Music of Florence
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The music of Florence is foundational in the history of Western European music. Music was an important part of the Italian Renaissance. It was in Florence that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony.
History
Pre-1450 Florence had a very important music history during the Italian Trecento and was one of the main centres of the Italian Ars nova.
Civic music
In Florence, the most substantial patron of music until the fall of the Republic was the city itself; therefore, music was primarily used as a symbol of the city's cultural achievements. Civic musicians first appeared in civic record starting in the 13th century. These musicians were all wind players and worked in civic ensembles. In 1383, Florence made clear subdivisions between its civic instrumental ensembles, singling out the pifferi (or piffero band) from the rest of the musicians. By 1390, three basic instrumental ensembles were all in clear formation: the pifferi (3 players), trombetti (trumpets 5-6 players), and the trombadori (8-10 players), including six large trumpets, 1 drummer, and a ciaramella player.
The Pifferi
The Pifferi provided music at important civic occasions, daily at the Palazzo Vecchio (City Hall), and private functions for the aristocratic families, especially the Medici. This group is commonly noted as the most sophisticated of the three groups. Sometimes this ensemble also played for religious services on the Virgil of the feast of the Blessed Virgin, Easter, and at solemn Matins on the Sundays when the image of the Mother of God was exhibited. In 1443, the Pifferi added a fourth member, so that the group included: 2 shawms, 1 bombard, and 1 trombone. As with the vocal performing groups, there was a strong preference for foreign musicians in these ensembles, especially for German trombonists. (German instrumentalists were known for both their strong performance proficiency as also their skills as improvisers.) When it was decided to hire a trombonist to join the pifferi forces, it was agreed to hire a German musician for this trombone position. When he was hired, officials subsequently fired the three native, Florentine shawm players and replaced them all with German speaking musicians. At this time, city officials also passed a motion declaring that only foreigners should hold positions in the pifferi. These positions generally ran in families: father to son, brother to brother. The addition of a 4th musician to the pifferi, and the funds needed for this addition, reflect the continual development of the group's musical repertory, as well as the ensemble's important function within Florentine culture.
Toward the end of the 15th century, string music (especially that played on viols) became widely popular in Italy and all of Europe. But this development is not reflected in Florence's civic financial records; instead, the three civic ensembles were all well maintained and only continued to grow. For example, around 1510 the pifferi expanded to 5 players (3 shawms, 2 trombones). Only 10 years later, it expanded again to 6 musicians (4 shawms, 2 trombones).
Life for civic musicians
Life for the members of these groups was very comfortable. The government provided their musicians with clothing, housing, meals, right to name their successor, and the opportunity to supplement their wages. They were also the highest paid of public servants, and were allowed to dine in the private dining room at the Palazzo. Needless to say, these positions were prestigious and highly desirable. After retiring, they received a pension. The trombetti and pifferi could travel to other nearby cities, always representing Florence. But only on the most special of occasions did the three civic ensembles all play together.
When the wave of humanism originated in Florence focused around Marsilio Ficino and his circles, there was a preference amongst the humanists for music performed for the bas groups: improvised poetry accompanied by soft instruments. However, this growing interest is not reflected in civic records. No bas musicians were being paid by the city for their music. During this time, however, the three main civic groups flourished, especially the pifferi.
Festival music
In addition to these important civic occasions, the city of Florence celebrated carnival twice annually. These festivals took place before
"Neighbours, neighbours, neighbours,
who wants their chimneys swept?
Your chimneys, signora?
who wants them to be swept,
swept inside and out,
who wants them well cleaned,
whoever can’t pay us
just give us some bread or wine."[2]
Because carnival songs were primarily an oral tradition, only 300 texts have survived, and of these, about 70 contain music.
Devotional music
As we have seen, the Italian lauda often shared the same music with the secular
The lauda's form and style varied according to the musical and poetic culture.[8] Some of the chief poets included Lorenzo de' Medici and his mother Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ Medici, Feo Belcari, Francesco degli Albizzi, and Ser Michele Chelli. The musical style ranged from organal textures, simple note-against-note polyphony, works in the style of early Dufay, syllabic and homorhythmic declamation, and cantilena textures with supportive lower voices. Simple two-part settings were also prominent and could have been embellished or have included a third improvised part.[9]
A major source for the lauda is Serafino Razzi’s Libro primo delle laudi spirituali published in 1563. Razzi was a Dominican friar who promoted Savonarola's veneration. His anthology contains 91 musical settings for 1-4 voices and transmits 180 lauda texts. Much of what we know about both the lauda and the carnival song repertory from the 15th century comes out of this important source.
Patronage of music
Several kinds of musical patronage existed in Florence during the 15th and early 16th centuries, with respect to both sacred and secular music: state, corporate, church, and private.[10]
State patronage
The Herald was one position supported by the Florentine government. Heralds performed music during the twice-daily meals for the Signoria, held in the Palazzo Vecchio. One type of songs which heralds performed were canzoni morali, or moral songs. Many of the Herald's songs would have likely been improvised because their subjects would have often been transitory, such as current events.[11] Perhaps the best example of state patronage in Florence is the patronage of the civic groups, the trombadori, trombetti, and pifferi. Originally, the trombadori and the Herald served as the performers for public ceremonies. After the 1370s, the two other groups were added. Like the Herald, these two groups played a role both in public ceremony and the daily meals of the Signoria. The government also patronized the civic groups to provide the music required to honor visiting dignitaries. The civic musicians thus served a particular and necessary role in the complex system of rituals followed for visitors. In some cases, state and church patronage of music overlapped, such as when the Florentine government had the civic musicians perform for church services, for example when they performed at Orsanmichele on feast days.
Corporate patronage
In Florence, the guilds were responsible for the upkeep and business of the Florence Cathedral, and the Florence Baptistery. Particularly, the Arte della lana, the wool guild, was responsible for the cathedral, and the Arte della calimala, the cloth guild, for the Baptistry. In addition to other responsibilities, these guilds oversaw the establishment and maintenance of the chapel that sang for services at these two institutions, as well as later at Santissima Anunnziata. A chapel was established as early as 1438, although polyphonic music had been performed at the cathedral for at least thirty years prior. It is believed that the Medici were responsible for, or at least involved in, the creation and continuation of the polyphonic chapel in Florence.
Private
Outside of Florence, most major centers had a court and a system of nobility, such as the Dukes of Ferrara, the
Church
The church itself supported some musicians through
Patronage and the Medici
The connection between the Medici and music patronage in Florence is a complex one. Although there is no evidence that the Medici directly paid any of the Florentine public musicians, it is possible that the Medici had an arrangement with the pifferi whereby the group performed for the Medici without having to request their services through normal channels.
The various types of patronage in Florence, then, most often were implemented as a means of bringing honor to either the city itself, its religious institutions, or both. Private patronage also served as a reflection of the patron's own wealth and standing. Despite the differences in government between Florence and the courts at Ferrara, Milan, and elsewhere, the motivations behind the patronage of music were quite similar. Patrons, whether dukes or guilds men, used music and musicians to demonstrate either their own wealth and prestige, or that of their city or institution. The groups of musicians who represented the honor of the city or cathedral not only had to exist, but their quality reflected on the city as well. For this reason, patrons sought to employ the best musicians, and competition over singers or other performers was common.
Song and instrumental music
A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent
A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, compiled in Florence, c. 1490–1491) opens with Johannes Martini's work, and other works by him regularly alternates with those of Heinrich Isaac in the first nineteenth items. The opening repertoire has been interpreted as a "contest" between the two composers.[16] Isaac has been long regarded as a composer with strong ties to Florence and the Medici from the mid-1480s, whereas there is no surviving evidence connecting Martini with Florence. Martini, indeed, was a prominent court musician in Ferrara, employed by the Este from 1473 until his death in the late 1490s.
Martini and Florence
Perhaps Martini's music could have reached Florence during the 1480s.[17] Martini traveled to Rome in 1487. During that trip, he could have stopped in Florence, because the city served as a normal stopover along the route from Ferrara to Rome.[18] Martini's brother Piero joined the choir of the Florentine Cathedral and Santissima Annunziata from 1486 to 1487.[19] Martini's trip to Rome could easily have included a stopover in Florence to visit his brother.
Connections between Ferrara and Florence
Ferrara-Florence connections are supported by the shared repertoire between Florentine and contemporary Ferrarese manuscript, Cas.[20] Cas is a major selection of what was available in Ferrara in the 1470s, compiled around 1480, about a decade earlier than 229. Despite a periodic gap between the two, a larger number of concordances suggest the spread of common material in the two important centers from which the manuscripts originated. In the case of Martini, it is not surprising that Martini's eight works in the opening contest section of Fl 229 also appear in Cas.[21]
The two cities have a long-standing history of musical competition. Ferrara served as a place for recruitment of singers for the Baptistry in Florence (established in 1438).
La Martinella
Another example of such a connection is compositions of Martini and Isaac, entitled La Martinella. Both compositions are textless, and perhaps originally conceived as instrumental pieces, called "free fantasia."[24] The title probably refers to the composer himself, Martini.[25]
It is quite plausible that Isaac reworked Martini's Martinella for his setting of the same title. This is supported by the chronological relationship between the two pieces as well as shared thematic material and structure.[26] Martini's work is written no later than the mid-1470s. Isaac had arrived in Florence around 1485 when Maritni's was probably circulated in the city. Isaac's was written no earlier than the mid-1480s.[27]
Comparing these two compositions, Martini's Martinella consists of two nearly equal sections, like the majority of his secular works.[28] The first section opens with an expansive duet between superius and tenor, followed by a shorter duet for tenor and contratenor. Next, a tutti for all three voices is interrupted by a series of short imitative duets. The short characteristic phrase, indeed, is one of the main stylistic traits of Martini.[29] Isaac seems to extensively borrow material from his model, but recomposes it. He reuses the melodic material from Martini in the opening and concluding sections as well as several places of his setting, yet with motivic elaboration. For instance, Isaac's opening phrase is based on the initial material of Martini, expanding the initial duet into three-part texture in imitation.[30] In addition, a series of short motives is exchanged between various pairs of voices. This is a similar technique to that which Martini used in the same part of the form, although Isaac did not borrow any explicit melodic material from his model.[31]
He also preserves the structural proportion of Martini, including the same number of measures and nearly equal two sections. In the first section just after the opening phrase, particularly, Isaac follows the sequence of two duets, tutti, alternation between short motives, and tutti. The technique of short motives in imitation is also indebted to Martini's. It is likely that Martini stimulated Isaac's interest in reworking three-part polyphonic instrumental music through Martinella.
The opening section of the Florentine manuscript may suggest the interrelationships between Martini and Isaac, and by extension, between Ferrara and Florence. The link of Martini and Isaac is strongly suggestive through the composition Martinella. It is not coincidence that Isaac chose Martinella's piece as a model for one of his pieces. During his visit, Martini may have influenced Isaac with regard to the compositional techniques, styles, and procedure portrayed in his Martinella. The two may have worked together, which in turn is possibly reflected in the impressive opening section, alternating the works between the two.
Humanism and music
Given this environment of collaboration among institutions and classes of society, it is worth considering the relationship between music and Renaissance humanism, one of the primary intellectual strands active in Quattrocento Florence. Humanism arose as a literary movement in Italy during the late 13th century and flowered in the 15th, particularly in the city of Florence. Humanists were initially identified as professors or students of the studia humanitatis, the curriculum of core subjects that formed the foundation of the humanists' education; these included grammar (i.e. Latin), rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy. Classicism was the basis for their studies: humanists drew on the discoveries and revival of ancient Greek and Latin authors and attempted to imitate them in content, style, and form.[32]
By 1600, humanism had come to affect nearly every discipline-every discipline, that is, except music. The common view has been that music lagged behind other fields such as the plastic arts, and, indeed, the application of humanism to music has been the subject of considerable debate. Only a few fragments of ancient Greek music were known during the 15th century, and, as very few humanists comprehended the notation, the sounding music of the ancients could not be revived in the same way as their literature. Yet there are a number of ways in which music can be understood as humanist.
Although the music of the ancients could not be recovered, their theories and attitudes about it could. Due in part to the collection efforts by Florentines such as
Another manner of defining humanistic music regards a union of word and tone. One of the ways in which humanism exerted its influence on other disciplines was to encourage greater attention to clarity or elegance of style. This led to experiments with music that mirrored a text's syllable lengths, accents, and meaning.
Finally, there is the issue of the type of music that the humanists themselves cultivated. Very little of the literature by the humanists mentions contemporary art music.[35] It does, however, include descriptions of an improvisatory tradition, particularly the singing of poetry to the accompaniment of a lyre or other stringed instrument. Such accounts typically take an effusive tone, calling on classical images of Orpheus or the Muses and emphasizing the rhetorical nature of the performance.[36]
Venues and activities
A wave of urban expansion in the 1860s led to the construction of a number of theaters in Florence. Currently, the sites, activities, and musical groups is impressive. They include:
- Teatro Comunale, seat of the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the main site of concerts in the series of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a music festival the name of which recalls the presumed folk music festivals of the Middle Ages that are speculated to have been one of the sources for early opera
- Teatro della Pergola
- the Fiesole School of Music (Scuola di Musica di Fiesole), open to all ages—an attempt to encourage amateur and semi-professional musical activity
- Centro di Ricerca e di Sperimentazione per la Didattica Musicale
- Teatro Verdi, seat of the Tuscany Symphony Orchestra
- Teatro Goldoni
- Luigi Cherubini music conservatory, also home to an impressive Museum of Musical Instruments
- the music manuscript collection in the National Central Library
- a great number of churches that host musical performances.
Furthermore, the town of Empoli in the province hosts the Busoni Center for Musical Studies, and Fiesole has an ancient Roman theatre that puts an annual summer music festival.
See also
Notes
- ^ William F. Prizer, "Reading Carnival: The Creation of a Florentine Carnival Song," Early Music History 23 (2004): 192-193.
- ^ Translation taken from Patrick Macey, Bonfire Songs: Savonarola's Musical Legacy, Oxford Monographs on Music. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 46.
- ^ Frank A. D’Accone. "Canti carnascialeschi." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/04767 (accessed December 12, 2008).
- ^ Macey, Bonfire Songs, 33-34.
- ^ Blake Wilson, Music and Merchants: the Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence. (Oxford:Clarendon, 1992).
- ^ Macey, Bonfire Songs, 50.
- ^ Wilson, Music and Merchants, 141-149.
- ^ Wilson, Music and Merchants, 165.
- ^ Wilson, Music and Merchants, 165-169.
- ^ Frank D'Accone, Lorenzo il Magnifico and Music” In Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo. Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Firenze, 9-13 giugno 1992, edited by Gian Carlo Garfagnini, 259-290, Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento. Atti di Convegni, XIX (Florence: Olschki, 1994), 260
- ^ Timothy McGee, "Dinner Music for the Florentine Signoria, 1350-1450" Speculum 74 (1999): 98.
- ^ Frank A. D’Accone, "The Singers of San Giovanni in Florence During the 15th Century." Journal of the American Musicological Society 14 (1961): 309.
- ^ Frank A. D’Accone, "The Singers of San Giovanni in Florence During the 15th Century." Journal of the American Musicological Society 14 (1961): 320.
- ^ Timothy J. McGee, "In the Service of the Commune: The Changing Role of Florentine Civic Musicians, 1450-1532," Sixteenth-Century Journal 30 (1999): 742.
- ^ Frank A. D’Accone, "The Singers of San Giovanni in Florence During the 15th Century." Journal of the American Musicological Society 14 (1961): 312.
- ^ Howard Mayer Brown, ed. A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Banco Rari 229, Monuments of Renaissance Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
- ^ Lewis Lookwood,“Music at Florence and Ferrara in the Late Fifteenth Century: Rivalry and Interdependence,” in La musica a Firenze al tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico: congresso internazionale di studi, Firenze, 15-17 giugno, 1992, ed. by Piero Gargiulo (Firenze: L. S. Olschki, 1993):1-13.
- ^ Lockwood,“Music at Florence and Ferrara," 1-13.
- ^ Frank D’Accone, "The Singers of San Giovanni in Florence During the 15th Century," Journal of the American Musicological Society, 14 (1961): 307-358.
- ^ Lookwood, “Music at Florence and Ferrara,”4-6.
- ^ Lookwood,“Music at Florence and Ferrara,”6.
- ^ D'Accone, "The Singers of San Giovanni.”
- ^ Lockwood, “Music at Florence and Ferrara," 2.
- ^ Brown, A Florentine Chansonnier, 91.
- ^ Brown, A Florentine Chansonnier, 90-91.
- ^ Allan Atlas' studied of interrelationships between manuscripts in his critical notes of Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, C.G.XIII.27, and the Dissemination of the Franco-Netherlandish Chanson in Italy, c. 1460-c. 1530, Ph.D., (New York University, 1971).
- ^ Atlas' critical notes of Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, C.G.XIII.27.
- ^ Theodore Karp,“The Secular Works of Johannes Martini,” in Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music; a Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. by Martin Bernstein, Hans Lenneberg, [and] Victor Yellin (New York, W. W. Norton [1966]), 460.
- ^ Karp,“The Secular Works," 461.
- ^ Brown, A Florentine Chansonnier, 90-91.
- ^ Brown,“Emulation, Competition, and Homage: Imitation and Theories of Imitation in the Renaissance,”Journal of the American Musicological Society, 35, no. 1 (1982): 1-48.
- ^ Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and the Arts: Collected Essays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980).
- ^ Claude Palisca, Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985).
- ^ Willem Elders, "Humanism and Early Renaissance Music: A Study of the Ceremonial Music by Ciconia and Dufay," Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 27 (1977): 65-101.
- ^ Nino Pirrotta, “Music and Cultural Tendencies in 15th-Century Italy,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 19 (1966): 127-61.
- ^ Alberto Gallo, Music in the Castle: Troubadours, Books, and Orators in Italian Courts of the 13th, 14th, and 15th, Centuries (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995).
References
- Atlas, Allan W. "Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, C.G.XIII.27, and the Dissemination of the Franco-Netherlandish Chanson in Italy, c. 1460-c. 1530." Ph.D., New York University, 1971.
- Brown, Howard Mayer, ed. A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Banco Rari 229. 2 vols, Monuments of Renaissance Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
- Brown, Howard Mayer. “Emulation, Competition, and Homage: Imitation and Theories of Imitation in the Renaissance.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 35, no. 1 (1982): 1-48.
- Brown, Howard Mayer. "The Transformation of the Chanson at the End of the Fifteenth Century." In Critical Years in European Musical History, 1500-1530. Report of the Tenth Congress, Ljubljana, edited by Verchaly, Andre, 1970.
- Brown, Howard Mayer. "Words and Music in Early 16th Century-Chansons: Text Underlay in Florence, Biblioteca del Conservatorio, Ms Basevi 2442." In Quellestudien zur Musik der Renaissance, I: Formen und Probleme der Überlieferung mehrstimmiger Musik im Zeitalter Josquins Desprez, edited by Finscher, Ludwig, 97–141, Wolfenbütteler Forschungen, 6. München - Wolfenbüttel: Kraus - Herzog August Bibliothek, 1981.
- Brown, Howard Mayer. "The Diversity of Music in Laurentian Florence." In Lorenzo de' Medici: New Perspectives, edited by Toscani, Bernard, 179–201, Studies in Italian Culture. Literature in History, 13. New York: Peter Lang, 1993.
- Bullard, Melissa Meriam. Lorenzo il Magnifico: Image and Anxiety, Politics and Finance. Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento: Studi e Testi, 34. Florence: Olschki, 1994.
- Cattin, Giulio. "Church patronage of music in fifteenth-century Italy." In Music in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Patronage, Sources and Texts, edited by Fenlon, Iain, 21–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
- Cummings, Anthony M. "Gian Maria Giudeo, "sonatore del liuto", and the Medici." Fontes artis musicae 38 (1991): 312-318.
- Cummings, Anthony M. "Giulio de Medici's music books." Early Music History 10 (1991): 65–122.
- Cummings, Anthony M. The Politicized Muse: Music for Medici Festivals, 1512-1537. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
- D’Accone, Frank A. "Canti carnascialeschi." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/04767 (accessed December 12, 2008).
- D'Accone, Frank A. "Lorenzo the Magnificent and Music." In Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo. Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Firenze, 9-13 giugno 1992, edited by Gian Carlo Garfagnini, 259–290, Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento. Atti di Convegni, XIX. Florence: Olschki, 1994.
- D’Accone, Frank A. “The Musical Chapels at the Florentine Cathedral and Baptistry During the First Half of the 16th Century." Journal of the American Musicological Society 24 (1971): 1-50.
- D’Accone, Frank A. "The Singers of San Giovanni in Florence During the 15th Century." Journal of the American Musicological Society 14 (1961): 307–358.
- Gallo, "Orpheus Christianus." In Music in the Castle: Troubadours, Books, and Orators in Italian Courts of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries, pp. 69–136. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
- Gallagher, Sean. "The Berlin Chansonnier and French Song in Florence, 1450–1490: A New Dating and Its Implications." The Journal of Musicology 24 (2007): 339–364.
- Karp, Theodore. “The Secular Works of Johannes Martini.” In Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music; a Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese. Ed. by Martin Bernstein, Hans Lenneberg, [and] Victor Yellin. New York, W. W. Norton [1966].
- Lockwood, Lewis, ed. A Ferrarese Chansonnier: Roma, Biblioteca Casanatense 2856: “Canzoniere di Isabella d’Este.” Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2002.
- Lockwood, Lewis. Music in Renaissance Ferrara, 1400-1505: the Creation of a Musical Center in the Fifteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984.
- Lockwood, Lewis. “Music at Florence and Ferrara in the Late Fifteenth Century: Rivalry and Interdependence.” In La musica a Firenze al tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico: congresso internazionale di studi, Firenze, 15-17 giugno, 1992. Ed. by Piero Gargiulo. Firenze: L. S. Olschki, 1993: 1–13.
- Macey, Patrick. Bonfire Songs: Savonarola's Musical Legacy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
- McGee, Timothy J. "'Alla Battaglia:' Music and Ceremony in Fifteenth-Century Florence." Journal of the American Musicological Society 36 (1983): 287–302.
- McGee, Timothy J. "Dinner Music for the Florentine Signoria, 1350-1450." Speculum 74 (1999): 95–114.
- McGee, Timothy J. "In the Service of the Commune: The Changing Role of Florentine Civic Musicians, 1450-1532." Sixteenth Century Journal 300 (1999): 727-43.
- McGee, Timothy J., "Cantare all'improvviso: Improvising to Poetry in Late Medieval Italy." In Improvisation in the arts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 31–70. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2003.
- Noble, Jeremy. "New light on Josquin's benefices." In Josquin des Prez: Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Conference, edited by Lowinsky, Edward E. and Blackburn, Bonnie J., 76–102. London: Oxford University Press, 1976.
- Owens, Jessie A. and Anthony M. Cummings, ed. Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood. Warren, Mich.: Harmonie Park Press, 1997.
- Pirrotta, Nino. "Music and Cultural Tendencies in 15th-Century Italy." Journal of the American Musicological Society 19 (1966): 127–161.
- Planchart, Alejandro Enrique. "Northern repertories in Florence in the Fifteenth Century." In La musica a Firenze ai tempi di Lorenzo il Magnifico, edited by Pietro Gargiulo, 101–112. Florence: Olschki, 1993.
- Polk, Keith. "Civic Patronage and Instrumental Ensembles in Renaissance Florence." Augsburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft 3 (1986): 51–68.
- Prizer, William F. "Reading Carnival: The Creation of a Florentine Carnival Song." Early Music History 23 (2004): 185–252.
- Reynolds, Christopher A. Papal Patronage and the Music of St. Peter's, 1380-1513. Berkeley - Los Angeles - London: University of California Press, 1995.
- Sherr, Richard. "The Singers of the Papal Chapel and Liturgical Ceremonies in the Early Sixteenth Century: Some Documentary Evidence." In Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth, edited by Ramsey, P.A., 249–264. Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982.
- Trexler, Richard C. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991, pp. 213–330.
- Wilson, Blake. "Heinrich Isaac among the Florentines." The Journal of Musicology 23 (2006): 97–152.
- Wilson, Blake. Music and Merchants: the Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
- Guide Cultura, i luoghi della music (2003) ed. Touring Club Italiano.