L’istruzione musicale dei chierici nel Rinascimento: un inedito documento dall’archivio della basilica di S. Barbara a Mantova

Abstract

Musical education of clerics during the Renaissance: an unpublished document from the archives of the Basilica di S. Barbara at Mantua

The paper calls attention to a document discovered in the Archives of the Basilica of Santa Barbara at Mantua, the Relatione sopra gli chierici circa le lettere canto et servire della Chiesa, in which for sixteen clerics an individual assessment is given of their literary and musical proficiency (in canto fermo, canto figurato and contrapunto) and of the discipline prescribed for religious worship. The report, undated, has been collocated chronologically around 1581-2 and the procedure of educating clerics is expanded with reference to the Costituzioni of S. Barbara and of the Mantua cathedral.
The exigency of having clerics expert in canto figurato and in contrapunto is linked to the activity of Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga, who commissioned from the principal composers of his time appropriate 5-voice masses for the specific liturgy of S. Barbara.