1982 SHORT NOTICES 905 to Eliminate — a Virtual Justification of the Murders at Blois
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
1982 SHORT NOTICES 905 to eliminate — a virtual justification of the murders at Blois. That the De Republica was to some extent a piece de circonstance is also suggested by the inclusion of a discussion on the ability of women to rule successfully, for in 1593 Lorraine had been trying to secure the French crown for his son either through the claims of his mother Claude de France, elder daughter of Henri II, or through a proposed marriage to the Infanta, who claimed through her mother. Fortunately, by 1596 the conversion and coronation of Henri IV enabled Gregoire to develop his theme of a strong monarchy, guarantee of a Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/XCVII/CCCLXXXV/905/399336 by guest on 28 September 2021 stable state founded upon the catholic religion and protector of the people's well-being, with only a hint of reserve in his tendency to emphasize the sacredness of the status and function of the prince rather than of his person. University of Essex JOAN DAVIES When in 1949 Alfred Einstein published his monumental study of the Italian madrigal he was able to base it not only on his own extensive research but also on earlier twentieth-century studies by several distinguished scholars. These, however, were only the beginnings of the exploration of an immensely rich and important field. The subtle interaction of music and poetry, changing personal likes and dislikes and fashionable trends at North Italian courts of the second half of the sixteenth century all contribute to make the study of the Italian madrigal one of the most fascinating subjects in Renaissance music history. Anthony Newcomb's Tbe Madrigal at Ferrara [J79—IJ97, vol. i, Text; vol. ii, Musical Examples (Princeton: U.P., 1980. $32.70) is a musicological study as well as a study in social history, court patronage and the history of taste. He approaches his subject with assurance and understanding and offers a thoroughly researched and eminently readable account of some twenty years of musical activity at the Este court at Ferrara. It was in the early 1580s that, in addition to his already numerous and famous court musicians, Duke Alfonso assembled a group of expert lady singers, the concerto delle donne. This group inspired several composers, either attached to the court or attracted to it as visitors, to an expressive and virtuosic manner of composition which profoundly influenced the new style of madrigal writing in Northern Italy as well as in Rome. At the turn of the century Caccini's monodic style and Monteverdi's secondaprattica are both to an extent responses to the challenge emanating from the Ferrarese court. The main text of Newcomb's first volume is divided into seven chapters which neatly fall into two groups. In each group the discussion starts by encompassing wider issues of court life and patronage and gradually narrows to specific musicological issues. Thus from a description of the role of the Singing Ladies of Ferrara the reader is gradually led to a close investigation of the reflections of the musica secreta, as the concerts at the court were called, in the printed madrigals of the time. In the second half the progress is from a general account of the spread of the Ferrarese style via a fascinating chapter on the Ferrarese court in the 15 90s, to a detailed critical account of the style of two composers active at Ferrara at the time: Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Alfonso Fontanelli. The rest of the first volume is devoted to immensely helpful appendices containing a wealth of information on the musicians employed at Ferrara, an inventory of music books at Alfonso's court and excerpts from documents in the original Italian. The second 906 SHORT NOTICES October volume contains twenty-two complete madrigals and five fragments illustrating the Ferrarese style and its influence outside Ferrara. The study is a credit to its author and the beautifully produced volumes .a credit to the Princeton University Press. Magdalen College, Oxford BOJAN BUJIC Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/XCVII/CCCLXXXV/905/399336 by guest on 28 September 2021 That the academic study of the history of Black Africa, though developing nicely, is still barely past its innocent infancy, is demonstrated by the lack of instrumenta studiorum in this field, above all closely edited source texts. Thus, such primary sources for the Portuguese period as Joao de Barros, Diogo do Couto, Damiao de Goes, Manuel de Faria y Sousa, and Joao dos Santos have as yet no edition in which the full resources of Africanist scholarship are brought to bear on the sections of these classical works in which events in Black Africa are documented. The emergence of a series entitled Forties Historiae Africanae must therefore be greeted with a cheer; and the appearance of what appears to be the first volume in it (Series Varia i, no other details about the series or the general-editorship are revealed), published by the British Academy and dealing with East Africa, deserves a second cheer. G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville's The Mombasa rising against the Portuguese, i6p, from sworn evidence (London: Oxford U.P. for the British Academy, 1980. £32.50) is however a faintly embarrassing work and the third cheer must be held back. Dr Freeman-Grenville has edited, with his customary skill and impeccable scholarship, a document he has located in the Augustinian archives in Rome which bears on the 1631 uprising of the Moslem population of Mombasa against Portuguese rule. Little was previously known about this uprising, or for that matter about the structure of Portuguese hegemony in East Africa; what we learn about both from this volume is valuable, yet distinctly limited. For the document views the uprising from the narrow angle of a process of canonization in respect of those Catholic Christians (Portuguese, Goan, and African) who were massacred. Information about the victims and how they died is repetitive, as witness after witness gives evidence (mainly at Goa in 1632); but of course the Moslem viewpoint is not represented. Admiration for the editor's persistence in chasing up the document and his skill in presenting, translating and editing it, cannot dispel nagging doubts about its ap- propriateness as the first item in Fontes Historiae Africanae, not least since printing a long text in Latin has trebled the price of a book of 160 pages. As part of an independently-financed series on the documentation of Mombasa or of another on Augustinian hagiography, the volume would have earned its cheer. But its Eurocentric and missionary bias, its parochial scope, and its limited evidential value make it an odd choice for a series from which some of us hoped so much — and which it might just kill off. University of Liverpool p. E . H . HAIR The beguiling simplicity of the 'Weber theory' of the relationship between Calvinism and capitalism has had a long influence on Western his- toriography, though currently Weber's views command little support among.