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Tag Archives: Renaissance

Titian, Bassano, Raphael &c

28 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Italy, Literature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Baldassare Castiglione, Bassano, Book of the Courtier, Court of Urbino, Raphael, Renaissance, Titian

08bembo

Pietro Bembo by Raphael, c. 1504, Szépmûvesti Museum (Photo credit: Web Gallery of Art)

Portrait of Pietro Bembo

c. 1504
Oil on wood, 54 x 69 cm
Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest

RAFFAELLO Sanzio

(b. 1483, Urbino, d. 1520, Roma)http://www.wga.hu/html_m/r/raphael/1early/08bembo.html
Web Gallery of Art

When I turned on my computer this morning, there were several entries on Pietro Bembo and several portraits and other images associated our Cardinal. I am glad my short post generated a search for portraits of Pietro Bembo. The internet’s search engines are very powerful and bloggers may be more useful than they seem.

The portrait of Pietro Bembo, shown above, is by Raphael (b. 1483, Urbino, d. 1520, Roma) or Raffaello Sanzio and it is housed at the Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, in Budapest. Yes, Raffaelo Sanzio was at the Court of Urbino, his birthplace and the birthplace of “l’honnête homme,” not to mention salons. Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino produced a very beautiful portrait of Baldassare Castiglioni, the author of Il Cortegiano, or the Book of the Courtier (1528).

Baldassare_Castiglione,_by_Raffaello_Sanzio,_from_C2RMF_retouched

Baldassare Castiglione by Raphael, Louvre Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pietro Bembo is mentioned in Wikipeda’s entry on Baldassare Castiglioni. As for the “Portrait of a Man” it remains unidentified, but according to Britannica, Giovanni Bellini did produce a painting of Cardinal Pietro Bembo, named “Portrait of a Young Man.” Bellini also painted an identified portrait of the Doge Leonardo Loredan.

His [Giovanni Bellini’s] Doge Leonardo Loredan in the National Gallery, London, has all the wise and kindly firmness of the perfect head of state, and his Portrait of a Young Man (c. 1505; thought to be a likeness of the Venetian writer and humanist Pietro Bembo) in the British royal collection portrays all the sensitivity of a poet (Britannica).

08bembo

Pietro Bembo by Raphael, c. 1504, Szépmûvészti Museum (Web Gallery of Art)

 

portrait-of-a-young-man-1_jpg!HalfHD

Portrait of a Man by Giovanni Bellini (Web Gallery of Art)

Conclusion

At the moment, we have three identified portraits of Pietro Bembo: Titian’s, Bassano’s and Raphael’s. Bellini’s “Portrait of a Man” or “Portrait of a Young Man,” shows a young man resembling Pietro Bembo, which is inconclusive. Given that Raphael, Titian, Bassano and Giovanni Bellini made a portrait of the Cardinal, it seems, however, that he was a prominent figure during his lifetime.

The book I am writing, on Molière, includes discussions of l’honnête homme. I am also revisiting préciosité and the querelle des femmes. Women met in salons.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Pietro Bembo: Titian or Bassano? (26 March 2016)
  • A Few Words on “Sprezzatura” (21 June 2012)
  • Il Cortegiano, or “l’honnête homme” (3 October 2011)

Raphael

Giovanni_Bellini,_portrait_of_Doge_Leonardo_Loredan - Copie

Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredam by Giovanni Bellini (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
27 March 2016
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On Artist Sofonisba Anguissola

04 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Italy, Renaissance

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Élisabeth de Valois, education, Italian Mannerist Painter, Philip II of Spain, Renaissance, Sofonisba Anguissola

 

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Sofonisba Anguissola, self-portrait

Sofonisba Anguissola

Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532 – 16 November 1625) is the third Renaissance artist we are discussing. She is considered a Mannerist painter.

Sofonisba was the oldest of seven children, six daughters and a son, born to Amilcare Anguissola and Bianca Ponzone. Sofonisba’s father was an aristocrat. Britannica describes him as wealthy and Wikipedia, as impoverished. It is not a contradiction. It simply means that Sofonisba lived comfortably but that her father could not provide six dowries to marry his daughters. He therefore decided that his daughters would be in a position to earn an income and bring some wealth to a potential spouse. Amilcare was centuries ahead of his times and both a realistic and responsible father. The Anguissola sisters therefore received a “well-rounded” education which included the fine arts. Lucia, the most promising of the Anguissola sisters, died at a young age. One sister entered a convent. The others married.

Sofonisba and her sister Elena apprenticed to Bernardino Campi (1522–1591), at his home for three years. She also apprenticed to Bernardino Gatti, il Sojaro (1495-96 – 22 February 1576). This was a precedent. Other families emulated the Anguissola family. Sofonisba’s sisters, Lucia, Minerva, Europa and Anna Maria apprenticed to Sofonisba. Sofonisba then travelled to Rome where she met Michelangelo (March 1475 – 18 February 1564) for whom she executed a drawing he liked. She also travelled to Milan and painted the Duke of Alba.

In short, Sofonisba had a privileged and happy upbringing and the future bode well for her, as her father wished. Moreover, Italy is where the scholars, who fled Byzantium in 1453, had settled. The Renaissance began in Italy. It follows that Italy was the right milieu for artists. As for Sofonisba, she had the privilege of being born to enlightened parents. She therefore spent a lifetime doing what she loved.

Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, c. 1561 (Pinterest)
Élisabeth de Valois (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Marquess Massimiliano Stampa (courtesy: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore)
Sofonisba  Anguissola by Anthony Van Dyck (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (7)
The Double Portrait, Bernardino Campi and Sofonisba (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (8)

Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma
Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma
Élisabeth de Valois, Queen of Spain
Élisabeth de Valois, Queen of Spain
l_pl1_371016_fnt_tr_t87iiia-2

Marquess Massimiliano Stampa (courtesy: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore)

Madrid : 1559

The Duke of Alba, whom she painted, recommended her to no less than Spain’s most prominent monarch, King Philip II (Felipe II). Philip II had married French princess Élisabeth de Valois (2 April 1545 – 3 October 1568) whom he was very fond of and who enjoyed painting. Hence his recruiting Sofonisba who earned the rank of lady-in-waiting to the Queen consort. She was also an attendant to the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. Germaine Greer writes that in Sofonisba’s days, “painting was a craft practiced by menials,”[1] which may explain why Sofonisba was named attendant to the Infanta. However, Sofonisba was employed and young Élisabeth, very pleased with her artist lady-in-waiting, with whom she spent the remainder of her brief life. Moreover, Sofonisba was a court painter.

At the court of Spain, Sofonisba Anguissolla was a portraitist mainly. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, “Anguissola’s paintings of this period are no longer extant, having burned in a fire in the Prado in the 17th century.”[2]

Marriages: the Dowry

Accounts vary as to dates, so I will simplify matters by saying that after the Queen died, at the age of 24 after a miscarriage, Felipe II provided Sofonisba with a dowry and married her to an aristocrat, Sicilian nobleman Fabrizio de Moncadas. After Fabrizio’s death, Sofonisba met Orazio Lomellino, the captain of the ship taking her to Cremona and she married him. Sofonisba and her husband lived in Genoa where Sofonisba continued to work as a portraitist, but also executed religious works. She died in 1625, at the age of ninety-three. Anthony Van Dyck visited her when she was in her 90s. He found her mentally alert and made a portrait of her. By then, Sofonisba, who was wealthy, had become of patron of the arts.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • On Artist Sofonisba Anguissola (4 March 2016)
  • On Artist Artemisia Gentileschi (28 February 2016)
  • On Artist Lavinia Fontana (17 February 2016)

 

With kind regards to everyone. ♥

The_Chess_Game_-_Sofonisba_Anguissola

The Chess Game (Portrait of the artist’s sisters playing chess), 1555 (Commons Wikimedia)

 

The Artist's Mother, 1557 (Wikipedia)
The Artist’s Mother, 1557 (Wikipedia)
Minerva, Amilcare and Asdrubale, 1557 (Wikipedia)
Minerva, Amilcare and Asdrubale, 1557 (Wikipedia)

 

Sofonisba-Anguissola-by-Van-Dyck

Portrait of Sofonisba by Anthony Van Dyck (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (7)

____________________
[1] Germaine Greer, The Obstacle Race, (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979), p. 180.

[2] “Sofonisba Anguissola”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 04 mars. 2016
<http://www.britannica.com/biography/Sofonisba-Anguissola>.

800px-Self-portrait_with_Bernardino_Campi_by_Sofonisba_Anguissola

© Micheline Walker
4 March 2016
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Bernardino Campi painting himself and Sofonisba
(Photo credit: Wikipedia) (8)

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On Artist Lavinia Fontana

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Italy, Renaissance

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Accademia degli Incamminati, Lavinia Fontana, Pope Clement VIII, Pope Louis XIII, Prospero Fontana, Renaissance, Renaissance Academies, Woman Painter

portrait-of-a-noblewoman-1580_jpg!HalfHD

Portrait of a Noblewoman by Lavinia Fontana, 1580 (WikiArt.org)

The portrait of Pope Gregory Xlll, inserted in “Happy Valentine’s Day” is by Lavinia Fontana.

Lavinia Fontana (24 August 1552 – 11 August 1614) was a major artist, a portraitist mainly, of the Italian 16th century. In fact, so fine was her work that she was called to Rome by Pope Clement VIII (24 February 1536 – 3 March 1605) where she settled in 1603. Germaine Greer writes that “when she travelled to their estates in the Emilia, they would mount a formal reception, with soldiers lining the streets, fire salutes, as if she were a princess.”[1]

A room of one’s own

Being a woman was an obstacle as women were expected to have children and run a household. Lavinia had 11 children, but her husband Paolo Zappi gave up his profession to be her assistant. Moreover, she had an income. You may remember what importance Virginia Woolf (25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) attached to having a room of one’s own. In A Room of One’s Own, published in 1929, she wrote that “[a] woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction[,]” and be an artist. In 17th-century France, widows were considered privileged women. They had time, money, and servants.

Lavinia Fontana was the daughter of painter Prospero Fontana (1512 – 1597), a prominent artist, and was raised in Bologna. There was a Bolognese School. As noted above, Lavinia Fontana did marry and gave birth to 11 children, but only three survived her. Some may have died in childhood, making for a smaller household, but causing considerable pain. The miracle is that she survived childbirth, a major risk, and was a productive artist.

Portrait of a Lady at Court, 1580
Portrait of a Lady at Court, 1580
Portrait of Ginevra Aldrovani Hercolani, 1595
Portrait of Ginevra Aldrovani Hercolani, 1595

Self-Portrait
Self-Portrait
Portrait of a Noblewoman, 1580
Portrait of a Noblewoman, 1580

Portrait of a Lady at Court, 1590
Portrait of Ginevra Adrovan Hercolani, 1595
Self-Portrait, Lavinia Fontana at the Clavichord with a Servant, 1577
Portrait of a Noblewoman, 1580
Portrait of Minerva Dressing, 1613
(Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

Subject Matter

Lavinia Fontana’s subject matter was the same as male artists of her times. She painted scenes inspired by the newly-discovered Greek antiquity. You will remember that the Renaissance began when the Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks, which would be the year 1453. Byzantium’s Greek scholars fled to Italy. Lavinia also painted nudes. But above all, she was a fine portraitist. However, in order to earn a living, Lavinia had to paint religious scenes. As indicated in her Wikipedia entry, Lavinia “gained the patronage of the Buoncompagni family, of which Pope Gregory XIII was a member[,]” hence, perhaps, her truly magnificent portrait of him.

Schools

Lavinia Fontana’s style is called carracciesque, because of the influence of the Carracci cousins, Agostino,  Annibale  and Ludovico, Annibal in particular. They were the founders of the Accademia degli Incamminati  (walking forward). WikiArt.org classifies her work as examples of Mannerist Renaissance painting. As noted in earlier posts, the Italian Renaissance developed in Academies, hence the use of the word Accademia. There were formal academies, but others were informal, such as Count Bardi’s Florentine Camerata  where Vincenzo Galileo, astronomer Galileo Galilei’s father proposed the somewhat artificial twelve-tone equal temperament.

It has been suggested that Lavinia made paintings signed by her father. In fact, some patrons suspected as much and asked Prospero to do the work they commissionned by himself. This was no doubt a limitation for Lavinia. Her father preyed on her time and talent.

A main characteristic of her paintings is her attempt to convey feeling. Most noticeable, however, is her attention to details and the dark back drop. It be may that the greatest female artist of the Italian Renaissance is Artemisia Gentileschi  (8 July 1593 – c. 1656), but she had colleagues, Lavinia Fontana and Sofonisba Anguissola (1532 – November 1625).

LFontana

Portrait of Minerva Dressing, 1613

Some of her paintings were attributed to Guido Reni. There was a link. Both were born in Bologna and both moved to Rome.

Lavinia was considered an equal among the artists of her time and an inspiration to such painters as the afore-mentioned Guido Reni (4 November 1575 – 18 August 1642), whose remarkable “St Michael Archangel” is held in Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, Rome. I have used it in an earlier post. He too was invited to move to Rome.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • On Artist Sofonisba Anguissola (4 March 2016)
  • On Artist Artemisia Gentileschi (28 February 2016)
  • On Artist Lavinia Fontana (17 February 2016)

 

With kindest regards. ♥

188182-004-41660D65

The Holy Family with Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Photo credit: Britannica)

 

_____________
[1] Germaine Greer, The Obstacle Race (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979), p. 208.
[2] Cirici Pellicer, El barroquismo, (Barcelona: Editorial Ramón Sopena, 1963), p.75.

Vivaldi and Cecilia Bartoli 

wyr_wagy_a1_20_624x544

@ Micheline Walker
17 February 2016
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The Netherlandish Renaissance: a Glimpse

01 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Music

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Adrian Willaert, Albrecht Dürer, Franco-Flemish school, Hare, Heinrich Isaac, mistakes, Netherlands, Renaissance

 hare-1528-1
Hare by Albrecht Dürer, 1528
 

Little Mistakes

Once my post on Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published, on 29 November 2013, I realized there were mistakes: typos and repetitions.  So I played editor and now fear that WordPress will fire me.  They should!

Typos and repetitions are the bane of people who suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome /Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.  We repeat  sentences, misspell words and get lost in mid-sentence.  Fortunately, we are perfectly lucid.  CFS/ME is a neurological illness for which there is no known cure.

CFS/ME may be triggered by the H1N1 virus (1976 epidemic), which is my case.  It is a debilitating condition, but it can be managed.  One must organize one’s daily activities.  Never go beyond your limits and ignore the people who think you are an imaginary invalid and tell you to go to a gym every day.  If you do, you may not have sufficient energy to lead a ‘normal’ life, i.e. to earn a living. Exercise in moderation.

About Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

In my post, I  stated that Harriet Beecher Stowe (14 June 1811 – 1 July 1896) was not an abolitionist, which seemed strange.  Sources differ.  According to Wikipedia, Stowe was an abolitionist, but not according to the Oxford Companion to American Literature.

I doubt that anyone made a mistake.  Beecher’s views may have changed.  For instance, she travelled to Kentucky to escape a cholera epidemic and was taken to a slave auction, which was a wake-up call.  Moreover, at some point in her life, she and her father, Lyman Beecher, an austere and controversial figure, parted ways.  Finally, she married Calvin Ellis Stowe (6 April 1802 – 22 August 1886), an active abolitionist and a member of the Underground Railroad.

My next post is almost ready, so this is an ‘in-between’ post.

imagesCARO0FZR

The Netherlandish & Northern Renaissance

The hare featured above is Albrecht Dürer‘s (21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528).  It must be one of Dürer’s last paintings.  It is a watercolour painting, but the white specks on the hare’s fur are little touches of gouache.  Gouache was also applied to the hare’s nose.

Dürer did not let his colours run.  He painted on dry paper (cotton), which has remained an acceptable practice.  He was a superb draftsman who often used ink and personalized his art using a logo (shown above).

Albrecht lived during the Northern Renaissance.  But, at that moment in history, the Netherlands was the cultural hub of Europe, especially in the area of music.  The Franco-Flemish style dominated Western music.  Adrian Willaert (ca 1490 – 7 December 1562) was asked to go to Venice, where he founded the Venetian School.  At that time, musicians were perfecting polyphony, combining voices.

Heinrich Isaac: Netherlandish Renaissance

The music is Heinrich Isaac‘s (c. 1450 – 26 March 1517) Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen, Innsbruck, I must leave you.  Isaac is associated with the Netherlandish Renaissance. Innsbruck, ich must dich lassen is one of the most famous compositions in Western music.  It was made into a Lutheran chorale entitled O Welt, ich muss dich lassen (O World, I must leave you).  It was also used by Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750) in In allen meinen Taten, a Church cantata, BMW 97.

446px-Innsbruck_castle_courtyardcourtyard-of-the-former-castle-in-innsbruck-with-clouds-1494
Courtyard of the Former Castle in Innsbruck without Clouds, by A. Dürer, c 1494
Courtyard of the Former Castle in Innsbruck with Clouds, by A. Dürer, c 1494
 
Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen (artwork by Pieter Bruegel the Elder)
 

Young Hare by Dürer, 1502

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30 November 2013
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Frederico Barocci: Grace

20 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Baldassare Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, France, Frederico Barroci, Renaissance, sprezzatura, Thomas Hoby, Urbino

Landscape with Banks and Trees,
by Frederico Barrocci (c.1590)
The British Museum, London
(Used by permission of Art Resource, NY)

Frederico Barocci  (c. 1526, Urbino – 1612, Urbino) is a Renaissance artist.  As a citizen of Urbino, he is not totally unknown to us.  Baldassare Castiglione, the author of Il Cortegiano, The Book of the Courtier, lived at the Court of Urbino.  Il Cortegiano was published in 1528, late in Castiglione’s life, but was written over several years.  The Italian courtier has sprezzatura.  In France, he is l’honnête homme.  In England, he displays contenance angloise, a term used to describe a form of polyphonic music, but which suggests  élégance characterized by an degree of restraint, or sprezzatura.

I love Barocci’s landscape.  I love its flowing lines (mannerist), its suggestiveness and its monochromatic quality.  Nothing is overstated.  Beauty can be bold, but it can also be a mere whisper, lace curtains gently billowed by the wind, sheer grace: sprezzatura.

According to Wikipedia, “The Book of the Courtier was one of the most widely distributed books of the 16th century, with editions printed in six languages and in twenty European centers. The 1561 English translation by Thomas Hoby had a great influence on the English upper class’s conception of English gentlemen.”

Related blog:  Il Cortegiano, or l’honnête homme

Micheline Walker©
June 20, 2012
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Jean-Antoine du Baïf & l’Académie de poésie et de musique

04 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Académie de Poésie et de Musique, Antoine de Baïf, Charles IX., Claude Le Jeune, Huguenot, Renaissance, St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, vers mesurés à l'antique

Huguenot Crest

This is probably my last post on the subject of the Pléiade, but there is one story I would like to share with you, that of the Académie de poésie et de musique founded, in 1570, by Jean-Antoine de Baïf and Joachim Thibault de Courville, under the auspices of Charles IX.  Royal patronage could explain why the Académie de poésie et de musique is considered the first Académie to be founded in France.

In theory, members of the Académie attempted to write verses measured in the same manner as Greek verses, vers mezurés à l’antique.* The Académie‘s endeavour was perfectly legitimate and encouraged by Ronsard himself.  However, members met in such secrecy that it would not be unreasonable to suspect a Huguenot connection.

*There was and may still be a Baïf font for Mac computers.

Jean-Antoine de Baïf

Jean-Antoine de Baïf (Venice, February 1532; Paris, 19 September 1589), the co-founded of the Académie, was the natural son of diplomat and Hellenist Lazare de Baïf.  We have no information on Jean-Antoine’s mother.  Jean-Antoine was raised by his father.

The Collège de Coqueret

Lazare was a good father.  He provided his son, at a very early age, with the best teachers he could hire.  In fact, in 1544, after Lazare had returned to Paris, he had his son and his secretary, Pierre de Ronsard, now nearly deaf, educated by Dorat or Doraut, who would become principal at the Collège de Coqueret and was later appointed as professor at the Collège de France, established in 1530.

Pierre de Ronsard was Jean-Antoine’s senior by eight years and at the Collège de Coqueret they met Joachim du Bellay and Pontus du Tyard, Dorat’s pupils and both future members of the Pléiade.  Ronsard, the “prince of poets,” and Du Bellay are the co-founders of the Pléiade.  Jean Dorat, one of Europe’s most prominent Hellenists, also became a member of the Pléiade and was, in fact, the group’s mentor.  The Pléiade consisted of seven members.

L’Académie de Musique et de Poésie

Among members of the Pléiade, Baïf was probably the only poet who was also a musician.  His goal in founding the short-lived Académie de poésie et de musique was, as mentioned above, the creation of poetry and music that would be measured in a manner resembling Greek versification.

Charles IX, by François Clouet*

The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre 

Catherine de Médicis’s incited her son, King Charles IX, to order the Massacre of the St. Bartholomew’s Day (August 24th [early morning], 1572).  In fact, she plotted the entire event.  The massacre lasted several days and spread to the provinces.  Thousands of Huguenots were slaughtered. Young Charles IX, then 22 years old, barely survived the atrocities.  He was emotionally devastated and physically weakened.  He died in 1774, probably of tuberculosis.

* * *

When Charles IX died, Ronsard, who was supportive of ‘vers mezurés,’ left his rooms at Court.  As for the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, members continued to meet and they received encouragement on the part of famed poet Agrippa d’Aubigné, a Protestant who had left France several years before the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, but the Académie had nevertheless entered a period of decline.  It was revived briefly as l’Académie du Palais, under Henri III, Charles IX’s brother.

Claude Le Jeune, Jacques Mauduit and, perhaps, Eustache Du Caurroy

Very little is known about Baïf’s Académie de poésie et de musique, except that its membership included prominent composers Claude Le Jeune, Jacques Mauduit and, probably, Eustache Du Caurroy.

All three composed musique mezurée à l’antique, but the better-known of the group is Claude Le Jeune (born c. 1527, Valenciennes, Burgundian Hainaut [now in France]—died c. 1600, Paris).  Claude Le Jeune, a Franco-Flemish composer who died a Huguenot, was choirmaster to Henri III, Charles IX’s brother and successor, and music teacher to Henri de Navarre, a Huguenot and the future King of France, Henri IV.

Le Jeune wrote ‘Parisian’ songs, using metrical verses, but also composed madrigals and motets.  Moreover, as a Huguenot, he contributed metrical psalms to the Genevan Psalter, published after his death in 1600.

As for Jacques Mauduit, he is the composer of the masterful Requiem (please click to hear) played at Pierre de Ronsard’s state funeral in 1585.  Mauduit and Du Caurroy were composers of polyphonic music, or music using many voices.

Massacre of the St. Bartholemew’s Day

Vers mezurés and Music

It remains nevertheless that the premature death of Charles IX, dealt a nearly-fatal blow to the Académie.  Moreover, members were not particularly successful at producing vers mesurés in poetry.  Set to music, however, vers mesurés or metrical psalms were quite pleasant.  So, there is a sense in which Antoine de Baïf experiment was successful, but not for long.  The air de cour became fashionable.

As for Antoine de Baïf, in 1574, he published his Etrénes de poezie fransoèze en vers mezurés (“Gifts of French Poetry in Quantitative Verse”).  As well, in 1586, he composed the lyrics of songs in Greek metrics: Chansonnettes mesurées. The music was written by the above-mentioned Jacques Mauduit, a member of Baïf’s Académie de Poésie et de Musique, the Académie’s foremost musician, and, as I mentioned above, the composer of the Requiem played at Ronsard’s state funeral.

Given its secrecy, the Académie may have been a refuge for Huguenots, but we may never know for certain.  We know, however, that Baïf wrote a long poem commemorating the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre and that, although he had taken minor orders, Ronsard saved Claude Le Jeune’s life, as did Antoine de Baïf.  But most eloquent of all, is Ronsard’s Discours des misères de ce temps (1562), Discourse on the Miseries of These Times.

In poetry the “vers mezurés” were not very successful.  French is a “flat” language. Stressing syllables other than the last sounded syllable of a word made poems sound unnatural.  But vers mezurés à l’antique had their moment of grace in the history of music.

Henri IV, by François Clouet

Henri IV, by François Clouet (spenceralley.blogspot.com)

*François Clouet

* * *

  • Le Jeune, Claude: Revecy venir du printemps
  • Le Jeune, Claude: Psaumes pour le culte protestant

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[i] “Jean-Antoine de Baïf.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 04 Jan. 2012.             <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/49170/Jean-Antoine-de-Baif>.            

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La Pléiade: Du Bellay

30 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Du Bellay, France, Literature, Vernacular

≈ 58 Comments

Tags

Défense et illustration..., Joachim du Bellay, La Pléiade, Les Regrets, Renaissance

 
Joachim du Bellay

Joachim du Bellay

In a post entitled The Renaissance: Galileo & Galilei, I spoke about Count Bardi’s Florentine Camerata, an informal academy, and focussed on Vincenzo Galilei, a scholar, an advocate of the use of equal temperament in music, and Galileo’s father.  I also wrote about Giulio Caccini, a composer who favoured monody, or one voice.

* * *

France: La Pléiade

However, we are now moving to Renaissance France where both formal and informal academies were also founded. The foremost of these academies was the Pléiade[i], an informal 16th-century (the French Renaissance) académie.  It was comprised of seven members: Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay, Jean-Antoine de Baïf, Rémy Belleau, Pontus de Tyard, Étienne Jodelle and Jean Dorat, their mentor.  But, with the exception of Antoine de Baïf, members of la Pléiade’s main interest was poetry, which is literature bordering on music.

A Word About Jean Dorat

As I wrote above, Jean Dorat (3 April 1508, in Limoges – 1st November 1588), a brilliant Hellenist, was the mentor among the seven members of the Pléiade.  He had in fact taught at the Collège de Coqueret and four of his pupils had been Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay, Pontus de Tyard and Antoine de Baïf, all members of the Pléiade.

Compared to Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay, Dorat was the lesser poet.  But his fame as a scholar and Hellenist spread beyond France and, in 1556, he was appointed to the Collège Royal [ii] (French link), founded by Francis I, king of France, in 1530.  An appointment to the Collège Royal remains a French scholar’s highest recognition.

—ooo—

Défense et illustration de la langue française

Défense et illustration de la langue française 

Joachim Du Bellay is the eloquent author of a manifesto in which he advocated the use of French instead of Latin, his Défense & Illustration de la langue française.  Had the Défense & illustration de la langue française been his only work, Du Bellay would occupy a prominent place in the history of French literature.  His sentiments with respect to the French language echoed those of all seven members of the Pléiade, which makes the Défense & illustration de la langue française the group’s manifesto.

I have mentioned Joachim du Bellay in my blog on the Petrarchan Movement. You may remember that, not unlike Du Bellay, Pietro Bembo had encouraged Italian-language composers to set their music to texts by Petrarch, Torquato Tasso, Dante, etc.  In his eyes, Italian had come of age.  In this respect, Pietro Bembo is a precursor to Joachim du Bellay, except that Du Bellay was and remains one of France’s most celebrated poets.

Poetry

Du Bellay’s poetry was influenced by Italian poetry.  He was especially fond of the Petrarchan sonnet and encouraged members of La Pléiade to model their poetry on the works produced in Italian-language lands: sonnets, odes, etc.  His most famous collection of poems, Les Regrets, was written between 1553 and 1557, during a long and unhappy stay in Rome.  In 1553, Joachim had travelled to Rome with his cousin Jean du Bellay, a cardinal and diplomat who was going on a mission to Rome.  The collection, Les Regrets, was published in 1558.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, when in Rome, Du Bellay “had started to write on religious themes, but his experience of court life in the Vatican seems to have disillusioned him.”[iii]  He therefore turned to meditative poetry and to the sonnet.  He was home sick.  In fact, Du Bellay so missed his country, “la douceur angevine,” (the softness of Anjou), and his “petit Lyré,” his small castle, that he wrote his celebrated “Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage,” (click to read poem, in French [Wikipedia]), a sonnet known to every student of French literature.

Earlier, in 1549, Du Bellay had written a collection of 50 sonnets entitled l’Olive.  However, when l’Olive was published by Corrozet et L’Angelier, in 1550, 100 sonnets had been added to the original collection.  During his stay in Rome, he also wrote Les Antiquités de Rome, a collection of 32 sonnets edited in 1558.  And he is  the author of long “consolation” or “déploration” (a eulogy) on the death of his cat Belaud, a chartreux.  “Sur la mort de Belaud” is a beautiful poem in which Du Bellay reveals his exceptional mastery of the French language.

Du Bellay’s health was fragile.  He suffered bouts of deafness and died of apoplexie, a cardio-vascular accident, on 1 January 1660.

So let this blog be a “déploration” or “tombeau” on the premature death, at the age of 37, of Joachim du Bellay.

I wish to thank Wikipedia for including in its entry on Du Bellay, the complete list of his works and the text of Du Bellay’s “Heureux qui comme Ulysse.”  The music (below) is Josquin des Prez‘s Déploration sur la mort d’Ockeghem, a very famous late fifteenth-century piece.

  • Défense et illustration de la langue française (1549)
  • L’Olive (1549)
  • Vers lyriques (1549)
  • Recueil de poesie, presente à tres illustre princesse Madame Marguerite, seur unique du Roy […] (1549)
  • Le Quatriesme livre de l’Eneide, traduict en vers françoys (1552)
  • La Complainte de Didon à Enée, prince d’Ovide (1552)
  • Œuvres de l’invention de l’Auteur (1552)
  • Divers Jeux Rustiques (1558)
  • Les Regrets (1558) dont
  • Les Antiquités de Rome (1558)
  • Poésies latines, (1558)
  • Le Poète courtisan (1559)

Josquin des Prez: Déploration sur la mort de Johannes Ockeghem (just click on title)

 _________________________

[i] “La Pléiade.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 30 Dec. 2011.             <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/464546/La-Pleiade>.

[ii] Wikipedia

[iii] “Joachim du Bellay.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 30 Dec. 2011.             <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/59760/Joachim-du-Bellay>.

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The Renaissance: Galilei & Galileo

28 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Caccini, Camerata, Count Bardi, Galileo Galilei, just intonation, monody, Renaissance, Vincenzo Galilei

Aristotle’s School, a painting from the 1880s by Gustav Adolph Spangenberg

Vincenzo Galilei

Vincenzo Galilei (c. 1520 – 2 July 1591) was a scholar, a musician, a member of the Florentine Camerata and Galileo Galilei’s father.

Background

In 1453, when the Byzantine empire was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, a large number of Greek scholars fled carrying with them many of the works of ancient Greece. This led to a genuine rebirth in Western Europe, aptly called the Renaissance.

The Renaissance has an itinerary. It began in Italy and then spread to France and to other countries in central and western Europe. As scholars became acquainted with the writings of the Greeks, drastic changes occurred in every area: literature, philosophy, painting (perspective, the Golden Section, Divine proportions, etc.), music (monody), literature, philosophy, education…

However let us focus on the Academies.

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Byzantine Eagle (www.hubert-herald.nl)

Academies

The name finds its origin in Plato (424/423 BCE– 348/347 BCE), but we still have schools named academy. Moreover in 1635, when he ruled France, Richelieu founded the Académie-Française. At present, l’Académie-Française is one of the five academies constituting the prestigious Institut de France. When Richelieu founded the Académie-Française, he gave it the task of regulating the French language and writing a French dictionary, which it published in the last decade of the seventeenth century.

Camerata: an informal academy

But we must return to Italian-language lands where a large number of formal academies were founded. However, less formal academies, academies resembling salons, began to sprout. The most famous of these academies was Count Bardi‘s Camerata, founded in Florence, in 1573. Vincenzo Galilei was the foremost member of Count Bardi’s Camerata whose membership also included Giulio Caccini.[1]

Caccini

Vincenzo Galilei was a man of considerable erudition and had studied music under Giuseffo Zarlino (31 January or 22 March 1517 – 4 February 1590), the maestro de cappella at San Marco, in Venice. This was the position Franco-Flemish musician Adriaan Willaert, the founder of the Venetian School, had held and after him, Cipriano da Rore.

Giuseffo Zarlino, the author of Le Istitutioni harmoniche, published in 1558, is arguably Europe’s most prominent theorist before Jean-Philippe Rameau (see A Portrait of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi,  Counterpoint & Harmony) and he had been a good teacher to Vincenzo.

However, a quarrel separated the two when Vincenzo Galilei started to scrutinize Greek texts. For one thing, Vincenzo opposed the extremely complex contrapuntal writing of the Venetian School. You may remember that, according to some scholars, Carlo Gesualdo had destroyed the madrigal when he published madrigals that contained 6 or 7 voices.

Monody and equal temperament

Vincenzo’s preference was for a less complex texture, as was Caccini’s preference as well as Count Bardi’s. In fact, Vincenzo championed Caccini’s monody: one voice or the solo voice, as did Bardi. Count Bardi wrote a Discorso mandato a Caccini sopra la musica antica (1580; “Discourse to Caccini on Ancient Music”) in which “he develops ideas similar to those of Caccini and Galilei.”[2] Giulio Caccini (8 October 1551 – 10 December 1618) is the author of Le nuove musiche (1602; “The New Music”).

As for Vincenzo Galileo, he is the author of a Dialogo della musica antica, et della moderna (1581; “Dialogue about Ancient and Modern Music”) in which he differed from his former teacher not only regarding monody, but also on the thornier matter of just intonation (tuning).

Most listeners cannot hear the difference, but there is difference between F sharp and G flat, even though these pitches are produced using the same key: the first of the three black keys of a piano keyboard. Now, it is possible for a violinist to give this pitch its just intonation, but keyboard instruments do not have that flexibility.

The matter was resolved by dividing the interval, or space, i.e. between ‘do’(C) and ‘si’ (B) into twelve equal tones or temperaments. Vincenzo Galilei favoured this slightly distorted division because it allowed instruments to play together. According to the author of the Encyclopædia Britannica‘s entry on “equal temperament,”

Vincenzo Galilei (father of the astronomer Galileo Galilei) proposed a system of equal intervals for tuning the lute.[3] 

Copernicus and Galileo Galilei made what is perhaps the most important discovery of the Renaissance. They discovered heliocentrism. But Vincenzo’s contribution to music cannot be triviliazed. He created the ensemble, instruments playing together,.

In 1722, Johann Sebastian Bach published a first set of twenty-four preludes and fugues. Twenty years later, in 1742, he published a second set of twenty-four preludes and fugues which, combined with the initial set, constitute the forty-eight Preludes and Fugues of the Wohltemperierte Klavier (BWV 846-893): the Well-Tempered Clavier. JS Bach’s was not a theorist, but a Kapellmeister, a teacher, and one of history’s finest composers. His “Forty-Eight,” as they are often called, demonstrate the usefulness of the somewhat artificial, but very practical, equal temperament. Twelve-tone music has survived, which is a tribute to Vincenzo Galilei’s inventive mind.

I have reflected on the ability to create the appropriate illusion. It belongs to the realm of ingenuity and creativity. In fact, and ironically, illusion is often the better and sometimes the only way of conveying the truth. Jesus spoke in parables. He used obliqueness. But isn’t art always somewhat indirect, metaphorical?

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[1] “Giulio Caccini.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 27 Dec. 2011.             <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/87773/Giulio-Caccini>.

[2] “Giovanni Bardi, conte di Vernio.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 27 Dec. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/53135/Giovanni-Bardi-conte-di-Vernio>.

[3] “equal temperament.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 27 Dec. 2011.             <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/190596/equal-temperament>.

Giulio Caccini/Vladimir Vavilov: Ave Maria
Sumi Jo

 

Raphael_Madonna_of_the_Pinks

The Madonna of the Pinks, by Raphaël, c. 1506–7, National Gallery, London (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
28 December 2011
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