Some Forerunners of Italian Opera

by W. J. Henderson

The marquisate owed its elevation to the character of the great lords of the house of Gonzaga, who ruled it from 1328 to 1708. In the former year the head of the house ousted from the government the Buonacolsis, who had been masters since 1247. In 1432 the Gonzagas were invested with the hereditary title of Marquis and in 1530 Charles V raised the head of the house to the rank of Duke. When the last duke died without issue in 1708 Austria gained possession of the little realm.

Entangled in the ceaseless turmoil of wars between Milan and the forces allied against her, Mantua under the rule of the Gonzagas maintained her intellectual energy and played bravely her part in the revival of classic learning. Her court became a center of scholarship from which radiated a beneficent influence through much of northern Italy. The lords of Gonzaga fought and plotted, ate and drank, and plunged into the riotous dissipation and free play of passions which characterized the Renaissance period, but like other distinguished Italians they steeped themselves in learning and were the proud patrons of artists, authors, teachers, composers.

The eminence of the house in scholarship doubtless dated from the reign of the Marchese Gian Francesco Gonzaga. This nobleman cherished a genuine love for ancient history and was not without an appreciation of Roman verse. Believing, as he did in common with most Italians, that the republican thought of Rome was the foundation of all exalted living, he realized that his children ought to be committed to the care of a master thoroughly schooled in ancient lore. He therefore invited to his court, in 1425, the distinguished scholar Vittorino da Feltre and gave the children entirely into his hands. A separate villa was allotted to the master and his pupils. This house had been a pleasure resort where the young Gonzagas and their friends had idled and feasted. Under Vittorino it was gradually transformed into a great school, for the Marquis was liberal enough to open its doors to students from various parts of Italy. The influence of the institution became far reaching and vital. The children of the Marquis, surrounded by earnest minds, by students often so poor that they had to be provided by their patron with clothes and food, but none the less respected in that little community of the intellect for their sincerity and their industry, could not fail to imbibe a deep reverence for learning and a keen and discriminating taste in art.

It is, then, in the natural order of things that Ludovico Gonzaga, one of the sons of Francesco and pupils of Vittorino, should have been proud to receive at his court the sycophantic and avaricious poet Filelfo, and to suffer under his systematic begging. He discharged his debt to the world of art with greater insight when in 1456 he invited to his court the great painter Mantegna. He offered the artist a substantial salary and in 1460 the master went to reside at Mantua. He remained there under three successive marquises till his death in 1506. He enriched the little capital with splendid creations of his art, now unfortunately mostly destroyed. Mantegna's "Madonna della Vittoria," in the Louvre, was painted to celebrate the deeds of Francesco Gonzaga in the battle of Fornovo.

When he was ejected from Rome for making obscene pictures, Giulio Romano went to live at Mantua, and the city still bears the traces of his residence as well as of Mantegna's. The ducal palace, begun in 1302, contains five hundred rooms in many of which are paintings by Romano. The Palazzo Te is regarded by most authorities as Giulio's noblest monument, displaying, as it does, his skill as an architect, painter and sculptor. The Cathedral of San Pietro was restored from his designs and in the Church of San Andrea, in a tomb adorned by his pupils, sleeps the great Mantegna.

The history of music at the court of Mantua begins at least as early as the fourteenth century. Vander Straeten[6] found some record of a musician of the Gallo-Belgic school called Jean le Chartreux, or by the Italians Giovanni di Namur. He was the author of a "Libellus Musicus," preserved in the British Museum. He was born at Namur, learned singing, and according to Vander Straeten, studied the works of Boethius under Vittorino da Feltre in Italy. He cites Marchetto of Padua as the first to write in the chromatic manner since Boethius. Bertolotti in his searching examination[7] of the records of Mantua found numerous names of musicians employed at the court or permitted to exercise their calling within the boundaries of the marquisate. He notes the predominance of Flemish masters and the supremacy of their ideas in the music of Italy. He attributes to Vittorino da Feltre the introduction of the systematic study of music and credits him with publicly teaching the art and inspiring in some measure the treatise of Jean le Chartreux. From Bertolotti we learn that Maestro Rodolfo de Alemannia, an organist, and German, living in Mantua, obtained in 1435 certain privileges in the construction of organs for six years.

From this time forward we find music and musicians in high favor at the court of Mantua. Neither Vander Straeten nor Bertolotti succeeded in obtaining from the archives of the city more than fragmentary mention of musicians of whom we would gladly know more. Nevertheless there is sufficient to demonstrate the interest of the marquises in the art and the frequency with which musical entertainment was provided.

Toward the end of 1458 Germans became more numerous among the musicians at Mantua, though they do not appear at any time to have held a commanding position. This is quite natural since at that period German musicians had no school of their own, but with the rest of the world were followers of the Flemings. In 1458 Barbara of Brandenburg, Marchioness of Mantua, took from Ferrara Marco and Giovanni Peccenini, who were of German birth. Two years later the Marquis, wishing to engage a master of singing for his son, sent to one Nicolo, the German, at Ferrara, and this musician recommended Giovanni Brith as highly qualified to sing in the latest fashion the best songs of the Venetian style.

Ludovico, who has already been mentioned and who was the marquis from 1444 to 1478, had for two years at his court the celebrated Franchino Gaffori. This master, born near Lodi in 1451, was the son of one Betino, a soldier. The boy went into the church in childhood and studied ecclesiastical music under a Carmelite monk named Johannis Godendach. Later, he went to Mantua, where his father was in the service of the Marquis. "Here for two years he closely applied himself day and night to study, during which time he composed many tracts on the theory and practice of music."[8] The period of Gaffori's greatest achievements in theoretical work, especially his noted "Practica Musicae," from which Hawkins quotes copiously, was later than his residence at Mantua, but his studies at that court at least betoken the existence of a congenial atmosphere, and we may be assured that such an enlightened amateur as Ludovico did not neglect opportunities to acquaint himself with the workings of this studious mind.

Bertolotti reproduces sundry interesting letters which passed between the courts of Ferrara and Mantua and dealt with musical matters. Perhaps an epistle from the Duke of Milan in January, 1473, might cause a passing smile of amusement, for in it the Duke confides to the Mantuan Marquis a project for the revival of music in Italy. It seems that he was weary of the long reign of the Flemings, and was sending to Rome for the best musicians with the purpose of founding an orchestra so that composers and singers would be attracted to his court. But as this fine project had no direct bearing on the history of the lyric drama we may permit it to pass without further examination.