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Volume 8 (2002) No. 1

Trombe, Trombe d'argento, Trombe squarciate, Tromboni, and Pifferi in Venetian Processions and Ceremonies of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

Jeffrey Kurtzman and Linda Maria Koldau

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III. Pictorial Representations of Venetian Processions

16. Gentile Bellini's Processione della Croce in Piazza San Marco of 1496

17. Matteo Pagan's Woodcut of a Ducal Procession, 1556–59

18. Jost Amman's Woodcut of a Ducal Procession, c. 1560

19. Trombe d'argento and Pifferi in Giacomo Franco's Engravings of 1610

20. The Procession of J. van Vianen Published by Pieter van der Aa

21. Comparison of Bellini's, Pagan's, Amman's, Franco's, and Vianen's Processions

22. The Coronation of the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani in 1597

23. Vicentino's Paintings of the Coronation of the Dogaressa

24. Giacomo Franco's Engravings of the Coronation of the Dogaressa

25. Giovanni Grevembroch's Illustration of Trombe d'argento

26. Grevembroch's Illustration of a Suonatore di Piffero

27. Iconographical Representations of Heraldic Trumpets

28. Mid-length Straight Trumpets in Venetian Iconography

29. Iconographical Allegories with Mid-length and Short Straight Trumpets

30. Categories of Iconography: Heavenly and Mythical Allegorical Scenes

31. Categories of Iconography: Allegories of Religious Events

32. Categories of Iconography: Historical Events

Table 1

References to Part III

16. Gentile Bellini's Processione della Croce in Piazza San Marco of 1496

16.1  Perhaps the most famous pictorial representation of a Venetian procession is Gentile Bellini's huge canvas, Processione della Croce in Piazza San Marco of 1496 housed in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice (Figure 11). This painting was originally commissioned by the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista as one of a series of paintings commemorating miracles wrought by a piece of the True Cross given to the Scuola in 1369 and treasured as its prize possession.284 Bellini's Processione refers to a miraculous cure effected from witnessing the relic during a procession in St. Mark's square on the feast of Saint Mark, April 25, 1444.285

16.2 The members of the scuola are in the foreground, while musicians appear at two places in the painting, both of them on the periphery and somewhat obscure. In the foreground at the left are the singers of the scuola and three instrumentalists playing a lute, a harp, and a rebec.286 This is the typical ensemble of the scuole of the period, as already discussed in paragraph 13.1. What concerns us at this moment, however, is the far right of the painting, where one can see, not yet having rounded the corner to pass along the front of the picture, the doge's banners, trombe d'argento, and pifferi. The procession continues with the ambassadors in varied costumes, followed by several symbols of the doge: the doge's white candle, and later on, the doge's umbrella, the cushion for the doge's crown, and ultimately, the doge himself.

16.3 In closer detail (Figure 12), one can see on the far right three of the eight comandadori with their banners, followed by the six trombe lunghe, which are not so long and large as those in the Matteo Pagan woodcut and Giacomo Franco engraving described below and don't require the support of boys. Since the trombe were enlarged to the size of those in the Pagan and Franco representations in the period 1473–1478, Bellini's painting, at least as far as the trumpets are concerned, seems historically oriented to the period of the event it depicts rather than the date of the painting itself.287 From each tromba there hangs a small banner. Only two of the trombettieri are actually playing. The other four are carrying their instruments propped on their shoulders with the bells in the air. Immediately behind them march three of the doge's pifferi playing shawms, followed by two trombonists. The nearer of the two is playing a U-shaped double-slide instrument, while the figure in black to his left is not playing and has his instrument resting on his shoulder in the same manner as four of the trumpeters. The bell of this trombone is smudged in the painting.288 Bellini's are among the earliest depictions of double-slide trombones.  [Return to paragraph 2.3.]

17. Matteo Pagan's Woodcut of a Ducal Procession, 1556–59

17.1 A particularly clear illustration of a ducal procession can be seen in a long, eight-block xylograph by Matteo Pagan from 1556–59 in the Museo Correr, depicting the corteo in St. Mark's square on Palm Sunday (Figure 13, Figure 14, Figure 15, Figure 16, Figure 17, Figure 18, Figure 19 and Figure 20).289 Pagan's full woodcut provides a detailed account of the roles, position and costumes of the various personages in a ducal andata, as well as a depiction of the traditional symbols of the doge, including the doge's musical instruments.290 The second frame of this woodcut (Figure 14) shows six straight trumpets of extraordinary length, labeled by Pagan in Latin as sex tubae argenteae and in Italian as sei trombe di arzento. These trumpets are so long that they have to be supported on the shoulders of six boys, one preceding each of the trumpeters. Immediately behind the trumpets come six ambassadorial servants, followed by the doge's six pifferi, labeled by Pagan as tubae et barbiton and trombe piffari (Figure 15). The pifferi in Pagan's woodcut are shawms distinctly larger than those in Bellini's Processione (just as the six trombe d'argento are much larger). Pagan, as an artist, was apparently not intimately acquainted with musical instruments, for his depictions of the shawms are lacking in detail, and the trombone is especially problematic: the last loop of a double-slide trombone would ordinarily extend over the player's shoulder along the side of the head.291 In the Bellini painting some of the instrumentalists are not playing; in Pagan's xylograph the position of some of the instruments is odd. The two shawmists on the inside of the procession are holding their instruments in the normal playing position, whereas the one between them on the outside clearly holds his at a higher angle, and the other two are holding their instruments straight out, as if they were mid-length straight trumpets. These oddities are compounded by the presence of five shawmists and only one trombone; the pifferi del doge normally comprised four shawms and two trombones in this period. Pagan seems to have exercised considerable artistic license with regard to the instruments, as he did in the positioning of some of the elements of the corteo.

17.2 It is also curious that Pagan should have used the plural forms—tubae in Latin and trombe in Italian—in identifying the single trombone in his xylograph, though the pifferi del doge normally did consist of more than the one trombone shown by Pagan. It should not be surprising, however, that the trombone is called here a tromba or tuba, since trombone is no more than an augmentative of tromba. The Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca of 1612 lists the word trombone under the entry tromba as "a musical wind instrument" in contrast to the tromba itself, which is described as a military [signaling] instrument.292 The contrast in size between the two instruments is emphasized in the contemporaneous Italian-English dictionary of John Florio, where tromba is defined as "any Trump or Trumpet," while a separate entry for trombone describes it as "A Base or great Trumpet, or Sackbut."293 The 1741 edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, like Florio's dictionary, has a separate entry for trombone, but still defines it as sorta di tromba.294 Thus, in all these definitions the trombone is a subcategory of the trumpet. The Vocabulario, however, represents generic Tuscan rather than Venetian usage. Despite Pagan's naming of trombones as trombe, trombe are often clearly distinguished from tromboni in Venetian account books and detailed descriptions of instruments and processions.295 By the same token, trumpets in Venice, as in other cities, were also often referenced by their diminutive, trombetti, and some Venetian documents refer to trombetti squarzadi, or trombetti et tamburi, seemingly identifying the instrument as smaller than a full-size tromba. However, the vagaries and ambiguities of scribal terminology caution against making any definitive statement with regard to the meaning of trombetti.296 Pagan's use of the Latin term barbiton (which referred to a large lyre in ancient times), evidently derives from the medieval Latin barbita, defined in Domino Du Cange's Glossarium Mediae et infimae Latinitatis, first published in 1678, as fistula pastoralis, appropriately applied to the rather large shawms in Pagan's woodcut.297 [Return to: paragraph 9.4, note 146, paragraphs 31.2, 32.2.]

18. Jost Amman's Woodcut of a Ducal Procession, c. 1560

18.1 Another woodcut of a procession, by the Fleming Jost Amman in the Graphische Sammlung of the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie, is a copy of an earlier one by Giovanni Andrea di Vavasson after an original by Titian from c. 1560 (Figure 21).298 This large woodcut, comprising fourteen adjoined blocks, depicts the ducal cortege traversing the piazzettaof St. Mark's and just beginning to embark on the Bucintoro (the doge's ceremonial barge) for what is evidently the feast of the Sensa (the wedding of Venice with the sea). The eight standard-bearers have already mounted and are clustered on the rear of the ship. The sei trombe d'argento are not visible at all, and still on the embankmentwaiting to embark are five pifferi, playing four shawms and one other instrument whose identity is not obvious (detail, Figure 22). The shawmists all hold their instruments in the normal playing position, but the first player on the backside of the cortege holds his straight out, in the same position as two players in the Pagan woodcut.299 However, in this case the instrument has the appearance of a mid-length, cylindrical trumpet with a particularly flared bell, rather than a shawm. While it is not impossible that this instrument actually is a trumpet, the normal constitution of the pifferi cautions against taking Amman's illustration too literally, especially since there is no evidence of trombones in the woodcut.

18.2 Other standard elements of a procession in trionfo follow: the squires of the doge, the Patriarch attended by another man and followed by two candles (not one as in other representations), the doge's throne (faldstool) and crown (cornu), possibly the ballottino adjacent to the bearer of the crown, the doge flanked by the papal legate on his right and the imperial ambassador on his left, the doge's ceremonial umbrella, three ambassadors, the doge's ceremonial sword, and the Signoria.

19. Trombe d'argento and Pifferi in Giacomo Franco's Engravings of 1610

19.1 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Giacomo Franco published a set of engravings of Venetian life that includes a depiction of a procession wending its way through St. Mark's square (Figure 23).300 Like Pagan some fifty years earlier, Franco has carefully labeled each separate element in the procession, and again we can see, in their usual position in the cortege following the eight banners, the six trombe d'argento supported on the shoulders of six boys. The servants of the ambassadors march between the trombe d'argento and the pifferi del doge, just as in Pagan's woodcut. The pifferi in Franco's procession comprise, as best we can tell from a somewhat unclear plate, four shawms and two trombones, for a total of six pifferi (the trombones appear to be in the middle, between the two pair of shawms).

19.2 Another engraving by Franco from the same 1610 set (Figure 24) illustrates the trombe d'argento and the pifferi on board a ceremonial barge (called in Venetian dialect a peatone) as the doge disembarks at San Giorgio Maggiore for Vespers on Christmas day.301 Here again we see the six trombe lunghe, but as in the Bellini painting, not so long that they require support from boys. This point is quite interesting, for it suggests that in Franco's day and possibly at other times as well, there were two sets of trombe lunghe, one smaller than the other for easier transport aboard ship.302 Immediately behind the trombe four of the pifferi can be discerned playing three shawms and one trombone (one of the shawms is scarcely visible behind the front two). These players have not yet disembarked, though the gangplank is down, ready for them to go ashore. On the boat in the foreground, there are three other instrumentalists, distinct from the official ensembles of the doge, playing shawms.  [Return to: paragraph 9.4, note 290.]

20. The Procession of J. van Vianen Published by Pieter van der Aa

20.1 An undated engraving by J. van Vianen published by Pieter van der Aa in the early eighteenth century entitled Il Doge in Processione (Figure 25)303 shows a serpentine corteo crossing the riva of the piazzetta, led by several clerics (one holding a large cross) and what is probably the Patriarch of Venice and two monks. Then the doge's official cortege begins with the eight standards, the six exceptionally large trombe lunghe, each pair supported by one boy, and five pifferi without any ambassadorial servants between the instrumental ensembles. All five pifferi are clearly playing shawms (one can even distinguish the position of the reeds), and no trombone is present. Subsequent elements of the procession proceed as in the Franco engraving except for the absence of the grand captain,  grand chancellor, and ballottino before the appearance of the doge, who is flanked by the imperial ambassador and papal legate.  [Return to note 304.]

21.Comparison of Bellini's, Pagan's, Amman's, Franco's, and Vianen's Processions

21.1 There are several notable aspects of Bellini's painting that contrast with the Pagan and Amman xylographs and the Franco and Vianen engravings. First, Bellini's trombe d'argento and shawms are smaller than those in the later representations, except for Franco's engraving of the doge disembarking at San Giorgio (Figure 24); in both of these representations the trombe do not require the support of boys. Secondly, in Bellini's painting there is no group of commanders (comandadori) without banners preceding the trombe d'argento. Nor is there a contingent of ambassadorial servants between the trombe d'argento and the pifferi as there is in both Pagan's (Figure 13) and Franco's (Figure 23) processions. In the Amman woodcut, neither the trombe d'argento nor any possible group of ambassadorial servants are visible; the cortege remaining on shore begins with the pifferi. In the Vianen engraving, as in Bellini's painting, the pifferi follow immediately on the heels of the trombe d'argento. In all of these representations, a group of squires (camerari) follows the pifferi.

21.2 According to the Ceremoniale del doge published by Bartolomeo Cecchetti, the trombe d'argento follow immediately after the eight commanders carrying the banners, and the remaining commanderscome between the trombe d'argento and the pifferi rather than between the banners and the trombe d'argento.304 A comparison of the Cerimoniale del doge as quoted by Cecchetti with the Pagan and Franco processions can be seen in Table 1. The order in the Ceremoniale contains more elements than the two labeled pictorial representations, and a few elements are located in different parts of the cortege.305 This table illustrates the fact that while the order of many of the principal elements of a procession in trionfo remained constant over time, there were differences of detail from one epoch or even from one procession in any particular period to another (cf. the contemporaneous Pagan and Amman woodcuts), apart from the fact that certain components were included or omitted depending on the festivity itself.306 Differences between Pagan's and Franco's depictions of a procession are few: the doge's ceremonial crown (corno) doesn't appear in Franco's engraving, and the imperial ambassador (Ambasciator Cesareo) and the papal legate (Legato), both men flanking the doge, are not found in Pagan's woodcut.307

22. The Coronation of the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani in 1597

22.1 Not all lavish civic processions were centered on the doge and the Signoria. One of the most famous processions, because it was recorded in several paintings and engravings as well as in detailed descriptions by Giovanni Stringa, Giovanni Rota, and Dario Tutio, formed part of the festivities celebrating the coronation of the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani, May 4–7, 1597.308 When Marino Grimani had been elected doge two years previously, one of the terms of his promissione was that his wife would be given a coronation as dogaressa after at least one year had passed.309 This was the first time since 1557 that the wife of a doge had been crowned; the celebration, continuing for four days, was stunning in its sumptuousness and was described in painstaking detail by all three chroniclers.310 The ceremonies were inaugurated with a major public procession commemorated in three large paintings by Andrea Michieli detto il Vicentino as well as two engravings by Giacomo Franco, one published in his Habiti of 1610, and another that hangs independently in the Museo Correr (see section 24). This procession was similar to a ducal procession, with many of the same elements in the same order, but without certain of the doge's symbols, such as the eight banners or the doge's cushion and faldstool. In addition, the procession included numerous invited gentlewomen and escorts as well as a large contingent of trumpets, drums and pifferi.

22.2 In anticipation of the event, visitors came from all over Italy; on the day of the coronation crowds of people gathered in St. Mark's square and elsewhere, and all kinds of boats filled the canals. The sound of trumpets and drums could be heard everywhere.311 Stringa relates the festive travel of the civic emissaries in the Bucintoro from the Piazzetta San Marco to the personal residence of the doge at San Luca on the Grand Canal. The procession of boats was led by the brigantine of the broker's guild, outfitted in military fashion, from which trumpets and drums played while artillery sounded continuously.312 On the Bucintoro itself were twelve trumpets and twelve drums, and as the flotilla set off, not only were there volleys of artillery, but also the ringing of bells.313 Upon arriving at the Grimani palace, the officials disembarked and solemnly ascended the stairs to the sound of trumpets, drums, and artillery.314 After ceremonies in the Grimani palace, the dogaressa descended the staircase accompanied by numerous gentlewomen and embarked on the Bucintoro for her trip to the Piazzetta of St. Mark's. She was preceded onto the boat by twelve trumpets, twelve drums, six pifferi and the six long silver trumpets of the doge.315 As the Bucintoro and accompanying vessels traveled along the Grand Canal they were viewed by people leaning out of windows, standing on the roofs of houses, filling the streets, crowding the sides of the canal and occupying bridges. Amidst the din could also be heard the "sweet sound of many instruments," which echoed off the boats.316

22.3 According to Stringa, the travel from the Grimani palace along the Grand Canal was accompanied by the firing of arquebuses and artillery. Many of the honored guests were carried on a special octagonal floating ceremonial pavilion with vertical columns and domed roof, designed by Vicenzo Scamozzi and known as the Teatro del Mondo. Twelve trumpeters and twelve drummers were stationed on this boat, with two groups of six trumpets each playing in alternation.317 [Return to note 173.]

22.4 The flotilla proceeded down the Grand Canal to the piazzettaof St. Mark's, where they were saluted by more than four hundred pieces of artillery and "the sound of a great quantity of trumpets and the noise of a great number of drums."318 At the point of disembarkation, a giant triumphal arch had been constructed with inscriptions and symbolic figures. Above an inscription honoring the dogaressa was stationed a trumpeter representing Fame, who "having put the trumpet to his mouth, made all the world resound with cheers and praise of the princess."319 After disembarking, the dogaressa and her entourage processed around the piazzetta under a canopy with a carefully ordered succession of elements. According to Stringa, the procession included four hundred invited gentlewomenand their escorts; representatives of all the artisans' guilds walking two by two, each guild with its own insignia carried by a standard bearer; twenty-four men dressed in livery who played drums and trumpets (di tamburi, e di trombe); and another twelve, dressed in scarlet, who played pifferi and short silver trumpets (trombe corte d'argento).320 Groups of twelve trumpeters and twelve drummers are mentioned several times in the chronicles, and the twelve pifferi and trumpeters dressed in scarlet comprised the six pifferi del doge supplemented by six short trumpets (in contrast to the doge's trombe lunghe).321 Scarlet was, in fact, the color of the livery of the doge's pifferi.  [Return to note 497.]

22.5 When the procession arrived at the door of St. Mark's, the trumpets, drums and pifferi formed wings through which all the gentlewomen proceeded into the basilica, and as the dogaressa entered the church, there was a salute from the arquebusses and the sound of "drums, pifferi and trumpets made the air resound with sweet melody."322 Once settled in the church, a Te Deum was sung, "instruments and singers made lovely music while she was present, except during the liturgy," and at the end of the ceremonies, the entourage was preceded by drums as it exited into the courtyard of the ducal palace.323 The palace itself was gorgeously decorated for an elaborate reception where the dogaressa was received "with the most beautiful music," and as she passed from one room to another, each filled with decorations and confections furnished by one of the various artisans' guilds, she was greeted with "music full of infinite sweetness."324 The music was furnished by "lutes, cornettos, shawms, strings, and various other instruments."325 In fact, many of the individual guilds, each having decorated its own room, also employed musicians. Both the goldsmiths and the tailors presented trumpets and drums, while the shoemakers danced to the sound of various instruments.326 The haberdashers utilized both instrumentalists and singers, the sword makers were accompanied by sweet music, the dyers employed lutes and "delicate voices", and the bakers boasted trumpets, drums, and piffari.327

22.6 The second day was given over to dancing and refreshments in the ducal palace. During the day, the general celebration continued with "the usual din of drums and trumpets throughout the city" and "playing and singing" on boats that plied the canals.328 The general populace was invited to view the decorations in the palace, from which they had been excluded the previous day. At midday, twelve trumpets and twelve drums assembled in the courtyard of the palace to announce the forthcoming celebrations in the Grand Council Hall.329

22.7 On the third day, in a papal mass celebrated by the papal nuncio in St. Mark's, the dogaressa was presented with a silver rose blessed by the pope. The procession into the church was led by the sound of drums, trumpets, and pifferi.330The mass that followed included instruments as well as the choir (canti, & suoni), but Stringa does not specify which instruments.331 It is quite probable, given the documentation cited above of trumpets playing in St. Mark's and other churches on especially joyous occasions, that Stringa's suoni included the trumpets and even the drums, which, if present, would most likely have sounded at the Elevation. Following the ceremony of the rose, the dogaressa and her entourage exited the main door of St. Mark's to the sound of piffari, trumpets, and drums.332 The celebration continued once again in the ducal palace with a banquet and dancing "to the sound of delicate voices,"333 culminating with a mock naval battle in the bacino. The event, initiated by trumpets which continued to sound during the course of the battle, was viewed by the celebrants from the windows of the Grand Council Hall.334 After the battle ended and a prize was awarded, a splendid regata of various types of boats made its way down the Grand Canal as far as the Rialto to the sound of "warlike and musical instruments."335 Throughout the city the sound of trumpets and drums filled the air.336 Even after the doge and dogaressa retired for the night, the palace remained open to noble visitors who could "hear the music in every room," and who danced until three hours after sundown.337

22.8 The fourth day the dogaressa made the rounds of the palace greeting all the artisans' guilds, where she was treated again to the music of instruments and voices.338 That night rain and wind forced the relocation of a sumptuous banquet from the Portico Argonautico to the gran casa de' Foscari, at the bend of the Grand Canal, where the celebration continued with games, music and dancing.339

22.9 The coronation of the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani is one of the rare instances where iconographical sources can be correlated with a written description of the same event. In most other cases, iconography and the accounts by Sansovino, Stringa and other chroniclers do not overlap so closely.  [Return to paragraph 35.2.]

23. Vicentino's Paintings of the Coronation of the Dogaressa

23.1 Andrea Michieli detto il Vicentino (1539–after 1617) was a collaborator of Tintoretto who painted a number of large scenes of Venetian history for the doge's palace and several others for major churches in Venice and elsewhere.340 He executed three known large paintings depicting the first stages of the coronation ceremonies for the Dogaressa Morosina Morosini Grimani, the first two of which are owned by the Museo Correr; the third was formerly owned by the Castello di Duino in Trieste, but was recently sold at auction.341 Andrea Vicentino's first painting in this series (Figure 26) shows the dogaressa at the door of the Grimani palace on the first day of the celebration, about to embark on the Bucintoro that will convey her and her entourage to the piazzetta. Near the bow of the barge can be seen three straight instruments extending outward, while three others are scarcely visible near the stern. These are likely meant to represent shawms, though they are similar to mid-length straight trumpets. In the bottom left hand corner of the painting is a mid-length straight trumpet announcing the event. To the right is Scamozzi's octagonal Teatro del Mondo, with its vertical columns and domed roof. Some of the dogaressa's accompanying gentlewomen are in the Bucintoro, others in the Teatro del Mondo.

23.2 The second, even larger painting by Vicentino in the Museo Correr illustrates the dogaressa and her entourage disembarking across a wooden gangway at the piazzetta before her entry into the piazza. On the left of the painting (Figure 27) is a shawm (part of the pifferi) still in the Bucintoro, while in the middle are two drums. On the far lower right (Figure 28) are two folded trumpets and a single drum as well as a third folded trumpet in the distance slightly above and behind the two principal trumpeters—all obviously in the act of announcing the arrival of the dogaressa. All three trumpets have banners suspended from their yards. The Teatro del Mondo is on the right above the trumpeters; its passengers have already disembarked.

23.3 The third of Vicentino's representations of the coronation depicts the dogaressa in corteo in the piazzetta of St. Mark's, though the canopy under which Stringa says the participants processed is omitted from the painting. Below and to the left of the campanile are trumpeters, blowing mid-length straight trumpets (Figure 29) in all directions. Below and to the right of the campanile is a battery of mid-length straight trumpets with their bells pointed high in the air and blowing in a single direction (Figure 30).

23.4 Vicentino's paintings depict two types of trumpet: 1) full-size folded trumpets, serving a symbolic heraldic role at the edge of the second painting; and 2) mid-length straight trumpets, one also serving in a heraldic function in the first painting, and others as an integral part of the dogaressa's entourage, announcing her presence in St. Mark's square in the third painting. These latter are most likely the trumpets accompanied by drums in Stringa's description of the procession arriving at the home of the dogaressa to escort her to St. Mark's and which later, together with drums and pifferi, formed wings to the entrance of the church. Stringa also mentions a separate group of trombe corte d'argento, instruments not illustrated in any of the Vicentino paintings. These instruments may well have been even smaller than the mid-length straight trumpets, perhaps the size of the elegant trumpet depicted by Bernardo Strozzi in his Personification of Fame, now in the National Gallery in London (https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/bernardo-strozzi-a-personification-of-fame). Such instruments would have been quite high pitched, probably a fifth above the mid-length trumpets (see section 42).  [Return to: paragraph 29.2, 30.4, note 497.]

24. Giacomo Franco's Engravings of the Coronation of the Dogaressa

24.1 Yet another depiction of the coronation festivities appears in an engraving by Franco published in the Habiti of 1610 (Figure 31).342 In this illustration, the Bucintoro occupies center stage. The dogaressa in her crown (cornu) can be seen at the rear of the barge, together with some of her attending noblewomen, themselves crowned by elaborate, doubly pointed hairdos. Other gentlewomen (nobilissima schiera di gentildonne pomposamente vestite) are transported in the octagonal pavilion, the Teatro del Mondo. The entire naval procession is headed from the Grimani palace to the piazzetta. Franco's engraving, therefore, fills in the temporal gap between the embarkation of the dogaressa from her palace and her disembarkation at the piazzetta, both scenes painted by Vicentino and described in detail by Stringa.

24.2 Instruments appear throughout this engraving. Toward the stern of the Bucintoro, near the dogaressa, three of the pifferi del doge can be seen with their instruments, probably shawms, extending outside the boat. In the foreground the scene is announced by the symbolic heraldic trumpet on the left—in this case a mid-length straight trumpet with an especially wide bell—and an equally symbolic drum on the right. A statuette with a similar symbolic trumpet surmounts the dome of the Teatro del mondo. More realistic, because they accord with actual Venetian practice, are the single mid-length straight trumpets on two of the smaller boats situated above-left and above-right of the pavilion. Signal trumpets on boats were commonplace in Venice, as discussed in paragraph 5.19.343

24.3 There is also an independent engraving of the Bucintoro in the bacino by Franco in the Museo Correr, inscribed "Prospetiva et Apparato nella Piazza di S. Marco col Nobilissimo et Gran Vascel Bucintoro nel quale la Ser.ma Dogaressa Moresina Grimani fu condotta dalla Ill.ma Sig.ria dal suo nel Ducal Palazzo . . ." (Figure 32). Once again, the doge's pifferi, consisting of four shawms and two trombones, are visible. In this engraving two of the instruments are illustrated in enough detail to indicate unequivocally that they are shawms. As in Franco's other engraving of the event, mid-length trumpets are also shown on several boats in the flotilla, and drums may be seen in yet other boats. A specially built ramp for disembarkation onto the piazzetta at the upper right is populated with trumpeters and drummers awaiting the dogaressa's arrival. Some of the trumpets are obviously mid-length straight trumpets, but others are not clear enough to exclude the possibility of their being folded instruments. Three boats in the center are firing their artillery and an extensive row of bonfires, probably the origin of fireworks, can be seen on the riva at the top left. The Teatro del mondo is not shown in this engraving. Once again the bottom corners of the picture are framed by a single mid-length trumpet with an exceptionally wide bell on the left, balanced by a single drum in the lower right-hand corner.  [Return to paragraph 22.1, 32.1.]

25. Giovanni Grevembroch's Illustration of Trombe d'argento

25.1 While the Gentile Bellini painting stems from the very beginning of the period that is the main focus of this article, a costume book by Giovanni Grevembroch, which includes an illustration of two trumpeters (trombettieri) with their trombe d'argento, shows us an eighteenth-century view of their livery and their instruments (Figure 33).344 The trumpets depicted are long, thin instruments, less than eight feet in length, with the pair of trumpets supported near the bells by a single boy. These instruments contrast significantly with the much larger trumpets of the Pagan woodcut and the Franco engraving, where every instrument is supported by a separate boy. Grevembroch's trumpets are more like those in Bellini's Processione della Croce, though Grevembroch's appear a little longer, and Bellini's are not supported by boys. Each of Grevembroch's illustrations is accompanied by a written commentary; the notes on the trombettieri summarize in a somewhat confusing manner the history of these instruments. According to Grevembroch, the trumpeters were in earlier times numbered among the courtiers, and were fewer, but were then increased. At that time the trumpets were not as long as they are at present, and were used to announce the imminent arrival of the doge. In 1473 they were enlarged to their present size and were carried by six comandadori for show alone without playing them. Because they were inconveniently long they had to be supported at the front by boys. Grevembroch also says that a confraternity of instrumentalists had been established in the Augustinian monastic church of San Stefano.345

25.2 Grevembroch's previous illustration in the same volume is of a representative of the some fifty comandadori, eight of whom carried the ducal banners in processions, followed, according to Grevembroch, by six who carried the trombe d'argento. In his commentary to this illustration, Grevembroch repeats aspects of his commentary on the trombettieri, saying that the trumpets had once weighed 24 marche, then were rebuilt by Nicolò Marcello in the fifteenth century at the size that they are at present, and that at one time they had been supported on the shoulders of boys.346

25.3 Since Grevembroch's book is a costume book, it is possible to compare the costumes of his trombettieri and comandadori with those in Bellini's painting, Pagan's xylograph, and Franco's engraving. The costumes of Bellini's trumpet players are somewhat varied, but resemble more Grevembroch's trombettieri than his comendadori, while the standard bearers directly in front of the trumpeters in Bellini's painting are clearly wearing Grevembroch's comandadori costume. In the Pagan woodcut, the trumpeters wear a costume similar to the comandadori, but without the golden medallion specified by Grevembroch and worn by Pagan's comandadori (in the woodcut, all but two of the comandadori wear a cape shorter than that borne by the trumpeters). In Franco's engraving, the trumpeters are wearing shorter capes than the comandadori and possibly a different beret.

26. Grevembroch's Illustration of a Suonatore di Piffero

26.1 In addition to the trombettieri, Grevembroch also illustrates a suonatore di piffero, who holds a shawm of the size typically used in Venetianprocessions (Figure 34). Grevembroch's illustration of a shawm is no more detailed than Pagan's (Figure 15). In his commentary on this instrument, Grevembroch remarks that it was the custom at four special banquets, on the Bucintoro, and on ceremonial barges (nelli Peatoni) to add two silver trumpets and several trombones to the pifferi so that the sinfonia would sound more melodious and noisy (for a depiction of such barges and added instruments, see Figure 24).347 In other words, outside of their role in state processions, the pifferi were often joined by other instruments when they performed atmospheric or banquet music. The silver trumpets mentioned by Grevembroch in this context were definitely not the trombe d'argento del doge—which were used only for processions—but rather shorter, very likely folded, trumpets, suitable for chamber music, also made of silver. Grevembroch clearly distinguishes these instruments from trombones. [Return to note 233.]

27. Iconographical Representations of Heraldic Trumpets

27.1 Andrea Vincentino's "Embarkation of the Dogaressa" and "Disembarkation of the Dogaressa" as well as the two Franco engravings discussed above picture their heraldic trumpets in accord with a convention that placed such instruments in the lower left or the lower right-hand corner of a painting or engraving. Often the trumpet or trumpets are accompanied by a drum or balanced by a drum in the opposite corner of the illustration. In Francesco Maffei's "Procession for the Translation of Relics" in the Old Duomo of Brescia, likely from the second quarter of the seventeenth century, a group of folded trumpets as heralds appear in the lower right-hand corner. Another example of a single folded trumpet and drum appears in a genre painting by Matteo Ponzoni of "The Adoration of the Magi" from 1629, now in the Museo Civico in Treviso.348 The trumpet and drum at the far right are symbols of royalty—the three kings. In a long, but not very tall painting from before 1631by Matteo Ingoli depicting the disembarkation of the newly elected Doge Tommaso Mocenigo (1414–1423), a trumpet and drum are positioned on the left hand side.349 In Jacopo Palma the Younger's "The Crusaders Assault Constantinople" in the doge's palace in Venice (Figure 35) a single folded trumpet appears in the lower left-hand corner and another near the bow of the large ship, while a large drum appears in the foreground on the right. Another example of a folded trumpet and drums as part of a public ceremony, this time fully integrated with the central event, can be seen in Pietro Damini's painting (c. 1619–21) of Captain Silvestro Valier receiving the keys of his command, hanging in the City Hall of Padua. On the left of the central figures is a large drum without trumpet, and on the right a folded trumpet with a drum just beneath (Figure 36 and Figure 37). Again the trumpet and drums serve as icons for the military connotations of the ceremony.  [Return to: paragraph 28.3, 45.3.]

27.2 The folded trumpets in the Ponzoni, Damini, and Le Clerc paintings, as well as in Vicentino's "Disembarkation of the Dogaressa," are all of the type well-known from Nuremberg makers of the sixteenth century. However, there were other sources of folded trumpets as well, some of which have only recently been discovered.350 The predecessor of such folded instruments was the S-shaped trumpet (see paragraph 2.1). S-shaped trumpets can be seen in the center of a famous painting by Vittore Carpaccio of the "Ten Thousand Crucified on Mount Ararat" from 1515 in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.351 Numerous iconographical sources from throughout Europe depict such instruments, which were still in occasional use early in the sixteenth century but were soon fully supplanted by folded instruments.352 [Return to paragraph 41.2.]

28. Mid-length Straight Trumpets in Venetian Iconography

28.1 Despite these representations of folded trumpets, Venetian paintings and engravings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries depict more mid-length straight trumpets than the full-size folded variety, while the S-shaped instrument is rather rare, reflecting its obsolescence. Such moderate length straight trumpets had existed alongside the longer straight busine since the latter became prominent in the period after 1100.353 A battery of five of these straight trumpets announces the festivities in Carpaccio's "Meeting of Ursula and Erus and the Departure of the Pilgrims" of 1495, the largest painting in Carpaccio's cycle of Saint Ursula (Figure 38 and Figure 39).354 The trumpets are all of moderate length and open out more broadly in their bells than the typical conical bell, where the increase in diameter of the conical segment is more gradual. At least a dozen such trumpets are scattered around the circular parapet of the Castel Sant'Angelo in the background of another painting from this cycle, "Meeting of the Pilgrims with the Pope."355 In the very center of yet another painting in the series, "The Martyrdom of the Pilgrims and Funeral of Saint Ursula," a single straight trumpet is played by a rider on horseback (Figure 6).356 The position of the rider and trumpet give the figure special prominence.  [Return to: paragraph 31.1, note 390.]

28.2 A series of seven paintings from the late seventeenth century by Alessandro Piazza in the Museo Correr depict episodes in the life of Francesco Morosini, a great military officer, who was doge from 1688 until 1694. One highly detailed painting shows his departure for the Levant. At the left, the ducal procession embarks on the Bucintoro, surrounded by a crowd of sailing ships and gondolas of various sizes (Figure 40).357 A close-up of the large sailing ship in the foreground (Figure 41) reveals two trumpeters on the bow with mid-length straight trumpets and what may be a group of similar trumpets with banners appended in the lower left-hand corner. Another painting in Piazza's series shows eight short straight trumpets about three feet long followed by two drums in Morosini's funeral procession (Figure 10).358

28.3 In the Matteo Ingoli painting of the disembarkation of the Doge Tommasseo Mocenigo mentioned in paragraph 27.1, the trumpet is a relatively short, straight instrument, perhaps three feet in length, with a particularly wide bell, clearly larger than the bells of the folded trumpets in Le Clerc's painting of the crusade oath of Doge Enrico Dandolo (Figure 8), Vicentino's painting of the disembarkation of the dogaressa (Figure 28), or Damini's painting of Silvestro Valier's investiture (Figure 37). Antonio Vassilacchi detto l'Aliense's large painting from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century of the disembarkation in Venice of Caterina Cornaro, queen of Cyprus, shows a single, straight trumpet approximately three feet long with a somewhat larger than normal bell and a single drum in the background to the right (see Figure 42).359 [Return to paragraph 40.1.]

29. Iconographical Allegories with Mid-length and Short Straight Trumpets

29.1 Such straight trumpets, shorter than the old busine, appear not only amidst realistic scenography, but also in strictly allegorical representations, both in northern Europe and in Italy. A wooden altar figure about 80 cm high in the Dorfkirche of Döben, dating from 1591 and probably by Franz Ditterich the Elder, consists of a putto playing an unrealistically short straight trumpet with an unusually wide, probably fanciful, bell.360 Several such trumpets with rather wide bells can be seen in a ceiling by Domenico Bruni from the mid-seventeenth century in the Villa Negrelli (on the Venetian terrafirma at Stra).361 In the early sixteenth century, Lodovico Mazzolino, a native of Ferrara who studied in Bologna, but also possibly Venice, inserted such a trumpet, with a conical bell, into the very center of his "Massacre of the Innocents," located in the Galleria Doria in Rome (see Figure 43). Similar trumpets can be seen in the Sistine Chapel in Michelangelo's "Last Judgment."362

29.2 Such instruments are the vehicles for disseminating messages from heaven or the fame of worldly figures and places. Cesare Ripa, in his Iconologia, first published by the heirs of Giovanni Gigliotti in Rome in 1593, then reprinted and expanded numerous times, associates the trumpet with fame and glory (the use of trumpets as symbols of fame has already been noted in paragraphs 13.5 and 23.4).363 One of the most beautiful contexts for the celebration of glory is Paolo Veronese's "Triumph of Venice" of 1583 on the ceiling of the Great Council Hall of the doge's palace.364 The winged figure at the very top of the painting holds a short straight trumpet of fame, perhaps three feet in length. Mid-length straight trumpets lead the parade entitled "The Triumph of Faith" in a woodcut based on a Titian sketch.365 The straight trumpet as the symbol for broadcasting fame can be seen in Antonio Servi's "Glorification of the Podestà Giulio Gabriel" of 1677 in the Rotonda of Rovigo, where the message visibly emerges from the bell of the instrument (Figure 44). Another example of such an instrument appears in Lodovico David's painting of the Graces from the "School of the Nude" in the Palazzo Albrizzi in Venice from around the third quarter of the seventeenth century.366 Perhaps the most famous example of the trumpet as a symbol of fame is Bernardo Strozzi's allegorical Personification of Fame of c. 1635–36 in the National Gallery in London (https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/bernardo-strozzi-a-personification-of-fame), already mentioned in paragraph 23.4. Strozzi portrays a finely detailed, obviously realistic instrument of probably little more than two feet in length held in the left hand of a young female angel. In her right hand is an equally detailed alto shawm. [Return to paragraph 30.4.]

29.3 The collection of poetry for Claudio Monteverdi's funeral, published in 1644, has a border on the frontispiece with a great variety of musical instruments (Figure 45). Two straight trumpets as symbols for the dissemination of the composer's fame emerge from behind the oval medallion containing an image of Monteverdi's head. Two other trumpets are represented in the border—an S-shaped instrument and what appears to be a folded trumpet. Both of these as well as the two straight trumpets possess no detail and are more allegorical than realistic; all four have unusually wide bells.

30. Categories of Iconography: Heavenly and Mythical Allegorical Scenes

30.1 The principal question raised by the iconography of musical instruments is the accuracy with which they are depicted. Different paintings and engravings serve different purposes, and realistic, accurate depiction of musical instruments is not necessarily an artist's primary goal. Several scholars have issued warnings and criteria regarding the appropriate use of iconography in making determinations about the musical instruments illustrated.367 Assisting in determining the probability of accuracy of an iconographical representation are such methods as categorizing genres of illustrations, understanding the functions they serve, observing the accuracy of other details, comparing an image with actual surviving instruments or with depictions known to be accurate, and comparing a sizable number of representations by different artists. The latter method, which James McKinnon calls the "survey principle," is especially important when we do not have surviving examples of instruments.368

30.2 One of the broad categories of representation comprises allegorical scenes. Allegorical scenes often picture angels and putti in the heavens blowing trumpets of various types and sizes. In Albrecht Dürer's 1498 "The Seven Trumpets Are Given to the Angels" from the Revelation of St. John, there are seven fanciful long, thin trumpets (four of them curved) with very shallow, very wide bells.369 We can even see such a fanciful depiction of instruments in an unprepossessing worldly context in Dürer's1515 woodcut of a German trumpet corps.370 This excerpt from Maximilian I's prayer book shows six folded trumpets (the positions of the players' hands strongly suggest that these are slide instruments) with enormous, obviously exaggerated bells, created for visual effect rather than for accuracy.

30.3 Heavenly scenes continued in popularity well into the eighteenth century, with many examples by the Venetian Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Straight trumpets of moderate length are featured in several of Tiepolo's ceilings, such as "The Apotheosis of the Pisani Family" in the Museum of Fine Arts at Angers and "The Triumph of Strength and Wisdom" in the collection of Count Bonacossi in Florence.371 In Tiepolo's "Translation of the Holy House of Loreto" in the Gallerie della Accademia in Venice372 and his "Coronation of the Virgin" in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, folded, rather than straight, trumpets are depicted.373 All four paintings are highly fanciful and allegorical in nature, and do not offer particularly accurate representations of the trumpets. All four display the typical widely flared bells characteristic of trumpets in such celestial scenes, and in "The Coronation of the Virgin," the trumpet at the bottom has a very wide throat as well.

30.4 However, the presence of an instrument in an allegorical scene does not necessarily mean that it is a fanciful representation, nor the opposite—that it is depicted realistically. Both approaches can be found. In fact, in such allegorical scenes, the straight busine, often realistically illustrated, is by far the most common instrument. Trumpets may be a long busine, or a shorter trumpet, both visible in Fra Angelico's "Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven" of c.1435 in the National Gallery in London (https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/probably-by-fra-angelico-christ-glorified-in-the-court-of-heaven). Giovanni Bellini's "Allegory of Prudence" of c. 1490 in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice depicts a nude female figure with a small boy at the bottom left holding a short straight trumpet while another similar trumpet is propped against the wall in the background.374 Both trumpets display rather wide bells and are less than three feet in length, judging by their relation to the female figure. In the foreground another small boy plays a tiny drum, once again demonstrating the usual association of trumpets with drums. Although the trumpets are clearly allegorical and may be somewhat fanciful, the bell of the foreground instrument in particular is not so wide as to be unrealistic. A simple, but fairly realistic depiction of a folded trumpet appears in Andrea Vicentino's "Venus in the Forge of the Cyclops" from around the turn of the seventeenth century in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice (Figure 46). The very short trumpet in Bernardo Strozzi's "Personification of Fame," as described in paragraphs 23.4 and 29.2, is remarkably realistic in its detail. Giulio Carpioni's "Allegory of the Podestà Vincenzo Dolfin" of 1647 in the Museo Civico of Vicenza (Figure 47) illustrates another rather short straight trumpet of realistic shape and proportion but without detail.

30.5 It is by comparison with other categories of painting and engraving that we may determine the relative accuracy of the instruments in such allegorical scenes. The bells of these allegorical trumpets are sometimes their most fanciful aspect. Some tend to flare out quickly into large flat bells, which seem unlikely to have represented any actual manufacturing practice, since the thinning of the metal to this degree would have made it very fragile. Rather, these large flared bells represent metaphorically the purpose of the trumpet—to broadcast to the world the glory of God, or the divine message. Similarly, the trumpet was the standard symbol for worldly fame. From a pictorial/metaphorical standpoint, the large flared bell on so many of these instruments conveys the concept of wide dissemination better than the more narrow, confining conical bell that actual surviving instruments typically possess.375 On the other hand, an allegorical instrument is occasionally depicted quite realistically, as in Bernardo Strozzi's Personification of Fame.

31. Categories of Iconography: Allegories of Religious Events

31.1 A second category of allegorical painting constitutes depictions of religious history that are presented allegorically. In such paintings there is often an effort to illustrate people, animals, costumes, and instruments in a realistic manner, even if the geographical setting may be imaginary. The Carpaccio cycle of paintings on the life of St. Ursula (see paragraphs 9.3 and 28.1) displays realistic figures in an imaginary physical environment, sometimes conflating two or more temporally successive scenes in a single painting as was so common in medieval hagiographic paintings. While many of Carpaccio's buildings are imaginary (with the notable exception of the Castel Sant'Angelo), the cycle is replete with elaborate, accurate and minutely detailed depictions of several different kinds of contemporary sailing vessels. Numerous other features, such as costumes and animals, are just as detailed and realistic as the ships, and there is no reason to think that the musical instruments, though not a principal focus of attention, are not equally realistic.376

31.2 In religious historical paintings and engravings such as these, we can assume that the instruments pictured may well be closely representative of those actually in existence at the time the work was executed. Here the question is just how careful or accurate in detail a particular painter or engraver was. For example, we have already seen how Matteo Pagan's detailed illustration of a ducal procession, despite its precision in displaying costumes and most of the ducal insignia, is neither detailed nor careful when it comes to the musical instruments (see section 17). Nevertheless, even if some details may be inaccurate, the general shape of an instrument is likely to be more realistic in such illustrations than in allegorical heavenly scenes. Another factor distinguishing heavenly allegories from worldly, historical allegories, is that the heavenly allegory became a tradition of genre painting, so that the long busine, with or without flared bell, became a standardized iconographical element in such paintings and continued to appear long after such instruments had passed out of practical use. This iconographical tradition is less likely to be a consideration in more earthly allegories.

32. Categories of Iconography: Historical Events

32.1 An even more reliable genre with regard to accuracy of representation comprises paintings and engravings of actual historical events that attempt to record these events as memorials or souvenirs for the participants and for posterity. In contrast to other cities in Italy, Venice is fortunate to be represented by remarkably detailed paintings and engravings of a number of specific processions and other civic events, such as those described in sections 16–24.

32.2 These illustrations all tend to realism in their depictions of the figures, costuming, instruments, and physical setting, intending to record these aspects of an event as accurately as possible. Nevertheless, detailed realism in one feature of an illustration may not be accompanied by equally detailed realism in another, as we have already seen with respect to Pagan's woodcut (see section 17).377 Numerous details of Vicentino's paintings of the coronation of the dogaressa correspond closely with the description of the event by Giovanni Stringa, but Vicentino's representation of the procession in the piazzetta (Figure 48) dispenses with the canopy under which everyone marched, unequivocally described by Stringa.378 The realism of Vicentino's scene of the disembarkation of the dogaressa onto the piazzetta also does not prevent its possessing allegorical elements (Figure 28). The trumpeters and drummers are positioned or "staged" symbolically on the canvas, but represent realistically the role trumpets and drums would have played in such a procession (as indeed described by Stringa), and their dimensions and shape appear unusually accurate in detail. In fact, the trumpets depicted by Vicentino are virtually identical to the one illustrated by Praetorius in his Theatrum Instrumentorum of 1620, published as an appendix to his second volume of the Syntagma musicum (Figure 49, item 10).379 Marin Mersenne's 1635 engraving of a trumpet is very similar (Figure 50).380 They are also virtually identical to the surviving examples from German workshops illustrated below. There is no reason, therefore, not to consider Vicentino's representations of mid-length trumpets accurate as well.  [Return to paragraph 40.1.]

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References to Part III

284 For a commentary, never finished, on this series of nine paintings (only eight of which survive), see Ludovico Zorzi, "L'immagine della città nel ciclo di San Giovanni Evangelista," ed. Elvira Garbero Zorzi, Biblioteca Teatrale 19/20 (1990): 33–62. The series, now housed in gallery XX of the Gallerie dell'Accademia, was commissioned from Gentile Bellini's shop around 1494, with Bellini himself executing three of them. Zorzi's incomplete article, unfortunately, does not address Bellini's Processione as an individual work. Sansovino, in his account of the scuola, describes the original locations of all nine paintings. See Sansovino/Martinioni, Venezia città nobilissima, 284.

285 See Sandra Moschini Marconi, Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia: Opere d'arte dai secoli XIV e XV (Rome: Istituto Poligrafica dello Stato, 1955), 61–63.

286 These singers and instrumentalists were identified by Howard Brown as the musical establishment of the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista. See Howard M. Brown, "On Gentile Bellini's Processione in San Marco," International Musicological Society Report, Berkeley, 1977 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1981), 649–58. A close-up detail of these musicians is reproduced in Jonathan Glixon, "Music at the Venetian Scuole Grandi," Music in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 199. A color reproduction of this portion of the painting can be found in Luisi, Laudario Giustinianeo II, plates XVII–XVIII. A close-up of the trumpeters and pifferi serves as the dust jacket of Arnold, Giovanni Gabrieli. A recent study of this painting, concentrating on the musicians of the scuola, is Rodolfo Baroncini, "Voci e strumenti nella 'processione in piazza San Marco': considerazioni metodologiche in margine a un celebre dipinto di Gentile Bellini," Fonti musicali italiane 5 (2000): 77–87. Baroncini's argument is that the instrumentalists and singers performed in free alternation rather than the instrumentalists supplying accompaniment to the voices as assumed by other scholars. We are grateful to John W. Hill for bringing this article to our attention.

287 On the enlargement of the trumpets, see notes 345 and 346. Art historians have been interested in the painting as a representation of an earlier stage of the piazza but have not assumed that it represents Bellini's idea of how the piazza had looked in 1444. See Marconi, Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia, I: 62. Indeed, scholars have noted that Bellini's depiction of the piazza, despite its detail, is not wholly accurate; the campanile was somewhat displaced to give a more open view of the ducal palace, whose windows are not represented quite accurately. See Rodolfo Baroncini, "Voci e strumenti," 86; and Edoardo Arslan, "Qualche appunto sul palazzo ducale di Venezia," Bollettino d'Arte, ser. 5, 50 (1965): 58. Zorzi, in discussing one of the other paintings in the series, notes the deliberately archaic clothing on the figures in relation to the clothing styles of the late 15th century. See Zorzi, "L'immagine della città," 48.

288 In his discussion of this painting, Howard Brown identifies the term pifferi, as used in a 1564 ceremoniale,with shawms, excluding the trombones. See his "On Gentile Bellini's Processione," 650, especially note 6. However, as we have already seen, it was common for the term to include the trombones as well. Bellini's depiction of the trombone on the outside as a U-shaped double-slide trombone, dates only six years after the first known painting of such an instrument, Filippino Lippi's fresco, "The Assumption of the Virgin" in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. See McGee, "Misleading iconography," 150–52. By the time of Bellini's painting (1496), the pifferi had already expanded to six, but the painting, of course, represents an earlier period. A list of the four pifari and two tromboni making up the pifferi del doge in 1494–95 is published in Baroncini, "Se canta dalli cantori," 351. Francesco Luisi attempted to identify the names of the five playersin Bellini's painting from an archival source dated February 2, 1503, presuming that the ensemble comprised the same personnel in 1503 as in 1496. See Luisi, Laudario Giustinianeo, I: 467. The document names three players of the piffaro and two of the trombone. The five players together are referred to as Piffari del Principe, indicating that the terms Piffari del Principe, Pifari dil Doxe,and Pifari del Serenissimo (for the latter two, see paragraphs 33–34 on the terminology of Marin Sanudo) comprise the trombones as well as the shawms. However, none of the names cited by Luisi concur with the list of 1494–95 published by Baroncini. Between 1506 and 1512, the six pifferi del doge all became members of the Scuola di Santa Maria dei Mercanti and are listed in the scuola's mariegola along with three others who are not identified as belonging to the doge's ensemble. See Glixon, "Con canti et organo," 127. In Glixon, "Music at the Venetian 'Scuole grandi'," I: 210–11 and II: 74 (doc. 195), the musicians are indicated as belonging to the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, in whose fondo it had been mistakenly placed. The document is now in the fondo Venice, Archivio di Stato, Scuole Piccole e Suffraggi. This list is also published in Baroncini, ibid., 363. The list,evenly balanced between 3 pifferi and 3 trombones, corresponds with none of the names cited by Luisi but does agree in four of its names with the list from 1494–95. Moreover, one of the pifari not identified by the scuola as part of the doge's ensemble is named among the pifferi del doge in 1494–95. The reason for the discrepancy between the names in the 1503 list published by Luisi on the one hand and the names shared by the lists of 1494–95 and the Scuola della Misericordia of the period 1506–1512 is a mystery. According to Baroncini, ibid., 340, pifferi ensembles in Padua and Venice generally consisted of five or six players from the late fifteenth century onward. As previously noted, the shawmswere likely often replaced by cornettos for indoor performances during the 16th century, as was the case elsewhere in Italy (see the discussion of Siena, Bologna, Rome and Mantua in sections 4 and 5. See also Baroncini, ibid., 340–41). The evidence of Bellini's painting, Pagan's xylograph, and the woodcuts of Amman, Franco, and Van der Aa , however, indicates that whereas the doge's pifferi ensemble may have played cornettos and trombones in St. Mark's and for festivities in the palace, the louder and more pungent shawms were still used for outdoor processions. Return to note 255.

289 See David Rosand and Michelangelo Muraro, Titian and the Venetian Woodcut, Catalogue of Exhibition organized and circulated by International Exhibitions Foundation, 1976–1977, 281–82. Rosand and Muraro utilized a copy of the Pagan print in the British Museum (1860-4-14-167).

290 Muir, Civic Ritual, 194, cites a few discrepancies between Pagan's woodcut and the order designated by the Ceremoniale del Doge, which he ascribes to aesthetic considerations. These include the separation of the pifferi from the trombe d'argento by the retainers of the foreign ambassadors, the displacement of the Grand Chancellor and the maintenance of the pairing of persons instead of crowding three abreast at some points in the corteo. There would normally have been three abreast where two squires carried the doge's gold faldstool and the doge's gold cushion, flanking the ballotino (a boy who had been selected to handle election ballots), as well as where the doge was flanked by the imperial ambassador and the papal legate. Pagan places the ambassadorial servants between the trombe d'argento and the pifferi, while the mid-16th-century documents cited in note 304 indicate that the pifferi followed directly after the trombe d'argento as they do in the Bellini Processione. On the other hand, Sansovino, in 1581, placed the comandatori between the trumpets and the pifferi. See Sansovino/Martinioni, Venezia città nobilissima, 493. The order of elements in the Ceremoniale del Doge, Pagan's woodcut and an engraving by Giacomo Franco (see section 19)are compared in Table 1.

291 See the discussion of the shapes of slide trumpets and the double-slide trombone in McGee, "Misleading iconography," 152–53.

292 Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, con tre indici delle voci, locuzioni, e proverbi Latini, e Greci, posti per entro l'opera (Venice: Giovanni Alberti, 1612), 909. "Tromba. Strumento di fiato, proprio della milizia, fatto d'ottone. . . E Trombone diciamo a uno strumento musicale di fiato." For the distinction between "musical" trumpets with slides and signaling trumpets, see Keith Polk, "The Trombone in Archival Documents," 24–31. The ambiguity of terminology regarding trumpets and trombonesis discussed in notes 67 and 80.

293 John Florio, Queen Anna's New World of Words, or Dictionarie of the Italian and English tongues . . . London, Printed by Melch. Bradwood, for Edw. Blount and William Barret. Anno 1611, 581.Facs. ed. Menston, England: The Scolar Press Limited, 1968.

294 Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca . . . Quinta impressione (Venice: Francesco Pitteri, 1741).Even as late a dictionary as Giulio Cappuccini and Bruno Migliorini, Vocabolario della lingua italiana (Turin: G.B. Paravia & c., 1953), 1702, lists trombone under the term tromba and describes it as "la più grossa delle trombe." The diaries of Marin Sanudo often mention trombe et pifferi or trombe, pifferi et cornetti when referring to wind instruments, though Sanudo also occasionally uses the term trombone. See sections 33–34 for our discussion of Sanudo's references and terminology.

295 Jonathan Glixon, in a personal communication, has noted that non-musical Venetian writers often refer to the trombone by the generic term tromba. On the other hand, contemporaneous descriptions of musical events often distinguish unequivocally between trombe and tromboni, not only as distinctly separate instruments, but also as performing quite separate functions. For a large number of such documents, see Stefani, Musica e religione nell'Italia barocca; and idem, Musica barocca: poetica e ideologia, 32–34, 61–65. For a discussion of the history of terminology regarding trumpets and trombones, see Polk, "The Trombone in Archival Documents."

296 The Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca of 1612, 910, defines Trombetta as "Dim. Di tromba." The term may also be used for a player of the trumpet: "Per sonator di tromba." The alternative spelling "Trombetto" is also given. One of the literary quotations in this entry distinguishes between trombe and trombette: "Fece sonare trombe, e trombette, e mandò bando, che ogni huomo cavalcasse verso, ec." The meaning of trombetti in Florentine documents is discussed in note 67. For Praetorius' apparently unique identification of trombetti as trombones, see note 80. For further discussion of terminology, see section 37.

297 Domino du Cange, Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, rev. ed. Leopold Favre, 1883–1887 (facs. ed. Graz : Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1954). We are grateful to Stewart Carter for this reference. The ancient barbiton was a lyre-like instrument with longer arms than the lyre and with the yoke above the strings rather than crossing the strings. See James W. McKinnon, "Barbiton," The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (London: Macmillan Publishers, Ltd., 1984), I: 156.

298 A detail of this work was published in Patricia Fortini Brown, Renaissance in Venice (London: Everyman Art Library, 1997), 88, plate 59.

299 An engraving in the doge's palace, executed in 1729 by the sculptor Antonio Coradin, features the Bucintoro in great detail as it sails outward for the Feast of the Sensa. Coradin pinpoints the position on the boat of each element from the ducal procession with numbers and a table. The eight commandatori with the standards, the six commandatori "wearing red berets" with their trombe d'argento, and the piffari "dressed in red and [playing] with sweet harmony" are all crowded into the bow of the ship, while the doge occupies the stern, as in all other depictions of the Bucintoro. The engraving is reproduced in Knezevich, Il magnifico principe, 90–91.

300 The print is dedicated to Vincenzo II Gonzaga 1. January, 1610.

301 On the ceremony and origins of the doge's annual Christmas eve and Christmas day andate to San Giorgio Maggiore, see Urban, Processioni e feste dogali, 105–7.

302 That there had been sets of trombe d'argento of different sizes is clear from Sansovino and Grevembroch (see notes 345 and 346).

303 The engraving is identified as the work of Van Vianen in Urban, Processioni e feste dogali, plate 12. In other sources, it is identified as the work of Pieter van der Aa. Van der Aa was a Dutch publisher of the early 18th century who purchased, plagiarized and published under his own name plates from a number of engravers, the origins of many of which cannot now be traced. The largest of his collections was La galérie agréable du Monde, published in 66 parts in Leiden in 1729. See the introduction to Europäische Städte-Ansichten um 1700 (Hamburg: Harry v. Hofmann Verlag, 1963). The present plate is numbered 106, but we have not yet had an opportunity to ascertain if it forms part of La galérie.

304 Bartolomeo Cecchetti, Il Doge di Venezia (Venice: Prem. Stabil. Tip. Di P. Naratovich, 1864), 275–94. For the complete text of the "Ceremoniale del doge," giving the order of participants in three types of procession as quoted by Cecchetti, see Document 7. Howard Brown, in "On Gentile Bellini's Processione in San Marco," 650 cites two sources from 1564 that locate the pifferi immediately behind the trombe d'argento: Venice, Archivio di Stato, Procuratia d Supra di San Marco, Regolamenti Ecclesiastici ed Amministrativi, Ceremoniali, Registro 98: "Rituum Ecclesiasticorum Ceremoniale Iuxta Ducalis Ecclesiae S. Marci consuetudinem ex Vetustissimis eiusdem Ecclesiae Codibus qua diligentissime undique collectum et in ampliorem formam et ordinem novissime renovatum, Anno Domini MDLXIV", fol. 43v: "Tibicines Cum tubis longis argenteis, deinde Tibicines Domini Ducis cum Tubis ductilibis"("Long silver trumpets, then the trombones of the Lord Doge"); and Ceremoniale, fol. 76, "Gli Ordini con li quali Il Serenissimo Principe va con li stendardi, e segni Trionfali": "Poi seguitano 6 Trombe de Arzento longhe à ciascuna delle quali pende un segno de seda stricado d'oro con l'arme domestiche del serenissimo Principe con il corno Ducal sopraposto. 2 altre trombe storte d'arzento, all'una e all'altra delle quali pende un segno purpureo con l'arma del Serenissimo Principe e 3. Piffari."("Then follow 6 long silver trumpets from each of which hangs a silk banner striped with gold with the personal arms of the doge and the ducal crown above. 2 other silver trombones, from each of which hangs a purple banner with the arms of the doge, and 3 cornettos."). The engraving of Vianen discussed in section 20 also places the pifferi immediately after the sei trombe d'argento. Return to note 290. Return to Table1.

305 Edward Muir has compiled an order of procession based on five separate sources, which differs in some details from all three versions of Table 1. See Muir, Civic Ritual, 190–93. Muir gives a detailed account of the evolution of Venetian processions and the protocols that governed their order on pp. 185–211.

306 Despite the elaborate protocols for processions, the obligations of various groups were evidently ignored or evaded at times. For example, in the early 1580s, the Procuratori sought to lighten their burden of participation in so many processions by rotating their representation in the ducal corteo on a fixed schedule. At times they even seem to have gone unrepresented altogether. In November 1581 the Council of Ten criticized the Procuratori for not participating adequately in processions to the embarrassment of the Republic and set fines for future infractions. See Edwards, "Claudio Merulo," 152–53.

307 The ceremonial for the ducal cortege was revised during the first half of the 16th century, after which there were few changes until the end of the republic in 1797. See Urban, Processioni e feste dogali, 182–83.

308 All three chroniclers were eyewitnesses to the festivities. Giovanni Stringa's account was published some seven years after the fact in his 1604 enlargement of Sansovino's Venetia città nobilissima and reprinted in Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia città nobilissima, 416–32. The other two descriptions, published immediately, are Giovanni Rota, Lettera nella quale si descrive l'ingresso nel palazzo ducale della serenissima Morosina Morosini Grimani prencipessa di Vinetia. Co' la ceremonia della rosa benedetta, mandatale à donare dalla santità di nostro Signore (Venice, 1597); and Dario Tutio, Ordine et modo tenuto nell'incoronatione della serenissima Moresina Grimani dogaressa di Venetia. L'anno MDXCVII adi 4 di maggio. Con le feste e giochi fatti (Venice, 1597). Several other documents relevant to various facets of the ceremonies are cited in the most complete modern account of the event by Giovanni Pompe Molmenti, La Dogaressa di Venezia (Turin, 1884), 285–305. The ceremonies are also concisely described in Muir, Civic Ritual, 293–96, and Urban, Processioni e feste dogali, 210–15.

309 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia città nobilissima, 417; Tutio, Ordine et modo, 4. The tradition of the coronation of the dogaressa is described in Muir, Civic Ritual, 289–98, and in Urban, Processioni e feste dogali, 205–7. The fundamental study of the dogaressas is Molmenti, La Dogaressa di Venezia. See also Edgcumbe Staley, The Dogaressas of Venice (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1910), which relies heavily on Molmenti.

310 For Stringa's complete account of this event, see Document 11. Stringa's description is based in part on Giovanni Rota's even more comprehensive and detailed Lettera (see note 308), including passages taken directly or obviously paraphrased from Rota. Nevertheless, there is much that is worded differently in Stringa's account, and Stringa is considerably more detailed with regard to the liturgical ceremonies inside St. Mark's. It appears that Stringa used Rota's Lettera as a reminder of many details, though Stringa clearly had extensive notes of his own. Tutio's account is not chronological, like the others, and offers more detail on the decoration of rooms in the ducal palace by the artisans' guilds and on the many decorated boats of various sizes that took part in the festivities.

311 Rota, Lettera, [11]: ". . . àpena era uscito il Sole, che si cominciò, per tutta la Città, udire, in segno delle future feste, tal rumor de tamburi, e suon de trombe, che pareva che due grandissimi esserciti fussero per azzuffarsi insieme."

312 Tutio, Ordine et modo, 11: "Li Senseri, con tutto che non armassero il loro Bergantino con tanta solennità, & vaghezza, era non dimeno, à guisa di guerra, molto ben fornito di gente, & d'arme diverse, con una bella livrea, co'l Fanò lavorato con oro, con Trombe & Tamburri, che come particolar capi de gli altri, procedevano con grandezza sempre con suoni, & tiri d'Artiglieria." See also Tutio, Ordine et modo, 13: ". . . andorono con musiche, Trombe, & Tamburri . . ."

313 Tutio, Ordine et modo, 14: ". . . i Signori ascesero sopra il marabile Bucentoro, di novi banchi, à questo fine accresciuto, sopra alquale erano di già dodeci Trombetti, & altretanti Tamburri . . . e questi sonavano & quelli battevano, con generale giubilo di tutti. . . . s'inviorno verso à Cà Grimani; & nel partirsi dalla ripa, furon da Galere, da Navi grosse, & da altri Navigli, che, à guisa di meza gran Luna s'erano accommodati, con una gran salva d'artiglieria salutati, sonandosi d'ogni intorno alla distesa le campane."

314 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, città nobilissima, 417: ". . . se n'andarono al Bucintoro, nel quale ascesi, giunsero con quello, & con le piatte Ducali alla casa propria del Doge, posta à San Luca sopra il canal grande; dove giunti, al suono di trombe, e di tamburi, & allo strepito di molte artiglierie ascesero tutte le scale, & pervenuti di sopra nella Sala, il Cavaliere del Doge andò à levar la Prencipessa.." The trumpets playing with drums would not have been the six silver trumpets of the doge, but either folded trumpets or mid-length trumpets which participated in many kinds of processions, as noted several times above.

315 Rota, Lettera,[14]: "andarono prima dodici, tamburi, et dodici trombe, sei pifferi . . . ." The pifferi are the six pifferi of the doge (including an unspecified number of trombones), as noted in Tutio, Ordine et modo, 15, who includes in his description the doge's silver trumpets as well: "Finita questa ceremonia, [in the Grimani palace] le gentildonne cominciorno à discendere le scale facendo spaliera alla Serenissima, laquale si presentò per entrare in Bucentoro con quest' ordine; li primi, oltre li Trombetti & li Tamburri, che già v'erano, furono i Piffari della Serenissima Signoria, vestiti di panno scarlatto alla longa, poi le Trombe d'argento . . ."

316 Rota, Lettera, [15]: [G]rande, & maraviglioso fù lo strepito, che si levò nel comparir, ch'Ella fece, & sentìsi in un subito mirabili, & dolci suoni di molti stromenti, ch'empivan l'aria d'accordati concerti, & l'aria stessa, rimbombando nella concavità de' vaselli, accresceva la melodia del suono."

317 Rota, Lettera, [17]. After a detailed description of the vessel and its two corridors, one inside and one outside the columns, Rota says "sopra li corritori stavano 24 huomini, che suonavano trombe, & toccavano tamburi, che in vero pur troppo bella, et dilettevole vista rendeva." According to Tutio, Ordine et modo, p. 5, "dalla parte dinanzi su la prospettiva, stavano sei Trombetti benissimo vestiti à livrea di verde con oro, & sei altri erano posti su quella di dietro, liquali, à vicenda sempre sonavano."

318 Tutio, Ordine et modo, 16: "Giunto per canale il Bucentoro à vista di San Marco, fu salutato da più da quattrocento pezzi d'Artiglieria, & al suono di gran quantità di Trombe, & al strepito di gran numero di Tamburri."

319 Rota, Lettera, [23–24]: "v'era la Fama, che, postasi la tromba alla bocca, risuonar faceva per tutto'l mondo il grido, et le lodi della Sereniss. Prencipessa." Other trumpets of fame were depicted on the reverse side of the arch and on an arch at the entrance to the ducal palace. Ibid., pp. [27–28]. See also Tutio, Ordine et modo, 12: "in mezo loro la Fama con la Tromba alla bocca."

320 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia città nobilissima, 420: " . . . tutti ornatamente vestiti di seta à livrea, i quali caminavano a due a due con le loro insegne per distinguer un'arte dall'altra, portate da Alfieri in modo, che rassembravano un'esercito: seguivano poi ventiquattro huomini vestiti a livrea, che sonavano di tamburi, e di trombe, & altri dodici, che il simil facevano con piffari, & con trombe corte d'argento, vestiti di scarlato . . ."

321 Rota's description in the Lettera, [29], was likely the source of Stringa's: "seguivano ventiquattro con tamburi, e con trombe, c'havevano le vesti all Unghera, di seta cremesina, & d'oro, con maniche di raso giallo, piene di cordelle d'argento; sei con pifferi, con lunghe vesti di scarlato, & altri sei con trombe corte d'argento, vestiti allo stesso modo." Return to note 173.

322 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia città nobilissima, 421: ". . . fu all'arrivo de i tamburi aperta, i quali facendo ala, insieme con quelli dalle trombe, & piffari, lasciarono entrare in Chiesa tutte le predette Gentildonne, che si accommodarono sopra diverse banche, poste da ambi i lati della Chiesa per quest'effetto; ma nell'entrar che fece la Prencipessa in Chiesa le fu fatta una salva bellissima d'arcobugi dalla predetta compagnia di Bombardieri, che erano alla porta, sonando i tamburi, i piffari, e le trombe, che facevano rimbombar l'aere d'una soave melodia ."

323 Rota, Lettera, [32–33]: ". . . et dopo à porsi nella sedia del Doge, & subito nell'organo, et nel pergamo da' cantori, (quali con suoni, e canti fecero musica soavissima mentre Ella stette in chiesa, fuor che nel tempo, che si fecero le cerimonie) fù detto il Cantico Te Deum laudamus, quale finito, sendosi di già incaminati avanti li tamburi, con tutto il resto della corte, & le gentildonne coll'ordine sopradetto, si drizzò Ella, seguita da' Senatori, come dissi, verso la porta di San Giacomo . . . et uscita fuori, salì per la scala Foscara . . ." See also Tutio, Ordine et modo, 16, who likewise mentions the Te Deum.

324 Rota, Lettera, [33–34]: " . . . qui fù, con bellissima musica, recevuta dal Castaldi, & compagni della scola d'essi barbieri, con parole di gran riverenza . . . passò avanti, di mano, in mano, per tutti gli altri luoghi, che quì sotto anderò discrivendo, & da' Castaldi, & compagni di quelle arti, che li havevano addobbati, & che stavano alla loro banca, sopra ricche seggiole di veluto, à sedere, aspetando ch'ella venisse, fù con suoni, pieni d'infinita dolcezza, incontrata . . ."

325 Rota, Lettera, [45]: " . . . la dolce armonia de' liuti, cornetti, pifferi, viuole, & altri variati stromenti, che s'udì sempre in tutti i luoghi, mentre passò la Serenità Sua . . ." See also Tutio, Ordine et modo, 16.

326 Tutio, Ordine et modo, 7: "Seguivano, à questi gli Orefici, che con Trombe, & Tamburi se ne stavano con molta ricchezza nel appartamento . . . Li Sartori erano nell'officio della Petitione (cosi detto) . . . con Trombe & Tamburi, & molti giuovani sfoggiatamenti vestiti . . . Nell'officio dell'Essaminatore, vi erano i Calegari . . . con vari strumenti musicali, per i quali danzarono gran parte della notte, come gli altri."

327 Tutio, Ordine et modo, 7–9: "Li Merceri habbero l'officio del Forastiero . . . con Musica eletta de' suoni, & canti. . . Li Spadari erano presso questi [li Varottieri] nell'Officio del Procuatore . . . da concerto soavissimo musicale accompagnati. . . . Li Tintori erano nell'Officio del Catavero . . . accompagnata d'un dolce commertio di Liuti, & delicate voci, che à tempo à tempo si facevano udire. . . i Pistori, i quali come tutti di natione Tedesca, havevano fuori una gran Bindiera spiegata, con trombe, tamburri, & piffari."

328 Rota, Lettera, [47]: "Venuto il seguente giorno, s'udi l'usato strepito de' tamburi, e trombe per tutta la Città, et si vide li bergantini, et le barche di prima, andar sù, et giù per i canali suonando, e cantando, con grande allegrezza."

329 Rota, Lettera, [47]: "Comparvero, su'l mezo giorno, in corte, li dodici tamburi, et le dodici trombe della Serenissima, et cominciarono à dar segno della futura festa, che quel giorno devevasi fare nella bellissima sala del Gran Conseglio . . ."

330 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia città nobilissima, 428. Stringa describes the filing in and seating arrangement of various noble wives and gentlewomen, "avanti la quale i tamburi, le trombe, & i piffari sonando andavano . . ."Although Stringa is not entirely clear about the succession of events in this passage, it seems that the drums, trumpets, and piffari actually led the procession to their seats inside St. Mark's. Rota's description in the Lettera, [49–50] is more concerned with the details of the accompanying entourage, but also is suggestive with regard to the possibility of the instruments leading the procession into St. Mark's: ". . . la Serenità della Prencipessa calò à basso, [from the ducal palace] et venne in chiesa col solito suon de tamburi, piferi, e trombe, con gli commandatori innanzi seguiti dal chierico, & capellano della Serniss. . . entrata in questa maniera in chiesa per la porta grande, andò alla sua sede . . ."

331 Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia città nobilissima, 429: "Et il Nuncio ascendendo l'Altare, & quello incensando, come ordinano le Rubriche del sacro Messale, s'incominciò à cantar Messa, con quella maggiore solennità di ceremonie, e di canti, & suoni, che in sì fatta occasione si ricercava."

332 Tutio, Ordine et modo, 19: ". . . uscendo la Serenissima di Chiesa per la porta grande verso la piazza con l'istesso ordine, che era entrata con piffari, trombe, & tamburi innanti con la solita livrea vestiti."

333 Tutio, Ordine et modo, 19: " . . . se n'andò in palazzo . . . dove era apparecchiato un solennissimo banchetto . . . dove fra tanti altri trattenimenti, questo gratiosissimo vi fu, che all'armonia di bene concertate delicate voci, si ballavano dilettevoli balletti alla forastiera, con i suoi tempi, che resero molto gusto à tutti."

334 Rota, Lettera, [55]: ". . . al suono di molte trombe, se ne vennero alla volta della moltitudine de' vaselli . . . compagnando sempre cotai giuochi con molti suoni de trombe, et de tiri d'artiglieria, oltre il grido de' circostanti spettatori . . ."

335 Rota, Lettera, [56]: ". . . variati suoni de' bellici et musici stromenti . . ." Tutio, Ordine et modo, 6, describes a banquet and journey down the Grand Canal: " . . . fu per farvi sopra un sontuoso, & lauto convito con l'intervento di Quaranta gentildonne, il terzo giorno di sera, & con copia grande di lumi, & Varie eletissime musicali armonie, in vista quasi di tutta la Città, girar pian piano con diletto universale, il Canal grande, & farvi dopò la Cena novi & gratiosi trattenimenti."

336 Rota, Lettera, [54]: "Già si cominciava à sentire un'infinità de trombe, et tamburi, che suonavano per molte parti della Città . . ."

337 Rota, Lettera, [56]: ". . . mà gran parte di quelle gentildonne, ch'erano con la Serenissima, dopo che Ella parti, entrò nella sala di Piovego, nell'officio de' Signori di notte al criminale, et in altre stanze del corritore, per udir il suono, che in ogn'uno de quei luoghi si sentiva, et quì, venuti molti de' Compagni, et altri nobili, con la libertà della sera precendente, et al solito lume de' torci, diedesi principio à diversi balli gustevoli, et quieti, che durarono, con universal contento, fino alla tre hore di notte."

338 Tutio, Ordine et modo, 20: "La mattina seguente, che fu il Mercordì, il Sereniss. Prencipe, conforme il solito, se n'andò per il palazzo, dove ritrovando tutti i luoghi dell'Arti ancor preparati, nel modo già detto, con musiche di suoni, & canti, con parole affabili . . ."

339 Rota, Lettera, [57]: " . . . impedita dalla pioggia, & dal vento, metter all'ordine la sontuosissima cena, c'havevano preparata, nel Portico Argonautico, per le mogli, & parenti loro, et per le persone proprie co' musiche, et balli, che in essa dissegnavano fare sù per lo canal grande: l'ordinarono nella gran casa de' Foscari, in volta di canale, ove splendidamente cenarono insieme, consumando parte della notte in giuochi, suoni, canti, et balli, con gran diletto, & gioia."

340 Biographical information on Vicentino can be found in Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana IX: La pittura del Cinquecento, Parte IV (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1929), 638–51.

341 The first painting in Vicentino's sequence is entitled "Imbarco della Dogaressa Morosini," and the second bears the title "Lo sbarco della Dogaressa Morosina Morosini." See Giovanni Mariacher, Il Museo Correr di Venezia: dipinti dal XIV al XVI secolo (Venice: Neri Pozza, 1957), 114–15, who lists only the second. We are grateful to the auction house Beaussant-Lefèvre in Paris for information about and a photograph of the third painting, entitled "Arrivo della Dogaressa Morosini Grimani al Palazzo Ducale."

342 An independent copy of this engraving also hangs in the Museo Correr as M.28686.

343 A late 16th- or early 17th-century painting by Leandro da Ponte, entitled La Riva degli Schiavoni, now in the Academia San Fernando in Madrid, illustrates trumpets on Venetian boats. The large scene shows the doge and Signoria embarking onto the Bucintoro, docked on the Riva degli Schiavoni, for what is probably the Feast of the Sensa. The bacino is filled with boats of various sizes as far as the eye can see, and the four boats in the foreground all have two trumpets and a drum or one trumpet and a drum in addition to their approximately one dozen passengers. These trumpets are all folded instruments, with banners hanging from the lower yard. The painting is reproduced in Georges Duby and Guy Lobrichon, Vita e Fasti di Venezia attraverso la pittura (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 1991), 128–29. See note 125.

344 Giovanni Grevembroch, Gli abiti de veneziani di quasi ogni età con diligenza raccolti e dipinti nel secolo XVIII (reprint ed., 4 vols., Venezia: Filippi Editore, 1981), III, item 10. The original version is in the Museo Correr, Gradenigo Dolfin 191, collocamento no. 49. Several images from the original version are reproduced in Denis Stevens, "Musicians in 18th-century Venice," Early Music 20 (1992): 402–8. The image of the two trombettieri with their trombe d'argento is on the cover of this issue.

345 For Grevembroch's complete text, see Document 35. Note that Grevembroch's date of 1473 for a new set of trumpets coincides with Sansovino/Martinioni, Venetia, città nobilissima, 479 regarding the commissioning of the new silver trumpets. Grevembroch's own language is not always clear and it is sometimes difficult to establish his time line for the history of these instruments.

346 Grevembroch, Gli abiti, III, item 9. For the full text, see Document 36. Marcello became doge in 1473. For Francesco Sansovino's summary of the history of these trumpets, see paragraph 8.2 and Document 9. In this passage Sansovino confirms Grevembroch's statement that earlier the trumpets were fewer in number (four) and were later increased (to six). According to Grevembroch, the trumpets were not actually played after their enlargement in 1473, but served only as visual symbols of the doge's authority (see Document 35). In fact, from a decree of 1458 ordering the firing of the doge's wind band and the hiring of five new instrumentalists, it is clear that at least before 1473, the trumpets were indeed played. The decree identifies by name three pifferi and two trombetti (the latter likely referring to players of single-slide trumpets) and orders that from their salaries this band was to maintain six other players of the trombe d'argento, who definitely played, rather than merely carried, their instruments. For the full text, see Document 37. In contrast to Grevembroch's statement about the instruments' silence after 1473, Marin Sanudo, in referring to the silver trumpets rebuilt by Doge Andrea Gritti in 1524, says that they "sona benissimo." See Sanuto, I Diarii, 35, col. 387; Sanudo's full text is given in Document 10. Grevembroch is the only witness we know of who claims that at one time the trumpeters did not actually play anything on these extraordinary instruments during the course of a procession. Return to note 143. Return to note 149. Return to note 287. Return to note 302.

347 Grevembroch, Gli abiti, III, item 11. For Grevembroch's complete text, see Document 38. That "brass" instruments were sometimes made of silver, or were decorated with silver is clearly illustrated from the many references to silver instruments in the text above and in Florentine instrument inventories cited in Gargiulo, "Strumenti musicali alla corte medicea." The word peatoni refers to covered barges, smaller than the doge's elaborate Bucintoro, for transporting the doge and senators to various sacred functions around the city. See Giuseppe Boerio, Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano, 2nd ed. (Venice: Giovanni Cecchini, 1856), 485. We are grateful to Stewart Carter, Linda Carroll, and Jonathan Glixon for this reference.

348 See Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana, II: 529, plate 220.

349 See Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana, II: 526, plate 214. According to Pallucchini, this painting is in the Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice (a private palace, not the Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo).

350 The principal literature on the Nuremberg trumpet makers includes Jahn, "Die Nürnberger Trompeten- und Posaunenmacher im 16. Jahrhundert;" Wörthmüller, "Die Nürnberger Trompeten- und Posaunenmacher des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts;" idem, "Die Instrumente der Nürnberger Trompeten- und Posaunenmacher des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts," Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 46 (1955): 372–480; Don L. Smithers, "The Trumpets of J.W. Haas: A Survey of Four Generations of Nuremberg Brass Instrument Makers," Galpin Society Journal 18 (1965): 23–41; and Robert Barclay, The Art of the Trumpet-Maker. For recent discoveries of folded trumpets manufactured elsewhere, see Geert Jan van der Heide, "The Reconstruction of a 16th-Century Italian Trumpet," Historic Brass Society Journal 8 (1996): 42–52; and Pierre-Yves Madeuf, Jean-Francois Madeuf, and Graham Nicholson, "A Remarkable Discovery: The Guitbert Trumpet of 1442," Historic Brass Society Journal 11 (1999): 181–86. Return to note 451.

351 See Manlio Cancogni and Guido Perocco, L'opera completa del Carpaccio (Milan: Rizzoli, 1967), plate LXIII. Renato Meucci has published a photograph of restored frescoes at the church of S. Pietro in Gessate in Milan, "painted by Bernardino Butinone and Bernardo Zenale during the 1490s" depicting an S-shaped trumpet (clearly a slide trumpet). See Meucci, "On the Early History," 20–24.

352 The S-shaped trumpet was structurally weak and was gradually replaced by the folded trumpet during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. See Altenburg, Untersuchungen, I: 237–38. The folded trumpet itself first appeared shortly after 1400. See Polk, "Brass instruments," 43. According to Edward Tarr, The Trumpet, 54, the majority of trumpets manufactured after 1500 were of the folded variety, indicating that the demand was increasing for these structurally stable instruments capable of producing usable diatonic and even some chromatic tones in higher registers.

353 Such an instrument may have been called a clairon or clarioune. See Polk, "Brass instruments," 41.

354 For a description of this painting and its place in the cycle of St. Ursula, see the thoroughgoing study of the entire cycle, including numerous color photographs in close detail, in Scirè, Carpaccio, 132–77. See also Wills, Venice: Lion City, 143–44.

355 See Scirè, Carpaccio, 202–23; and Wills, Venice: Lion City, 146.

356 See Scirè, Carpaccio, 250–83; and Wills, Venice: Lion City, 146.

357 The painting is in Sala 17 of the Museo Correr, at the upper right of a group of six small illustrations of the life of Francesco Morosini. For a document indicating the hiring of extra instrumentalists for the celebration of Morosini's departure, see Document 12, April 20, 1694.

358 See paragraph 15.1.

359 Aliense's painting represents a crucial episode in the life of Caterina Cornaro, wed by proxy at the age of fourteen to the King of Cyprus in order to cement an alliance between Cyprus and Venice. Caterina only embarked for Cyprus four years later, but the marriage was short-lived since the king died just seven months afterward, and Caterina's infant son died not long after that. Caterina ruled shakily as Queen of Cyprus until 1489, when the Serenissima took control over the island and forced her to return to Venice, giving her the royal reception represented in Aliense's painting and a small kingdom in Asolo in which to hold court (the location of Pietro Bembo's Gli Asolani). See Wills, Venice: Lion City, 136–37. For the relationship between Caterina and Carpaccio's cycle of paintings on the life of St. Ursula, see note 159. Return to note 159.

360 See Imago Musicae 9/12 (1992–95): 250.

361 See Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana, II: 934, plate 1105. We are grateful to Jonathan Glixon for identifying the location of the Villa Negrelli.

362 We are grateful to Robert Barclay for reminding us of these trumpets.

363 In his account of the iconography of fame, Ripa describes a "Donna vestita d'un velo sottile succinto a traverso" who "nella destra mano terra una tromba." "Fama Buona" is described as "Donna con una tromba nella mano dritta, & nella sinistra con un ramo d'oliva . . . La tromba significa il grido universale sparso per gl'orecchi degli'huomini." "Gloria" is represented by "Donna, con una Corona d'oro in capo, & nela destra mano con una tromba . . . Et si dipinge con la tromba in mano perche con essa si publicano à populi i desiderij de Principi." See Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (reprint of 1603 Roman ed., Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1970), 142–43, 192. In Ripa's Nuova Iconologia of 1618, the image of Lode shows a mid-length trumpet in her right hand. In Ripa's text, the trumpet "significa la Gloria e la chiarezza del nome" ("signifies the glory and fame of the name"). The image of Stampa also carries a somewhat larger trumpet in her right hand and the text describes the instrument's function as "per dimostrare la fama che la stampa dà agli scrittori illustrando le opere loro in ogni luogo" ("to demonstrate the fame that printing gives writers by disseminating their works everywhere"). Both images are reproduced and the text quoted in Nicoletta Guidobaldi, "Images of music in Cesare Ripa's Iconologia," Imago Musicae 7 (1990): 53.

364 See, among many reproductions, Patricia Brown, The Renaissance in Venice, 64, plate 42.

365 See Wilhelm Suida, Tizian (Zurich: Orell Fuessli Verlag, 1933), plate X.

366 See Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana, II: 859, plate 941.

367 See Emanuel Winternitz, "The Visual Arts as a Source for the Historian of Music," Report of the Eighth Congress of the International Musicological Society, New York 1961 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1961), I: 109–20, reprinted in idem, Musical Instruments and Their Symbolism in Western Art (New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1967), 25–42; James McKinnon, "Musical iconography: a definition," RIdIM Newsletter II/2 (1977): 15–18; idem, "Iconography," Musicology in the 1980s: Methods, Goals, Opportunities, ed. D. Kern Holoman and Claude V. Palisca (New York: Da Capo Press, 1982), 79–93; idem, "Fifteenth-century northern book painting and the a cappella question: an essay in iconographic method," Studies in the Performance of Late Mediaeval Music," ed. Stanley Boorman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1–17; Richard D. Leppert, "Musicology and Visual Perception: Knowledge as the Delimiter of Expectation," RIdIM Newsletter II/2 (1977): 12–15; Howard Mayer Brown, "Iconography of Music," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: MacMillan Publishers Ltd., 1980), IX, 11–18; Tilman Seebass, "Prospettive dell'iconografia musicale," Rivista italiana di musicologia 18 (1983): 67–86. On general issues of relationships between music and the plastic arts, see Reinhold Hammerstein, "Musik und bildende Kunst: Zur Theorie und Geschichte ihrer Beziehungen," Imago Musicae 1 (1984): 1–28.

368 McKinnon, "Fifteenth-century northern book painting," 9. McKinnon uses this phrase to summarize his observation "that much of the valid musicological information derived from iconographic evidence takes the form of general conclusions, resulting from a wide-ranging survey." Further, "It is true that the less realistic the style, the more general must be the conclusions, and the greater the number of examples necessary to give us confidence in them. But, even in cases of seeming photographic naturalism, we should be aware of the tendency on the part of the artist to create a generalised artefact, rather than to reproduce precisely a particular real one." (p. 10).

369 See Naylor, The Trumpet & Trombone, plate 14.

370 See Altenburg, Untersuchungen, III, plate 4.

371 Both are reproduced in Piovene and Pallucchini, L'opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo, plates LV and XXXII respectively.

372 See Giovanna Nepi Sciré, Treasures of Venetian Painting: the Gallerie dell'Accademia (New York: Vendome Press, 1991), 247, plate 146.

373 The "Coronation of the Virgin" may be viewed at https://www.kimbellart.org/collection-object/coronation-virgin.

374 This painting may be viewed at http://www.wga.hu/html_m/b/bellini/giovanni/1490-99/137alle4.html. We are grateful to Stewart Carter for bringing this painting to our attention.

375 For the role of a tromba squarciata da guerra as the broadcaster of fame, see note 244 and Document 25.

376 Winternitz, in "The Visual Arts as a Source for the Historian of Music," 117, cites Carpaccio as one of many Italian artists who painted "exact renderings of musical subjects." McKinnon, in "Fifteenth-century northern book painting," 11–12, cites as evidence of the realism of liturgical scenes the realism of the architectural interiors in which they are placed.

377 Pagan's woodcut is far more detailed in its illustration of costumes than either Bellini's painting or Franco's engraving of a procession in St. Mark's square, largely because Pagan's individual figures are so much larger proportional to the entire scene in the latter two. Pagan's instruments, however, as already noted, are not at all detailed and are problematic in their representation.

378 Compare Figure 48 with Document 11.

379See Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum II, trans, David Z. Crookes, plate VIII.

380Marin Mersenne, Harmonie Universelle, The Books on Instruments, Engl. trans. Robert E. Chapman (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1957), 319. See also another similar trumpet on p. 328.

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