Song and Season: Science, Culture, and Theatrical Time in Early Modern Venice 9781503626850

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SONG AND SEASON

The CALENDARojVENETIAN OPERA

SONG and SEASON Science) Culture) and Theatrical Time in Early Modern "Vtnice

ELEANOR SELFRIDGE-FIELD

Stanford University Press Stanford, California 2007

Stanford, California ©2007 by Eleanor Selfridge-Field. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Selfridge-Field, Eleanor. Song and season : science, culture, and theatrical time in early modern Venice I Eleanor Selfridge-Field. p. em. ISBN 978-0-8047-5765-2 (hard cover : alk. paper) I. Venice (Italy)-Sociallife and customs. 2. Music-social aspects-ItalyVenice-History. 3. Theater and society.-Italy-Venice-History. I. Title. DG675.6S43 2008 945'.3107-dc22 2007025398 Original Printing 2007 Publication assistance for this book was provided by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

Photography and font acknowledgments jacket: Venice, Biblioteca Civica Correr 1.1 Venice, Biblioteca Civica Correr 3 .1 Venice, Museo Correr 3.2 Franco Zamberlan 3.3 Micky White 3.4 Sunnyvale, CA, private collection 3.5 Weimar, Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen, GoetheSchiller Archiv 6.1 Stanford University Libraries, Special Collections 6.2 Author 8.1 Venice, Ca' Goldoni 10.1 Los Angeles: University of California, Music Library 10.2 Sunnyvale, CA, private collection 10.3 Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana 10.4 Sunnyvale, CA, private collection 10.5 Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana 11.1 Sunnyvale, CA, private collection 11.2 Sunnyvale, CA, private collection Zallman caps: David Rakowski

Contents Illustrations Figures Tables Abbreviations and Citations Preface

8 9 10 12 15

Part One. Marking Time 1. Venice's Years l.l. Christendom's Year 1.2. The Liturgical Year 1.3. The Ducal Year 1.4. The Accounting Year 1.5. The Academic Year 1.6. The Virtual Year

21 22 29 32 34 35

2. Calendrical Markers and Their Cultural Foundations 2.1. Civic Markers 2.2. Liturgical Markers 2.3. Actuarial Markers 2.4. Rites of Political Passage 2.5. Civic and Diplomatic Feasts 2.6. Ducal Feasts 2.7. Double Feasts

38 38

3. Venice's Days and Hours 3.1. The Mobile Day 3.2. Civic Clocks

54 54 56

36

45 46 46

49 50 50

SoNG AND SEASON

3.3. Religious Hours 3.4. Solar Time 3.5. Civic Bells

59 62

3.6. Bell-ringing Schedules

65

3.7. Hour-Glass Time 3.8. Workers' and Artisans' Bells 3.9. Timekeeping Reforms

69

3.10. The Emergence ofModem Timekeeping

78

3 .11. Modem Equivalents for Venetian Time

80

3.12. Post-Republican Time

83

63

72 74

Part Two. Using Time 4. Theatrical Culture and Theatrical Time

87

4.1. Commedia and Theatrical Culture

87

4.2. Gambling and the Theater

93

4.3. Government Constraints on Productions

98

4.4. Economic Change and the Theater

I0I

4.5. Patronage Models and Practices

102

4.6. First, Last, and Ordinary Nights

I 05

4.7. Carnival as a State of Mind 4.8. Carnival as a Time ofYear 4.9. Masking by the Hour 4.1 0. Pseudo-Carnival Days

106 107 109 111

4.11. Dating to the Day

112

5. Theatrical Periods and Seasons

115

5.1. A Composite Model of the Theatrical Year

115

5.2. Autumn

119

Autumn as a Comedy Season ( 119); Autumn as an Opera Season (120); The St. Luke's Period (120); The St. Martin's Period (121)

5.3. Advent The St. Andrew's Period (124); The Novena of Christmas (125)

124

SONG AND SEASON

5.4. Winter

126

The St. Stephen's Period (127); Carnival (132); Fat Week (134); Last Nights of Carnival (136); Last-Night Theatrical Banquets and Balls (137); Last "Days" vs. Last "Nights" (140)

5.5. Spring

143

5.6. Temporal Dimensions ofProductions 5.7. External Proofs ofthe Composite Model

148 149

6. Theatrical Specialization by Period 6.1. San Cassiano 6.2. SS. Giovanni e Paolo 6.3. San Moise 6.4. San Salvatore 6.5. Sant'Angelo 6.6. San Giovanni Grisostomo 6.7. Piazzola 6.8. San Samuele 6.9. San Fantin and Other Small Theaters 6.1 0. San Benedetto and the Teatro La Fenice 6.11. Composite Production Profiles

151 152 156 157 158 160 162 166 168 169 173 174

7. Seasonal Reciprocity 7.1. Opera for Provincial Fairs

176 176

Autumn Venues (181 ); Spring Venues ( 188)

7.2. Dramatic Music in Private Venues Solo Motets (195); Oratorios (196); Cantatas (197); Serenatas (198); Private Concerts (199); Rehearsals (200); Contributions by

195

Amateurs (200)

7.3. Dramatic Music in Non-Theatrical Periods

201

Advent and the Novena of Christmas (201); Lent (202); Eastertide (203); The St. Anthony's Period (204); The Assumption Period (205); Autumn Villeggiatura (205)

8. Season and Genre 8.1. Venice as a Metaphorical Stage 8.2. Opera as Commedia

206 206 209

SoNG AND SEASON

8.3. Comedy, Tragedy, and Arcadian Reforms

210

The Reform of the Dramma per musica (21 0); The Revival of the Classical Tragedia (211 ); The Grimani vs. the Vendramin (213); Effects of the Grimani-Vendramin Contracts (219)

8.4. Transitions and Gestations Comedies with Music: Imer and Gori (220); The Reform of Comedy: Carlo Goldoni (223); Other Contributions to the

220

Opera buffa (228); Reactions to the Opera buffa (229)

8.5. Seasonal Dimensions of Genre Conflicts

232

Ambiguities of Spring Opera (234); Historical Dimensions of Genre Change (235)

9. Season and Genre from the Middle Ages to Today 9.1. Medieval Models 9.2. Italy from 1660 to 1760

237 237 238

Florence (238); Naples (240)

9.3. Europe from 1660 to 1760

241

Paris (241 ); Dresden (243)

9.4. Europe after 1760

245

Opera Calendars under the French (246); Opera Calendars under the Austrians (248); Lenten Opera in Vienna (254)

9.5. The Calendar of Venetian Opera at Large 9.6. Seasonal Models Today

256 262

Part Three. Telling Time

10. Time According to the Eagles 10.1. The Eagles and the Moles I 0.2. Cultural Artifacts and Temporal Order

267 267 267

Literary Artifacts (269); Musical Artifacts (271)

10.3. The Eagles and their "Chronologies"

276

Ivanovich (276); Bonlini (278); Groppo (283); Rossi (290); Galvani (292); Wiel (293); Aim (295)

10.4. Time in Genre Surveys

298

Opera Surveys (298); Theater and Drama Studies (300); Chronologies for other Locales (301); Work Dates in Music Encyclopedias (30 1)

10.5. Time, Genre, and Chronology

302

SoNG AND SEASON

11. The Chronicles of the Moles

304

11.1. The Post and the News 11.2. Censorship and the News

306 311

11.3. Weekly News from Venice Avvisi from Venice (313); The Pallade veneta Manuscripts (315); The Mercuri (315); Reports of the Papal Legate (316); Avvisi sent with Diplomatic Reports (317)

312

11.4. Weekly News Aggregations Bologna (318); The Carriere ordinaria (Vienna) (318); The Diario ordinaria (Rome) (319)

317

11.5. Monthly News Aggregations Le Mercure galant (320); La Gac;eta de Madrid (321 ); Pallade veneta (321); News Translations (322); Post-Republican News (324)

319

11.6. Theatrical News in Government Records Diplomats' Records (325); Spies' Records (327); Censors' Records (330); Notaries' Records (332); Other Sources for Chronology (333)

325

11.7. Indigenous Theatrical Moles Goldoni as Consul (335); Rousseau as Ambassadorial Secretary (335); Casanova as Government Informer (336)

334

11.8. From Chronicles to Dates Dispatch Dates (33); Rectifying Dates from the Moles (338); Error

337

Rates for the Eagles (344)

12. New Times, New Tellers 12.1. New Times 12.2. New Tellers

346 346 347

Pietro Gradenigo (348); Gasparo Gozzi (349)

12.3. The Polemics of Genre

351

12.4. The Polemics of Cultural Time

354

12.5. The Enduring Theatrical Calendar

356

Sources Cited

359

General Index

375

Index of Musical Works

391

Illustrations 1.1. Mnemonic hand for decoding the calendar ( 1705) 3.1. Detail from Francesco Guardi's painting!/ Torre del Orologio

30 58

3.2. The San Marco clock (Orologio) before its latest restoration

60 61

3.3. The clock and bells of San Giacomo di Rialto

3.4. The bell-ringing schedule adopted in 1752 3.5. Goethe's conversion table for German and Italian time (1786) 6.1. Map ofVenice (1804) showing location of theaters 6.2. Garden in which the former San Cassiano was located 8.1. An agreement signed by G. C. Grimani and A. Vendramin 10.1. Sample title-pages and dedications from opera libretti

64 77 153 154 218 272

10.2. Pages from Bonlini's printed Le glorie della poesia (1725-26) I 0.3. Unbound aggiunte (1734) to the Bonlini catalogue 10.4. Pages from Groppo's Catalogo (1725-26) 10.5. Title leaf from the 1745 holograph ofGroppo's Catalogo 11.1. Opera commentary in Le Mercure galant (1679) 11.2. Opera commentary in Pallade veneta (1687)

280 281 285 286 320 322

Figures 3 .1. The "fish" silhouette of light and dark hours 5.1. Schematic view of theatrical periods in an average year 5.2. The "St. Stephen's effect" on opening dates for operas

63 117 127

6.1. Distribution of opera productions at San Cassiano 6.2. Distribution of opera productions at SS. Giovanni e Paolo

155 157

6.3. Distribution of opera productions at San Moise 6.4. Distribution of opera productions at San Salvatore 6.5. Distribution of opera productions at Sant' Angelo. 6.6. Distribution of opera productions at San Giovanni Grisostomo 6. 7. Distribution of opera productions at San Samuele 9.1. Drammi per musica given in Florence (1670-1750) 9.2. Operas given in Paris (1673 and 1749)

158 159 161 163 169 239 242

10.1. Schematic view of title-page and dedication dates

270

10.2. Number of works survived by musical materials

274

11.1. Schematic facsimiles of a libretto title-page and dedication

339

Tables 1.1. The Venetian school year in the eighteenth century

36

1.2. Virtual definitions of the year in order of initiation

36

2.1. Principal bodies of the Venetian government

48

2.2. A composite view of sacred and secular fixed feasts

51

3.1. Names and functions of the Campanile bells

66

3.2. Principal times for bell-ringing (12th-14th centuries)

67

3.3. Comparison of bell nomenclatures

68

3.4. Bells for workdays and feast days

70

3.5. Times at which the Realtina rang during autumn and winter

73

3.6. Hours for ringing the morning terza (1752)

76

3. 7. Hours of assembly and dismissal, University of Padua ( 1788)

80

3.8. Hours for sunrise and the ringing of the terza (1782, 1860)

81

4.1. Quarterly closure dates for the civic lottery bank 4.2. Liturgical and civic dating alternatives for feast days 5.1. Divisions of the accounting year into theatrical periods 5.2. The order in which theatrical periods evolved 5.3. Conflicting times of performance for Adriano in Siria

140

6.1. Average number of works per theater per year

174

7 .1. Provincial dates of adoption of individual theatrical periods

180

7.2. Autumn works given in Rovigo

182

7.3. Autumn works given in Dolo

186

7.4. Autumn works given in Este

186

7.5. Autumn works given in Treviso

188

7.6. Spring works given in Vicenza

190

7.7. Winter works given in Vicenza

191

7.8. Spring works given elsewhere in the Veneto

193

7.9. The sequence of ceremonial events on 24-26 December

202

97 114 116

118

SoNG AND SEASON

8.1. Genre specialization by theater and season 8.2. Genre preference by theatrical period 9.1. Significant premieres given during Lent 9.2. Selected works opening during the St. Luke's period.

231 233 255 257

9.3. Selected works opening during the St. Martin's period.

257

9.4. Selected works opening during the St. Stephen's period

259

9.5. Selected works opening during Carnival

260

9 .6. Selected works opening during the Ascension period

261

9. 7. Selected works opening during the summer

262

10.1. Principal bibliographies of Venetian opera.

296

11.1. Delivery and departure times for the post

308

11.2. Comparison of dates for works of the 1670s and 1680s

341

11.3. Comparison of dates for works of the 1720s to 1740s

341

11.4. Canvas of dates for works of the 1690s and 1700s

342

11.5. Year- and sequence-error rates for bibliographies

344

Abbreviations and Citations Text abbreviations in primary sources (e.g. in "ill.mo") in printed citations are expanded with italicized letters (e.g., illustrissimo ). Document quotations retain their original spelling. Archaic capital letters have been changed to lower case. Punctuation is unchanged apart from the occasional addition of a period (.).Most documents cited are not quoted in the original, since eventual publication of all documentation is intended. Dates are given literally (as found). Time and culture: M.V.

more veneto: the Venetian calendar date [January and February belong with preceding year]

O.V.

ore venete: time as computed by the Venetian method. The new day began at a variable time which was nominally 30 minutes after sunset. Time was recorded in the 24-hour style.

Early news-sheets and archival series: 1 A AG AS BG CO CX

Avvisi: weekly MSS [see under diverse sigla below] Archivio Gonzaga: a general division ofi-MAas Archivio Segreto: a general division ofl-Rvat Bologna: printed gazettes in 1-Bag ll carriere ordinaria: printed weekly gazettes in A-Wn Capi, Consiglio dei Dieci: series in I-Vas

DO GDC

Diario ordinaria: a series of printed gazettes in I-Rvat MSS Gradenigo Dolfin [1-Vmc], Commemoriali (Colloc. 200)

GDN GL

MSS Gradenigo Dolfin [1-Vmc], Notatorio (Colloc. 67) Gozzi [Gaspare], Lettere: recent edition

GM GV

Goldoni [Carlo], Memoires La gazzetta veneta: printed, 1760-61

IS

Inquisitori di Stato: a general division within I-Vas

1 In citations of manuscript materials, these abbreviations are concatenated with RISM library sigla such that the expression "I-MAas A" would signal the library (I= Italy, MA =Mantua, as= Archivio di Stato) and the source within it (here avvisi da Venezia= second A).

SoNG AND SEASON

M MG NV PS RC RSP PV SPV

Mercuri: weekly MSS (in Italian) in I-Vnm Le Mercure galant: monthly prints (in French) Nunziatura di Venezia: weekly MSS in I-Rvat AS Basilica di San Marco, Procuratia de Supra: MS minutes Riferte de' Confidenti: MS surveillance reports in I-Vas Riformatori dello Studio di Padova: MS printing permissions "Pallade Veneta": weekly MSS in I-Vas, IS; Vmc; Vnm State Papers Venetian: MS weekly MS reports in GB-Lpro (Kew)

RISM [the Repertoire International des Sources Musicales] employs the following sigla, which are arranged first by country, then by city, then by library: Austria (A): A-Wn Germany (D): D-B D-Dlb D-Hs D-Mbs

D-RH

Vienna: Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Musiksammlung Berlin: Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulterbesitz, Musikabteilung Dresden: Sachsische Landesbibliothek Hamburg: Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Rheda: FUrst zu Bentheim-Tecklenburgische Bibliothek [housed in D-MOu] Regensburg: FUrst Thurn und Taxis Hotbibliothek Wiesentheid: Musiksammlung des Grafen von Schonborn-Wiesentheid Weimar: Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv

D-Rtt D-WD D-WRgsa France (F): F-Pa Paris: Bibliotheque de I' Arsenal F-Pc Paris: Fonds du Conservatoire National de Musique [housed in F-Pn] F-Po Paris: Bibliotheque-Musee de !'Opera F-Pn Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale Great Britain (GB): GB-Cfm Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum GB-Ckc Cambridge: King's College, Rowe Music Library GB-Lam London: Royal Academy of Music GB-Lbl London: British Library GB-Lcm London: Royal College of Music GB-Lpro London: Public Record Office GB-Lram London: Royal Academy of Music GM-Mp Manchester: Central Public Library, Henry Watson Music Library GB-Ob Oxford: Bodleian Library

SoNo AND SEASON

Italy (1): 1-Bag I-Bc I-CF I-Fas I-Fl I-Fm I-Fn I-MAas 1-Mb I-MAC I-MOas 1-MOe I-Re I-Rli I-Rsc 1-Rvat 1-RVa I-Tn 1-Vas 1-Vc 1-Vcg I-Vgc I-Vire 1-Vmc 1-Vnm I-Vqs Slovenia (SL): SL-Ls

Bologna: Archiginnasio Bologna: Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale Cividale del Friuli: Archivio Capitolare Florence: Archivio di Stato Florence: Biblioteca Laurenziana Florence: Biblioteca Marucelliana Florence: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Mantua: Archivio di Stato Milan: Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense Macerata: Bibliotec Comunale Modena: Archivio di Stato Modena: Biblioteca Estense Rome: Biblioteca Casanatense Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana Rome: Conervatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia Rome: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Rovigo: Accademia e Biblioteca dei Concordi Turin: Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria Venice: Archivio di Stato Venice: Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello Venice: Ca' Goldoni Venice: Fondazione Giorgio Cini Venice: lstituzioni di Ricovero e di Educazione [housed in Ospedaletto] Venice: Civico Museo Correr Venice: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Venice: Fondazione Querini-Stampalia Ljubljana: Seminary Library

United States (US): US-AA US-Aut US-BEu US-CAh US-CAi US-LAu US-NYpm US-SFu US-Wic

Ann Arbor (Ml): University of Michigan Austin (TX): Harry S. Ransom Humanities Center, Univ. of Texas Berkeley (CA): University of California, Music Library Cambridge (MA): Houghton Library, Harvard University Cambridge (MA): Isham Memorial Library, Harvard University Los Angeles (CA): University of California New York (NY): J. Pierpont Morgan Library San Francisco (SF): California State University, de Bellis Collection Washington (DC): Library of Congress

Preface ultural time lies somewhere between the absolutes of astronomers and the ~abstract constructs ofphilosophers. It undoubtedly plays some role in every

society, but its evolution in the Venetian Republic was, like so many other aspects of civilization there, idiosyncratic. Because Venice endured in that role for more than a thousand years, it accrued more ritualistic uses of time than grander but more ephemeral empires. This enquiry is largely limited to the two final centuries of the Republic's existence, though it occasionally looks back to earlier times. The overall story it relates is largely untold. Song and Season is a by-product of my attempts to answer a practical question: How does one date a Venetian opera? The answers are multiple, the ambiguities many, the practical results endlessly inconsistent. In the research for a related book, A New Chronology of Venetian Opera, I entertained the notion that through the process of collecting theatrical minutiae from widely-circulated but unpublished news-sheets, it would be possible to produce a template for the theatrical seasons mentioned so ubiquitously. News-sheets would pin down the years. Exact dates, disclosed by the sources, would define functional boundaries. Once a chronological spine was in place, the template would enable me to place any undated work in its appropriate position on a chronological continuum. My scheme failed for three reasons. Each of them generated one ofthe sections of this book. First, I underestimated the number of virtual years which operated in parallel (Marking Time). Second, the theatrical seasons were variable in number and ever-changing in definition (Using Time). Third, no two cataloguers used temporal vocabulary in precisely the same ways (Telling Time). Since no template ever materialized in the way I had hoped, I simply kept reading news-sheets. By the time I had collected firm dates sufficient to complete the Chronology, I had much material incidental to theatrical dates but enlightening in other ways. Only that portion which relates to understandings and calibrations of time is absorbed here. Its interpretation required additional investigations of scientific, social, economic, political, musical, journalistic, and theatrical history. While attempting to give each its due, I have tried to show here how and why their interactions mattered.

16

SoNG AND SEASON

While the contents of Song and Season are a byproduct of more than two decades of research, this book in its present form is a creation of the past thirteen months. My personal gratitude to those who have been so kind in times of need, both here and in Venice, is especially deep. This extends to friends, neighbors, and associates who have patiently submitted to interrogation on cultural nuances of timekeeping. My biggest professional debts are to those who have commented on substantial portions of the text- Lorenzo Bianconi, Lowell Lindgren, and Michael Talbot; to those who so meticulously proofread it- Edmund Correia, Jr. (who also compiled the index), and Margaret Duggan; and to the librarians and archivists of Venice, as well as those ofBologna, Florence, London, Mantua, Modena, Rome, and Vienna. In Venice, matters of decisive importance were resolved with the help ofMichela Dalborgo, Umberto LoCascio, lvano Zanenghi, and numerous other members ofthe staffs of the State Archives, the Biblioteca Civica Correr, and the MarcianaNational Library. The unraveling of many intricacies ofVenetian culture and history benefitted from the wise counsel and cheerful advice of the late don Gastone Vio as well as that of Giuseppe Ellero, Maria Giovanna Miggiani, Loris Stella, Micky White, and diverse members of the Associazione Culturale don Gilberto Pressacco- in addition to many colleagues in Venice's libraries and archives. A calendar conference at the UCLA Humanities Center in 2002 offered useful perspectives on related topics. The research and writing were carried out with the assistance ofthe Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities at Stanford University, the American Academy in Rome, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Stiftung Thyll-Di.irr, and (by coincidence) the Vienna Science and Technology Fund. Publication has been assisted by a generous subvention from the Delmas Foundation. It is my pleasure to dedicate this book to my husband, Clive Field, our son Brent A. Field, and my longtime colleague, Walter Hewlett, in recognition of their exemplary standards as well as their patience, kindness, moral support, and lively interest.

18 December 2005 Sunnyvale, CA

1. Venice's Years ~ myths of creation with the design of clocks and calendars used today, ~ . ~n

the long continuum connecting efforts to "separate light from dark" in

~tension between myth and measurement has been a constant. In principle, today' s innovation was always a potential source ofcultural pride. In practice, it was usually yesterday's science that myth sought to explain- and contain.

Venice was ruled by ever-evolving myths of State and of Church. The measurement of time, although originally derived from them, was challenged by the rise of science, and especially by astronomical observation. The study ofthe skies was treasured by navigators. As a maritime republic, Venice was drawn not only to the political advantages of cultural traditions but also to the salutary promise of safer passage through the seas. Between the thirteenth century and the fall of the Republic (1797), methods of time-keeping progressed slowly but steadily, from fundamental tenets ofmedieval astronomy to refined rubrics ofthe emerging industrial age. While scientific advances were welcomed as a topic ofconversation in Venetian academies, efforts to apply them to the ordering of terrestrial life were generally illreceived. It will strike many readers as odd that a study of opera should engender a study of fundamental issues in time-keeping, but the reason is simple. Theatrical performances were perceived as a potential threat to the established orders of both State and Church. Constraints on the uses of time provided a simple means for limiting the activities that occurred in theaters. Temporal control was easier to bring about than textual control. Comedy, much of it improvised, was the principal form of theatrical entertainment up to 1650. From then until 1750 the dramma per musica (a serious, fully scripted work) prevailed. After 1750, the opera buffa was the best received genre, but scripted comedy and dramma per musica were coexistent. For reasons which are complex, the production of lavish drammi per musica was perceived to enhanced commercial and diplomatic relations. Opera was a lure to visitors because it was, up to 1700, a novelty. For decades after that it remained a relative rarity. Since much of the appeal of opera was perennially to sojourners, Venetian officialdom was confronted with the prospect of multiple standards of

22

SoNG AND SEASON

manners and morals- those of Venetians and those of everyone else. The control of time offered an approach to social control that was easier to enforce than edicts concerning dress and behavior. Battles over time were ultimately battles for such control. The aim of this book is to expose the relevanttemporal principles and constructs a model of the Venetian theatrical seasons based upon them as a foundation for understanding how temporal constraints and seasonal models can be reconciled to modem understandings of time. The sequel, A New Chronology of Venetian Opera, applies the principles presented here.

1.1. Christendom's Year Throughout the Americas and Western Europe we take for granted that the year begins on the first day of January. What is so dependable in our own lives is treacherous in European historical studies. This pertains to efforts to understand past cultural practices in parts of the world less dominated than ours by the Church of Rome. It was the Church ofRome under Pope Gregory XIII ( 15 72-1585) which spearheaded the movement to realign the calendars of Christendom with the phases of solar and lunar cycles with which the Council ofNicaea, in 325 AD, had determined that certain feasts should be celebrated. In Gregory's time, twelve-and-a-half centuries later, this reconciliation was considered within the Vatican to be an enlightened one, illustrative of the advances made in astronomy and mathematics in recent decades. What was little considered was that although the practices at issue (particularly the positioning of Easter) were all, at base, grounded in astronomical observation, they were overlaid with centuries of cultural practices. These varied across the broad expanse of lands in which Christianity was practiced. Their residues had the cumulative effect of separating protocols by geography as well as history. Locally, any particular date could have a greater or lesser cultural importance than it had in Rome because cultural practices adapted religious creed to community need. That responses to calendar reform were not uniform is therefore hardly surprising. From antiquity until well into the eighteenth century astrology and astronomy were not considered to be so distinct as they are today. Societies looked to the heavens for auspicious omens. They found them in the constellations of the zodiac, which

l. VENICE'S YEARS

23

were first described by the Babylonians in remote antiquity. 1 They found them in the boundaries oftime's divisions, for example in the first days of new seasons or new "moons" (lunar phases). A waxing moon was associated with growth and health, a waning one with decline and decay. They found them in days which brought two celestial bodies into a rare conjunction. The start of the year was often marked from an equinox, (a significant event in agrarian societies because from it one could calculate optimum times for planting and harvest). In the seven-day week, which is traceable to the Babylonians, each day was ruled by a different celestial body. Sunday was ruled by the Sun, Monday by the Moon, and Tuesday through Saturday by the five planets known to the ancients -Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. In all ancient methods for ordering time, the dissonance of the spheres -the discrepancy in the number ofdays consumed by one solar cycle vs. twelve lunar ones - was acknowledged. What separated time-keeping in one culture from that of another was the choice of which one to privilege. Some favored the sun, others the moon. Early Christianity was somewhat unusual in trying to harmonize them. The formula for computing the date of Easter took into account planetary position in relation to the sun (via the spring equinox), the lunar cycle (from the first full moon), and day of the week (Sunday}? The inexactitude oftime-keeping systems used in late antiquity and the Middle Ages led to a gradual divergence of cultural observances of Easter and an inevitable drift away from the equinox. The Copernican revolution forced a reexamination of dating practices. Learned clerics were already discontent with the results of the formula for determining the date ofEaster. Two centuries of discussion and debate preceded the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in October 1582. The discussion might have continued to drift had not Ugo Boncompagni (Gregory XIII) appointed at the start ofhis tenure an international commission to bring forth proposals for calendar reform. The Julian calendar then used by the Church ofRome was reconciled to the earth's planetary motion by moving the spring equinox back one day in every 128 years.

1 Among calendrical traditions in the Middle East, the Mesopotamians marked the first of their two six-month seasons from the barley harvest in May. The Babylonians implanted their twelvemonth lunar calendar on the Hebrews, who had earlier used a solar year. After each period of nineteen years, an additional month was added to realign timekeeping with astronomical positions.

Prior to the Council ofNicaea (325 AD), Easter was observed on the first day (not specifically a Sunday) of the spring moon and was therefore coincident with Passover.

2

24

SONG AND SEASON

In 325 the date ofthe equinox, previously 25 March, 3 was reset to the 21st. By 1582 the date of the equinox had receded to the 11th. It was decided to reposition it once more to 21 March. The earliest calendar of ancient Rome, which was, according to legend, invented by Romulus, consisted often months (nominally equivalent to the period MarchDecember). These collectively had a total of304 days. An unlabeled period of time which contained 50-61 days followed. The new year on Romulus's calendar was marked from the vernal equinox. Early in the seventh century BC, the king Numa Pompilius introduced the months of January and February and in the process added one day to the year (January acquired a 31st day). 4 The resulting year contained 360 days (the dates 24-28 February did not exist).

It was a common practice in the ancient world for regimes to manipulate methods of time-keeping to favor the preservation (or disruption) oftheir power. Julius Caesar's reordering of the Roman calendar, inspired by his exposure to the timekeeping practices in Cleopatra's Egypt, 5 was both an expression of his political power and an effort to regularize the elastic rules governing terms of office in Rome. Caesar adopted Ptolemy's 365 .25-day year in place of a Roman year which then comprised 355 days. Before Caesar's reform, the date for initiating the year had been 1 March, since it was from that date that days within the year were counted. To enact his reforms, Caesar ordered what was later called a "year of confusion" in which 90 extra days were intercalated, with the result that l March on the calendar of the Roman Republic was redefined to be 1 January of the year 45 BC. Years were not counted cumulatively by the ancient Romans. Instead they were referenced only by the name of the reigning consul (later the emperor). Caesar's reforms did not end calendar manipulation. Leap years were sometimes observed after three years instead of the

The British day-month-year style for dates given in the running text is used to reduce the likelihood of typographical conflation of day-numerals and year-numerals. Numerical values below thirty-two are expressed verbally for the same reason. (The sorting date given for entries in the New Chronology uses year-month-day order so that the year will prevail over the month and the month over the day in automatic processing.)

3

Days had once been apportioned to months in proportion to the relative importance ofthe deity after whom each was named. July and August, which were relatively long, only came to honor the Caesars- Julius and Augustus- after centuries of a more generic existence as Quintilis ("fifth month") and Sextilis ("sixth month").

4

c. I 000 BC, the Egyptian year consisted oftwelve months of thirty days plus five festival days. The Egyptian calendar was widely used throughout the Middle Ages and in fact was employed by Copernicus. 5 From

1. VENICE'S YEARS

25

intended four. Yet the generally greater stability of the Julian calendar owed to its having been more predictable than its predecessors. The pre-telescopic world in which Gregory's astronomers worked was largely dependent on direct observation ofcelestial bodies. Celestial cycles offered numerous choices to the observer, who might track the navigation of the earth and the planets around the sun (then believed to be the sun and the planets around the earth). Two sad ironies lurk in the reform's own date of adoption. On the one hand, such a development, had it occurred a generation later, could have taken advantage of the advances in astronomical knowledge which rapidly followed Galileo's invention of the telescope (1609). On the other, the papacy's pride in its own astronomical prowess had by that time been transmuted into fear, perhaps partly because the discoveries were coming from academics in Padua, courtiers in Florence, and sailors in Venice. None lay within the Papal States. In practical terms, the Gregorian reform consisted of omitting ten days from the calendar as it stood in 1582. 6 The institution of a leap day (29 February) resulted in the inclusion oftwenty-five additional days per century in three centuries out of every four (no day was added in a leap year evenly divisible by 400). The Gregorian scheme required, vis-a-vis the Julian year, an incremental adjustment of one day per century in succeeding centuries (excluding any year was evenly divisible by 400). Thus one adds eleven days to a Julian date for reforms adopted between 170 I and 1800, twelve for reforms between 1801 and 1900, and thirteen for reforms made from 1901 until the year 2100. Because the Lutheran schism had occurred a generation prior to the adoption ofthe Gregorian calendar and because calendar reform was seen as a papal initiative, Protestant communities initially rejected it. Most Catholic communities adopted reform within a few years. Regions which were predominantly Russian or Greek Orthodox did not adopt it until the early twentieth century. Within each of these spheres, the adoption ofthe reformed calendar (referring to the ten-day leap forward) was staggered from place to place. In consequence an enormous amount of variation occurred in the recording ofdates, even from place to place within one region. France and Bavaria adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1583, Austria and Bohemia in 1584, and the Palatinate ofNeuburg in 1615. Contrariwise, the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Denmark only in 1699, in the Netherlands in 1700, and in England and Ireland

The lost days caused no hiatus in the flow of weekdays. In Rome in 1582, Thursday 4 October was succeeded by Friday 15 October (see, inter alia, Craig Stuart Sapp's historically informed calendar reconciliation tool at http://hcal.ccarh.orgl). 6

26

SoNG AND SEASON

in 1752.7 Letter-writers living in Protestant areas in the first half of the eighteenth century sometimes gave dates two ways (e.g., 15/26 January) in order not to offend a recipient living under a different calendar, but this practice was absent in the Roman Catholic world. People living in close proximity to one another established their timekeeping conventions orally; it was those at a distance who had to make mental adjustments to interpret the dates in arriving mail. The Gregorian reform was not completed in the eighteenth century, nor is it universal today. The Soviet Union adopted a reformed calendar for state purposes in 1918, Greece in 1923, Persia(Iran) in 1925, and Turkey in 1926.8 Overall, ittook approximately 3 50 years for the reform of 15 82 to be adopted within the broad expanse ofnations considered to be predominantly Christian. That continues to exclude many communities which originated in the jurisdiction of Eastern Christianity, notably many Eastern Orthodox communities as well as some Christian communities which have maintained independence since Roman times (e.g., Armenian, Assyrian, and other Middle Eastern sects). Some 5, 000 distinct calendars are thoughtto have existed between 1450, when the notion was first seriously entertained, and 1800.9 Quite apart from denominational politics, the adoption of calendar reform was impeded by a widespread sense of cultural compromise. The idea of calendar reform was no more popular in the 1570s, when it was being heavily promoted, than the idea ofa common European currency was in the 1990s. Many who followed the debate feared the loss ofcultural identity more than they welcomed a system ofstandardization that would be of value chiefly to accountants and secretaries. Among the opponents of calendar reform in Gregory's time were the Venetian astronomer, mathematician, composer, and music-theorist Gioseffe Zarlino and the French essayist Michel Montaigne. As readers of Zarlino's Istituzioni and Dimostrazioni armoniche will know, Zarlino was as glib in his studies of the Conversion to the Gregorian calendar was not always a permanent one. Sweden adopted it early, then reverted to the Julian calendar in the early seventeenth century and did not re-adopt the Gregorian calendar untill753. Swiss cantons and German principalities varied from village to village, depending on the current religion.

7

8

Among the many sources for reconciling dates, the most useful for this study has been Cappelli's

Cronologia, cronografia, e calendario perpetuo.

Maiello's Storia del calendario has been a most useful source for understanding the vicissitudes of timekeeping in early modem Italy. The most succinct overview oftime-measurement is given by Borst's The Ordering ofTime. The recent millennium celebrations brought forth a bonanza of books on timekeeping. Among these, the reconciliation of older and non-Western calendar systems is particularly well treated in Richards, Mapping Time, and in Blackburn and HolfordStrevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year. The cultural history of time is treated in depth in Duncan, Calendar, and several other sources.

9

1. VENICE's YEARS

27

intricacies of planetary motions as he was in his discussions of the musical modes. Since antiquity a causal relationship was considered to exist between the orderly motion of heavenly bodies and the orderly motion of musical tones. By Zarlino's calculation, there would be three years between 15 83 and 163 3 when the calculation ofthe equinox, according to the Gregorian system, would cause Easter to be observed one lunar cycle too soon. Zarlino went so far as to challenge the papacy verbally but subsequently withdrew his criticism in writing. 10 Like many people after him, Montaigne (1585) refused to keep his diaries or accounts by the new calendar. Skepticism persisted into the eighteenth century. The most intricate dialogues on calendar reform may exist as subtexts in some ofShakespeare' s best-known plays, among them Romeo and Juliet c. 1594-95),Julius Caesar (1599), and Othello c. 1604-05). The English monarchy of his time rejected reform because of its papal sponsorship, but many in his audience recognized its scientific merits. Recent studies by Steven Sohmer have argued that Julius Caesar had its first performance on the summer solstice (12 June on the Julian calendar) in 1599. 11 The date and time must have been planned carefully, Sohmer says, because there are allusions to the solstice in the play. Allusions to other feast days suggest that seminal events in Romeo and Juliet occurred in October 15 82 -the month in which the Gregorian calendar was introduced in Rome. In Othello, Sohmer holds, the calendars ofunreformed Cyprus and reformed Venice are contrasted interlinearly. 12 Through noting Shakespeare's frequent juxtapositions ofthe reformed and unreformed calendars, Sohmer has suggested hidden meanings in several other Shakespeare plays. Sohmer's decoding of references to time relies on intercalation of astronomical and liturgical calendars. It was customary, no only in England but also in Italy, for special

occasions to be identified by day-name rather than by day-number. There was little conscious use of particular paradigms of historical time until the sixteenth century. Amo Borst credited Protestant Germany in the sixteenth century

10

See Zarlino, Resolutioni.

11 Sohmer's work on Romeo and Juliet was reported in the conference "Calendar Reform and Religious Reformation" at the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (28-29 January 2003). The work on Julius Caesar (for which a starting time of2 p.m. was postulated from celestial and tidal charts) was first reported in "12 June 1599" (1997) and elaborated two years later in Shakespeare's Mystery Play. Sohmer argues that Shakespeare himself was facile in computing the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars. His audience recognized the intellectual merits of reform, which were officially rejected by the crown in Reformation England. Julius Caesar, he says, plays on the conflicting interpretations ofthe significance of individual days among the early Roman, Julian, and Gregorian calendars.

12

Sohmer, "The 'Double Time' Crux in Othello Solved," 214-238.

28

SoNG AND SEASON

with cultivating the concept of centuries and promoting their use in historical accounts. He linked the development of a chronological sense with the rise of early modem humanism, although chronologies were certainly kept in antiquity. The physicist Isaac Newton ( 1686) argued in favor of separating "chronological" from "historical" time, that is, he wanted the newer practice of isolating events by date to be distinguished from the earlier concept of an undifferentiated continuum of time. The mathematician G. W. von Leibnitz argued (1703) that time should be understood as motion. New viewpoints on the relationship of time to history appeared throughout the eighteenth century as studies of ancient and near-eastern cultures multiplied. Among them were those of two philosophers- Giambattista Vico (1725), who re-examined ancient Jewish methods of timekeeping, and F. M.A. de Voltaire (1756), who did the same for Chinese methods. 13 Despite an abundance of enlightened perspective, many intellectuals remained uneasy with calendar reform. An appreciation of the ambiguity of time-keeping systems seems to have been widespread among the highly educated and the well-traveled. The psycholinguistic concept of social "code-switching," which has recently been imported into historical studies 14 to denote the adaptation of modes ofcommunication to suit changing social contexts, has obvious applicability. Acknowledgment of multiple ways of keeping time has been a modus operandi in many cultural contexts. The differentiation of civic and religious days, as well as civic and religious years, is a matter of course for millions of people. The dates of the Jewish and Chinese new years (falling near the autumn equinox and in mid-winter respectively) are moveable ones computed, like Easter, from the lunar calendar. 15 (The resulting months are shorter than on the Gregorian calendar). The Islamic calendar is based on lunar cycles, now calculated with impressive precision by an observatory in Mecca which opened in 1998. Being spread across many latitudes, Islam faces particularly complex problems in synchronizing lunar observance around the globe with the canonical time recorded in Mecca. Local determinations ofthe appearance ofthe new moon may be substituted in the Far East, the Pacific, and the Americas for the official readings obtained in Saudi Arabia. At least five calendars have been used on the Indian subcontinent. The new year of Persia and other ancient areas of Central Asia is regularly celebrated on 25 March (coincident with the Christian new year prior to the Council ofNicaea). Apparently following a Druidic prototype, England marked its new year from 1 March 13

See Maiello, Calendario, p. 21, and Borst, The Ordering of Time, pp. I 04-117.

14

By Peter Burke, who gives his interpretation in a forthcoming study of Emile Durkheim.

Collisions between major feasts on diverse calendars are not infrequent. In 2005 the Chinese New Year and Ash Wednesday (both falling on 9 February) were coincident. 15

1. VENICE'S YEARS

29

until the time of William the Conqueror, and Russia, for unrelated reasons, did likewise until the fifteenth century. It is difficult to know exactly what "March" meant in centuries more than a millennium past, since month and season did not always enjoy the same kind of fixed relationship as they do today. Merely by recognizing the array of existing practices outside western Christendom (and in immigrant communities within it), we can entertain some notion of the situation in Europe when Gregory was elected pope. 16 The Julian use of I January as the start of the new year did not prevail on the Italian peninsula in the Middle Ages. In fact there was no standard day for the start of the year. It was reckoned from Christmas (25 December) in Brescia, Como, Ferrara, Modena, Rimini, Rome, and Vicenza until various times from the fifteenth through the mid-eighteenth centuries. It was reckoned from the feast of the Annunciation (25 March) in Bologna, Cremona, Florence, Mantua, Milan, Padua, Pisa, Ravenna, Turin, and Verona, 17 generally until the middle of the eighteenth century. The Byzantine calendar, whereby the year began on 1 September, had been employed in a few southern Italian cities and Adriatic ports. Except in Calabria, where the practice survived until the sixteenth century, it was abandoned in the early Middle Ages. Under a third system used sporadically in Italy before Gregorian reform, the new year could begin on a moveable date- the Sunday following the feast of St. Andrew. 18 The feast, which fell on 30 November, marked the start ofthe Christian liturgical year. In many French-speaking parts of Europe the new year began, prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, on Easter. German electorates had followed the custom of starting the year on Christmas until the middle of the sixteenth century, when it was reconciled to the feast of Circumcision (1 January). England followed the practice of beginning the year on the feast ofthe Annunciation (25 March, or "Lady Day") until September 1752.

16 The fashionable substitutions BCE (before common era) and CE(common era) for BC (before Christ) and AD (anno Domini) have not been adopted. The intended suppression of Christian identity is inherently frustrated by the fact that it is the numeration, not the nomenclature, in which the identity resides.

17 The years were not uniform. In the Pisan style, the year began nine months ahead ofthe modern year. In the Florentine style, it began three months behind (Hoepli, Cronologia, p. II). 18

Maiello, Ca!endario, p. 27.

30

SONG AND SEASON

1.2. The Liturgical Year In Venice it was often difficult to separate the sacred from the secular, for the Venetians continually colonized the liturgical calendar with commemorations of obscure saints whose feasts happened to coincide with landmark victories of the Most Serene Republic over its foes. Venice celebrated the anniversary of its founding on 25 March- in coincidence with the feast ofthe Annunciation. In advancing the year, the local custom ofgovernment scribes over many centuries was to calculate the new year from 1 March. 19 This corresponded to the practice of pagan Rome and to that concurrently in use in Turkey and Russia.

ILLUSTRATION 1.1. Mnemonic hand for decoding the calendar from dominical letters, from Ottavio Beltrano's Almanacco perpetuo (1705). The signs of heavenly bodies (Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun, and Mercury on the knuckles, Venus, Mars, and the Moon on the rear palm) acknowledged the dependence of calendars on astronomical events. The sprig of rosemary symbolized immortality, suggesting that the display enabled the user to determine the date of Easter (23 March) in 1704. (Biblioteca Civica Correr I 288)

Termed mors veneto in Latin or more veneto in Italian; the abbreviation used here in either case is M.V. 19

1. VENICE's YEARS

31

In the event of a collision between fixed and moveable feasts, generally speaking a secular one deferred to a religious one. If two sacred holidays conflicted, the liturgically more important one took precedence. For example, if Palm Sunday or Easter fell on 25 March, the observation of the feast of the Annunciation was celebrated on a nearby weekday. Such events were generally foreseen. Years were classified by their "domini cal" letter. If the first Sunday (of January) happened to be the first day of the year, the letter was "A"; if the first Sunday was the 2nd, the year was designated "B", and so forth. 20 Dominicalletters were widely used for centuries all over Europe. In Illustration l.l, the dominical letters have been superimposed on that ubiquitous mnemonic device of the Middle Ages- the hand. In this case all segments ofboth hands and the underside ofthe knuckles of the left hand have been used to lay out the numbers for a month (probably with two days missing). The author claimed to be speaking ofthe year 1693, but the special attention called to the 23rd, in view of the iconography, suggests that this was a calendar for the month oflate February and most of March 1704 (a leap year), when Easter fell on that date. 21 The sprig of rosemary signified immortality. The most important moveable celebrations of the Christian year were Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi. Of the two seasons of penitential preparation, Advent was of slightly variable length, while Lent was variable in position relative to calendrical months. A theological message was embedded in the contrast between fixed and moveable feasts. Moveable feasts marked the rites of passage related to the immortality ofJesus through the events ofthe Resurrection, Ascension, and Descent of the Holy Spirit. Feasts which marked events in the life ofhis mother, Mary, and the martyrdom of saints occurred on fixed dates, signifying earthly mortality. This theological distinction submitted the dates of moveable feasts to the dictates of celestial motion, while mortal events were observed in obedience to terrestrial calendars.

20

Maiello, Calendario, p. 29.

It appears that Beltrano (Almanacco, p. 233) recycled an image from another year. Although he claimed the hand described 1693 (a common year; dominicalletter D, with Easter on 22 March) rather than 1704 (a leap year; dominicalletters FE), his own table of moveable feasts for the years 1665 to 1693 (p. 232) gives entirely erroneous dates for the years 1689-93 and wrong months for Easter in 1671 and 1687. In Illustration 1.1 the figures in the rightmost column are inconsistent. (A leap day did not officially have a letter, but the year itself took a second letter to clarify the date of the first Sunday in October.) As best, we can say that the hand and the table which accompanies it do not coincide. The astrological symbols on the hand are borrowed from palmistry.

21

32

SoNG AND SEASON

In calendrical terms, Holy Week and Easter formed a temporal plateau which was buttressed on both sides by substantial periods with their own qualities. The season of Lent began on a Wednesday 40 days before Palm Sunday, 22 while the feast of Ascension, which fell on a Thursday, followed Easter by 40 days. Pentecost (Whitsuntide in much ofthe English-speaking world) was celebrated over a three-day period (Sunday through Tuesday) beginning on the 50th day after Easter. 23 The following Sunday was Trinity Sunday, and the feast ofCorpus Christi24 was celebrated on the next Sunday after that. In effect, the date ofEaster controlled the dates of other moveable feasts. 25 Advent spanned the four Sundays preceding Christmas and all the intervening days through Christmas Eve. Advent started between 27 November and 3 December. The feast of St. Andrew (30 November), which initiated the liturgical year, marked the fulcrum of this week but did not fall predictably within or outside Advent.

1.3. The Ducal Year Ultimately, the calendar of Venetian feasts was a goad to historical memory. The ducal year was richly adorned with liturgical feasts such as those of Ss. Vitus and Modest (15 June) and of St. Justine (7 October), for example, which coincidentally commemorated victories through which the Republic had expanded its borders. Other feasts, such as that of St. Mark (25 April), paid homage to the patron saint of the Republic. Only the principal feasts ofthe Christian year seemed to get their full due as purely religious feasts. Among them, the feast of Ascension enjoyed exalted importance because it commemorated the twelfth-century wedding ofVenice to the Adriatic. By the eighteenth century it had more secular connotations than sacred ones. The start of the civic year, on I March, was not marked by a festive celebration. Most years it fell on a weekday during Lent. As the chiefexecutive, the doge's responsibilities were never-ending. Many were ceremonial, and it was therefore incumbent upon him to spend most of the year in

Strictly, Lent consisted of the 40 weekdays preceding Easter. The six Sundays (the last of which was Palm Sunday) were separately classified.

22

In the Christian world Pentecost recognized the descent of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles; an antecedent holiday ofthe Jewish calendar celebrated the reception ofthe Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai. By the mid-eighteenth century, Venetians observed the feast only on Sunday and Monday.

23

24

Usually called Corpus Domini in Venetian documents.

25 One

exception was the Venetian feast ofthe Redeemer, celebrated on the third Sunday in July. It commemorated deliverance from the plague that followed the battle of Lepanto (1572-73).

1. VENICE's YEARS

33

the city. A great many feasts required processions of the doge and his retinue in full regalia. The real work of government was done by sundry bodies, each of which had their own calendars of activity, all of them effectively derived from the liturgical calendar. Sessions were structured in such a way as to emphasize ceremonial beginnings and endings- elections, inductions, and terminations. The nobles who populated the government also held their recesses in esteem. Much of the temporal structure of government was shaped by them. The Senate, for example, conducted business during both winter and summer sessions. The winter session nominally started on 30 September and continued through the Monday ofHoly Week. During this period the Council met after the midday meal. During the remaining portion of the year (the Tuesday of Holy Week through 29 September) it met in the morning. The greater number ofhours of daylight available in spring and summer mornings (as opposed to autumn and winter afternoons) meant that agendas were fuller in the warmer months of the year. Effectively, the winter session began with a long adjournment from early in October to mid-November. The most comprehensive body of government was the Maggi or Consiglio (Major Council26). It theoretically recessed for autumn villeggiatura on the Monday preceding the feast of St. Luke (18 October), but it was rare for ballots to be cast later than 4 October (the feast of St. Francis of Assisi), and adjournment could come as early as 29 September (the feast of St. Michael, or Michaelmas). The day of the week on which the feast of St. Luke fell seems originally to have been a determining factor in designating the date of the Consiglio's recess, but the nobility were less and less obedient to prescription as the eighteenth century progressed and quora were more and more difficult to achieve. The Consiglio was officially reconvened on the Saturday immediately preceding the first Sunday ofAdvent. Many nobles owned planted lands on the mainland, so concern for gathering in the bounty and ferrying it to the city in preparation for the long, cold winters of the lagoon city was a priority. Autumn villeggiatura was as much a time of social recreation as of agrarian provision. Fowling in the marshes and hunting in the wooded hills of the Veneto were noted pastimes, but so too were garden strolls and parlor recreations. The civic year was punctuated by many impromptu festivities, occasioned by such events as the election of a new doge or procurator. High masses were celebrated at San Marco on the day following the coronation of a doge and on the anniversary of the coronation of a doge. When a new doge was elected there were, counting secular entertainments provided by the nominee, three days of rejoicing. Conversely, the 26 In short references, the Maggi or Consiglio as cited as "the Consiglio," while the Consiglio dei Dieci (Council ofTen) is called "the Council."

34

SoNG AND SEASON

death of a doge was often marked by three or more days of public grieving. In the eighteenth century, Venetians found more and more excuses to suspend normal life for several consecutive days. Deaths of foreign monarchs or emissaries, deaths of the wives of doges, elections to high government office - the list of special circumstances grew longer every year. Rites of passage of the nobility and of ambassadors serving the Republic, or one of their family members, could give cause for at least one~day suspensions ofordinary business. These too became very numerous in the eighteenth century.

1.4. The Accounting Year The rhythms of social and governmental life in Venice were marked by periods of a few days to a few months, each of which had its own particular flavor. Seasonal boundaries, like dates in general, were typically identified by the name of a corresponding commemoration, rather than by number, through the seventeenth century. Following the practice of Roman Catholicism, secular entertainments and marriages were officially forbidden during the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent. In much of Europe the feast of St. Michael (29 September) was a day for settling accounts. Into the late nineteenth century agrarian pay in the Veneto was still issued only twice a year - on the feasts of St. John (6 May, for planting) and St. Martin (11 November, for harvest). Government tribunals began to reopen in mid~ to late~ November, as the nobility drifted back to town. There was also an earlier period of villeggiatura, initiated by the feast of St. Anthony (13 June), the patron saint ofPadua. It continued officially until4 July. Some families remained in the countryside until the end of July, but August and September were spent in the city. Noblemen were not paid for their government service; they were expected to replenish their means through other sources ofincome (rents, crops, trade, inheritance). Those in high office were expected to entertain lavishly. This effectively restricted high office to those of substantial means. Venetian nobles were increasingly impoverished in the eighteenth century- by lost lands in the Aegean, by declining trade at home and at sea, by heavy taxation, by the expenditures necessary for government service, by speculative investments, and by gambling. The base of indigenous support for theatrical works and other cultural artifacts declined accordingly. Cycles of payment to ordinary workers varied according to the livelihood. Musicians at San Marco were paid bi-monthly. Singers at the larger theaters were paid once a year, at the start of Lent, for their services over the preceding theatrical year, a period of variable length which never spanned more than five months.

1. VENICE'S YEARS

35

Instrumentalists and singers in smaller houses were sometimes paid by the performance. Some comedy troupes were paid in two or three installments over the theatrical year. Supernumerary figures- tailors, wig-makers, set-makers, trumpetand-drum corps- were paid by the production and, in some instances, night by night, always retrospectively. 27 Printers were paid (by librettists) for each press run. The single most important payment cycle for theatrical performers, whether they were hired on individual or collective contracts, was the one that ran, at maximum, from the first day of Lent for a nominal year. The actual length of this year was dependent on the date on which Lent began in two consecutive years- the current one and the ensuing one. The start of Lent could vary by 35 days in either direction from one year to the next. It was hypothetically possible for a 70-day difference to occur between consecutive contractual years. In actuality, no juxtaposition of"earliest possible" and "latest possible" starting dates for Lent occurred in consecutive years. New theatrical contracts were never actually signed on the first day ofLent, but many contracts between theater owners and librettists or star singers were signed in the spring. In smaller theaters, they were signed somewhat later but always before the adjournment of the government in the autumn. While pay was due on the first day of Lent, it was often still outstanding in the spring, by which time performers were prone to appeal to authorities.

1.5. The Academic Year The Venetian school year, like its economic year, is much simpler and more clear-cut than its liturgical and civic years, at least in the eighteenth century. Instruction was carefully organized to take advantage of daylight hours. The scholastic year was divided into two parts (Table 1.1 ). The impression that longer sessions were offered during the months of greater daylight is heightened by taking the slightly elastic hour (Ch. 3) into account. Most notable is the coincidence with the schedule of the University ofPadua late in the eighteenth century. The two periods of vacation enabled families to retreat to the countryside - the short summer one starting on 15 June and the longer autumn one running from 4 October. Although it was not a school in the usual sense, the Arcadian academy in Venice also had a schedule that varied from summer to winter. From 1 November until Easter the academicians met weekly in the evening, beginning at one hour after sunset. From ---~·--~

Payment per night seems only to have occurred when ordered by government authorities. Such orders were usually in response to long histories of failure to pay but could also come about when there were disputes of the specifics of the arrangement, lapses in appearance, or poor behavior on the stage. 27

36

SONG AND SEASON

Easter they convened after the midday meal. Meetings during Lent were held on alternate Thursdays; they otherwise took place on Fridays. 27 Term

---1 April ~ 30 September

Schedule details Three hours in the morning, three in the afternoon 15

Vacation period l

October~

31 March

June~

4 July

Two hours in the morning, two in the afternoon

4 October~ 12 November Vacation period ------------------------TABLE 1.1. The Venetian school year in the eighteenth century.

1.6. The Virtual Year The papal calendar reform of 1582 caused much confusion about dates over a ten-day range but added little new complexity to the already tangled subject of year-dating. Virtual year

Starting date

Papal

1 January

Ducal (more veneto)

l March

Accounting

First day of Lent

Academic - summer session

1 April

Senate- summer session

Tuesday of Holy Week

Senate- winter session

30 September

Academic - winter session

1 October

Liturgical

30 November

Maggior Consiglio

Saturday before Advent

TABLE 1.2. Virtual definitions of the year in order of initiation.

It can be seen that over a much longer period than that represented by the span of time from 1582 until the collapse of the Venetian Republic in 1797, a host of definitions ofthe year had accrued. Most issued from medieval times by diverse routes.

27

1-Vnm, Cod. It. X-95 ( = 6565), an anonymous source ofthe early eighteenth century.

1. VENICE's YEARS

37

They are summarized in Table 1.2. The numerous definitions represented in this table suggest that the "year" of the Maggior Consiglio was intended to be synchronized with the liturgical calendar, while the academic year coincided reasonably well with the Senate calendar. The contractual year (at least as used by theaters) was synchronized (to a degree) with the more veneto. This makes some sense, since secretaries and accountants were the only secular members of society who had to keep careful track of time. For most historical purposes, the distinction between the papal and ducal years is the one which causes confusion. Theatrical affairs could be influenced, nonetheless, by the schedules of the Senate and the Maggior Consiglio. They responded to both the liturgical year and the accounting year. The academic year influenced audience availability. In evaluating the positional choices for any event of unconfirmed date, it is useful to consider the sphere of activity with which it was most closely allied. From a cultural perspective, a best choice will often become obvious within a specific context.

2. Calendrical Markers and Their Cultural Foundations ~~· he mathematical calculation of years operated independently of cultural

I

definitions of seasons. The uniform lengths of spring, summer, autumn, and winter arose from their demarcation by equinoxes and solstices. The cultural divisions imposed on the passage of a year accrued from civic and religious practice. Ifthere was a single thread running through the multiple models of the virtual years discussed in Ch. 1, it was a reliance on specific markers- days which were oflocal significance for a particular reason. Such days frequently invoked a limited period distinguished by an appropriate social attitude. The attitude could be somber or gay, depending on its underlying meaning. The cadences of Ecclesiastes advocating "every thing in its season"- are recalled at every tum, for one "season" gave way to another as soon as a pivotal feast arrived. Most markers were outgrowths ofmedieval custom. The markers most observed by Venetians were often significant in two senses: they were implanted in the calendar because of some historical event, and they continued to be observed because they met some modem need. To facilitate the understanding of these buried meanings and their implications for theatrical life, the patronage of Venetian theaters, and the patriotic allusions found in many Venetian operas, it will be useful to consider briefly the chief episodes in Venetian history and to survey the structures of the Venetian government relevant to theatrical life. Bases for calendrical "marking," of promotion ofimportance, emerge from three main areas- (Ch. 2.1) Venice's historical foundations, (Ch. 2.2) its finely tuned observations ofliturgical feasts, and (Ch. 2.3) its long prevalent actuarial practices.

2.1. Civic Markers Venice marked its founding from the fifth century, although settlements on the fringes of the lagoon dated from earlier times. Many of the villains encountered in legends of the city's early history are portrayed in Venetian operas. One of the earliest, historically speaking, is Alaric, the king of the Visigoths, who invaded Italy in the

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year 400. His invasion of the lagoon scattered the fishermen and sailors who lived on its various islands. They collectively established the settlement of"Rialto" ["the place where the river-bank is high"] on the west side of the Grand Canal at the foot of the like-named bridge. On 21 March 421 the first church, San Giacomo di Rialto, was established nearby. Thirty-one years later Attila, the leader ofthe Huns, invaded Aquileia, located at the northernmost point of the Adriatic. Early Christians and "pagans" of numerous other religious traditions crossed one another's paths at this intersection oftrade routes. Aquileia' s cathedral (on which archeological examination continues to the present day) had religious jurisdiction south through the Venetian lagoon. In 552 Justinian's general Narsetes asked for help from the tribunes ofVenice in fighting the Goths on the Adriatic. After the Goths were driven out, Narsetes made Ravenna a Greek colony. (A number of operas treat the early history of Ravenna, a topic well studied by Venice's celebrated geographer, Vincenzo Coronelli.) More than a century later, in 697, Venetian tribunes created the lifetime post of doge. The doge's seat was not at first in what is now the center ofVenice but rather in Eraclea, which lies a few miles to the north. The doge's rule extended to the borders ofLombardy. In the eighth century Lombardy extended from Cividale (near today' s Slovenian border) to its more familiar reaches around Milan. One of Lombardy's early rulers was Liutprand. The bishopric of Aquileia splintered with the creation of a second bishopric to the south, in Grado. This division was commemorated in popular festivities which took place in Venice towards the end of Carnival. Rule of the Veneto was moved from Eraclea south to Malamocco (on the Lido), and in 774 a third bishopric was established for the eastern district ofthe Veneto. Only in 810 did the seat of government move to the Rialto, where it remained until the fourteenth century. In the ninth century the offices of nine procurators (overseers) were established. Their tasks were divided among three triumvirates, each of which was concerned with the management of a different section of the Republic. Prior to the arrival of the relics of St. Mark (829), the sole patron saint of Venice was St. Theodore. The new relics led to the construction of the basilica in the evangelist's honor. From then until the fall of the Republic, Venice lived under the ducal motto "Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista mea" ("Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist"). Feasts associated with the saint took on ever greater significance. Construction of the first campanile, which was to meter the life of Venetians for nearly a millennium (Ch. 3), commenced in 888. In 944 the abduction of twelve Venetian women on 31 January by ill-intentioned Istrian sailors was redressed by their rescue two days later from Caorle, a settlement

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SoNG AND SEASON

north ofEraclea. 1 This rescue was commemorated on the feast of Santa Maria Formosa (elsewhere Purification). Threats from abroad coerced the loose amalgam of island settlements that dotted the lagoon into mutual dependence in the tenth century. The Lombard king Berengar II bestowed many favors on the Venetians. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor (962), granted certain "perpetual" privileges to the Venetians. In 999 the doge Pietro Orseolo II, acting with papal encouragement, led a fleet down the western shore of the Adriatic to "protect" shore dwellers from attack by Croatians and Slavs. In the mid-twelfth century, the Venetians allied themselves against a threatened Norman invasion, under Roger Guiscard, of Corfu. Islands in the Aegean were accrued one by one. As the Venetians found themselves attracting notice abroad, they formed a more extensive government at home. In 1171 the city was divided into sestieri (sixths). These districts were name San Marco, Castello, Cannaregio, San Polo, Santa Croce, and Dursoduro. The Maggior Consiglio was formed a year later, with 480 male representatives of the most prominent families. The first bridge across the Grand Canal was built at the Rialto and the columns commemorating the city's patron saints, Theodore and Mark, were erected on the Molo (embankment) in front of the Ducal Palace. Following a victory ofthe Lombard League (to which Venice then belonged) over Frederick Barbarossa, the first ceremonial sailing to the Lido to "marry Venice to the sea" on the feast of Ascension took place in 1177. In 1180 the first Ascension fair (jiera della Sensa) was held in the Piazza San Marco. Although earlier pilgrims had passed through the city en route to Jerusalem, the Fourth Crusade [1202-1204] was the first in which Venetians themselves actively sought to reach the Holy Land and the one which proved to be most relevant to the development of a Venetian maritime empire. It gave the Venetians holdings in Roumania (valued for its Black Sea ports and access to the Danube and Dniester) and the opportunity to build fiefdoms in the Peloponnese (the "Morea" of Venetian lore) and on strings of islands, large and small, off its shores and throughout the Aegean. In succeeding years these holdings and their protection led the Venetians into the first of many wars in Crete, principally around the port of Iraklion (the "Candia" of Venetian accounts). The further colonization of the Greek islands by multitudes of other foreigners (Armenians, Syrians, Franks, Britons, and Catalans) 1 This rescue was commemorated in the "feast ofthe Marys" (Santa Maria Formosa), which was adopted in 1138. Its date, 2 February, was coincident with that of the Feast of Purification ofthe Blessed Virgin. The stick figures which were used to represent the virgins in traditional plays given between January 26 and February 2 are considered to have been the forerunners of"marionettes" (Niero, Tradizioni, pp. 24ft).

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created polyglot populations of uncertain political allegiance. Prior to the rise of the Ottomans, the Venetians fared better than most colonizers, partly because of the stability they enjoyed at home, partly because of their systematic approach to administrative matters, and partly because of their eagerness to make the products of these islands available to merchants in Europe. Wealth-building inevitably led the Venetians into international conflict, particularly with their maritime rivals, the Genovese, with whom they fought four wars (1256-1381). The fourteenth century brought realignments ofland holdings between Venice and Friuli in the northern Adriatic. It also brought unprecedented dreams of wealth and glory when Marco Polo and his party returned, after three decades of travel along Asia's "silk road," with exotic luxuries and intriguing tales. Their accounts planted colorful images of distant kingdoms, with unfamiliar heroes and villains, in the Venetian psyche for centuries to come. In the realm of reality, the most significant event of the century was the Black Plague, which arrived on the heels of one of Venice's worst earthquakes ( 1348). The century was also marked by skirmishes close to home, with Padua and with the powerful Genovese fleet at Chioggia. By the fifteenth century the Venetians had come to prevail in the eastern Mediterranean. After some centuries of acquiring staples from the islands, they had become the chiefEuropean traders with the Syrians and Egyptians. Apart from wine, olive oil, currants from the Aegean, and spices from central Asia (imported via the Black Sea and the Aegean), Venetian merchants were now able to provide bountiful quantities of exquisitely woven cloth such as "damask" (from Damascus), which was treasured for its hypnotic arabesques, and silk from Thebes. Naval and mercantile successes encouraged the Venetians to extend their inland domains as far west as Bergamo. As merchants at home prospered and pilgrims going to and from the Holy Land passed through Venice in ever greaternumbers, charitable institutions were established one after another. The earliest ospedale (then a rest-stop for crusaders but in later centuries a home for abandoned children) was established on the Piazza in the area later converted to the offices ofthe Procuratia Nuova. The earliest ofthe confraternities, that of the Carita (1260), was built on the south side of the Grand Canal, near the present Accademia Bridge. Four more ospedali and six main confraternities (scuole) were to be built over the next two centuries. The scuole, which were effectively guilds of wealthy merchants, commissioned much of the artwork for which Venice was later noted. They rigorously promoted the ceremonial observation of liturgical feasts, particularly through civic processions. To these they contributed groups of instrumentalists, primarily brass players. The ospedali were similarly

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rigorous in their observances ofchurch feasts and schooled the children they raised in the ways of piety - and ceremony. The territorial holdings ofthe Venetians reached their peak in the early sixteenth century. The Republic spent the next two centuries trying (largely unsuccessfully) to hold onto them. The westward drift of the Turks through the Aegean riveted their attention in the mid-fifteenth century as Athens (1456), Lesbos (1462), Negroponte (1470), and Otranto (1480) fell. Turkish victories in nearer areas (Lepanto, Coron, Modon) in 1499 and 1500 brought with them the possibility that Turks could eventually gain Adriatic access to the Mediterranean. Turkish expansion into the Adriatic followed closely on the heels of the expulsion of the Muslims from Granada by Spanish crusaders. The result of these diverse affairs was that tensions between Islam and Christianity were dramatically increased throughout the Mediterranean. The Venetian loss ofNauplion and Malvasia to Suleyman II in 1540 did not prompt a unified Christian response, but the siege of Malta (1565) and the capture ofChios (1566) did. A new crusade organized under what was now called the Holy League (for it included the papacy) was authorized just as Cyprus was falling to the Turks (1571). The celebrated battle ofLepanto (7 October) was one of the proudest moments in Venetian history, for after a century of defeats, Christian forces could finally claim success. Their joy was short-lived, however, because several calamities at home soon occurred. Fire gutted parts of the ducal palace in 1574 and again in 1577. During the intervening years, 50,000 Venetians (almost half the population) died of the plague. The survivors paid subsequent homage to St. Roche/San Rocco (on 16 August) for their deliverance. Diplomatic initiatives assumed a high priority on the Venetian agenda in the following years. Venice was viewed as a strong and valuable ally by the papacy and in 1564 the Medici pope Pius IV gave the Republic the Palazzo di San Marco (later to be called the Palazzo Venezia) as a permanent residence for its ambassadors to Rome. The marriage ofa Venetian gentlewoman, Bianca Cappello, to the Grand Duke Francesco de' Medici in 1579 improved relations between the Republic and the duchy ofTuscany. A delegation of Japanese princes who visited Venice in 1585 encouraged the Republic's contacts with the Pacific. These relationships strengthened the hand of the Venetians in negotiating a peace treaty with the Turks (1595). These connections soon deteriorated. A conflict with the papacy over the Republic's peremptory appointment ofan independent "theological consultant," Paolo Sarpi, culminated in an attempted stabbing by paid assassins in 1607. A Spanish plot against the Republic was foiled in 1618. A Venetian senator (Antonio Foscarini) was found guilty of passing state secrets to foreign interests in 1622 (he was later shown to have been framed). The murder of a doge's son in 1626 led to a reform of the

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Council ofTen in 1628 which brought increased emphasis on crime preventiona preoccupation for decades to come. Venetian participation in a war of succession in the duchy ofMantua led to another plague, which in 1630 caused the death ofmore than 90,000 people in the city, its quarantine stations (the lazzaretti), and the outlying islands of the lagoon. In gratitude for their survival, the Venetians established the church of Santa Maria della Salute, behind the customs house, and declared the feast of San Lorenzo Giustiniani (Venice's first patriarch) on 8 January a memorial to those who had died in the plague. A Turkish threat to the island of Crete in 1644 precipitated the longest war in which Venetians were centrally involved. It ended, unhappily for the Venetians, in 1669. To raise funds to finance the war, the Venetians (following a practice established in the sixteenth century) added 67 new families (the so-called nobili di Candia) to its nobility. Each family contributed 100,000 ducats to the cause. In the years of the most ferocious fighting ( 1667-1669) the Venetians were aided by French, German, Maltese, and papal forces - but to little avail. A new Holy League was organized in 1683 by Austria, Poland, Venice, and the papacy to repel the Turks as they advanced across the Hungarian plains towards Vienna, which was successfully defended in 1684. The Venetians recaptured the Peloponnese by degrees in 1686 and 1687. The war dragged on in other parts of Greece and Roumania for many years and was concluded by the Peace ofCarlowitz (1699), in which the Venetians secured their holdings on the Peloponnese and the Dalmatian coast-at least on paper. Many of these possessions were lost by 1715. While the Peace ofPassarowitz ( 1718) was a victory for the League, Austria benefitted disproportionately. Its holdings now reached clear to the Adriatic, and in 1719 it began to develop the port of Trieste, which stood directly across the Adriatic from Venice. Its growth rapidly undermined the maritime trading status of Venice. Rapid colonization ofthe Hungarian plains was brought about by shifting whole populations of peasants from the Empire's politically secure regions to those now in need of Imperial occupation. Western European savants eagerly surveyed the mountains and caves, flora and fauna of these newly conquered areas, discovering in the process countless relics of antiquity. In the interests of trade (and espionage) they sought to master Turkish and Slavic languages. The golden age of the emperor Charles VI (1711-1740) saw the extensive development of monuments as well as systems of transportation and communication within the Empire and its principal cities, most notably Vienna. In any war which did not involve "a threat to Christianity," Venice maintained official neutrality. This left it a passive observer to the bitter, bloody War of the Spanish Succession ( 170 1-1714) as well as wars of subsequent decades involving

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Swedes, Poles, Austrians, and Russians. Neutrality conferred on Venice no immunity from the problems of war. Waves of pestilence threatened often from the East. Blockades interfered with trade, though perhaps they did less damage than the rise of free ports (Trieste and, soon after, Senigallia) on the Adriatic. After 1720, the Venetian Republic lacked the moral and financial resources to participate in the vigorous development of new infrastructures, new cultural enterprises, and new trade. The decline of family fortunes owed to many factors including the costs of the long wars, a general failure to honor debts, an inability to protectthe Venetian ducat, ill-advised investments abroad, and bad wagers in Venice's Gran Ridotto (its premier gambling house). Despite the drain that all these forces bore on the economy, noble families continued to build lavish villas in the rural Veneto, as a city of sailors and fishermen sought to become a republic of landed gentry. If the rise of Austria in the early eighteenth century crippled Venetian prospects for further growth, the robust development of more distant cities - London, Amsterdam, Hamburg- was still more ominous, for they diverted much ofEurope' s maritime trade to the English Channel and the Baltic. Far more intra-European trade developed on land, where goods were moved by river or canal, though in homage to the vanquished, Turkish (later Persian) decor became fashionable. The expansion of terrestrial trade clearly diminished the need for a maritime republic of Venice's profile. The value of an archipelago of small holdings across the Aegean, which had been viewed historically as a series of relay stations for the delivery of Crusaders and the import of oriental goods, evaporated. It is ironic, however, that Venice ultimately fell not to the much feared "Turks"2 but to an aggrandizing emperor of the West, Napoleon, in 1797. Countless stories told in Venetian theatrical works play on some small detail of this rich past. Vicissitudes in the fortunes ofVenice loom large in the background of Venetian opera and the Venetian stage more generally. Stage victories are larger than life, never more so than when the Venetians' current situation seems desperate. The eventual decline ofVenice expresses itself as an escape into the world of middle-

2 As a religious characterization, "Turk" certainly meant non-Christian but it did not necessarily denote nationality. Venetian relations with Jewish and Lutheran communities were more complex, since interdependencies inevitably developed. By many measures, Jewish culture was reasonably well accepted. Its principal holidays were noted, its university recognized, and the restrictions placed on its members (e.g., curfews) not markedly different from those placed on the much larger population of ordinary Venetian workers. Lutherans were not permitted to publish religious tracts in the Veneto, but prosperous Lutherans and other nonconformists were welcome traders, particularly in the eighteenth century.

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class anxieties and peccadillos, for the impoverishment ofthe nobility was countered by the success of a rising bourgeoisie with little interest in the past but great ambitions for the future.

2.2. Liturgical Markers By the end ofthe seventeenth century, the number of saints who were commemorated in the Catholic church far exceeded the number of days in a year. Local preference always favored saints of local importance. Days which were of significance in the homeland of a much revered ambassador might be observed with marked festivities in Venice, though generally the interest was transient. Secular feasts (feste di palazzo) were invariably identified by the name ofa saint whose commemoration was coincident in date. This makes them appear to have been religious feasts lfeste di chiesa). The nomenclature of feasts was in large measure the nomenclature of calendars. For centuries feudal cultures had relied on a parish priest to interpret the calendar, as well as a civic clock to convey the time. Temporal knowledge was transmitted by sounds and images, not by letters or numbers. The feasts most frequently mentioned in Venetian chronicles began with those of Christmas (Natale), Easter (Pasqua), and the preparatory seasons of Advent (avvento) and Lent (quaresima). They included such feasts as St. Luke/San Luca ( 18 October), St. Martin/San Martino ( 11 November), St. Barbara/Santa Barbara (4 December), and St. Anthony/San Antonio of Padua (13 June). Chronicles with a greater emphasis on the history of the Venetian republic might mention St. Justine/Santa Giustina (7 October), Sts. Vitus and Modest/SS. Vito e Modesto (15 June), and St. Mark/San Marco (25 April). Chronicles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made many references to feasts which celebrated deliverance from plagues, which were those of St. Roche/San Rocco (16 August), St. Mary of Health/Santa Maria della Salute (21 November), and the feast of the Redeemer/11 Redentore (the third Sunday in July). References to the moveable feasts dependent on Easter (Ascension, Pentecost) are also frequent. (The central cupola in the Basilica of San Marco was that ofthe Ascension; the cupola of Pentecost loomed over the nave.) In the bishoprics of Aquileia and Grado, Pentecost was considered for many centuries the paramount celebration of the liturgical year. Venice's long, rich history conferred added meaning to many feasts, often at the expense ofthose which might assume greater weight elsewhere. Since their dates were fixed, the only variable was their position within the week. It was usual to refer to dates in the context of the year by saints' names rather than by month and day. It was also common to define the date of recurrent events by their distance from a popular saint's day (as in "the Monday before St. Luke" or "the second Thursday

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after St. Martin"). Such designations were as clear to those living then as numerical dates are today.

2.3. Actuarial Markers Agrarian calendars naturally revolved around the rituals of planting and harvest. Venetians kept in touch with such terrestrial concerns through their two annual periods of countryside residence. The Veneto produced its own bounty of fruits, grains, and grapes. Vessels returning from holdings in the southern Adriatic and Aegean arrived laden with olives and currants. As sailors, Venetians were cognizant of phases of the moon, which influenced their ever-visible tides. The central bequest ofthe agrarian calendar to the culture of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Venice, however, was its influence on accounting practices. Agrarian workers were still paid twice a year, upon the completion of planting (St. John's, 5 May) and harvest (St. Martin's, 11 November). Although cycles of planting and harvest seem remote from theatrical life, their vestiges shaped the actuarial year, which in tum influenced the contours of theatrical life (Chs. 4 and 5).

2.4. Rites of Political Passage The Venetian government was structured to include admit all male nobles when they reached 25 years of age. Appointments were for life. Members normally rotated through a large number of minor offices, many held for eight or sixteen months. High office was only attainable by a wealthy minority, although in principle any member was eligible. Some mid-level elective posts rotated by the year. New twelve-month positions were usually assumed when the government reconvened, on the Saturday before the start of Advent. New petitions to be added to the Maggior Consiglio were processed in the ensuing days. 3 Apart from the doge, who was elected for the duration of his life, the principal bodies of the government were those indicated in Table 2.1. For minor and short-term posts, elections were made around the start of April, August, and December. Elections to the Consiglio Minore (also called the Serenissima Signorla), for example, were made on the first Sunday of August. Elections to higher office, such as the Senate, were made just before the government recessed at the end of September; they took effect just before Advent. Lifetime appointments, many of which were effectively sold, were made as circumstances warranted. 3 Prospective new members ofthe Maggior Consiglio presented proof of age on 3 December. Their names were presented to the Senate the following day, after which their credentials were examined by the Quarantia Criminale.

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Body

Members Term

Functions

Small Council (Consiglio Minore or Signoria)

6 (1 per sestier)

12 mos.

Advisors to the doge; could constitute a court of appeals; normally read mail sent to the Senate; heard presentations by ministers of princes or provincial rulers.

Council ofTen (Consiglio dei X)

10

12 mos. 4

A tribunal which dealt with crimes against the Republic; three members served as State Inquisitors (lnquisitori di Stato ), three as heads (capi) of the council. The capi changed monthly.

State Inquisitors (Inquisitori di Stato)

3

12 mos.

Select members of the Council ofTen who monitored clandestine activities; were authorized to enter the Ducal Palace after dark. The three capi changed monthly.

Senate (Pregadi)

120 by the 17th century (60 eartier)

life

Body responsible for making war and peace. Maintained diplomatic relations with the Vatican, Holy Roman Empire, German Electors, Spain, Portugal, France, Genoa, Florence, Mantua, Modena, Parma, Savoy, Switzerland, Holland, England, Denmark, Sweden (including Poland), Moscow, the Ottoman port, and Malta. As magistrates, they carried portfolios on various commissions for 12-, 24-, or 36month terms.

Overseers ofFes- 7 tivity (Provveditori allePompe)

12 mos.

A subgroup of the Senate (1653) formed to regulate dress and conduct in festive periods and at public events.

College (Collegia) 26 5

variable

Body which heard reports from Venetian ambassadors to states with which the Republic maintained diplomatic relations.

4

Elected annually on the first Sunday of August. They took office on I October.

5 Included the

doge, the six members ofthe Consiglio Minore, the three heads of the Quarantia, the six Savii Grandi, five Savii daMar, and five Savii da Terra Firma. The Savii Grandi were senators who were at least 38 years of age; the two latter groups were overseers of affairs at sea and on the mainland.

48 Body

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Members Term

Maggior Consiglio All male life (Large Council) noblemen aged 25 and above6 Procurators

97

Office-holders responsible for the infrastructure of civic life. Subdivided into overseers of the Ducal Palace, church, and piazza; the offlees of the procurators; the University of Padua.

life

A sub-body of senators responsible (from 1528) for overseeing the University of Padua and all publications printed in the Republic.

(Riformatori della Studio di Padova) Councils of Forty

(Quarantie)

Foreigners' court: Judges (Guidice dei F orestier)

Large assembly (c. 800 members in 1700) to which new members were added each year.

life

(Procuratori)

Rectors of the Uni- 3 versity of Padua

Functions

120 (40 X 3)

8 mos. Three courts (two civil, one criminal) for judging offences committed by Venetians (a) on the mainland and (b) within the city. New leaders (capi) of each were elected every two months.

3

16 mos.

Court for judging offenses committed by foreigners and disputes between Venetians and foreigners.

TABLE 2.1. Principal bodies of the Venetian government mentioned here.

Strict rules governed the conduct of all members of the government. Among the most important were that nobles were required to converse within their councils in Venetian dialect (records were maintained in Latin or Italian) and that nobles were

not permitted to correspond with foreign ministers or ambassadors on pain of death. 8 The Maggior Consiglio statutorily excluded clergy, procurators, and the Knights ofMalta (who were "subject to the orders of a foreign prince") but included honorary noblemen (e.g., the dukes ofMantua, Modena, and Parma). Venetian noblemen who refused to join the Maggi or Consiglio were fined 2000 ducats. However, noblemen who had a foreign spouse or children married to a foreign spouse were excluded. By 1700 the Consiglio annually accepted 30 new members who were under the statutory age (25) but at least 21. They were chosen by lottery. 6

7 Later 21. The numbers started to expand in the sixteenth century for the explicit purpose of collecting the generous fee (25,000 ducats) that was paid by initiates.

Venetian ambassadors abroad were confined to their residences. Cardinals had more rights of association than ambassadors did. Clerics were excluded from formal participation in the Consiglio. 8

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The observance of feasts was carefully articulated to distinguish purely liturgical feasts (Ch. 2.2), civic feasts (Ch. 2.5), and ducal feasts (Ch. 2. 7). Many feasts were "double": they were recognized both by the church and state (Ch. 2.6). The blurred lines between them come about as artifacts of temporal change: ducal feasts with a liturgical root were always adopted later than their religious counterparts. Some were recognized by one government body (usually the Senate) earlier than they were observed by all government offices. Their impact on theatrical affairs comes about as a byproduct of their ever increasing numbers, for all displaced ordinary days on the calendar.

2.5. Civic and Diplomatic Feasts To those with political ambitions, the most significant dates of the year were those on which elections were held and those for seating new officials. Elections to the Maggi or Consiglio and the Senate were made between the feast of St. Michael 9 and the Monday immediately preceding the feast of St. Luke, usually nearer the earlier than the later. Very frequently they fell on the first Monday of October, near the feast of St. Francis ( 4 October). The new government was now convened on the Saturday immediately preceding the first Sunday of Advent; in earlier times it had been convened during the first week of Advent. Magistracies and other government offices, which were closed upon the conclusion of business of the outgoing Consiglio, reopened one by one in mid- to late November, as the required personnel drifted back to town. Election to any particularly high post was celebrated in the eighteenth century by three days of feasting. Such celebrations could occur at almost any time of year excluding Advent and Lent. 10 Large celebrations also marked the departure of a Venetian ambassador for a new post abroad and the public entry (installation) of a foreign ambassador in Venice. It was usual for a newly dispatched ambassador to take with him a contingent of Venetian musicians to entertain at his inauguration in a new post. Sometimes an ambassador would summon Venetian musicians (and gondoliers!) to an important wedding in his current venue. All such occasions were disruptive forces in an otherwise smooth flow of observances, for musicians could easily be stranded in transit by war or quarantine.

The feast of St. Michael (Michaelmas in the UK), 29 September, had been since the Middle Ages a common date for rents to be due.

9

10 Weddings were forbidden from the start of Adventthrough the feast ofEpiphany (6 January), and from the start of Lent through the octave of Easter (one week after the feast).

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Periods of feasting could, conversely, be terminated abruptly by the death of a doge. Foreign embassies in Venice could curtail activities for as long as a year after the death of a monarch. Work could be suspended on days designated for mourning the loss of a procurator, an ambassador, or a high government official.

2.6. Ducal Feasts Not being a monarchy or principality, Venice did not have a royal court. Yet many feasts required extensive participation by the doge, the Signoria, leading members ofthe government, and designated representatives- notably the French Ambassador and the Receiver of Malta (symbolic allies from the days of the Crusades), whose involvement in feasts celebrated in the ducal basilica was prescribed. Ducal processions wove strands of Christian history (locally interpreted) into the fabric of many of the paramount liturgical feasts. Table 2.2 calls attention to the large number of feasts which, although legitimated by the Church, were occasions for ducal observation (jeste di palazzo). Many were not celebrated lavishly. Bellringers' protocols indicate a few subtleties of such celebrations. For example, not all saints' days were workers' holidays. Ducal banquets, which were concentrated on four feasts of the year (those of St. Mark, Ss. Vitus and Modestus, St. Justine, and St. Stephen), were conspicuously celebrated in the ducal palace with the Signoria from at least the sixteenth century. A curious aspect of these occasions is that during the tenure of the doge Silvestro Valier, the public began to be admitted to such feasts as spectators. Nothing points so clearly to the promotion of festivity for its own sake, or to its detachment from the originally religious and civic purposes ofthe individual feasts, as this. Some feasts were privileged days only for privileged people.

2.7. Double Feasts Bell-ringers' changing protocols (Ch. 3) call attention to the continual increase (until c. 1775) in the number of feasts celebrated. What is most notable about the list presented by Gattinoni, which encapsulates the total accumulation of feasts by the end of the Republic, is the large number which were considered to be bothfeste di chiesa andfeste di palazzo. Gattinoni's table offeasts (adapted here as Table 2.2) also indicates, however, that the process of pruning had begun before the Republic collapsed (from 1787). However, petitions to the papacy to reduce the number of church feasts had been made frequently from 1710. Feste di palazzo were controlled by the Senate and the Maggi or Consiglio. Because of the inflation in the number of feasts observed in the eighteenth century, the government frequently reprinted, from 1759, a protogiornale, which enabled the citizenry to "understand" its ceremonial

2. CALENDRICAL MARKERS AND THEIR CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS

51

obligations. 11 Essential information from it was reprinted annually, with information on those holding current office, in a series called La temi veneta (1761-1797). A related imperial-sized table of days on which the doge was supposed to perform ceremonial functions was also printed. 12 A large number of feasts required two Vespers services, the first of which could fall on the afternoon preceding the sunset which initiated the feast itself. Table 2.2 provides a selection of the most important (though only approximately one-halt) of those listed by Gattinoni. It is unnecessary to comment on most of these. The feast of Ascension can be taken as a prime example of a double feast. In origin it is obviously religious, but in practice it emphasized affairs ofstate, particularly Venice's "dominion" over the Adriatic. Date

Fixed church feasts

Fixed ducal feasts

(feste di chiesa)

(feste di palazzo)

1 January

Circumcision*

2, 3 January

Exposition of the Most Holy Sacrament

6 January 8 January

Marked from

Bell-ringer's Light Dark Hours Hours

15

9

14 12

10 12

Epiphany* S. Lorenzo Giustiniani *13

14 January 31 January

S. Marco, Translation*

1690 1733 815

S. Maria Formosa*

1273

S. Pietro Orseolo 14

[1 February)

[First vespers of SMF]

2 February 19 March 25 March

S. Maria Formosa* S. Giuseppe* Annunciation*

Annunciation*

421

11

Gattinoni, II campanile, p. 207.

12

A specialized listing mentioning the participation of musicians subsumed earlier lists from

1515, 1677, 1678, and 1755. Quoted in several studies (among them mine and Moore's). One exemplar is in I-Vas Procuratia de Supra, Busta 91. 13

Celebrated from 1630 or earlier; the saint was canonized in 1690.

Declared afesta di palazzo on 7 February 1733 [n.s.] by the Senate. Louis XV had donated relics of the saint to the Republic in 1731. 14

52 Date

SoNG AND SEASON

Fixed church feasts (feste di chiesa)

Marked from

Fixed ducal feasts (feste di palazzo)

Bell-ringer's Light Dark Hours

--

16 April

Hours -

1355

S. Isidoro, Translation*t

11

13

1205

9

15

S. Antonio ofPadua*t

1646

8

16

SS. Vito e Modesto*t

1310

Apparition of S. Marcot

1094

25 June 26 June

SS. Giovanni e Paolot

1656

2 July

BVM, Visitation*

1397

12 July

SS. Ermagora e Fortunato

9

15

17 July

S. Marina*t

1512

26 July

S. Anna

1638 11

13

24 April

[First vespers of S. Marco]

25 April

S. Marco*

1 May

SS. Filippo e Giacomo

13 June

S. Antonio of Padua*t

15 June 24 June

29 June

S. Giovanni, Nativity*t

SS. Pietro e Paolo*

10 August

S. Lorenzo*

15 August

Assumption*

16 August 8 September

S. Marco*

S. Rocco

1576

BVM, Nativity*

14 September

1613

12

12

1475

13

11

Exaltation of the Cross

21 September S.Matteo* 29 September S. Michele, Dedication* 4 October

S. Francesco*

7 October

S. Giustinat

18 October

S. Luca*

l

1571 1463

2. CALENDRJCAL MARKERS AND THEIR CuLTURAL FouNDATIONS Date

Fixed church feasts (/este di chiesa)

1 November

All Saints'*

2 November

All Souls't

Fixed ducal feasts ifeste di palazzo)

Marked from

All Souls'

1321

9 November

S. Teodoro*

1450

11 November

S. Martino*

21 November

Presentation of BVM*t

25 November 30November

1631

S. Cattarina*

1307

S. Nicolo*

1204

S. Lucia*

1305

S. Silvestro

1408

Bell-ringer's Dark

Light

Hours

Hours

15

9

16

8

S. Andrea*

6 December 8 December

Presentation of BVM*t

53

BVM, Conception*

13 December 25 December

Christmas

26 December

S. Stefano

31 December

S. Silvestro 15

--

TABLE 2.2. A composite view of sacred and secular fixed feasts (foste di chiesa andfeste di palazzo). An asterisk(*) signifies the need for double Vespers, a cross (t) a ceremonial procession. The manner of celebration became progressively more ostentatious until the late eighteenth century. Part of the impetus to restore the Orologio (Ch. 3) came from a perceived need to have the Magi once again able to process before the Virgin on fifteen specific feasts, especially that of Ascension. The Bucintoro (the golden barge in which the doge and his retinue sailed to the Lido on Ascension) was rebuilt in the 1730s. By the time the clock was restored, the importance of the feast was more strongly tied to economic interests than to political ones. Ascension was less and less a feast ofthe church, more and more a lure to tourists. Regulatory bodies regarded the Ascension fair with increasing concern but legislated with decreasing effect.

15

Second Vespers was discontinued from c. 1700.

3. Venice's Days and Hours 3.1. The Mobile Day enice had a religious and a civic day which were non-coincident. For most purposes the main divisions of the religious day held sway. The giorno ecclesiastico began one half-hour after sunset. Given the variable time of sunset, the start of the day was moveable. Thus the length of the day, as reckoned from one sunset to the next, was slightly elastic. Most of the important markers in the Venetian day ofthe thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries were fixed relative to an hour which was slightly variable, for it had to be adjusted as the time of sunset changed. Calculations of modem "clock" time for the recorded times at which events took place during the era of the Venetian Republic must therefore take into account the time of year at which the same events occurred. From the perspective of the Republican era, however, the measurement oftime did not require the same exactness as it does today. Venetians did not record minutes (at least not for record-keeping purposes) until after 1760. Their one-handed clocks indicated only hours. By the end of the seventeenth century Venice had four civic clocks- one on the main Piazza (1490s), one at the Rialto (possibly earlier), one in the courtyard of the ducal palace (1641), and one at the Arsenal (late 1680s). Private time-pieces were all but unknown in Venice. In the first half of the eighteenth century visitors to Venice and Venetians who traveled abroad occasionally possessed them. Traveling musicians sometimes received them as gifts. One was found in an inventory of Vivaldi's possessions after his death(l741); Gluck tried to procure two (from Milan) in 1748. 1 Personal time-pieces remained an expensive rarity in Venice into the 1760s. Time was kept communally. Most of the population depended on bells to extol the rhythms of daily life. All parishes had at least one bell; richer ones had multiple bells in graduated sizes. Listeners could recognize different bells by their pitches. Varied rates of striking could convey different meanings. News of major events (a victory at sea, the death of a doge or pope) called for the simultaneous ringing of all bells throughout the city.

~~ • ~

1

Howard, Gluck, pp. 24ff.

3. VENICE's CLOcKs AND BELLS

55

Parish bells (originally intended "to scare away the devil") were otherwise tolled for devotional purposes only. Regular events were signaled by the three principal sets ofbells in the city. The master bells were those in the great Campanile facing the church of San Marco. The complex ringing schedules of its five bells announced a multitude of activities, civic and religious, on both workdays and feast days. The bells at the Arsenal tolled the boundaries of the work day for carpenters and ship-builders. The bells at San Giacomo di Rialto (collectively called the "Realtina") tolled the hours of work in nearby magistracies and artisans' studios and shops. "Italian hours" (ore italiane) designate an approach to timekeeping in which the period from one sunset to the next was divided into twenty-four "hours." These hours were divided equally throughout the day, the exact length of which was adjusted approximately twice a month to follow the earth's orbit in relation to the sun. The system stood in contrast to that of traditional cultures of the Middle East in which, although the starting times ofthe new day also varied, daylight and night-time portions of the day were each divided into twelve "true" hours, with the result that the hours of day and night were of identical lengths only at the equinoxes. The system of ore italiane, although customary in all ofltaly, was mystifying to non-Italians. For one thing, clock-making and timekeeping advanced more rapidly in other parts ofEurope2 than they did in Italy. Also, until the late eighteenth century there was no internationally agreed-upon meridian against which time was to be measured. The French measured from a line running through Paris, the Spanish from a line through Toledo, and the English from a line through London. Without a universal meridian, there were no time-zones partitioning the globe into twenty-four parts. Yet the Italian hour was computed by local measures such that as one traversed the Veneto, the reading of the hour was not necessarily the same from place to place. Although the concept of minutes was well known to mariners, astronomers, and mathematicians, Venetians subdivided the hour only by those measures facilitated by hour-glasses- fifths [ 12 minutes], fourths [ 15 minutes], and halves [3 0 minutes]. Up to 1760, such vague expressions as "quattro in cinque" ("four going on five") were good enough for specifying a time that did not fall squarely on the hour. In theory visitors could calibrate time-pieces they brought with them with any clock they encountered, but it appears to have been impractical to carry time-pieces before the

2 E.g.

in England, the Netherlands, Alsace-Lorraine, and Swabia. Nearer to Venice, the Dolomite village ofPesariis (near Cortina) has the longest continuous tradition of clock-making (from c. 1700). It is now the home of a small clock museum.

56

SoNG AND SEASON

eighteenth century. Many early clocks were bulky and most were not sufficiently robust to survive long, bumpy travels in horse-drawn carriages.

3.2. Civic Clocks Civic clocks began to appear in Italy in the fourteenth century. While the system of timekeeping was the same over most of the peninsula, the clock-faces on which the hours were displayed varied in their manners of representing time. Local astronomers calibrated celestial events, such as sunrise and sunset, according to longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates, and they did so with increasing accuracy after the invention ofthe telescope ( 1609) and its use in refining astronomical observations. The number ofhours displayed was twenty-four through the sixteenth century. Twelve-hour clockfaces began to appear in the seventeenth, and a few six-hour clock-faces were also produced in Padua towards 1700, but the norm remained twenty-four. Twelve- and six-hour displays were preferred for personal clocks because the number ofmechanical parts re'quired was halved or quartered. Twelve-hour cycles were preferred by most bell-ringers, because they greatly reduced the number of rope pulls needed to toll all the hours of the day. 3 Civic clocks were objects of extraordinary civic pride. They were works of both art and science. They usually symbolized the relationships that existed between celestial events and civic rules. In every surviving instance, they were instruments of meticulous workmanship and arresting design. The exquisite civic clock ofVenice (the Orologio) was ensconced in its own tower at the entry to the Merceria (the main mercantile street of early Venice). A relatively simple rear clock-face was visible from the Merceria, but the intricate principal face looks, past the entrance to San Marco, towards the Malo (the landing area in front of the Ducal Palace). The apse of San Marco pointed to the east, the clock itself to the south. The great Campanile, Venice's civic bell-tower, loomed over all other structures in the Piazza. The "guardian angel" mounted on its summit was a weathervane which readily indicated wind-direction. The Orologio and Campanile, and their messages, were easily perceived from the procuratorial offices which surround the piazza. The "Realtina" rang from its perch atop San Giacomo di Rialto (colloquially "San Giacometto"), which stands approximately on the site on which Venice was founded. Its campanile was constructed in 1392. The Arsenal clock guarded the water-entry into the Darsena Grande (the newer section of the Arsenal, completed in 1687). A twelve-hour cycle repeated once required 78 rope pulls (I + 2 + 3 ... 12) plus 78 more (!56 pulls total) for a twenty-four-hour day. A twenty-four-hour cycle required 78 pulls for hours 1..12 plus 222 additional pulls for hours 13 through 24 (13 + 14 + 15 ... 24), or 300 pulls total.

3

3. VENICE'S CLOCKS AND BELLS

57

The San Marco Orologio was built in the 1490s in Reggio Emilia by Gianpietro Ranieri and his son, Giancarlo. Like other civic clocks in Italy, it was a twenty-four hour clock labeled with Roman numerals. It had one hand only, to mark the hour. The "I" (for 1:00) appeared where the 3:30 position would be found on a modem twelve-hour clock. The Rialto and Arsenal clocks had the same arrangement ofhours but lacked the astronomical apparatus of the San Marco Orologio. (At this writing, the Arsenal clock has been recently restored and is only superficially reminiscent of its predecessor. The San Marco Orologio has been in restoration since 1998. 4) The Orologio tower was architecturally organized in four tiers (Illustration 3.1 ). Metaphorically, it was designed to be read from top to bottom. The uppermost tier ( 1) represented the dominion of the Venetian Republic in the Christian view of the world. The two "Moors" or "Saracens" on the top represented slaves captured in the Holy Land during a religious crusade. Since heathens were condemned to do manual labor, they were apt subjects to strike the hours. The tier below (2) represented the temporal authority of the doge, who knelt before the Winged Lion (a symbol of the evangelist St. Mark, who was the chief patron saint of the Republic). The doge was depicted with his symbols of power - a flag, a ball, and a cross. In the realm of religious authority (3), which was depicted on the third tier, the Three Magi, led by a herald angel, passed before Our Lady who held the infant Jesus in her lap, while four angels guarded her from above. 5 Celestial dominion (4) was signified on the bottom tier, which contained the clock-face itself. Most of the clock was in place by 1496. The "Moors" and the monumental bell were added in 1497. According to legend, the completed Orologio tower was unveiled just before first Vespers on the

In 2003 the sacristan of San Giacomo was persuaded to reset its clock to keep Venetian time and currently it is the clock which best represents Venetian timekeeping as it was in the days of the Republic.

4

5 The Magi were supposed to process on fifteen feasts ofthe year, but the working parts ofthe apparatus seem to have been Jess dependable than the overall structure. Theologically, the Magi were appropriate only for the feast ofEpiphany, but in terms oftheirfunction in the clock-tower, they seem to have been associated with all the Marian feasts of the year (which were fixed) and all the feasts associated with Jesus (which were largely moveable). The strongest association ofthe Magi, particularly in the eighteenth century, was with Ascension. Iconographical evidence suggests that there were only two Magi (they were always shown 180° apart).

58

SONG AND SEASON ILLUSTRATION 3.1 (left). Detail from Francesco Guardi, II Torre del/'Orologio (c. 1735), showing the tiers of the clock-tower, which sits atop the archway leading to the Merceria. (Venice: Museo Correr 31763, reproduction by Pietro and Giuseppe Vallardi, Milan, n.d.).

From top to bottom, the tiers represent: (I) Venice's earthly rule, represented by two enslaved "Moors" who strike the hour; (2) The temporal rule of the doge, who kneels before the winged Lion of St. Mark, which is silhouetted against the firmament of the heavens; (3) The spiritual rule of the Virgin Mary, who holds the infant Jesus on her lap as Magi process before them; and (4) The celestial motion of stars and planets, which ordain earthly time.

3. VENICE'S CLOCKS AND BELLS

59

eve (1 February) of the feast ofPurification in 1498. 6 These depictions all represent the majesty of the State (Tier 1), for the Republic of Venice (Tier 2) was founded on the feast of Annunciation (25 March; Tier 3) at midday in the year 421 (Tier 4). Among othernotable clocks in Italy were those ofSant'Eustorgio, Milan (130609), and the civic clocks ofCremona (1344), Padua (1344), and Mantua (1473). Outside Italy, the celestial clocks of Norwich (1322-25), Strasbourg (1354), and Prague ( 1490) were famous. The Paduan clock was celebrated for its beauty and astronomical intricacy. Among Italian clocks the representation of the twenty-fourhour day proceeded from a random initiation point. The clock of San Zeno in Verona positioned the first hour at the apex of the circle. One in Florence placed it where 5:30 would be found on a modem clock. That of San Domenico, Bologna, showed it in the 7:30 position. Quite in contrast to most Italian clocks, those in and around Milan, where the French practice ofstarting the new day at noon was observed, placed the first hour more or less where it is today. Navigators and astronomers preferred this system, because observation was more accurate during daylight.

3.3. Religious Hours The canonical hours established by the Benedictine order in the sixth century parsed time into binary divisions. The span of daylight was bisected into morning and afternoon by midday, that between sunset and sunrise into evening and nighttime by midnight. Neither by Benedictine nor by astronomical reckoning did midnight ever correspond to 24:00 in ore italiane. Readers should note this divergence carefully, because while the terms are used in their exclusionary sense here, they are normally used interchangeably. In ancient Babylonia the period of daylight was imagined to consist of twelve hours of equal (if arbitrary) length. 7 These were segmented into four equal parts at the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth hours. In the Benedictine tradition the midpoint between sunrise and midday was marked by the ringing of the fierce (or, in Italian, the terza). The midpoint between midday and sunset was marked by the ringing of the nones (nona), the bell which marked the start of the office of Vespers. In eighteenth-century Venice, the Ave Maria (which followed Vespers) was sung a halfhour after sunset, coincident with the start of the new day. Obviously, the actual length of the canonical hours varied with time of year and geographical location.

6

Gianpietro Ranieri died in 1498. The final details were provided by his son.

By convention, day and night contained the same number of hours, irrespective of the time of year. 7

60

SoNG AND SEASON

ILLUSTRATION 3.2. The San Marco clock (Orologio) prior to its 1998 restoration. From the outside inward, its rings indicate the hours, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the five planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury), and the firmament with Earth and Moon. The Sun revolved in an orbit between the zodiac and the numerals. The current hour is indicated by its longest ray. (Franco Zamberlan)

3. VENICE's CLOCKS AND BELLs

61

ILLUSTRATION 3.3. The clock and bells ofSan Giacomo di Rialto ("San Giacometto") in 2003.

The design is obviously the same as that ofthe San Marco Orologio, although the astronomical refinements are long gone. (Micky White)

The clock-face (Illustration 3.2) was as intricate in its construction as Dante's view of universal judgment. Its five concentric rings enshrined medieval astronomy in giving, from the outside towards the center, the numerals for the hours, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the five planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury), and the Earth. The Sun revolved in an orbit between the zodiac and the numerals; its longest ray also pointed to the current hour. The deep blue fields of the inner rings were covered with gold stars representing the firmament. For comparison, the clock of San Giacomo di Rialto is shown in Illustration 3.3 above. It preserves the same general design but lacks the interior rings of the San Marco clock.

62

SONG AND SEASON

In the giorno civile, the day was divided into eight parts considered to be equal. Historically well informed Venetians will swear that in the days of the Republic the sun rose at 6:00 [modem time], offices opened at 9:00, the midday meal was served at noon, Vespers began at 15:00, and workers ceased their labors at 18:00. All available evidence suggests that this supposed regularity is inferred from circular arguments but the associated functions. By today's absolute measures, the associated times do not precisely coincide with the hours at which the same activities commenced on a day-by-day basis. Caution is therefore required in interpreting named (as opposed to numbered) times. The multiple functions of single bells contributed to this confusion. The civic bell called the nona was rung at noon (its etymological equivalent) but also at an hour-and-a-half after sunset and at midnight. (The Benedictine sexta is absent in all commentaries on Venetian civic life. The midday "nine" rang three nominal hours after the morning "three.") For practical purposes, it was ore italiane or, as we shall say here, ore venete [O.V.] which were used in government records and indigenous personal memoirs. While ore itaIiane rested on principles that changed little from city to city, the cultural overlays contributed by bell-ringing were adapted to suit local traditions and the number of bells available from place to place.

3.4. Solar Time Since Venice was not located on the equator, the ratio of light hours to dark ones necessarily varied throughout the year, though not by as much as Table 2.2 suggests. Judging by almanacs of the later eighteenth century, the fixed midnight of modem timekeeping would have corresponded to 3:42 O.V. 8 atthe summer solstice and 7: 11 0. V. at the winter one. At the equinoxes modem midnight would have corresponded to 5:24 0. V. A chart indicating the variable numbers of dark and light hours over an entire year would produce the fish-shaped silhouette shown in Figure 3.1. Between the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries the "fish oftime" became thinner by about an hour in Venetian computations. The changes were incremental. Small disagreements about methods of calculation stimulated a large number of tables during the last two decades of the Republic. The official calculations published in the handbook La temi veneta (published annually from 1761 to 1797) relied on sovemment doctrine about bell-time (Illustration 3.4).

8 "a.m."

[ante meridian] would not have been the correct term even if the hours were numbered in two series of twelve, because the position ofthe meridian was computed by a different system.

3. VENICE'SCLOCKSANDBELLS

63

2~:00

22:06 20:00 18:00

U:OO 14:00

Spring

12:66

Summer

Winter

1\utumn

19:99 OB:OO 0~:00 0~:00

6H6

99:99

1

Ape

L!oy

Jun

I

ld

Aur

MU'Ch 21 (Spting equinox) June 21 (rummer solstice)

Sep

IOt~

llw

September 21 (1\utumn equinox)

Dol

1".0

Moe

j-" Dmmber 21 (ointer solstice)

FIGURE 3.1. The "fish" silhouette oflight and dark hours throughout the year. The exact calibration was revised several times.

3.5. Civic Bells The visibility of clocks made them supreme symbols of astronomical knowledge. They served as a tool for synchronizing the activities of man with the cycles ofthe heavens. Yet they principally served an elite, literate world. While in principle bells subscribed to the same system of timekeeping as clocks, they were cruder in operation but far more essential to daily life of the entire populace. Sound required no line of sight to be perceived. In place of gears which needed to be synchronized or hands requiring adjustment, bell-time was computed by hour-glass and effected by pulling ropes. The interpretation of the many different ringing patterns of bells required acculturation and habituation but no specific numerical literacy. Bell-ringing was more nearly an art than a science. Bell-ringers were instructed to pull faster during daylight hours of winter than of summer, so that bell-ringing would not consume a disproportionately large amount oftime, especially during short summer nights and winter mornings. In consequence, bell-ringers were instructed to adapt the tempo of ringing to such vicissitudes. Many bells were to ring for a fifth of an hour, a few for half an hour. Since these intervals were measured by sand-glasses

64

SoNG AND SEASON

(clessidre),9 bell-time cannot have coincided exactly with the fine-grained mathemati-

cal accommodations of clocks. X'"' lC

Per tl~tto ii ll!tfe ~ .ore 12.. ,

~

, .. ,

6 .. ' vi sono due buonissime voci d'una Donna, et d'un Castrato."

42 Pallade veneta, Document No. 207, p. 263, "A divertimento di chi tiene borsa augusta si e dato principio nel picciolo teatro di San Fantino alia recita d' Erginia [im]mascherata, che puo dilettare essendo in musica accompagnato da puoco suo no di monete." The music is anonymous.

172

SONG AND SEASON

For some, its reduced fees were one of the theater's attractions. It cannot be coincidental that it became active just as the War of the Spanish Succession was blocking the travel routes of singers and patrons to and from better established theaters. Notarial records suggest that at San Fantin, the longest-lived of the commercial small theaters, there could be as few as four or five performances given over an entire [autumn-winter] "year." The quality of performances in the small theaters was somewhat dubious. Reports from San Fantin mention a lack of rehearsals, the unexpected absence ofsingers, and, in compensation, the practice ofone singer "filling in" for another by singing his/her arias as needed. Questions about dramatic integrity and coherence, much less seasonal specialization, are obviously irrelevant. Performers were paid by the night. Late in the 1720s the small Teatro Santa Margherita, described as elegant and "gracious," opened just off the campo of the same name. Like San Cassiano, it was on the south side of Grand Canal, in a district which attracted immigrants but was also the home of several noble families. Bull-baiting was sometimes practiced on the campo in the late stages of Carnival. The addition of opera promised a further increase in associated festivities. Housed in the property owned by the Guoro family, the theater survived for only a few years before reverting to a private residence. The Teatro San Girolamo, where puppet operas were given for children in the late 17 40s, was built in a small house in Cannaregio and was managed by the abbot Antonio Labia. 43 The theater was a perfect miniature of San Giovanni Grisostomo. The replicas of the well-known but lately declining model were held to be exquisite. This distinguished works at San Girolamo from earlier puppet operas (Chronology, Suppl. 5c). In the earlier venues figures made of wax, wood, and even crystal were mentioned in libretto. While the earlier puppet operas were works of modest proportions, generally reduced from longer works which had previously been fully staged, 44 those given at San Girolamo presented subjects with juvenile appeal. Collectively, small theaters played a role in the overall evolution of musical theater which may have been greater than their size or durability would suggest. Because they were little noticed, they could take chances that better-established theaters could not. Cannaregio performed at least one political satire; it was given partly in prose, partly in music. San Fantin pioneered pastoral and comic works that

Not, as some sources claim, by the better known Angelo Maria Labia (Mangini, Teatri, p. 178).

43

44

Zaggia, "Bagatelle," p. 134.

6. THEATRlCAL SPECIALIZATION BY PERJOD

173

foreshadowed changes in popular taste a generation later. The liberty which the minor theaters enjoyed was shared, to a degree, by the less prestigious of the major theaters. San Cassiano and Sant' Angelo could introduce comic intermezzi because, unlike the Grimani theaters, they proclaimed no dramaturgical creed. San Moise could launch a revival ofperipatetic opera troupes because it had no particular image to maintain.

6.10. San Benedetto and the Teatro La Fenice The sputtering offerings at San Giovanni Grisostomo after 17 47, more often comic than serious but in any event uncertain in frequency, left a small coterie of dramma per musica enthusiasts frustrated. By 1750 the nobility was indeed poorly served not only in terms of dramaturgical choice but also with respect to the social ceremonies which had long been associated with serious opera. New comedies with and without music were performed on St. Stephen's, but there was no guarantee of a serious music drama on a classical subject. The last nights of Carnival had become extremely festive in the city at large, but the regal pretenses ofShrove Tuesday banquets and balls had lost something in social translation. Comedy houses might celebrate with fireworks or acrobatic displays. To address these cultural lapses, members of the Venetian nobility formed the Phoenix (La Fenice) Society in 1753. 45 1ts main aim was to resurrect the dramma per musica. Accordingly, the construction of the Teatro San Benedetto was authorized in Aprill755 and was built within a few months. It was smaller than San Giovanni Grisostomo but was said to have had a "magnificent" atrium. San Benedetto opened with Cocchi's Zoe on 26 December of that year. The theater gave principal emphasis to the winter season and avoided productions (with one exception in 1765) at Ascension. The theater's interior was redecorated in 1769 with depictions of flowers and sea shells on the boxes, inlaid silver work, and a magnificent ceiling painting. San Benedetto failed, however, to attract premieres. Its high point may have been reached in 1782, when a visit of the Counts of the North (i.e., Paolo Petrowitz and Maria Teodorovna of Russia) brought new polish to old brass all over the city. A few years later (1787), irreconcilable differences caused the fragmentation of the Phoenix Society. The Venier retained San Benedetto. The other families opted to build a new theater. 46 Their Teatro La Fenice opened near the site of the former San Fantin on Ascension 1792 with a performance ofPaisiello's I guochi d'Agrigento.

45

Members ofGrimani, Venier, and Morinelli families were principally involved.

The Council ofTen had attempted to foreclose on the constructing of any further theaters with a mandate of 10 November 1756, but the proponents of La Fenice successfully petitioned for an exception in 1787 (Mangini, Teatri, p. 166).

46

174

SONG AND SEASON

6.11. Composite Production Profiles The peak number ofopera houses operating simultaneously was reached in teh 1680s, but the rate of activity per house peaked in the 1720s. Theaters can only be compared individually for periods during which they were comparably active. Such periods were relatively few. Differences of seasonal emphasis, patronage base, dramaturgical preference, and human resources loomed large much of the time. The collective view given in Table 6.1 differentiates rates of production in general from rates of increase stimulated by increases (or decreases) in the number of available venues. ----~----.------~--~

Period

No. of theaters open (average)

Works per theater per year (average) -----

1670-79

4.5

1.22

1680-89

6.0

1.56

1690-99

5.5

1.56

1700-09

4.0

2.27

1710-19

4.5

2.04

1720-29

4.0

2.82

1730-39

3.5

2.60

1740-49

4.5

---·-----

TABLE

--

~------~-

2.60 ---

-

6.1. Average number of works per theater per year, binned by decade (1670-1750).

Perfunctory accounts of Venice's "six" theaters often fail to note that only two of them- Sant' Angelo and San Giovanni Grisostomo- were devoted, from the late 1670s until the late 1740s, exclusively to opera. The concentration ofpower in fewer but more durable houses came after 1720, when San Fantin, the last ofthe ephemeral theaters, closed its doors. Spring opera rewarded only self-selected theaters, and these were already well established. Where are the theaters, or their remains, today? San Giovanni Grisostomo was succeeded by the Teatro Malibran and San Salvatore by the Teatro Goldoni. Both are thriving. Sant' Angelo and San Cassiano were suppressed by decree in 1807, but the house with mullioned windows in which Sant' Angelo singers were sometimes quartered still stands near the like-named vaporetto stop. The site on which San Cassiano stood (Illustration 6.2) is marked by a memorial plaque. The premises of San Samuele have been subsumed by a school complex which is currently undergoing reconstruction. Private residences occupy the site on which San Moise stood. The

6. THEATRICAL SPECIALIZATION BY PERIOD

175

Teatro San Benedetto became the Teatro Rossini (later converted to a cinema). The salons ofthe Gran Ridotto were at this writing subsumed by the Hotel Monaco. The Venetian mint (Zecca) was housed where the card catalogue of the Marciana National Library (previously the "Sansovino" or ducal library) stands today. Despite many fires which have caused years of closure, La Fenice remains in robust operation, primarily as an opera house.

7. Seasonal Reciprocity onstraints on when theaters could be open were so well understood that the ~intervening periods were regularly employed for other musical, social, and religious purposes. Some constraints facilitated performances of other kinds during non-operatic periods by freeing personnel. Three elements of reciprocity can be readily traced. One was the rise of opera in the provinces of the Veneto (Ch. 7.1 ). Another was the relationship between opera and the kinds of music cultivated during periods of theatrical closure (Ch. 7.2, 7.3). A third element of reciprocity inhered in the dialectical relationship between opera and the comic theater (Ch. 8.1 ), which improvised on the rhythms of cyclical time in constantly changing ways.

7.1. Opera for Provincial Fairs Venice's contributions to the field of opera provided a model of spectacle that was widely imitated. This was not only true in major cities. It was also the case in the provincial capitals of the Veneto, which grew rapidly in the eighteenth century. Apart from Padua, which had its own long theatrical traditions, towns closest to Venice (e.g., Rovigo and Treviso) were the most observant. Trade, particularly in agricultural goods, was promoted through annual fairs. Trade fairs tended to gravitate towards the feasts of local patron saints. Such feasts fell preponderantly in the autumn and spring and thus coincided with celebrations ofharvest and planting. These activities suited the Venetian nobility well, because they increased the reasons for passing time in the countryside. They also suited travelers from further off, for with careful planning a sojourner could find the best of all worlds- festivities en route and festivities in the centro storico- in an orderly succession. The proliferation of the city's arts on the mainland was both a blessing and curse. It offered a proving ground for newcomers, but to a degree it also contaminated city fare with elements ofamateurism. It was in the 1680s that Venetian opera first started to have serious competition from a host of other cities outside the Veneto. Fabbri's dates for the earliest staged music-dramas are these: Romagna, Cesena, and Forli -1673; Ravenna-1683; and Faenza- 1693. The Adriatic port ofRimini had the oldest and longest opera tradition, although its productions consisted almost entirely of works which were recycled,

7. SEASONAL RECIPROCITY

177

chiefly from Venice. This suggests the existence of at least one itinerant troupe which traveled by sea (as comedy troupes did in Goldoni's time). 1 New productions outside Venice were inclined to be less lavish and shorter-lived than those in the city. Although provincial composers were likely to be novices, opera and other entertainments often brought sufficient satisfaction to audiences that in time they became perceived as something of a threat to the enterprises of the city. In the first years of the eighteenth century the stages ofDolo, Rovigo, and Vicenza in particular seem to have served as proving grounds for Venice itself. The Brenta and its environs served as a convenient "offBroadway" counterweight to the centro storico. Some revivals of Venetian opera outside Venice were presented by troupes of musicians involved in the original productions. 2 So the establishment of opera in the provinces originally served the purpose- as summer music festivals do today - of smoothing out the financial undulations of seasonal employment. This was also the case with operas given in parallel with the "Venetian" theatrical seasons in Naples around 1650. 3 Provincial productions were also important for introducing new audiences to opera. The most common occasion for operatic activity outside Venice was the annual fiera that every provincial capital ofNorthem Italy had. Since no two cities had the same patron, no two fairs fell at exactly the same time. New feasts accrued as quickly in the provinces as they did in Venice. Before long fairs began to overlap. To the extent that any continuity occurred in their scheduling, what were to be periods of theatrical activity associated with fairs can be parsed to a significant degree by the liturgical calendar. Apart from Padua (protected by St. Anthony, whose feast fell on 13 June) and Brescia (protected by St. Lawrence, 10 August), provincial fairs

1 Works produced there started with Cavalli's Egisto (1648; Venice, 1643) and later included Legrenzi's Germanico sui Reno (1680; here 1676/1), Pallavicino's Diocleziano (1682; here 1674/4), and Gabrielli's Maurizio (1693; here 1686/9). Egis to was performed with intermezzi by two singers who also took roles in the dramma per musica (Fabbri and Monaldini, Periferie, pp. 11 0-113).

Substantial research on this subject was undertaken by Thomas Walker in the 1970s. Some of it resulted in the delivered but unpublished "II viaggio col orso" (1978), which was related to his formation of a collection of libretti from the Veneto. The best comprehensive views of the phenomenon are the index arranged by place in Sartori's libretto catalogue and the more general coverage in Vols. 2-5 ofMancini et al, Teatri. It is often difficult to flesh out the details of provincial performances, though, because the libretti are more laconic. It was, nonetheless, essential to print libretti for public performances anywhere in the Veneto, for the same level of censorship pertained to the provinces as to the city.

2

3

See Walker and Bianconi, "l febiarmonici."

178

SONG AND SEASON

in the Veneto were largely concentrated between mid-April and early November, with concentrations around the traditional times of planting and harvest. As in Venice, times were subject to negotiation if special circumstances arose. Rescheduling could cause competition between venues. We read for such an occurrence, for example, in this dispatch of May 1724: .. .it could be ascertained ... that the invitation to the fair ofReggio [Emilia], which, instead of starting on the last day of April, began only of the 15th of this month, has finally been published, and at the same time the invitation to a famous opera called Vine islao, to be recited in the Ducal Palace of Parma, was observed to have been printed. 4

A Venetian correspondent wrote from Brescia in 1726 that "because the fair should have begun on the 23rd in Crema, an opera was given there." 5 In 1732 the fair in Brescia was attended by a "great concourse offoreigners from all over, as much to enjoy the diversions of the same [fair] as the opera, which has been very well received." 6 As in many other locales, performances by comedy troupes coexisted with opera productions. Even from provincial cities there was an exodus in October to the countryside, so it was more a matter of theaters' catering for alternating audiences than of true coexistence. The comedienne Teresa Costantini (detta Diana) wrote on 26 August 1703, "We are going to perform on the 4th of next month. Then we must move on because everyone goes to his villa.''7 The permanently resident nobility of terra firma was considerably greater than that of the city of Venice by 1700, but its growth accelerated even more in the eighteenth century. In the census year of 1766 the overall population of the mainland Veneto was roughly 2,250,000. Among these some 9,000 were reportedly adult male

I-Vas, IS, Avvisi, Busta 709, report of20 maggio 1724, ff. 1v-2, "Inoltre asseriscono che fosse stato finalmente pubblicato .. .I' invito della fiera di Reggio, che in vece d' avere i1 suo principia sui fine del passato Aprile s' era cominciata solamente alli 15 corrente, e nell' istesso tempo s' era pur veduto affiso colle stampe !'Invito per una famosa opera da recitarsi nel Ducal Palazzo di Parma intitolato i1 Vincislao." This very same Vincislao (styled Vecenslao ), with music by Capelli, is survived by an elegant score preserved in GB-Lbl as Add MS 15993.

4

5 I-Vas, IS,

Avvisi, Busta 709, report of28 settembre 1726, f. 2, " ... che stante Ia fiera chedovevasi principiare alii 23 stante a Crema, si faceva cola Ia recita dell' opera in musica." Strictly, Crema's feast was to begin on 26 September, the feast of Sts. Cyprian and Justine. J- Vas, IS, Avvisi, Busta 710, report of23 agosto 1732 (by which time the fair was ended), f. 2v, "gran concorso de' forestieri da tutte le parti, tanto per godere li divertimenti della medesima [fiera] che deli'Opera, ch'e stata molto gradita."

6

7

1-MAas, AG, Busta 1584, letter of26 Agosto 1703.

7. SEASONAL RECIPROCITY

179

nobles. 8 Villeggiatura had the effect of causing city nobles and their provincial cousins to intermingle in neutral territory. The dedicatees of operas and serenatas given in the provinces between the 1690s and the 1730s were almost always the current governors (capitani,podesta) or their wives, if the work waas given in association with a fair. In time, well-established composers supplemented their incomes by taking on assignments in the provinces. Pollarolo and Vivaldi worked in Vicenza. As an impresario, Vivaldi later produced operas in Verona, Ferrara, and elsewhere. Some of Albinoni' s works had productions in Este, Treviso, and Vicenza. Fees were slightly lower in the provinces. In 1764 Galuppi's rate of pay for new dramme per musica was 90 zecchini at San Giovanni Grisostomo, 80 at the relatively new Teatro di San Benedetto (both in Venice), and 70 zecchini at the theater in Padua. 9 Provincial productions could be more costly or less than those in the city. It depended on the difficulties performers had with travel, the arrangements for their upkeep, and the expectations of local audiences for costumes and scenery. The mannerisms, affectations, and tantrums for which prime donne later became infamous seem to have arrived in the provinces quite early. Legal proceedings which took place in Brescia in 1760 cited, in a long list of debts that three impresari still owed to various creditors, the amount of 4,400 ducats for costumes used in two productions for the August fair in 1754. This sum excluded tailoring and such paraphernalia as the mirrors held by dressers so that the singers could watch themselves perform. 10 An overview of the reciprocity that developed between opera productions in Venice and the outlying cities of the Republic (Table 7.1) indicates that although Venice had been the leader in the seventeenth century, provincial productions began to take the lead in seasonal innovation in the eighteenth. It also shows that Carnival had a less commanding place in the temporal ordering of provincial productions, but that activities were greater in the spring and fall- the periods of planting and harvest (Ascension; St. Luke's, St. Martin's), when market towns had fairs. The displacement ofgovernment and high-church affairs by the agricultural and mercantile rites of the countryside is clearly evident. (Operas given in association with summer fairs are excluded because they posed no competition to Venetian productions.)

8 Scott, Nobility,

I, 243. Ifthe number is accurate, the percentage of"Venetian" nobles not living in Venice and not serving in the Maggior Consiglio would have been greater than 90%.

9

1-Vas, CX, Filza 53, Fasc. 1764, item of8 Agosto 1764.

10

1-Vas, Censori, Busta 17, entry of29 Settembre 1760.

180

SONG AND SEASON

The productions documented in Tables 7.2 through 7.8 are those for which a printing license (jede) exists in the records ofthe Riformatori dello Studio di Padova. -~-~~--~~------------.----~-~-

Theatrical Period

. Place

IRovig~--- - St. Luke's

Year initiated - - ~--~~---,----In province In Venice

---4---------

1695

1696

I Dolo

1697

ITreviso

1697 1

__ - · - _I Este ~-----·- ~J__?_()_q_ ~

St. Martin's

Treviso

St. Andrew's

None known ~

1711

·-

Vicenza

1693?

Brescia

1684?

Ascension

Vicenza

1707

St. Anthony's

Padua

St. Stephen's Carnival

----·--

Fat Week

--------

--~-

-----~-~-----

----

TABLE 7 .1. Provincial dates of adoption for regular public performances during specific theatrical periods in Venice and the Veneto. Figures in parentheses are for comedies.

Unless otherwise indicated, the dates given are those found in these licenses. 11 Printing licenses pin down dates which are independent of (and prior to) those in the printed libretti on which Sartori's catalogue is based. The trail of provincial productions is valuable in tracing predecessors and variants of specific operas given in Venice (and elsewhere). Cross-references are therefore provided where available. Changes of title intentionally obscured relationships between works which were largely the same. The rightmost column of each table below cites works in the Chronology, its supplements, and other tables in this chapter. Names in brackets give attributions found elsewhere but not specified in the relevant libretto. 12 While the number ofworks survived by licenses is obviously incomplete, the works which are named would in most cases have been those which attracted attention because their texts were new or significantly revised. Conversely, works not survived by a printing license were 11 Those who seek more complete lists will be well served by the "index by place" (Vol. 7) of Sartori's libretto catalogue. A few items included here seem not be survived by a printed libretto and therefore do not appear there. 12 An asterisk following the title signifies that a libretto for the work existing in I-V goldoni (the Ca' Goldoni) is not reported in Sartori's index.

7. SEASONAL RECIPROCITY

181

by implication unchanged from a previously authorized version (possibly given under a different title) given earlier or elsewhere in the Veneto. The percentage of works performed in provincial cities which shared some material with works given in the city was relatively high. These tables are far from exhaustive, since they are based on licenses to print libretti, rather than libretti themselves, but they are representative of the phenomenon. 13 AUTUMN VENUES

Autumn fairs, initiated in earlier times to celebrate harvest, benefitted from the convergence ofheightened involvement in countryside affairs, the increased building of villas in the countryside, and the ever greater tendency to mark special occasions with theatrical entertainments, usually operas. The venues in which the most substantial productions occurred were Rovigo (typically in October), Treviso (initially October but later November), and two much smaller settlements, Dolo and Este. Rovigo was an important stop en route from Venice to Mantua. It was also in a location which was strategically important to the defense ofthe Veneto. In Rovigo, which was accessible by water, the annual fair started on 18 October (St. Luke's) and lasted for nineteen days, 14 ending on 5 November. The route was well traveled by Ferdinando Gonzaga's comedy troupe, which regularly performed at Venice's San Samuele. The peripatetic duke regularly attended the fair in Rovigo. It is likely that Gio. Carlo Grimani would have passed through Rovigo on his visits to Mantua, were his mother's family owned a palace and other properties. 15 Rovigo was particularly important as a provincial venue for opera between 1696 and 1720. The Teatro Campagnella opened in the first year. It was joined two years later by the Teatro Manfredini. Two works a year were produced in Rovigo in six of the next ten years. Activity tapered off after 1720 and disappeared in the 1730s but resurfaced between 1744 and 1768, only to lapse again. In matters theatrical,

All references in this chapter to "Pollarolo" are to Carlo Francesco. Circumstances at Piazzola are discussed inCh. 6.7. 13

14 In the "Mercurio" of26 ottobre 1709, f. I v, we read that "Stante le bellissime giomate che corrono da molti giorni in qua continuano agoder della villeggiatura Ia nobilta molta della quale epassata a vedere Ia so!ita fiera di Rovigo che cominciar per S. Luca, e continua per 19 giorni durante i quali vi si fa !a recita d'un opera in musica, ch' estata prima fatta a Dolo, e s' esentito chi era arrivato adetto Rovigo, il Prencipe di Rosana [Marc' Antonio Borghese] collaPrincipcssa soggiomarsi." In 1708, the fair began on the 19th; there is a reference to "I' opera in musica che principio ieri" in the issue of20 ottobre (f. 2). Almanacs of the late eighteenth century say it lasted fifteen days. By then, Crema had a fair, from 26 September, lasting sixteen days. 15

I-MAas, Inventari, Reg. 411, Pezza 76.

182

SONG AND SEASON

Rovigo reciprocated with Venice, Florence, and other nearby cities. It had a particularly symbiotic relationship with Venice's modest Teatro di San Fantin. Title -------

Date offede Composer

Theater

Librettist

- --- - - · - - · - - ·

Le gelosie amorose Campagnella di Parideet Enone

20.X.l696 [Mancia, Colletti]

Concordances

[Mazzari] 16 1706/S

L 'Amazone corsara, o L 'Alvilda regina de ' Goti

Campagne !Ia [fiera] 1697 Pallavicino? Corradi?

1686/2, 1688/4

Lefinezze d'amore

Campagne II a

[Minelli]

1701/S, 1703/7

X.1698 N. Giglio

La tirannide punita Manfredini

18.X.1698 Chiochiolo?1'

Candi 18

Table 7.6

Manfredini

16.X.1699 [Caldara]

Stampiglia

1707/14

[Aureli]

Supp. I (1707)

3.X.1703 [Polani]

[Passarini]

1704/S

6.X.170S Ruggieri?

"N. N."zo

1725/6

Aureli

1708/5

La Partenope 19

Prassitele in Gnido Manfredini La costanza nell'onore

Campagne !Ia

L 'inganno trionfan- Manfredini te Gli amanti delusi 21

Campagnella

X.l700 [Polani]

12.X.l706 [Polani]

16 New attributions based on the Amari di Paride ed Ennone in Ida given in Parma in the same year. 17 The libretto for this work says that the text had been set under the title Armida for Rovigo in 1699, but no libretto from such a production survives. A libretto for a 1694 Rovigo production (Sartori 2672) names Antonio Chiochiolo as the composer but does not specifY the librettist. 18 Sometimes attributed to Manetti, but Candi, who signed the libretto, said it was based on his own Armida (1694). 19

Sartori 17813 (designated a work for Carnival 1699).

The text for Vivaldi's like-named work of 1725 was revised from one by Noris set by Ruggieri, who could conceivably have been the composer of the 1705 work.

20

Produced with the titles La ninja bizzara (Dolo, autumn 1697) and II cieco geloso (Venice, 1708). The music for La ninja bizzara is attributed to Marc' Antonio Ziani, while that of II cieco geloso is attributed to Polani. 21

7. SEASONAL RECIPROCITY --~---

Title

Theater

Date offede Composer

------

La vendetta [disManfredini armata] d'Amore

3 .X.1707 Pollarolo22

Campagnella

L 'amante alia moda'

Campagne !Ia

X.1709

Filii consolata24

Campagnella

18.X.1710

Le pazzie degli amanti

Manfredini

Amore e Fortuna

Campagnella

L 'onesta negli amori25

Campagnella

ll.X.1715

La moglie generosa Campagne !Ia [serenata]

X.1717

Manfredini

Il pastor reate

Campagnella

La ninfa bizzarra

Manfredini

Alcindd7

Manfredini

·--------- - - - - -

Librettist

-------

L 'Ergisto

Amore in gara con fasto 26

183

~--------------

19.X.l708 23 Pollarolo

Passarini

Concordances 1704/5

Passarini Passarini

Table 7.3

29.IX; Pollarolo 2.X.1711

Passarini

1696/8, 1719/05

X.1712 Baseggio

Passarini

Table 7.3, 1727/14

1718 Pollarolo

Silvani

10.X.1719 4.X.1720 M. A. Ziani Aureli X.1723 [Gasparini, Pollarolo, Ballarotti]

[Lucchini]

Table 7.3 Table 7.3, 1715/3

22 This setting of the myth of Echo and Narcissus was given at San Fantin in 1704. Although the music is attributed to Polani in several bibliographies, the surviving score in GB-Lam (apparently once owned by John Buckworth), based on the 1707 performance in Rovigo, is a contemporary copy attributed to Pollarolo. Sartori (No. 24521) accepts this attribution.

23

The date of opening given here is from the "Mercurio" of 20 ottobre 1708, f. 2.

Dedicated by the impresario Giovanni Orsato. The performance date was announced in an avviso of the preceding week.

24

The work had been given in Mantua in 1707 for Charles Henri of Lorraine. An annotation by Giovanni Filippo Bernini to the copy of Allacci'sDrammaturgia (col. 573) in theCa' Go Idoni indicates that a work of this name was given in Rome (n.d.).

25

26 Known from the libretto only. Sartori's only listing for this year is a work called Tre rivali a! soglio.

Sartori lists, probably more correctly, L 'Alciade, a subject with a prior history in Venice (see 1666/9). However, Vidari' s Alcindo had been set anonymously for performance in Rovigo in 1683, and a pastiche was given at Dolo in 171 I.

27

184

SONG AND SEASON

Title

Theater

Date offede Composer

Librettist

Concordances

Marchi

1710/6

-------- ---

Erginia [im ]mascherata

Campagnella

X.l727 pastiche

------------

TABLE

7.2. Autumn works given in Rovigo (1696-1727). 28

What little we know about works given in Rovigo comes mainly from libretti and from their concordances with better documented productions of the same works in other places. 29 Apart from the names of composers and librettists, the other personnel who can be identified are Giacomo Taneschi, a cello virtuoso, and Tomaso Fabbri, who was probably a violinist. 30 Most titles mentioned in survivingfedi and libretti suggestfavo/e and intrecci more than they do serious dramme per musica. Many works, such as La tirannide punita, which was given in 1698,31 were anonymous, although authorship has been established subsequently for some. Most had subsequent productions elsewhere, though often under a new title. A miscellany of works had been given in Rovigo (Table 7.2) before 1696, but without printing licenses or other documentation, it is impossible to verify their dates or confirm their performance. 32 The Rovigo fair attracted Mantuans, Venetians, and the nobility of central Italy. In 1696 the duke of Mantua left Venice for the fair on 20 October. He planned to have an opera performed in Mantua upon his subsequent return there for the entertainment of imperial troops stationed there. 33 ln 1708 French visitors joined the

28 Dates in this and the following tables of this chapter are those of printing licenses unless otherwise indicated. It is claimed in the dedication (by the publisher Marino Rossetti) of the libretto of Lafede tra gl 'inganni (1707/5) that the author (Francesco Silvani) had written the work earlier in his career and had made it available for production in Rovigo three years previously. Rossetti claimed to have happened on it by chance ("Egli lo scrisse per solo divertimento ne' primi anni della sua applizazione al teatro, e tre anni sono lo concesse a chi desidero esporlo sovra le scene di Rovigo per lo divertimento della nobilta che esolita trattenervisi alcuni pochi giomi d' autunno .... ").No verification ofits having been performed in Rovigo exists.

29

Substantial coverage is now provided in Mancini et al., Teatri, passim.

30 Both signed the dedication ofLa vendetta d 'am ore (1707).

Other members ofthe Fabbri family were violinists at San Marco (Selfridge-Field, Venetian Instrumental Music, pp. 299, 307).

31

E. Selfridge-Field, Pallade veneta, Doc. 98, p. 229.

In 1683, for example, two works on texts by Vidari (Alcina and ll periglio spezzato) were given. 32

"Mercurio," issue of27 ottobre 1696, f. 1, "Sabbato della passata il Serenissimo di Mantova parti di qua alia volta di Rovigo per ivi trattenersi alia fiera, e poi ritornare ai suoi stati ... e Sua

33

7. SEASONAL RECIPROCITY

185

duke of Lorraine in Rovigo; many Venetians were reported to be in attendance. 34 In fact, Vivaldi's earliest secular vocal work, Legare del dovere (1708), may have been written for performance in this situation and suggests a link with imperial Mantua that substantially predates his move to Mantua in 1717. In 1709 the prince ofRossano was present for the fair. An avviso of 1722 relates that during the period of the fair, the navigation of some rivers was impeded by the seasonally low water level. Nonetheless, "almost all the nobility" were said to be enjoying both villeggiatura and the fair. 35 After the seating of an imperial administration in Mantua ( 1714), the autumn fair in Rovigo lost vigor. Dolo, a small settlement close to the mouth of the River Brenta, possessed a small Teatro Nuovo which belonged to the Molin family. It may have been the proving ground for some works given in Rovigo. This was the case in 1709. 36 While relatively few works can be firmly linked with performances in Dolo (curiously, more are traceable throughfedi than through surviving libretti), there was a high degree of overlap between autumn productions there and in Rovigo. Most works given in Dolo seem to have opened in the first days of October. The two works given in June, apparently in connection with the Paduan fair of St. Anthony, do not appear to have had associations with Rovigo or Venice. Productions in Dolo survived by printing licenses are listed in Table 7.3. Activities at Este's Teatro Nuovo, which had opened by 1700, were not very evident until the 1720s, when several provincial theaters were closed. Este' s annual fair was initiated by the feast of St. Francis (4 October). It therefore immediately preceded the Rovigo fair. In 1734 the Teatro Nuovo was succeeded by the Teatro d'Este, which was active for two decades. Works survived by a printing license are indicated in Table 7.4.

Altezza haveva ordinato la recita d'opera musicale in Mantova." 34

"Mercurio," issue of20 ottobre 1708, ff. 1v-2r.

35

!-Vas IS, Avvisi, Busta 708, report ofl7.X.l722, ff. lr-lv, "Di continuare le giomate serene

eonnai partita quasi tutta Ia nobilta per andare at godimento della villeggiatura, eta vedere la fiera di Rovigo, che deve principiare dimani, e da pertutto sentesi che li fiumi principiare dimani, e da per tutto sentesi che li fiumi si trovino senz'acqua, in alct.mi de quali resta impedita Ia navigazione." 36

Loc. cit.

186

SoNG AND SEASON

Title

Date offede

Composer

La ninja bizzarra37

by 10.X.169738

M.A. Ziani

Librettist Concordances

- - - - - - - - ------·- - - - - - - - - - -

L 'amante alia moda* 39

autumn 1709

Sempre none cia che si crede

Aureli

Table 7.2

Passarini

Table 7.2

28.IX.l710

Pisistrato40

Opened on 9.X. to great applause (A)

VI.l7ll

L 'Alciade, o La violenza d'amore

Lalli

Naples 1714; 1736/3

2.X.l711

Gasparini, Pollarolo, Ballarotti

[Lucchini] Table 7.2, 1715/3

Gli equivoci del caso 41

VI.l712

Baseggio

Passarini

Amore e fortuna*

3 .X.1712

Baseggio

Passarini

La costanza in amor vince l 'inga__:n___:n__:_o_*_ _

7.VI.l714

Rovigo, 1712; Table7.2, 1727114 1696/10

TABLE 7.3. Autumn works given in Dolo (1697-1714). ---------

Date ofjede

Title

La maga trionfante Marte deluso

X.l701

La violenza d'amore42

37 Probably the

1.X.1700 27.IX.1722

Composer

Librettist

Concordances

Orgiani M.A.Ziani Cialli

1691/2

Gasparini, Pollarolo, Ballarotti

Tables 7.2, 7.3, 1715/3

Lucchini

inaugural work for this theater; seeAllacci, Drammaturgia, col. 558 (misprinted

as "562"). It was from the opera at Dolo that the young noblemen Francesco Pisani and [an unnamed] Zorzi had set out for Venice when their carriage was accidentally tipped into the River Brenta by a horse that missed its footing on the muddy bank. Their bodies were found on 12 October 1697 (NV, N. 145, f. 777). Pisani's death ultimately left his extraordinarily land-rich family (whose principal holdings were around Este) without a (legitimate) heir. The consequences of these events form the background ofGullino's penetrating economic study, I Pisani (seep. 4). 38

39

Not cited in Sartori.

40

Sartori 18817.

41

Sartori 8979.

42

The season is given as "Carnevale" in the libretto.

7. SEASONAL RECIPROCITY Title

----~~ll!e offede

Giunone del sembiante* La ninJa riconosciuta NeZ perdono Ia vendetta Diomeda* 44 Adalvaldo forioso*

187

Librettist

Concordances

Pollarolo43

Silvani

Table 7.6

Porta

Paganicesa

1728/5

1731

Albinoni

[Passarini (after 1700/8? Aureli?)]

X.1734

Maccari

Cialli

Composer

li.X.l724 2.X.1725 X.1728

1727/l

TABLE 7 .4. Autumn works given in Este (1700-1734). Operas were performed in Treviso from an early date, with substantial activity in the 1680s and 1690s at the Teatro di Santa Margherita and from the 1720s through the 1760s at the Teatro Dol fin. Yet productions were just as erratic in Treviso as they were elsewhere in the Veneto. Unbroken series of productions were given annually between 1682 and 1688, and again between 1692 and 1702.45 The theater was dormant for the next twenty years. The fair in Treviso began just as the fair in Rovigo was ending. Mention of it is found in this account of7 November 1682: Many ofthe nobility have gone to Treviso to see the musical work performed for several days in that city; meanwhile they are preparing another [in Venice] ... which will be presented, they say, on the evenings of St. Martin's and the following day. 46 There was no clear association of opera in Treviso with the autumn fair until the 1720s. Documented autumn performances at the Teatro Dolfin in Treviso are itemized in Table 7.5.

43

The same text was set by Buini for performance in Bologna in 1724.

Missing from other bibliographies. Sartori (7911) reports a libretto in SL-Ls. The season is undetermined. This citation is based on the libretto.

44

45 Concordances with Venetian productions between 1682 and 1702 include these: 1680/l, 1690/4, and 1683/9.

"Mercurio," issue of 7 novembre 1682, f. 1, "In tanto molti della predetta nobilta si sono portati a Treviso per vedere !'opera musicale fattasi per diversi giomi in quella citta preparandosene nel mentre un'altra ... che Ia fara rappresentare, per quello dicesi, per Ia sera diS. Martino e Ia seguente." The dates of performance would have been 11 and 12 November.

46

SoNG AND SEASON

188 ---

--------~

------

~-

--

Title--~-- ___Dat~ ~of_[e~--~mposer ~~ !:-ibrettist__ Co~c!'rdances

L 'inganno senza danno Li amori e incanti d'Armida con Rinaldo48

Autumn 1697 l2.X.1698

Tamerlano

Xl.l711 49

1 nemici rivali

6.X.l713 3 .X.l729

Ottone in villa Il piu infedel tra gli a manti

6.X.l731 50

II trionfo d'Armida

Aut. 1733 Carn. 1737

Farnace Erne linda --~--~---

1752

-------

Pignatta

Pignatta

1696/9; Table 7.7

Orgiani

[Colatelli]

Udine, 1698; 1703/2

Gasparini

Piovene

1711/4

47

Passarini Vivaldi

Lalli

Table 7.6

Albinoni

Schietti

1724/5?

Albinoni 51

[Colatelli52]

1726/11

Vivaldi

Lucchini

172713, 1727112

pastiche

[Silvani]

1750/4

TABLE 7.5. Autumn works given in Treviso (1697-1752).

Overall, the autumn season of the Veneto favored the opening ofworks prior to St. Luke's in Dolo and Este, between the feasts of St. Luke and St. Martin in Rovigo, and on and after St. Martin's in Treviso. However, these patterns leave imprints from periods oftime which are not necessarily concurrent. The most robust schedule, which was maintained in Rovigo, seems to have disintegrated after 1720, probably as a consequence of the rise of opera at spring fairs. SPRING VENUES

The institution of a spring opera season was driven not by local factors but by increasing competition for potential shoppers at the annual mercantile trade fair held ---~----

47

As Chi no safingere.

Pallade veneta (p. 230) cites the performance of Amari ed incanti d'Armida con Rinaldo at "Rovigo," beginning on 12 October 1698. The libretto was dedicated to Ferdinand Carlo, the duke of Mantua.

48

Sartori (22820) cites a libretto for Treviso in 1721 and indeed the cast seems one that could not have been formed in 1711. It is possible, therefore, that the work could have had two productions at Treviso.

49

50

Date of first performance, according to Sartori 18866.

Now performed with intermezzi entitled II vedova [sic], which contained roles for Anighetta and Sempronio, with music by Feo. 51

52

Authorship indicated in a note in the I-Mb libretto.

7. SEASONAL RECIPROCITY

189

in the Piazza San Marco. The free ports which rose up on the Adriatic after the Peace ofPassarowitz rapidly drew trade away from Venice. The imperial port of Trieste, just across the water, was visible on a clear day. Senigallia' s growing trade fair caused friction not only with Venetian merchants but also with Venetian health officials, who were accustomed to quarantining sailors returned from the Levant but had trouble spotting traders who hugged the coast. The long series of wars of succession fought in Central Europe and the Balkans rendered the Adriatic ports at fair-time a prime haven for the transmission of germs. The long-established tradition of opera and comedy in Rimini was expanded, during the Adriatic trade wars, to Jesi and Senigallia, which both had public theaters in operation by 1731. At first they seem to have presented productions mounted by companies of young performers gathered in Venice. Within the Veneto, the most important venue for spring opera in the first few decades of the eighteenth century was Vicenza, where a theater for drama, the celebrated Teatro Olimpico, had opened in 1585. Vicenza was sporadically active through much of the seventeenth century. Between 1672 and 1730 libretti for some 60 works (including serenatas and intermezzi) were published for performance in Vicenza. In many instances, the time of year of the performance is unknown. (Only works survived by printing licenses and apparently given in the spring or otherwise clearly documented are listed in Table 7.6.) Particularly popular forre-staging between 1673 and 1700 were works set to music by Pallavicino, Freschi, Gabrielli, Legrenzi, Perti, and Albinoni. 53 Many opera performances after 1700 fell distinctly close to Ascension during Vicenza's fifteen-day May Fair, which officially began on the feast of St. Catherine ofSiena (30 April). License dates suggest that openings were staggered. From 1707, the Teatro delle Grazie offered a May work in some years but not in all. Giovanni Orsato was the impresario. Around 1700, Vicenza also developed a clear taste for the music of Pollarolo, whose music was already well diffused in the Veneto. A reorientation came with the production ofVivaldi's first opera, Ottone in villa, given in Vicenza in 1713. His involvements in Vicenza were more or less coincident with his two-year appointment as impresario at Sant' Angelo. Bernardo Canal ( 167 4-17 44) was the scenery designer for all the works given in Vicenza between 1713 and 1715.54 This involvement, too, resonated with activities at Sant' Angelo.

Venetian concordances for these years, in the order in which they were given in Vicenza, include 1671/4,1679/1, 1680/1, 168411,1688/4, 1682/3, 1686/9, I68511, 1692/4, 1683/5,1692/2, 1683/6, I 685/6, and I 697/6.

53

54 His son Gio.

Antonio ("Canaletto") was first employed as his assistant at Sant' Angelo in I 71618. The Canals worked in Rome in 1719 and 1720.

190 - - - ----"

Title --~-------

SONG AND SEASON "------- - - ---Theater Date offede Composer Librettist Concordances · - - - - - - - - - - - ----"-- - - - - - - - -

La fede riconosciuta

V.1707

Nuovo

1707

Lafedelta nell'amore Nuovo

Pollarolo

"N. N." 55

[Naples, 1710]

Orgiani

!gene, regina di Spar- Nuovo ta

V.1708 56 Pollarolo

La ninja riconosciuta Grazie

5.V.l709

Pollarolo

Silvani

Table 7.4

Bissari

1730/9

Vivaldi

Lalli

Table 7.5

[Lucchini] 1666/9; Tables 7.3, 7.4

Nuovo

VI.1710

Pollarolo

Peribea in Salamina 58 Grazie

V.1712

Pollarolo

Grazie

21.IV.l713

La violenza d'amore 60 Grazie

1713

Gasparini, Pollarolo, Ballarotti

Silvia 57

Ottone in villa 59

Il trionfo della costanza

Grazie

V.1714

Pollarolo61

Tetide in Sciro

Grazie

V.l715

Pollarolo 62 Capece63

Il disinganno della fro de

Grazie

28.IV.I717

-

[Albinoni]

Silvani

170113, 1725/10

--------

Possibly by Girolamo Gigli (seeLafede ne 'tradimenti, 1707/5), although the plot bears general resemblances to that ofll tradimento premiato (1709/7), the text ofwhich is attributed to Po1ani. The work has sometimes erroneously been attributed to Benedetto Marcello (see E. SelfridgeField, Marcello, p. 252, listing for Z497 [Z =spurious-work indicator]). 55

Known not from afede but from the libretto (Sartori 12772) and from the permission granted by the procurators of San Marco for Pollarolo to be excused to participate in the production of "an opera of his for the Fiera di Vicenza" (I-Vas, PS, Terminazioni, Busta 151, f. 22r). 56

57

Libretto published in May.

58

Performed with Vespetta e Pimpinone.

59

RV 729. Score in I-Tn (facs. edn. DMV, xii, 1982).

60

Or L 'Alciade.

Other productions ofPollarolo's setting are not known. A work by this name with music by Domenico Scarlatti was given in Rome in 1712, and another with music by Galeazzi was given at Sant' Angelo as 1731/1. 61

The text appears to have been used in Domenico Scarlatti's work of the same name (Rome, 1712; Sartori 23096).

62

Secretary to the queen of Poland, for whom this work (like Silvia above) was set in 1712 by Domenico Scarlatti.

63

7. SEASONAL RECIPROCITY Title

Theater Date offede

Gli inganni per vendetta 64

Grazie

La pace per amore

Composer Librettist

12.V.l720 Vivaldi V.l724

191 Concordances

[Lalli?65]

1719/7

Chelleri, Buini

Schietti

1719/11, 1724/9 1720/6; 1728/6

Il Filindo

private?

13.V.1724

Buini

Creta66

La sorte nemica

Grazie

7.V.1728

Porta

Silvani

TABLE 7.6. Spring works given in Vicenza (1707-1728).

Depending on the moveable dates of Ascension and Corpus Domini, competition with the provinces could be displeasing to church authorities in Venice, who preferred the nobility and foreign diplomats remain present for the feast of Corpus Domini and the Venetian commemoration of the feast of St. Anthony at the church of the Salute. In 1707, when the Ascension fair in Venice ended on 17 June, the foreigners merely went on to enjoy that ofPadua. 67 It rankled intelligence agents that the French ambassador missed the Corpus Domini service at the Salute because he was staying on the River Brenta. 68 More irksome were the events of 1710, when a large crowd, ------------

Title --

Theat!_l'_ Date offede

Composer Librettist

Concordances

Pollarolo

Scappi

Supp. Sa (1692)

Pignatta

Pignatta

1695/4

Pignatta

Pignatta

1696/9; Table 7.6

·~-------

Venera travestita

Carn. 1692 [=1693?]

Oronta d 'Egitto

Carn. 1697 =1698 69

Chi non sa jingere non sa vincere10

Carn. 1697 =1698

64

Or Armida a! campo d'Egitto (Sartori 13143).

65

Venetian version attributed to Palazzi by Groppo and others (see 1719/7).

66

Libretto for this production (Sartori 10268, 1724) printed in Venice.

67

"Mercurio," issue of 18 giugno 1707, f. 2.

"Mercurio," toe. cit. In numerous religious feasts, the French ambassador and the papal legate were to accompany the doge in processions and to be seated on either side ofhim in San Marco.

68

69

According to Sartori 5476.

70

Sartori 5476.

192

SoNG AND SEASON ----~----~----

Title --·----~--

Theater Date offed~_ ---------

Zenone, imperator d'Oriente

Nuovo

8.1.1707

Vespetta e Pimpinone

Obizzi

1l trionfo d'Amore

--

Com~~s~ Libr~t~~~oncordan~es

AlbinonC 1 Marchi

1696/11

Carn. 1712

Albinoni

I 708/7, 1709/3, 1725/4, 1726/4; Supp.4a

Obizzi

ll.II.1713 72

Saratelli 73

L 'Alciade14

Grazie

Carn. 1713

Gasparini, Pollarolo, Ballarotti

[Lucchini] 1666/9; Table 7.3

La Partenope

Nuovo

19.I.l714

Predieri

Stampiglia 1717/14

La tirannide punita Obizzi

Carn. 1721

[Sartorio]

Bussani

-------

-·

---------------

Pariati

1677/4; Table 7.2

---·---

TABLE 7. 7. Winter works produced in Vicenza (1692-1721 ).

including "pilgrims who have come from afar," 75 gathered at the critical time- in Padua. The moveable calendar was partly responsible: thefiera della Sensa concluded on St. Anthony's in this particular year. An anonymous chronicler noted ... the booths on the Piazza [in Venice] are being broken down to make way for the solemn procession of Corpus Domini. However, a large part of the nobility, like many persons of other stations, have gone to Padua, where there is a great concourse of other strangers, and pilgrims [who have] come from distant lands, and that fair, which lasts for 15 days ... [and] includes the staging of an opera with music for the entertainment of the nobility. 76

71

Given at San Cassiano in 1696.

72

Date of dedication of the libretto.

Then organist at "the Santo" [San Antonio] in Padua. The date is that of the dedication of the libretto.

73

74

Or La violenza d'amore.

75

"Mercurio," issue of 14 giugno 1710, f. I.

76

Loc. cit. (i.e., "Mercurio," issue of 14 giugno 1710, I r), "Termine ieri l'aitro [i.e., the I 2th] questa nostra fiera, che percio sonosi cominciate adisfare le botteghe per render Ia piazza Iibera, ch 'in app:o deve essere rendata per Ia so Jenne processione del Corpus Domini; intanto gran parte di questa nobilta si come ogn'altra sorte di persone sono andata a Padova per Ia solennita di Sant' Antonio, dov'e pur stato un gran concorso d'altri forastieri, e pellegrini, andativi da paesi lontani, e resta gia aperta quella fiera, che durera 15 giorni, con esser anco cola an data in scena un opera in musica per divertimento della nobilta, essendovi pure una compagnia d'Istrioni che fanno le commedie e burlesche."

7. SEASONAL REciPROCITY

193

If spring activities in Padua gave no cause for offense, those ofVicenza or Treviso or some city outside the bounds of the Republic, such as Reggio or Parma, might do so. In 1712, for example, the Ascension fair in Venice ended on 20 May. Foreign visitors departed immediately for fairs in Vicenza (e.g., Lord Peterborough) and Reggio (other foreigners). This was a disappointment to the body politic, who wished to continue to believe that the enticements of Venice were irresistible. ----------

Title

Place

Euridice

Padua (Obizzi)

[Untitled] 77

Trent

Temistocle

Padua (Obizzi)

Date offede

Composer Librettist

Concordances ··-·-~-~

Orgiani

Lalli

30.V.1721

Chelleri

Zeno

Gli amici rivali 78 Chioggia

I.IV.I722

Pollarolo 79 Neri

Temistocle

6.VI.I740

Bernasconi Metastasio I 744/1

Padua (Obizzi)

1712

c. 20.V.1713

--~--------

I 705/2, 1714/7

---------

TABLE 7.8. Spring works given in other locations in the Veneto (1712-17 40).

Although histories never fail to remind us of the lavish staging and spectacular venues that Venice (once) afforded, scores and performers were portable. By the 1720s audiences were apparently as satisfied, and less severely inconvenienced, by the small-scale productions in more accessible places in warmer months of the year. They were not likely to be stymied by snowed-in passes over the Alps or a frozen lagoon. Even in spring Venice was reputed to have worse weather than terrafirma. In the spring of 1698 an anonymous correspondent complained that bad weather continued in Venice and there was scarcely any concourse for the Ascension fair,

77 Possibly L 'amor trionfante nell 'odio (Gio. Abbondio Crotti). It is reported ("Mercurio" for the week ending 20 maggio 1713) withouttitle to have been given to entertain the empress when she passed through Trent.

78

Or L 'enigma disciolto.

79

Given at San F antin in 1715.

194

SoNG AND SEASON

while in Reggio [Emilia] there was a great influx offoreign visitors who came to el\ioy the recitation of a most beautiful opera musicale. 80 By establishing an Ascension opera to complement its fair, Venice served the needs of its merchants well. The artistic value of the season was decidedly different from that of autumn and winter, for the operas were of the newer, lighter kind sometimes found in the provinces. The roster of works given in Vicenza became more evenly spread across the seasons, suggesting that its spring opera suffered a setback with the institution of Ascension opera in Venice. Yet in the 1740s, and more particularly in the 1750s and 1760s, the Paduan St. Anthony's fair (often called the June fair) thrived, while the Ascension fair in Venice languished. The fair began on 12 June (the eve ofthe feast) and lasted for fifteen days. In the 1740s the Council ofTen grew reluctant to sanction Ascension operas automatically. The performance of II paese della cucagna, for example, a commedia per musica by Goldoni and Galuppi (1750), was deferred until December for lack of the Council's permission. 81 Excluding Vicenza, which has a long, largely unexplored, history, the earliest commercial productions outside Venice but still within the Veneto occurred in Udine (1673), Treviso (1682), Rovigo (1683), Bassano (1685), Verona (1688), and Padua (1691). By the 1750s, every period of theatrical opening in Venice found ready competition from some theater in the Veneto. Carnival operas were offered in Vicenza, Verona, 82 Bergamo, and U dine, as well as in Bologna, which lay in the Papal States. Bologna also offered autumn performances. In Brescia, an important locale for dram me per musica from the 1680s, works were given predominantly in the theater of the academy. 83 These indications are merely suggestive, since not every provincial opera can be dated. The trails of work titles are also devious. Authorship is also open to question. Theatrical management changed as often in the provinces as it did in the centro storico. Relationships between musicians and impresarii were every bit as contentious. 84

80 "Mercurio," issue of 17 maggio [ 1698], f. I. The works given in Reggio that spring were L 'enigma disciolto (27 April) and L 'Ulisse sconosciuto in ltaca (2 May). The first featured Antonio Ristorini as Tirsi, the second Margherita Salicola Suini as Penelope (Fabbri and Verti, Reggio, p. 49). Pollarolo was the composer of both.

81

I-Vmc, GDN I, f. 96. See 1750/9.

82

Verona had two fairs annually. The spring fair began on 25 April, the autumn one on 27 Oc tober. 83

Brescia's fair began on 5 August and lasted for fifteen days.

Numerous examples both from the city and terrafirma can be found in I-Vas, Censori, Busta 17 (1683-1768).

84

7. SEASONAL REciPROCITY

195

7.2. Dramatic Music in Private Venues At no time of year during was music lacking in Venetian ceremonial and religious life. By many accounts, some of the best musical performances in Venice took place during those periods when theaters were closed. It is undoubtedly the case that the music during non-theatrical periods [periods during which theaters were closed] in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries flowed from practices of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The rise of opera changed the perceived balance of musical life, particularly with the ever greater tendency for visitors to focus on Carnival and, later, the Ascension fair as the optimum times to sample Venetian culture. The connoisseurs who patronized music in palaces, churches, and the ospedali were chiefly (a) the doge and the leading families of the Venetian nobility, (b) legates and ambassadors, and (c) the wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters of visiting princes, dukes, and diplomats. Much of the music that filled these voids was, far more than it had been before the establishment of opera, both vocal and dramatic. Musical styles which were mediated by opera influenced the solo motet (sacred), the oratorio (sacred, often rhetorical}, and the solo cantata (secular). Solo motets were the preserve of San Marco and the ospedali, oratorios that of the ospedali and the Order of St. Philip Neri, 85 and solo cantatas that of noble academies. Princes, dukes, and diplomats were the chief sponsors ofserenatas. These often featured selected opera personnel, who were also invited on occasion to give private concerts. SOLO MOTETS

Solo motets and solo sonatas were staples of the masses for Christmas and Easter at San Marco. At Christmas, motets were often performed by opera singers (Ch. 7 .3). Motets were sung on many other occasions in the ospedali. Legrenzi and other composers of the seventeenth century are known to have composed hundreds of these works (usually for the ospedali), but nearly all were destroyed in fires within the institutions. The ospedali placed a high value on aesthetics and expression in performance. Virtuosity was highly prized. The motet repertory was one devised almost exclusively for solo voice and basso continuo. Many of the innovations of the ospedali in instrumentation were prompted by the search for expression. Instrumentation was used, in the absence of staging, to convey character and mood. The patronage was largely noble. The doge Alvise Pisani (1736-1741) played a major role in the governance ofthe Pi eta. Whatthe nobility heard in the ospedaliundoubtedly provided -------

See Selfridge-Field, "Piet

I

4

c-on

10.2. Two pages (1725-26) from Bonlini's Le glorie della poesia e della

musica (1730).

Two hands are involved in the Bonlini manuscript addenda. Neither is identified. The critical indices that appear in the facsimile edition of the original print are followed in the Marciana annotated copy by a list of works omitted in the print and by a declaration that further errors and omissions would be noted in a forthcoming printed supplement for the Carnival season of 1731. 18 The intended supplement may correspond to the firstfoglio volante, which, however, does not contain any corrections to earlier material. Numerous manuscript addenda in the companion copy of the original print identify intermezzi given with the works of 1706-1730.

18 Bonlini MS, unnumbered folio following p. 265, "D'altre omissioni poi, che fossero corso nella tessitura di tutta !'opera, o di qualche sbaglio ne i teatri, e nei nomi de gl'auttori legitimi della Poesia, e della Musica, si riserba I' autore a dame pili chiaro notizia, quando sia pienamente informato, nella nuova aggiunta, ch' usc ira su Ia fine del Carnevale dell' anno 1731.

10. TIME AccoRDING To THE EAGLES ---- ·~

stl 1/l,j;lllll#o Podia Ghohmo GiuRi . Mllfica Vinldi.

ANNO

.., l

·-·-..--- ..

281 ~....

... ·-..................... -

An;'lll/11. l'""li' Mcult•r,\1, '

~"·

u;r l l.

i'luliu ViuiJi . 10 q_utAo (ecc !J fu.1 pr i1n 3 cum pu f:a 11!' CJ. di pac. 6o. Alcina clelufa da Rugiero • 599 P. Marchi. M. Alblaoni. T. S, Caf·

1

Tr•'" l{.~rlwlo ,,.,,,{• -I• ·,..,,;.

••tttUi •>tllorl 16· di pag. 6o.

Turia Lucrezia.

601

P. Lalli. M. l'ollarolo Antonio • T. S. Angiolo io r~ . .• ,,.6. dl pac. ,a.

· 6o~ Inganno Innocente. S, Caf· l'. Silvaoi, M· Albinoni. fiano in ''· t7t6. di pag. 6o.

:r.

Cunegonda • ·

60J p, Piovene Co'; Agollin Nob. Ven, M. Vivaldi. T•. S, Angiolo in '>• '7>6, F di pag.

,6.

·

Siro:

ILLUSTRATION 10.4. Two pages (1725-26) from Groppo's printed Catalogo di tutti i drammi per musica (1745).

In his introduction to the 1745 print, Groppo explained that in addition to his present catalogue of operas, he intended to publish indexes of ( 1) intermezzi, both dramatic and comic; (2) dramatists for the Venetian stage, in which he would trace the mutations ofthe titles oftheir works; (3) work titles organized by theater, in which chronological order and season would be given; (4) composers, citing appropriate year, season, title, and theater information; and (5) singers in both operas and intermezzi who had appeared in Venice since 1700.

Groppo MS ("Catalogo purgatissimo di tutti li drammi per musica recitatisi ne' teatri di Venezia dall'anno MDCXXXII sin oggi. Parte Prirria," Cod. It. VII-2326 [=8263]), I, 3-6.

25

26

Groppo MS, I, 9.

286

SONG AND SEASON

CATA LOGO PURGATI SSIMO

Dl TUTTI Ll DRAMM1 PER MUSICA Rl 1•our o·eprdcnrcr unc

tlll e

. G A L A N T. 87 Comcdk. Cet Empcrcur y

joltoit luy-mCnu.:)& c,Croi t queJ'J"C donfc d'aflc:t t'articul ocr dcu• col~ cz du Tbea dertillrencipi . ecomp:.uue all' occhto den~ CloridanoduccAteniefe. \ guard:tnrivnAtrio connume~. Lesbo 'feruo confi