signed Io. Bapt. Donius observantiae et amoris ergo D.. Doni had moved to Rome in 1624, while Della Valle had left the city on 12 April 1614, returning on 28 March 1626 (ADV 92, fasc. 1). The latter must have been greatly esteemed by the erudite Florentine, who submitted almost all his writings to him prior to publication, starting from the Compendio del trattato de generi e de modi della musica, published in Rome in 1635 (Doc. III.2).

8 PIETRO DELLA VALLE: THE ESTHÈR ORATORIO (1639) 75 posed and allusively entitled La valle rinverdita. 2 Of the music, which has not come down to us and the author of which was previously unknown, we learn that the score for the first ora (i.e. the first act) was written by him: And the music of the first hour only, with a variety of several tonoi, I did it all and it was the first composition I ventured on in this kind of music (Doc. III.1). As stated above, this was the year of his first composition known to us inspired by the theories of Doni. This also constitutes evidence of Della Valle s untiring activities and many interests, just three years after his return from his adventurous travels. In 1635 comes the Dialogo di Sofonisba e Massinissa, for which, however, the employment of tonoi is not stated. 3 They must have been employed for a not better described Madrigale composed by him and set to music during his exile at Gaeta (1637), since at the same time Della Valle dispatched to Doni to have his opinion a composition by one Giovanni Rossi, a dilettante singer and instrumentalist who was with him at Gaeta. 4 We thus come to 1639, the year in which he composed the verses and music of the Dialogo di Esthèr, which in a letter to Doni he also termed Oratorio di Esthèr. 5 Deemed lost up to now, the whole text has again emerged (Doc. IV.1, Fig. 1). The text also allows us to identify a fragment of its music, which was published, with a generic reference only to the author, by Kircher in 1650 (Fig. 2) The text published at Venice in 1633 (Doc. III.1) and subsequently in S, has as its title: La Valle rinverdita. Veglia in raunanza notturna con trattenimento di dramma da rappresentare in musica per la nascita di Romibera primo e felice parto della illustrissima signora Maria Tinatin di Ziba della Valle seguita in Roma a XVII de decembre de MDCXXIX. The unusual name Rom-ibera derives from the fact that the mother was Georgian (a region formerly known as Iberia ) whereas the father was Roman: ULDERICO ROLANDI, Il primo librettista romano e il suo libretto per musica, Rassegna dorica, II, 1930, pp. 6-14: For a summary description of this composition, see GIOVANNI BATTISTA DONI, Annotazioni sopra il Compendio de generi e de modi della musica [ ], Roma, A. Fei, 1640, p. 64. For its dating (1635), see on the other hand ADV 92, fasc ADV 92, fasc. 4: Il madrigale messo in musica in Gaeta. Son miei i versi e la musica ( The madrigal set to music at Gaeta. The verses and music are mine ). On the composition by Rossi, the young man for whom Della Valle sought to find a place for somehow in Rome, see S, (letter to Doni, dated Gaeta ). 5. ADV 92, fasc. 4: Il Dialogo di Esther. Son mie le parole e parimenti la musica ( The Dialogo di Esther. Mine are the words and so is the music ). On the occasion of its second performance in 1647 at his palazzo, with scenery and costumes he would call it Oratorio di Esther (letter to Doni dated , published in S, ). 6. ATHANASIUS KIRCHER, Musurgia universalis, vol. I, Roma, Her. Corbelletti, 1650, p An example that furthermore confirms the transition from Dorian to Phrygian indicated in Doc. IV.1.

9 76 PATRIZIO BARBIERI Fig. 1. First page of the libretto of Esthèr, in the handwriting of Pietro Della Valle (1639). ADV 92, fasc. 4 (Copyright Archivio Segreto Vaticano)

10 PIETRO DELLA VALLE: THE ESTHÈR ORATORIO (1639) 77 Fig. 2. Example drawn from Musurgia universalis by Athanasius Kircher (1650, vol. I, p. 675), identifiable with the aria of Amàn, in the First Part of Esthèr. The keyboards to which the indications refer are those of Della Valle s Triharmonic Harpsicord The plot is taken from one of the books of the Old Testament, attributed to Mordecai, Esther s uncle (VII century BCE). Esther born at Babylon during the captivity becomes the wife of Ahasuerus, King of Persia, and saves the Hebrews from the massacre planned by Haman, the King s minister. This setting does not appear to have been chosen by chance, since during his travels ( ) Della Valle became a friend of the King of Persia, with whom he kept up an epistolary relationship after his return to Rome. 7 Esthèr opens with a monodic passage by the Poet, acting as narrator. Immediately afterwards comes one by Haman (from whom Kircher drew the example in Fig. 2), in turn followed by a passage with the other characters (Esther, Ahasuerus, Mordecai), interspersed with five-voice choruses (Persians, Hebrews). The tonoi employed are seven: dorian, phrygian, lydian, aeolian, mixolydian, hypolydian, iastian. Excluding the lack of duets and trios, its structure is thus similar to that of the Dialogo della Purificazione (1640). 8 Esthèr is much longer, however: 197 verses as 7. On his stay in that country, see: REMO GIAZOTTO, Il grande viaggio di Pietro della Valle il Pellegrino ( ). La Turchia, la Persia, l India con il ritorno a Roma, Roma, Torre d Orfeo, 1988, pp ; I viaggi di Pietro della Valle. Lettere dalla Persia, Tomo I, ed. Franco Gaeta and Laurence Lockhart, Roma, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, His correspondence with the King of Persia can be found in ADV The autograph draft of just the text of the second work, with corrections by the author, can be found in ADV 92, fasc. 4 (loose leaf entitled: Per la festa della s. ma Purificatione. Da cantarsi nell oratorio ). The final manuscript, complete with music, is kept at the Rome Biblioteca Nazionale, Ms. musicale 123. Two anastatic reproductions of it have been published in: The Italian oratorio [ ], edited with introductions by Joyce L. Johnson and Howard E. Smither, vol. I, New York, Garland, 1986, pp. 7-35; GIAZOTTO, Il grande viaggio, pp More recently, the manuscript part-

11 78 PATRIZIO BARBIERI compared to the 59 of the Purificazione. 9 Since the latter despite its brevity, emphasised by many musicologists is unanimously considered the earliest extant work to be referred to as an oratorio, 10 Esthèr may all the more take its place on the scale of priorities, also considering its further characteristic of being divided into parts (three, to be precise). It is also like the former in Italian, so that it is not an oratorio latino, as some have assumed (perhaps owing to its having been first performed at the aristocratic Oratorio del SS. Crocifisso, the only place in Rome where such performances were produced). 11 The newly discovered documents make it possible to identify the Iacomo who assisted our author in drafting the two scores on paper, which Della Valle confessed he was not very expert at: 12 he was Giacomo Saccardi, who in 1641 also appears as the harpsichord teacher of the mentioned Romibera (Docs. I.7, 9, 14). He was also a violin player: in fact Della Valle reports that, for the performance of the Dialogo di Esther (2 April 1640), Signor Giacomo Saccardi played the three violins of the three harmoniae ( il signor Jacomo Saccardi sonò i tre violini delle tre armonie ). 13 From this sincere confession we can see that the memory of what he had learned during his musical studies too long abandoned was by now growing dim. I take this opportunity to point out that, on p. 253 of his Della musica dell età books of this compositions have also been recovered (Roma, Biblioteca Nazionale, Ms Varia ): ANTONIO ADDAMIANO ARNALDO MORELLI, L archivio della cappella musicale di Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova) a Roma nella prima metà del Seicento. Una ricostruzione, Le fonti musicali italiane, II, 1997, pp : The latter lasting about 12 minutes: HOWARD E. SMITHER, Oratorio, The New Grove Dictionary of music and musicians, vol. XVIII, London, Macmillan, 2001, pp : 505. Esthèr on the other hand lasts about minutes, i.e. the average duration of an ordinary oratorio. 10. See DOMENICO ALALEONA, Storia dell oratorio in Italia, Milano, Fratelli Bocca, 1945, pp ; ARNALDO MORELLI, Il tempio armonico. Musica nell Oratorio dei Filippini in Roma ( ), Laaber, Laaber Verlag, 1991, p. 74; SMITHER, Oratorio, p SMITHER, Oratorio, pp ; ROBERT R. HOLZER, Della Valle, Pietro, The New Grove Dictionary of music and musicians, vol. VII, London, Macmillan, 2001, pp : 175. It should be noted that, at his death, Pietro owed as much as 8350 scudi to the Venerabile Arciconfraternita del SS. Crocifisso in s. Marcello : ADV 56 (dated ). 12. In a letter to Doni, dated , he says he cannot send him his madrigaletto su Radicofani, mentioned in 1.2, because in queste feste non ardisco di dar tanta briga al sig. Jacomo; tanto più che habbiamo da scrivere ancora un altro oratorio, da me fatto di nuovo, per la festa della s. ta Purificatione (S, 289). In 1647, in another letter to Doni, he declares he finds himself in difficulty owing to the absence of the said Iacomo, who had retired from this activity; adding that he had forgotten one of his old Toccata [ ] che scorreva per i sette tuoni diversi e forse più [ ] come io non so tanto che possa scriver facilmente da me tutto quel che voglio e che suono, non avendo allora comodità di chi mi aiutasse a metterla bene in carta (S, 310). 13. AGOSTINO ZIINO, Pietro Della Valle e la musica erudita. Nuovi documenti, Analecta Musicologica, IV, 1967, pp : 108.

12 PIETRO DELLA VALLE: THE ESTHÈR ORATORIO (1639) 79 nostra, 14 Della Valle mentions his music teachers, on whom Doc. I.1 also provides an accurate set of dates. Among them, as harpsichord teacher appears Stefano Tavolaccio, the organist at s. Maria del Popolo, 15 succeeded 1602 also as Pietro s teacher by Quinzio Solini Other compositions. A work that Della Valle seemed to be fond of was Le Muse canore, which he himself informs us was based on the tonoi: Musiche con varietà di tuoni [composed] l anno 1640 in Roma (Doc. III.1). It comprised nove opere diverse, applicate ciascuna di esse a una musa ; although absolutely ready for publication, in 1644 he advised Doni that it was still in manuscript form, owing to practical problems with the printers (S, 301). 14. Dated Rome 16 January 1640 and dedicated to Lelio Guidiccioni, Della musica was published posthumously in GIOVANNI BATTISTA DONI, De trattati di musica [ ], ed. Anton Francesco Gori, vol. II, Firenze, Stamperia Imperiale, 1763, pp (and republished in ANGELO SOLERTI, Le origini del melodramma, Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1903, pp ). 15. On this musician little is known. In July-August 1576 a Stephano Tavolacci is registered as a soprano of the oratory of San Rocco (NOEL O REGAN, Music at the Roman archconfraternity of San Rocco in the late sixteenth century, in La musica a Roma attraverso le fonti d archivio, ed. Bianca Maria Antolini, Arnaldo Morelli, Vera Vita Spagnuolo, Lucca, LIM, 1994, pp : 526, 547); in 1590 he is paid 15 scudi for harpsichord teaching to Ottavia Pia, a curiale (i.e. a courtesan) working in Rome (VERA VITA SPAGNUOLO, Gli atti notarili dell Archivio di Stato di Roma. Saggio di spoglio sistematico: l anno 1590, in La musica a Roma attraverso le fonti d archivio, pp : 26, 45); between 1596 and 1599, he was maestro di cappella of s. Giacomo degli Incurabili (JEAN LIONNET, The Borghese family and music during the first half of the seventeenth century, Music and Letters, LXXIV, 1993, pp : 524). I wish also to point out a document found by chance, concerning a contribution for the dowry of the wife of Stephanus fil. Dominici Tavolacci romanus organista in Urbe, by the church of s. Maria del Popolo: ASR, 30 Not. Cap., uff. 33, vol. 34, c. 36, As regards Solini, too, the information we have is scant. Up to now, we know only that in July 1592 he was maestro di cappella of S. Rocco (O REGAN, Music at the Roman archconfraternity of San Rocco, p. 546); in he is generically described as maestro di cappella (without stating which), and in that same period he was paid for music performed at SS. Trinità dei Pellegrini (REMO GIAZOTTO, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Quinzio Solini, Tarquinio Merula: cinque documenti inediti, Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana, XVIII, 1984, pp : 628-9); from January 1611 to December 1613 he is registered as organist of the English College, Rome (GRAHAM DIXON, Music in the Venerable English College in the early Baroque, in La musica a Roma attraverso le fonti d archivio, pp : 472). To this I add two new archival findings: (1) ASR, 30 Not. Cap., uff. 19, vol. 49, c. 177, , Conventiones between Antonius Pintus and Quintius Solinus spoletinus : Antonio entrusts his nephew Ippolito to Quinzio for five years, so that he can teach him to sing; if, during the first two years, he can use him professionally in some Roman cappella, a third of the fee will go to Antonio and the rest to Quinzio. (2) ASR, 30 Not. Cap., uff. 9, vol. 38, c. 427, , D. Quintius Solini spoletinus Urbis incola sells to the Roman Girolamo Pini, for 75 scudi, organum portabile stagni et plumbi cum suis manticibus capsa cum Mi et re (a probable abbreviation designating Mi re Ut, i.e. the first three keys in the bass); this positive organ, perhaps in the Roman fashion later called ad ala, belonged to Solini and was kept by him at the church of SS Celso and Giuliano (I would like to thank Fernando Bilancia for bringing this second document to my attention).

13 80 PATRIZIO BARBIERI In November 1640 Doni left Rome and returned definitively to his native Florence, where he died seven years later. In a letter sent to him in December 1640, Della Valle announced that he had composed a Dialogo della partenza, evidently in honour of the maestro; in the same missive, he adds that it was sung in his own house by Loreto Vittori and by Father Girolamo Rosini (of the Vallicella Oratory), and that the former remained very fond of this mode of singing (S, 289). As soon as he reached Florence, on 24 November Doni had sent Della Valle the text of a madrigaletto graziosissimo written by Antonio Abbati, his travelling companion, at the top of the Radicofani mountain pass. Not even a month later, the Roman had already set it in musica a tre voci con bizzarre mutazioni di tuoni. 17 Undated is also a musical fragment of his Son famelico amante, for four voices, the existence of which was unknown up to now (Fig. 3). 18 Fig. 3. Musical fragment of Son famelico amante, in the handwriting of Pietro Della Valle. The keyboards to which the indications refer are those of Della Valle s Triharmonic Harpsichord. ADV 92, fasc. 1 (Copyright Archivio Segreto Vaticano) 17. S, 289. The poet in question can be identified with the author of the famous volume of satires Le Frascherie; on whom see: ROBERTO ZAPPERI, Abati, Antonio, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. I, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960, pp. 7-8; ROBERT R. HOLZER, Music and poetry in seventeenth-century Rome: settings of the Canzonetta and Cantata texts of Francesco Balducci, Domenico Benigni, Francesco Melosio, and Antonio Abati, PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, ADV 92, fasc. 1, loose leaf lacking any other indication (the text begins with the words Son famelico amante e sento in vano ). This composition must have enjoyed a certain notoriety, at least in Roman literary circles; in actual fact, two sonnets have been preserved, both entitled Risposta al mio Son famelico amante, signed respectively by Giulio Cesare Tosi and Angelo Corticelli, neither of which are dated (ADV 92, fasc. 4).

14 PIETRO DELLA VALLE: THE ESTHÈR ORATORIO (1639) 81 Dated 1649 is lastly the Dialogo di Luys Camões, sent by him to John IV of Portugal, a character to whom we shall return in In an absolute sense, it is the last of his compositions inspired by Doni s theories: Della Valle, who twenty years earlier had been responsible for the practical opening of that brief season, was also the one who brought it to a close. Our author also wrote the text which has come down to us of a gallant madrigal divided into three parts, entitled respectively: Diatonico puro, Cromatico puro, Enarmonico puro. As can be seen from the text, transcribed in Doc. IV.2, the opening of the first part is, for those times, decidedly daring. The Enarmonico puro was set to music by Gino Angelo Capponi a Roman nobleman, who was an old friend of his and a skilled harpsichord player and in August 1647 dispatched to Doni (together with the monodia galante Il lamento di Armida, also set to music by Capponi) The vicissitudes of the triharmonic harpsichord sent to João IV of Portugal 2.1. The instrument made by Giovanni Pietro Polizzino. João IV was an enthusiastic music-lover, a collector, composer and author of two theoretical works, one of which had been read by Della Valle: the Defensa de la musica moderna contra la erada opinion del obispo Cyrilo Franco, published anonymously in Lisbon in 1649 (Doc. I. 68). As early as 1641 Doni had informed the monarch of Della Valle s experiments in the new style, 21 and in July of the following year, the latter began a personal epistolary exchange with this august correspondent (Doc. I.20). Initially, it appears that the purpose of such contacts was dictated by rather more concrete needs. Thanks to his entrée with the Jesuits, Della Valle was indeed able to trace and send to Lisbon the manuscripts left by Father Cristoforo Borri, who had died in Rome in 1632, containing his original method for determining longitude at sea; a solu- 19. ZIINO, Pietro Della Valle : pp This friendship is also borne out by the fact that Pietro and Maria Della Valle in May 1643 were the guests of the Capponi family, while on holiday at Frascati: ADV 186, under the date. On the dispatch of the two compositions by Gino, see Doc. I.36 and S, 312 (and S, 288, on the latter s skill as a harpsichord player). Concerning his activities as a composer, we know that as early as 1640 he had offered Cardinal Antonio Barberini a five-part madrigal: see FREDERICK HAMMOND, Music and spectacle in Baroque Rome. Barberini patronage under Urban VIII, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994, p S, 277-8; Io. Baptistae Donii epistolae ad viros claros et eorundem ad Donium, in ANGELO MARIA BANDINI, Commentariorum de vita et scriptis Ioannis Bapt. Donii [ ], Firenze, Typis Caesareis, 1755, coll : This letter is already indicated in JOÃO IV, Defensa de la musica moderna contra la erada opinion del obispo Cyrilo Franco, ed. Màrio de Sampayo Ribeiro, Coimbra, Acta Universitatis Conimbrigensis, 1965, pp. XXXIX-XLV of the Introdução.

15 82 PATRIZIO BARBIERI tion to this age-old problem was much sought after by the Portuguese, so that they could finally give precise instructions to the pilots of their ocean-going fleets. 22 On musical matters, in April 1649 he sent the sovereign the Dialogo di Luys Camões messo in musica da Pietro della Valle con mescolanza di tutti tre i generi diatonico, cromatico, et enarmonico, e con varietà di sette tuoni diversi cioè dorio, eolio, iastio, lidio, frigio, hipolidio, e missolidio. 23 It should be noted that the seven tonoi mentioned are the same ones used in Esthèr, while on the other hand for the first time, in the very same years he began to extend his experiments to the enharmonic (see too Capponi, 1.2): clearly he thought he could also exploit the potential of the upper keyboard of his Triharmonic, tuned in the same way as the cimbalo cromatico. 24 In the following May, João IV let it be known that he was also interested in the triharmonic and panharmonic instruments needed for the basso continuo of such music (Doc. I.44). These were Della Valle s two famous instruments, the violone panarmonico and the cembalo triarmonico, the latter designed by Doni and built between March 1638 and March 1640 by Giovanni Pietro Polizzino. 25 Up to 1654 the newly-discovered documentation lists two harpsichords in the palazzo, mentioned as: the vecchio ( a un registro, i.e. of ordinary type) and the grande or a tre registri (i.e. the Triharmonic, with three keyboards); the latter was routinely tuned and maintained by Polizzino himself, until January 1652, i.e. nearly up to Pietro s death (on 21 April). 26 In 1648 the Violone Panarmonico is also indicated as being in his possession (Doc. I.38). Della Valle writes that he would have liked to send the sovereign these same two instruments, but that those already made that I have are not suitable for sending, because, being the first ones made, and in testing the harpsichord especially 22. Doc. I.61, and ADV 53. Della Valle had met Father Borri at Goa, and after the latter s return to Lisbon remained in contact with him by letter (ADV 188, dated 1626). Pietro showed great interest in the solution invented by the Italian Jesuit, even from a purely technical point of view: Doc. III.2 (1649). The system had already been experimented apparently successfully during a trip from Lisbon to Goa by the Portuguese fleet. On this subject, see also ANGELO MERCATI, Notizie sul gesuita Cristoforo Borri e su sue Inventioni, da carte finora sconosciute di Pietro Della Valle, il Pellegrino, Acta Pontificiae Academiae Scientiarum, XV-3, 1951, pp Letter published in ZIINO, Pietro Della Valle, p This latter keyboard had 19 keys to the octave, with G7-B8 range and meantone tuning: its enharmonic intervals were thus of the type G8-A7 (on the problem on chromatic and enharmonic harpsichords, see 6.2). 25. These dates can be deduced from the fact that, during his exile at Gaeta, Della Valle had told Doni of his intention to build such a harpsichord on his return to Rome (S, 283) and that it was actually employed for the performance of Esthèr (ZIINO, Pietro Della Valle, p. 108). On Polizzino and the tuning of the two instruments, see PATRIZIO BARBIERI, Gli strumenti poliarmonici di G.B. Doni e il ripristino dell antica musica greca (c ), Analecta Musicologica, 1998, XXX, pp : Docs. I.13, 16, 24, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 39, 41, 42, 63, 70; II.1.6. The vecchio was most probably il cembalo whose tuning is mentioned as early as 1629: ZIINO, Pietro Della Valle, pp. 98, 105.

16 PIETRO DELLA VALLE: THE ESTHÈR ORATORIO (1639) 83 they have been assembled and disassembled several times; for which reason they lack certain qualities that are needed (Doc. I.44). Probably the real reason can be found in his desire to send such a distinguished person a particularly sumptuous instrument, as in fact happened. From June 1649 to June 1650 he had a three-keyboard harpsichord built, the overall cost of which amounted to scudi, split as follows: 27 - harpsichord maker (Giovanni Pietro Polizzino), scudi 60.00; - painter (the Frenchman Simon Vaubert), scudi 30.00; 28 - gilder (the bookseller Giacomo Reverberi), scudi 22.30; - carpenter (one Prospero ), scudi 6.00 for the sopracassa (since the instrument was clearly a levatore di cassa, i.e. in the inner-outer fashion) Palace intrigues and the involvement of Girolamo Zenti. As regards this harpsichord, we should mention an amusing behind-the-scenes intrigue, providing confirmation that since that time the human mind hasn t changed at all. Its co-protagonist is one Vincenzo Noghera, an influential Portuguese prelate for some time resident in Rome clearly desirous of acquiring merit by sending personally the instruments that João IV desired, even by buying them or having them made at his own expense (Doc. I.44). On his side, Della Valle stated that the sovereign through Noghera himself had asked him directly for these curiosità della musica and that the task was therefore his (Doc. I.46). Since the said prelate offended even went so far as to refuse to receive him, reproaching him that a tenyear-old friendship had not even given him a glass of water in return, the Roman nobleman dryly replied that he had supposed that his friendship had been with a man of letters and not with a merchant. To the complaints of the Portuguese that he had not even been invited to the commedie carnevalesche organised at Della Valle s palazzo, Pietro objected that in Rome invitations were sent only to ladies, while men could take part freely, without any formality. Then to Noghera s criticism that the Triharmonic was full of defects, the reply was all too easy, as well as seasoned with a pinch of humour: a harpsichord with so many defects as you say, and found fault with by so many, allow me to send it to the king, 27. Docs. I, 45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 58. The said instrument had already been mentioned by ZIINO, Pietro Della Valle, pp. 101, This artist, whose name cannot be found in any of the printed repertories consulted, in 1653 was to receive from the heirs six scudi for his portraits of Pietro Della Valle (Doc. II. 5), and on a further 17 scudi for paintings sold to them (ADV 17). For this latter payment, he signed Simon Vaubert, whereas on other receipts not in his handwriting he appears as Monsù Simone di Aubert pittor francese (Doc. I.49) or Monsieur Simone Vauberti (Doc. II.5). In his will, he is recorded as Simon Wober quondam Nicolai de Calvo Montano Ling[uadoch]ensis diocesis, pictor in Urbe. In it, he lascia al s. r Niccolò Roselli suo compare tutti li quadri di seta che si troveranno non finiti al tempo della sua morte, also mentioning tutte le sete destinate a far quadri di seta, et di più li ferri necessarij, as well as ordinary pictures on canvas (ASR, 30 Not. Cap., uff. 32, vol. 171, c. 347, ).

17 84 PATRIZIO BARBIERI as I am also full of imperfections, since it is better so (Doc. I.46). Della Valle did however give him the chance at least to ship the instrument, via Leghorn, and to translate into Portuguese the instructions written by me in Italian, which we shall also send: and so we shall both satisfy our intent of serving this personage as he deserves (Doc. I.44). This expedient was clearly insufficient to mollify Noghera s indignant resentment, since on 13 June 1650 Della Valle entrusted the instrument to the agente del Portogallo, to ship it by sea together with a few documents relating to it, inside the harpsichord itself. The list of the said documents is included in the letter to His Majesty, which will be sent under separate cover. 29 Documents that are now unfortunately untraceable. We do not know whether the harpsichord itself ever arrived at destination. Indeed, on 14 October 1651 Della Valle wrote to His Majesty giving him an account as to why the harpsichord was so late in delivery, also mentioning the letters His Majesty wrote to me [ ] which have never reached me (Doc. I.68). As early as the previous February, he had advised Lisbon that he had received no reply to as many as five similar missives (Doc. I. 64), anomalies evidently ascribed to Noghera s intrigues. On 2 November of the same year, Della Valle finally received a communication from Lisbon in which we read that the Portuguese agent, Doctor Manoel Alvarez Carrilho, has lately received a letter from Genoa, that his things with the harpsichord that Your Lordship gave him for His Majesty have not been lost at all, but he is expecting them from day to day by ship from Italy (Doc. I.69). Our information on the subject stops at this point. 30 It is not to be believed however that in the meantime the obstinate Noghera had been idle. From a notarial deed of August 1650, discovered by chance, we learn that, at the beginning of the same year, the prelate had applied to the greatest harpsichord maker then operating in Rome, Girolamo Zenti, entrusting him with the building of a harpsichord as per certain specifications indicated in a private contract, filed with the Notary Simoncellus (this latter document now seems to be lost). Noghera had also advanced scudi, which however since he had not yet delivered the instrument on 11 August 1650 Zenti had to return to him. 31 It 29. Doc. I.56. Fra Manuel Alvarez Carrilho had been sent to Rome in 1648 officially as agente del clero di Portogallo, but de facto to deal with the king s business there: MERCATI, Notizie sul gesuita Cristoforo Borri, p Furthermore, no reference to this harpsichord is found in the monarch s biographies, amongst which specifically on his musical activities the one by LUIS DE FREITAS BRANCO, D. João IV, mùsico, Lisboa, Casa de Bragança, ASR, 30 Not. Cap, uff. 25, vol. 243, c. 410, : the Ill. et admodum rev. dom. Vincentius Noghera receives back from Girolamo Zenti scudi because the cimbalum iuxta formam apocae in actis d. Simoncelli A.C. notarij producta de presenti anno [ ] nec tradidit nec confecit. The deed was Actum Romae in Cancellaria Apostolica.

18 PIETRO DELLA VALLE: THE ESTHÈR ORATORIO (1639) 85 is therefore highly probable that this precipitous cancellation of the order was dictated to Noghera by the fact that, not even two months earlier, Della Valle had finally managed to ship to the monarch the Triharmonic built for him by Polizzino. Lastly, we should observe that Della Valle managed to conclude the business only just in time: five days after making the last payment for the building of the instrument, he was suddenly struck by the first serious attack of the disease that, after an illusory recovery, in less than two years would bring him to the grave: indeed, on 29 June 1650 he records in his diary that at the Ave Maria, in the church of san Pietro, my great sickness commenced, with some impediment in walking (Docs. I. 59, 61, 66). 3. Doni and Della Valle 3.1. The Doni manuscripts. In 1.1 we saw that Della Valle had examined the Compendio even before its publication in Subsequently he also read other manuscripts of the maestro s. Since the recently-emerged documentation contains a list of the works he read, year by year (Doc. III.2), their ante quem dating can be deduced. Of the fourteen works of a musical nature cited by him (1639, 1640), all were then published either in the Annotazioni (1640) or in the Lyra barberina (1763), with the exception of: Annotationi sopra il suo Discorso della perfettione delle melodie (1639); Annotationi sopra la sua Aggiunta al Compendio (1639); De i violini da suonare i diversi tuoni con la loro forma et accordo &c. (1639); unless this work was merely a preparatory draft for the Discorso sopra il violino diarmonico, e la tiorba a tre manichi, read by Della Valle in 1640 and, in the same year, published in the Annotazioni. This list confirms that his major works on musica erudita were written during his stay in Rome. In his following seven years in Florence, Doni was clearly absorbed by family matters (he got married and had children), as well as by his dispute with the organist Francesco Nigetti (over the Cembalo onnicordo invented by the latter) and in drafting the De praestantia musicae veteris, this last being a small treatise he wrote in Latin in the hope of attracting disciples at a European level, the final printed version of which was also sent to Della Valle Differences of approach. Personal relations between the two scholars remained frank and cordial, even after Doni s return to Florence. During a visit to Rome made in 1642, for example, the latter stayed with the Della Valle family (Docs. I.18, 32. On the Doni-Nigetti dispute, see PATRIZIO BARBIERI, Il cembalo onnicordo di Francesco Nigetti in due inedite memorie di G. B. Doni (1647) e B. Bresciani (1719), Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, XXII, 1987, pp On the De praestantia see Doc. III.2 (1647).

19 86 PATRIZIO BARBIERI 19). The artistic aspect, however, concealed considerable differences of approach between the two. Whereas Doni was still tied to the old polyphonic style, Della Valle had decidedly turned to the modern musica ornata. 33 This is also borne out by his Della musica dell età nostra che non è punto inferiore, anzi è migliore di quella dell età passata, 34 and by his Note on the Discorso by Nicolò Farfaro. 35 Even with regard to performance, the Roman showed he was much more pragmatic. By way of example, to make the difficult leap from one tonos to another easier for performers, he introduced the single-key system. 36 From 1641 to 1647 he repeatedly sought to soften some of Doni s rigid theoretical assumptions, especially concerning the placing of the aeolian as compared to the other tonoi, which he deemed too acute for singers The triharmonic organ: a vanished dream For the basso continuo of his compositions, Della Valle utilised two of his instruments: the violone panarmonico and the cembalo triarmonico; in the part for the latter, the changes of tonos are marked by indicating the related keyboard (tastatura bassa, mezzana, alta ). The part for the basso continuo of the Dialogo della 33. REMO GIAZOTTO, Il testamento di Pietro Della Valle, Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana, III, 1969, pp : 96; AGOSTINO ZIINO, Contese letterarie tra Pietro Della Valle e Nicolò Farfaro sulla musica antica e moderna, Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana, III, 1969, pp : On Della musica see fn. 14. This work is dedicated to Lelio Guidiccioni, who in 1637 had intervened with the Pope to obtain a pardon for Pietro, then in exile at Gaeta for having killed a servant of the Barberini family: Doc. I.3; in that period, Guidiccioni belonged to the circle of Cardinal Antonio Barberini, as a man-of-letters: MICHELE DAL MONTE, Guidiccioni, Lelio, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. LXI, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2003, pp : The said Note have been partially published in ZIINO, Contese letterarie tra Pietro Della Valle e Nicolò Farfaro, pp (see also ZIINO, Pietro Della Valle, p. 100). In ADV 92, fasc. 1 their dating is made to go back to 1640 ( Note fatte al Discorso sopra la musica antica e moderna ch andava a nome di Giorgio Mazzaferro, in Roma l anno 1640 ). The real author of the Discorso, Nicolò Farfaro, drafted a reply to these Note, to which Della Valle followed with a response, partly published, also in ZIINO, Pietro Della Valle, pp From the documents just discovered, the latter also dates back to 1640: Al sig. r Nicolò Farfaro dichiaratosi autore del libro di Giorgio Mazzaferro, in Roma l istesso anno 1640 (ADV 92, fasc.1). Another copy of the same can be found in ADV 92, fasc A comparison of the said system with Doni s is found in BARBIERI, Gli strumenti poliarmonici di G.B. Doni, p. 93. On this, see also Doc. I Docs. I.8, 10, 35; S,

20 PIETRO DELLA VALLE: THE ESTHÈR ORATORIO (1639) 87 Purificazione contains a manuscript note hinting at his hope to extend the number of instruments: 38 Nel basso continuo di questa parte si sono notate le mutationi delle tre accordature dell istrumento con questi segni ordine grave, ordine mezano, ordine acuto, acciocché si possa anche sonare sopra la tiorba triarmonica del sig.r Nicolini, detta il Cerbero, e sopra l arpa triarmonica, che pur pensiamo di fare, e si chiamerà il Gerione. In the basso continuo of this part, changes in the three instrument tunings are marked as follows: ordine grave, ordine mezano, ordine acuto, so that it can also be used for playing the tiorba triarmonica of sig. Nicolini, known as the Cerberus, and for the triharmonic harp, which we are also thinking about making, which will be called the Geryon. Della Valle considered that one of the reasons why the new compositions spread so little was due to the fact that in the churches, where music is most employed nowadays ( nelle chiese, dove è oggidì il maggiore uso della musica ), no triharmonic organ was yet available. Consequently, he hoped to induce Father Girolamo Rosini, to whom he dedicated his Dialogo della Purificazione, to have one built for the Vallicella Oratory; a hope that, as we shall see, did not materialise. 39 As early as 1635 Doni had maintained that, in employing an organ, the differentiation of the tonoi would have been more marked even from the point of view of timbre, and proposed to make use of flue pipes presenting the following diameterlength ratio: small (and thus with greater harmonic emission) for the phrygian, normal (like those of the Principale stop) for the dorian, and large (i.e. with a more muffled sound) for the lydian. 40 These characteristics could be strengthened by using respectively in the three cases copper, tin, and lead (in accordance with the acoustic beliefs of the time). 41 In 1640 his project seemed close to being made concrete: indeed, in a letter dated July 22 nd, addressed to Mersenne, we read that 38. ADDAMIANO MORELLI, L archivio della cappella musicale di Santa Maria in Vallicella, p. 56 (c. 12 of the continuo partbook). The Cerbero was a three-necked theorbo belonging to the famous bass Bartolomeo Nicolini, which Doni mentions in a letter to anonymous, perhaps dating to 1647: BANDINI, Commentariorum, col Nicolini died in Rome on (PAUL KAST, Biographische Notizen zu römischen Musikern des 17. Jahrhunderts, Analecta musicologica, I, 1963, pp : 55). Della Valle also mentions these instruments in a letter to Doni, dated , in which he changes the name of the harp: Io ho pensato i nomi a tutti gli strumenti; cioè l organo o il cembalo chiamarlo il Gerione; la tiorba il Cerbero, come già si disse; l arpa la Trinacria; la chitarra la Trivia; e così di mano in mano si anderanno pensando gli altri e V.S. riderà un poco dei miei spropositi (ANGELO SOLERTI, Lettere inedite sulla musica di Pietro della Valle a G.B. Doni ed una veglia drammatica-musicale del medesimo, Rivista Musicale Italiana, XII, 1905, pp : 294). 39. See his letter to Doni dated (S, 286-8). 40. GIOVANNI BATTISTA DONI, Compendio del Trattato de generi e de modi della musica, Roma, Fei, 1635, p DONI, Annotazioni, p. 32. On such beliefs, see PATRIZIO BARBIERI, Alchemy, symbolism and Aristotelian acoustics in Medieval organ-pipe technology, The Organ Yearbook, XXX, 2001, pp. 7-39: 11-7.