Viewed traditionally, the history of sixteenth-century Mantuan music is almost a catalogue of some of the most distinguished composers of the age, from Tromboncino and Cara, via Jacquet of Mantua, to Wert, Palestrina, Marenzio, Pallavicino, Gastoldi, Rossi and Monteverdi. The remarkable achievements of composers under Gonzaga patronage, practically synonymous with Mantuan patronage during this period, are treated here in their social context. The arguments proceed not just from the music itself, but from detailed examination of archival sources, from which Dr Fenlon reconstructs employment patterns and describes the social structure and institutional life of the city. The aim of the book is to show how the patterns of patronage, and music and musicians, reflect and illuminate the temperaments and prime preoccupations of successive rulers. The book contains a substantial appendix of unpublished archival documents, a small proportion only of the scholarly and comparative sources on which the study is based.

Viewed traditionally, the history of sixteenth-century Mantuan music is almost a catalogue of some of the most distinguished composers of the age, from Tromboncino and Cara, via Jacquet of Mantua, to Wert, Palestrina, Marenzio, Pallavicino, Gastoldi, Rossi and Monteverdi. The remarkable achievements of composers under Gonzaga patronage, practically synonymous with Mantuan patronage during this period, are treated here in their social context. The arguments proceed not just from the music itself, but from detailed examination of archival sources, from which Dr Fenlon reconstructus employment patterns and describes the social structure and institutional life of the city. The aim of the book is to show how the patterns of patronage, and music and musicians, reflect and illuminate the temperaments and prime preoccupations of successive rulers. The book contains a substantial appendix of unpublished archival documents, a small proportion only of the scholarly and comparative sources on which the study is based. This study will appeal to musicologists, as well as to students and teachers interested in the cultures of early modern Italy. A selection of music, illustrating in various ways the system of patronage which brought it into being and enabled its survival, will be published in a companion volume.

Explores the role of music in the cultural, religious, and political upheavals of late Renaissance Italy, revealing how musical activity of all kinds was instrumentalized by those in power. Italian culture did not lose its vigour after 1530, but underwent a transformation.

Ruling Peacefully provides the first in-depth study of this influential and paradoxical figure. Gonzaga emerges as a complex personality whose interests as the representative of a northern Italian ruling family could just as easily lead him to support reform in the Catholic Church as to hinder it.

Thanks to extensive archival research and a thorough examination of the published works of the university's professors, Grendler's history tells a new story.

This volume brings together a selection of the most stimulating and influential writing on Haydn and his music in the English language. Written by a range of established and younger scholars it probes a variety of aesthetic, biographical, compositional, performance and reception issues. A specially written introduction summarizes the significance of each essay, directs the reader to appropriate complementary material and seeks the common ground between the essays; to assist with consistent referencing the individual essays retain their original pagination. This representative compendium of Haydn research provides the opportunity to explore the intellectual diversity of recent scholarship and is an indispensable publication for students of Haydn, whether new or old, amateur or professional.

This volume discusses the commerce of music and its connection to the printing and publishing industry in mid-sixteenth century Venice. Music printers occupied a unique niche in the Renaissance printing world because their product appealed to those with sophisticated taste and was not readable by the entire literate public. Bridging the gap between music and other disciplines, Bernstein demonstrates here that the role of a music printer can be discussed as part of the larger cultural and economic question of the success of a commercial enterprise.

Secular music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries encompasses an extraordinarily wide range of works and practices: courtly love songs, music for civic festivities, instrumental music, entertainments provided by minstrels, the unwritten traditions of solo singing, and much else. This collection of essays addresses many of these practices, with a focus on polyphonic settings of vernacular texts, examining their historical and stylistic contexts, their transmission in written and printed sources, questions of performance, and composers approaches to text setting. Essays have been selected to reflect the wide range of topics that have occupied scholars in recent decades, and taken together, they point to the more general significance of secular music within a broad complex of cultural practices and institutions.

Following the pioneering work of Francis Xavier in establishing Christianity in Japan, his successor Alessandro Valignano, decided to send a legation to Europe representing the three Christian daimyo of Kyushu, southern Japan. It consisted of two Christian samurai boys who were chosen as legates, together with two teenage companions. The group set sail from Nagasaki in February 1582 and were to be away for eight years. The purpose of the mission was twofold: it would give Europeans the chance of seeing Japanese people at first hand and appreciating their culture, thereby publicising the work of the Catholic Church in Japan and so (it was hoped) increase much-needed financial support; and secondly on their return to Japan the envoys would give eyewitness reports of the splendours of Renaissance Europe, thus moderating Japanese notions about the outside world and foreign barbarians. The boys travelled through Portugal, Spain and Italy and were feted wherever they went. In Venice, the authorities even postponed the annual festival in honour of St Mark, the city’s patron, so that the Japanese might view the spectacle. More importantly, the boys met Philip II of Spain several times, as well as Pope Gregory XIII and his successor Sixtus V. This is the first book-length study in English of the mission and provides important new insights into the work of the Jesuits in Japan and the nature of the legation’s impact on late-sixteenth-century European perceptions of Japan.