Ferrara | Grove Music Sign Oxford In Music OnlineArticle Navigation Menu Advanced search Browse Article Images Ferrara Lewis Lockwood, revised by Murray Steib https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.09511 Published in print: 20 January 2001 Published online: 2001 Updated in this version updated bibliography, 4 October 2012 City in the Emilia region of northern Italy. The history of music there divides into two periods, corresponding to its political and cultural history. From 1240 to 1598 the city was under the continuous political rule of the Este family and was the centre of a small but politically important marquisate, later a duchy, that at its height included Modena, Reggio nell’Emilia, Rovigo and the Polesine; after 1598, when the Estensi lost the city to the papacy and transferred to Modena, Ferrara’s musical activity lost its autonomous importance but continued to flourish. At the beginning of the 11th century Guido of Arezzo was educated and began his teaching and theoretical writing in the nearby Benedictine abbey of Pomposa, a traditional centre for plainsong instruction which continued to the 16th century. In the 15th century the court of Ferrara experienced a remarkable rise to the status of an internationally important musical centre. The chief impetus was the patronage of four successive members of the Este family, who ruled during this period: Niccolò III, Leonello, Borso and Ercole I. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/.../view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009511?rskey=9uG79V[12/09/2020 18:39:07] Ferrara | Grove Music During the reign of Niccolò III (1393–1441) the first musicians were engaged at court on a regular basis. Beginning in the 1420s Niccolò employed several trumpeters, three ‘pifferi’ (wind players), a certain Leonardo dal Chitarino (1424) and a Niccolò Tedesco cantore, defined in one source as cantor suavissimus et pulsator eximius (active there c1436–62). Niccolò Tedesco may be the Nicolaus Krombsdorfer who worked for the Habsburg Duke Sigismund from 1463. In 1429 the celebrated humanist Guarino of Verona was brought to Ferrara, and his presence may be partly responsible for a more active cultivation of music at court, as it certainly was for the arts and letters. In 1433 a libro de canto was copied for the young Leonello, son of Niccolò III and pupil of Guarino, and in 1437 a volume of regole de canto was made for his use. Du Fay, who wrote a ballade for Niccolò III, may have visited the court in 1433; he certainly did so in 1437. No doubt the convocation that year of an ecumenical council provided further impetus to the gathering of musicians there. With Leonello d’Este, despite the brevity of his reign as marquis (1441–50), the great flowering of Ferrarese art and literature really began, and music too received powerful stimulus. Leonello founded a court cappella ‘in the royal manner’ and brought in singers from abroad to staff it. From four singers in 1436 he increased the cappella to at least ten in 1450, including, at various times, Johannes Fede, Niccolò Tedesco, Giovanni de Leodio, Andrea da l’Organo and Zoanne de Monte. Musicians both native and foreign were present not only at the court but also at Ferrara Cathedral and at the university, which had been founded in 1395 and revived under Leonello. At the cathedral the organists had included the composer Bartolomeo da Bologna (1405–27) and were later to include the theorist Ugolino of Orvieto (to 1457) and Benedetto Camelli da Pistoia (1458). The presence at the university of a group of English students was specially noteworthy at that time (see Scott, 1972) and may well be closely related to the large representation of English composers in two important musical manuscripts from Ferrara of this decade ( P-Pm 714, see Pirrotta, 1970; I-MOe α.X.1.11, see Hamm and Scott, 1972). Scott has even conjectured that Ferrara may have been a meeting place for Du Fay and Leonel Power in 1438 or 1439. Under Borso d’Este (1450–71), who became Duke of Modena in 1452 and the first Duke of Ferrara in 1471, the former corps of singers was all but suppressed at court in favour of instrumentalists, led by the famous Pietrobono del Chitarino, one of the most celebrated lutenist-singers of his time. Pietrobono was praised in extravagant terms by Cornazano and the humanist writers Beroaldo, Battista Guarino and Paolo Cortese, and also by Tinctoris. Borso was better known for his https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/.../view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009511?rskey=9uG79V[12/09/2020 18:39:07] Ferrara | Grove Music patronage of art, which included the splendid frescoes of the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara (containing representations of musical instruments and domestic life at court) and illuminated manuscripts from local workshops that later produced music manuscripts. Ercole I d’Este (Duke of Ferrara, 1471–1505) can be counted the greatest Ferrarese cultural patron of the 15th century, and of all Italian princes of the era perhaps the most keenly interested in music. Early in his reign he established a court cappella, called in singers from abroad and made a special effort to create something new by founding a double choir, one of men and one of boys from Germany, which lasted until 1482. An early appointment was that of Johannes Martini, who remained a leading figure in the chapel from 1472 until his death in 1497 and was the music teacher of Isabella, later Duchess of Mantua. While maintaining and even increasing the staff of instrumentalists left from Borso’s reign, Ercole added still more singers to his cappella. To attract and hold these musicians he obtained benefices for them and negotiated with each succeeding pope the right to confer such benefices on as many as 20 of his singers. By further offering good salaries, houses in Ferrara and special favours, he was able to obtain excellent singers and maintain a large and balanced cappella. Among its better-known members, besides Martini, were Jean Japart (1477–9), Jachetto da Marvilla and Johannes Ghiselin (1491–3). In 1487–8 Obrecht visited the court and was nearly engaged, but Pope Innocent VIII turned down a benefice for him at Ferrara, evidently wanting him for the papal chapel. Ercole’s lavish patronage is further shown by his decision to engage Josquin at 200 ducats when he was urged to engage Isaac who would come for 120 (see Lockwood, 1971); Josquin was in the duke’s service in 1503–4 and was replaced in 1504 by Obrecht, who was there until his death in 1505. Josquin’s Missa ‘Hercules dux Ferrariae’ drew on the vowels of Ercole’s formal name for its basic musical subject, and was thus a special kind of musical tribute. The two eldest sons of Ercole, Duke Alfonso I and Cardinal Ippolito I, were both important patrons. Alfonso (reigned 1505–34) maintained the ducal cappella, though on a smaller scale than before, negotiating benefices as Ercole I had done. After the death of Obrecht he secured Antoine Brumel as maestro di cappella. Cardinal Ippolito I (1479–1520), whose ecclesiastical empire included holdings in Hungary, Milan, Ferrara and elsewhere, was particularly fond of secular and instrumental music. In 1516 he employed 12 musicians while the ducal cappella had ten. The cardinal’s musicians included the young Adrian Willaert (who was in his service by at least mid-1515 and went to Hungary with him in 1517) along with Jusquino Cantore (not Desprez, it seems, but perhaps the Josquin Doro who was https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/.../view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009511?rskey=9uG79V[12/09/2020 18:39:07] Ferrara | Grove Music later in the papal chapel), as well as a number of instrumentalists. Still other important musical activity in Ferrara at this period took place under the tutelage of Alfonso’s little-known brother, Sigismondo (1480–1524), and Alfonso’s wife, the famous Lucrezia Borgia. The trend was towards writing, copying and procuring secular music rather than sacred, though many of the manuscripts known from this time contain motets. The leading figures of the period from 1515 to 1534 are Willaert (who went to Venice in 1527), Zoanne Michiele (a copyist and singer), Maistre Jhan (later an important motet composer), Simon Ferrarese and the members of the Dalla Viola family, especially the young Alfonso, later an important madrigalist. In 1515 Alfonso I was directly in touch with Jean Mouton at Milan (then in the retinue of François I) and during the next several years sought his music through emissaries in France. Ferrara was specially important as a conduit for the importation of French music into Italy, and was musically on a level of patronage equal to that of the French and papal courts. This tendency was fortified by the marriage of Alfonso’s son and successor, Ercole II, to Princess Renée of France in 1528. Under Ercole II (1534–59) the chief musicians were Maistre Jhan, Alfonso dalla Viola and Cipriano de Rore (maestro di cappella, 1546–59). Ercole II continued the important tradition of court theatre that had been begun by Ercole I in 1486 and continued under Alfonso, for whose wedding to Lucrezia Borgia in 1502 Tromboncino composed a ‘musicha mantuana’ (probably a frottola) for a performance of a Plautus play, one of the first examples of music used as intermedi. Music between the acts or at the end of such plays as G.B. Giraldi Cintio’s Orbecche (music by Alfonso dalla Viola) and Egle (music by Alfonso del Cornetto) was written by these court musicians between 1541 and 1567.