MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl 19, 164-167

140 Pages·2016·11.175 MB·English

by  Anthony M. Cummings

MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,
Magi. XIX, 164-167
Manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magliabechiana XIX,
164-167 (Florence 164-7) has been the subject of considerable scholarly
attention. The prevailing assumption had been that this was a
Florentine source of the early sixteenth century. More recently, it has
been argued that its provenance is not as easily determined as might
first appear, and that there are Roman connections suggested by one of
its codicological features.
This monograph provides as full a bibliographical and codicological
report on Florence 164-7 as is currently possible. Such evidence
suggests that the earlier thesis is more likely to be correct: the
manuscript was copied in Florence c. 1520. After a review of the
evidence for provenance and date, the repertory of the manuscript is
placed in its historical and cultural context. Florence of the early
sixteenth century is shown to have an organized cultural life that was
characterized by the activities of such institutions as the Sacred
Academy of the Medici, the famous group that met in the garden of the
Rucellai, and others.
Florence 164-7 is an exceedingly interesting and important source, an
eclectic repository not only of compositionally advanced settings of
Petrarchan verse by Rucellai-group intimate Bernardo Pisano but also
of sharply contrasting works, popular in character. It is almost a
manifesto of the sensibilities of pre-eminent Florentine cultural figures
of the sort who frequented the garden of the Rucellai and as such is a
revealing document of Florentine musical taste during those crucial
years that witnessed the emergence of the new secular genre we know
as the Italian madrigal.
ROYAL MUSICAL ASSOCIATION MONOGRAPHS
General Editor: Mark Everist
This series is supported by funds made available to the Royal Musical
Association from the estate of Thurston Dart, former King Edward
Professor of Music at the University of London. The editorial board is
the Publications Committee of the Association.
No. V. Playing on Words: A Guide to Luciano Berio's Sinfonia (1985)
by David Osmond-Smith
No. 2: The Oratorio in Venice (1986) by Denis and Elsie Arnold
No. 3: Music for Treviso Cathedral in the Late Sixteenth Century: A
Reconstruction of the Lost Manuscripts 29 and 30 (1987) by
Bonnie J. Blackburn
No. 4: The Breath of the Symphonist: Shostakovich's Tenth (1988) by
David Fanning
No. 5: The Song of the Soul: Understanding Poppea (1991) by Iain
Fenlon and Peter Miller
No. 6: The Impresario's Ten Commandments: Continental Recruit­
ment for Italian Opera in London 1763-64 (1992) by Curtis
Price, Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume
No. 7: Institutional Patronage in Post-Tridentine Rome: Music at
Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini 1550-1650 (1995) by Noel
O'Regan
No. 8: Latin Poetry and Conductus in Medieval France (1997) by
Christopher Page
No. 9: Orientalism, Masquerade and Mozart's Turkish Music (2000)
by Matthew Head
No. 10: 'Composing with Tones': A Musical Analysis of Schoenberg's
Op. 23 Pieces for Piano (2001) by Kathryn Bailey
No. 11: Szymanowski, Eroticism and the Voices of Mythology (2003)
by Stephen Downes
No. 12: Salomon and the Burneys: Private Patronage and a Public
Career (2003) by Ian Woodfield
No. 13: Repetition in Music: Theoretical and Metatheoretical
Perspectives (2004) by Adam Ockelford
No. 14: 'To fill, forbear, or adorne': The Organ Accompaniment of
Restoration Sacred Music (2006) by Rebecca Herissone
No. 15: MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magi. XIX,
164-167 (2006) by Anthony M. Cummings
ROYAL MUSICAL ASSOCIATION
MONOGRAPHS
15
MS Florence,
Biblioteca
Nazionale Centrale,
Magi. XIX, 164-167
ANTHONY M. CUMMINGS
First published 2006 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Anthony M. Cummings, 2006
Anthony M. Cummings has asserted his moral right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published for the Royal Musical Association
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Cummings, Anthony M.
MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. XIX, 164-167. - (Royal
Musical Association monographs)
1. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magliabechiana XIX. 164-167 2.
Part songs, Italian - 16th century - Manuscripts 3. Part songs, French -
Manuscripts 4. Part songs, Latin - 16th century - Manuscripts 5. Part songs,
Italian - 16th century - History and criticism 6. Part songs, French - 16th
century - History and criticism 7. Part songs, Latin - 16th century - History
and criticism
I. Title II. Royal Musical Association
783.1'09031
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cummings, Anthony M.
Ms Florence, Biblioteca nazionale centrale Magl. XIX, 164-167 / Anthony M.
Cummings.
p. cm. - (Royal Musical Association monographs; 15)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-5529-9 (alk. paper)
1. Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze. Manuscript. Magl. XIX, 164-167.
2. Music - Manuscript - Italy - Florence. I. Title. II. Series
ML93.C86 2006
782.4'30262-dc22
2005032869
ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-5529-9 (hbk)
Typeset by IML Typographers, Birkenhead, Merseyside
In memoriam
Joseph Francis Cummings, Junior
30 December 1919 -10 September 2005

Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
1 Introduction 1
2 The Manuscript as Object and its Genesis 6
Collation 7
Paper types 11
Dimensions 21
Subsequent additions to the original corpus 21
Scribal hands 25
Evidence of ownership and location since the sixteenth
century 28
Binding 32
Répertoriai evidence: concordances with contemporary
sources 33
Stemmatic evidence 35
Implications of the bibliographical and codicological
evidence for provenance 42
3 The Manuscript in Historical and Cultural Context 53
Répertoriai layers and relationships with contemporary
sources 53
The historical and cultural context 61
Conclusion 79
Appendix: Inventory of Florence 164-7 80
Source Sigla 104
Bibliography 112
List of Compositions 119
List of Composers 121
General Index 124
List of Illustrations
FIGURE
2.1 Gathering structure 12
MUSICAL EXAMPLE
2.1 Second no. 45, Vorrei saper Amanti/fa sol mi sol re mi mi
sol fa la fa fa 24
TABLES
1.1 Composers 2
2.1 Distribution of paper types 20
2.2 Principal concordant sources 34
3.1 Répertoriai layers and patterns of concordances with
related sources 57
3.2 Principal concordant sources for the Italian compositions 58
Preface
At different times during the past two decades, I have had occasion to
report on two important and closely related manuscripts that transmit
compositions in the musical repertory of early Cinquecento Florence:
Cortona, Biblioteca Comunale, MSS 95, 96 (Superius, Altus)/Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, n.a.fr. 1817 (Tenor);1 and Florence,
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS II.1.232 (olim Magliabechiana
XIX.58).2 These sources are only two elements in a larger complex of
three interrelated manuscripts, the third of which is Florence, Biblioteca
Nazionale Centrale, MSS Magliabechiana XIX. 164-167.
Florence 164-73 has been the subject of considerable scholarly
attention.4 Until recently the prevailing assumption had been that the
manuscript was a Florentine source of the early sixteenth century. This
was the conclusion of those scholars who had written the principal
earlier studies of the manuscript: Alfred Einstein ('Dante, on the Way to
the Madrigal'), Knud Jeppesen (Lafrottola), Liliana Pannella ('... [U]na
raccolta fiorentina del Cinquecento') and others. More recently, Iain
1 'Giulio de' Medici's Music Books', Early Music History, 10 (1991), 63-120.
2 'A Florentine Sacred Repertory from the Medici Restoration (Manuscript IL1.232
[olim Magi. XIX.58; Gaddi 1113] of the Biblioteca nazionale centrale, Firenze):
Bibliography and History', Acta musicologica, 55 (1983), 267-332.
3 Sigla are listed on pp. 104-11.
4 See especially Bianca Becherini, Catalogo dei manoscritti musicali della Biblioteca
nazionale di Firenze (Basel, Kassel, London, New York: Bârenreiter-Verlag, 1959), 69-71;
Becherini, 'Tre incatenature del codice fiorentino Magi. XIX. 164-65-66-67', Collectanea
Historiae Musicae, 1, Biblioteca 'Historiae Musicae Cultores', 2 (Florence: Olschki, 1953),
79-96; Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music, 1400-1550, Compiled by
the University of Illinois Musicological Archives for Renaissance Manuscript Studies, 5 vols,
Renaissance Manuscript Studies, 1 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart: American Institute of
Musicology/ Hânssler-Verlag, 1979-88), i. 228-9; Frank A. D'Accone, 'Bernardo Pisano:
An Introduction to his Life and Works', Musica disciplina, 17 (1963), 115-35, esp. p. 130;
Alfred Einstein, 'Dante, on the Way to the Madrigal', Musical Quarterly, 25 (1939), 142-55,
and 'A Supplement', ibid. 507-9 and facsimile between pp. 510 and 511; Iain Fenlon and
James Haar, The Italian Madrigal in the Early Sixteenth Century: Sources and Interpretation
(Cambridge, 1998), pp. 173-76; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MSS Magi. XIX,
164—167, ed. Howard Mayer Brown, Renaissance Music in Facsimile, 5 (London and New
York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1987); Knud Jeppesen, La frottola, 3 vols, Acta Jutlandica,
Publications of the University of Aarhus/Skrifter fra Aarhus Universitet, Humanistisk
Serie (Humanities Series), 48, XL: 2, XLI: 1, XLII: 1 (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget I
Aarhus, and Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard, and Wilhelm Hansen, Musikforlag,
1968-70), i. 38-9, and ii, pp. xvii, 45-6,132-5; Liliana Pannella, 'Le composizioni profane
di una raccolta fiorentina del Cinquecento', Rivista italiana di musicologia, 3 (Florence:
Olschki, 1968): 3-47; Joshua Rifkin, 'Scribal Concordances for Some Renaissance
Manuscripts in Florentine Libraries', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 26
(1973), 305-26.