Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

2. The Aragonese monarchy (1443–1503).

The passing of the Kingdom of Naples from the Anjou to the Aragonese dynasty marked the beginning of a new cultural flowering, favoured also by the political stability enjoyed by the whole of the Italian peninsula in the second half of the 15th century. The policy of equilibrium followed by the more powerful Italian states was based on a complex network of diplomatic relations which, at a time when the most delicate state functions were entrusted to men of letters and humanists, promoted a fertile cultural exchange. The sumptuous patronage of the Aragon kings, pre-eminent among them Alfonso V (I of Naples) ‘el Magnánimo’ (1442–58) and his son Ferrante (1458–94), did the rest. The impulse given to a flourishing literary activity, which had its centre in the Accademia (founded 1458) and its most eminent exponents in Giovanni Pontano (1462–1503) and Sannazaro (1456–1530); the setting up of a large and valuable library; and the embellishment of the city with remarkable architectural monuments are the most celebrated cultural achievements of the Aragon kings.

Equally cherished was the activity of the chapel, whose performances were highly praised for their magnificence and variety. The organization of the royal chapel had already been noted down in the final years of the Anjou kingdom: in 1442 Gentile de Sancto Angelo de Fasanella was appointed magister capellae, with eight chaplains chosen ‘inter cantores et paraphonistas’. The first maestro di cappella in Naples in the Aragonese period was Dominicus de Exarch, a monk appointed in 1445 to the post of abbot of the monastery of Santes Creus, who also held the same post in the Aragon kingdom. Alfonso introduced more singers and performers from his court in Barcelona into the royal chapel, and entrusted the duties of Senior Chaplain to a high ecclesiastical dignitary. As early as 1451 the royal chapel was the largest in Italy, made up of at least 21 choristers, two organists, one organ builder, five boys and two maestri di cappella (Exarch and another monk from Santes Creus, Jaume Albarells). The number of choristers remained stable in the known lists of 1455 and 1480, while the number of organists went up to four, and in 1476 a ‘meste de fer lauts’ was also added. If we include the chaplains who were not musicians and the boys, there were as many as 44 members of the chapel by 1489. There were, in addition, numerous instrumentalists in the king's service, whether for secular entertainments or for state ceremonies. In 1494, for the coronation of Alfonso II, a Neapolitan chronicler counted 46 ‘schiate’ and ten ‘bifare’ trumpets, as well as 12 drums, and lutes, harps and trombones. The many court organists were particularly highly regarded, both in the ‘music rooms’ specifically created in Castel Capuano and in Castel Nuovo, as well as in the chapel of S Barbara.

The first Italian maestro di cappella, Giuliano de Caiacza, was appointed in 1488. While initially Alfonso had attempted to restrict entry to Spaniards, many members of the royal chapel were recruited from distant places, and some of them were known throughout Europe. Pietro Oriola, mentioned in Naples for the first time in November 1441, remained in the service of the court until at least 1470, and is the composer of two pieces in the Perugia manuscript (I-PEc 431) and two in the Montecassino manuscript (I-MC 871). The latter manuscript, the main source for the music at the Aragonese court in Naples, also contains eight compositions by Johannes Cornago, King Ferdinand's almoner in 1466. It seems that Cornago was active in Naples, with a very high salary, from 1455 to 1475, when he moved to Spain to the chapel of King Ferdinand V. The Fleming Vincenet was a chorister and copyist (the manuscript US-NH 91, known as the ‘Mellon Chansonnier’, is his work) at Ferrante's chapel from at least 1469 until his death, around 1479. Bernhard Ycart was active at court from around 1476 to 1480. For a brief period other important composers were in Naples, called to the city in an attempt to establish a permanent position at court: for example, the lutenist Pietrobono, who came with a delegation from Ferrara in 1473; the theorist Florentio de Faxolis and possibly Josquin came with Ascanio Sforza on his visit to the city in 1481–2; Alexander Agricola was detained in Naples in 1492, after the defeat of his protector Charles VIII, whom, however, he rejoined in France.

The Aragonese chapel, however, derived its greatest glory from Tinctoris and Gaffurius, two musicians who seem not to have had permanent positions in the royal chapel. The exact date of Tinctoris's arrival in Naples is not known, but it is thought that he was there by 1473; he was preceptor to Ferdinand's daughter, Beatrice, to whom he dedicated the treatises Terminorum musicae diffinitorium, Complexus effectuum musices and Tractatus de regulari valore notarum; other treatises (Proportionale musices and Liber de arte contrapuncti) were dedicated to Ferdinand. Tinctoris remained in Naples until 1487; in October of that year he was sent by the king to the courts of Charles VIII of France and of Emperor Friedrich III to recruit singers for the Neapolitan chapel, and he is known to have returned at the end of 1488, staying in or returning to Naples occasionally until the beginning of 1491. Gaffurius was in Naples between 1478 and 1480, and his first theoretical work, Theoricum opus musice discipline (1480) was published there, the first edition containing woodcuts. Besides the Montecassino and Perugia manuscripts already mentioned, other important sources for music at the Aragonese court survive: the sumptuous ‘Tinctoris codex’ (E-VAu 835) compiled for Ferrante; two manuscripts intended for the princess Beatrice; the ‘Mellon Chansonnier’, and the manuscript in I-Nn 8.E.40, which contains six anonymous tenor masses on ‘L'homme armé’, written in the most elaborate Franco-Flemish polyphonic style. In addition, seven other sources of polyphony and two surviving tablatures for plucked string instruments can be connected to the Neapolitan court of the period 1450–1500.

Unfortunately we have almost no knowledge of musical practice in Naples outside the court. Some fragmentary documents provide the names of builders of organs and other instruments (especially strings), while the surviving plainchant manuscripts in the various churches active at the time give information on liturgical music. One of the manuscripts formerly used in the Augustinian monastery of S Giovanni a Carbonara (whose chapel contains marvellous paintings of musical instruments that can be dated before 1441, including one which is thought to be the earliest depiction of a clavichord) contains the signature of a ‘fr. Paulus de Neapoli’ who was a musician and music teacher at the monastery between 1457 and 1489, as well as a member of the chapel of the Duke of Calabria from 1458.

Side by side with the ars perfecta of polyphony from beyond the Alps, however, the less assuming but cherished indigenous practice of solo singing with instrumental accompaniment also flourished at the Naples court, which was the natural meeting-point of the Italian and Spanish musical traditions. The most popular composer of strambotti, Serafino de' Ciminelli dall'Aquila, studied music in Naples under the guidance of Guillaume Garnier; another famous composer of strambotti, and an improviser, the Spaniard Benedetto Gareth (‘Il Chariteo’), spent a large part of his life at the Naples court. An outstanding figure is the poet and humanist Sannazaro; he wrote love-poems in imitation of Petrarch, which were among the favourite texts of 16th-century madrigalists, popular nonsense-rhymes in frottola style, and works for the theatre, the farse, in which music was important. The earliest barzelletta to have survived in print was sung in a Sannazaro farsa performed in Castel Capuano in 1492 to celebrate the capture of Granada by Ferdinand V.

Naples