Volume 8, no. 1

JEFFREY KURTZMAN AND LINDA MARIA KOLDAU. Trombe, Trombe d'argento, Trombe squarciate, Tromboni, and Pifferi in Venetian Processions and Ceremonies of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

II. Trumpets, Pifferi and Other Instruments in Venetian Processions and Ceremonies

6. Venetian Processions and Ceremonies

7. Descriptions of Venetian Ducal Processions (Andate)

8. Trombe d'argento in Venetian Ducal Processions

9. Trombe d'argento and the Busine

10. Pifferi in Venetian Ducal Processions

11. Other Instruments in Ducal Processions

12. Trumpets and Pifferi in St. Mark's and other Major Churches

13. The Use of Trumpets and Pifferi by the Scuole grandi

14. The Use of Trumpets and Pifferi by the Scuole piccole

15. Funeral Processions and Ceremonies

References to Part II

II. Trumpets, Pifferi and Other Instruments in Venetian Processions and Ceremonies

6. Venetian Processions and Ceremonies

6.1 The splendor of Venetian processions was legendary. Visitors from all over Europe acknowledged that those of Venice exceeded by far the civic and religious ceremonies of anywhere else, both in frequency and in lavishness. Many writers expressed amazement at these Venetian displays of power, wealth and pomp allied with piety.¹²⁶ The close association between the temporal power of the city, represented by the doge, and of civic religion, as represented by the doge's chapel of St. Mark's, merged the functions of civic and religious ritual to a high degree. Margaret King, in summarizing the views of the fifteenth-century Venetian humanist Giovanni Caldiera about this merger of the secular and the sacred, of state and church, as the guarantors of a stable polity, declares "Republican virtues are identified with divine virtues, and God and the State, patriotism and religion, are metaphorically fused."¹²⁷ However, it was not just processions that achieved this metaphorical fusion, for virtually every procession concluded with a ceremony of some kind. Most often it was a liturgical ceremony in a church or cemetery that served as the geographic goal of a procession, but it could also be in the location where a peace treaty was publicly proclaimed and posted, or even consist of secular ceremonies in the palace of the doge or some patrician or nobleman where a procession culminated with a banquet, dancing and general festivities. Processions and ceremonies, like church and state, were indissolubly linked in Venice.

6.2 The most important element in a ducal procession was the official cortege, governed by strict protocols regarding the order of groups of individuals as well as the costumes they wore. However, the ducal cortege constituted only one segment of a procession. The scuole grandi, the scuole piccole, religious orders, artisans' guilds, the military, and any number of other groups participated, depending on the festivity or occasion being celebrated. Such processions were already quite elaborate in the thirteenth century and already involved trumpets.¹²⁸ Nevertheless, in this period, "both nobles and citizens walked in an undifferentiated crowd behind the doge."¹²⁹ After the government was reorganized in 1297, permanently fixing the patrician status of certain families whose members were eligible for election to the Concilio Maggiore, social hierarchy grew in importance and ducal processions gradually became more elaborately organized. By the fourteenth century, acts of the Council had defined with precision the order of official elements in ducal processions. The processions thus came to represent the constitutional hierarchy of governmental authority as well as display the "ceremonial decorum and solemnity of the state."¹³⁰ By the middle of the sixteenth century, an elaborate bureaucracy had developed to oversee the constitution of processions and the responsibilities of the various groups that participated. In 1590, the first ceremoniale was compiled, containing descriptions of actual ceremonies. Such records were kept until 1729, eventually filling six volumes entitled Collegio Ceremoniale.¹³¹ These records served as historical references to guide the organization of subsequent processions and ceremonies. Ecclesiastics in St. Mark's performed similar functions with regard to liturgical ceremonies, also drawing up books of ceremonies from time to time.¹³²

7. Descriptions of Venetian Ducal Processions (Andate)

7.1 Various Venetian historians published descriptions, often highly detailed, of the regular ducal andate (processional visits to churches and institutions around the city) and of processions celebrating unique events, such as royal visits or military victories.¹³³ The ducal andate were a conspicuous feature of Venetian civic life and were performed according to a strict calendar and protocol. Francesco Sansovino described these andate in 1581 in a separate chapter of his famous and twice-republished book on Venice.¹³⁴ Marin Sanudo, whose diaries span the years 1497–1533, recounted numerous processions for special occasions and their associated civic events and rituals, sometimes relating the specific order of elements, naming individual personages or categories of people, and describing minute details of vestments (see sections 33–34). The most elaborate type of procession, including the doge, his full complement of symbols, the Signoria and many other personages as well, was called an andate in trionfo, or con onori.¹³⁵ During the course of a single year, there were, according to Sansovino, fourteen separate andate in trionfo prescribed for the doge and the Signoria in St. Mark’s and in St. Mark’s square, as well as other andate to different churches in various sestieri of the city on certain feast days. In addition there were andate prescribed for anniversaries of military victories, the defeat of domestic plots, and other secular events in the history of Venice, as well as the translation of the relics of saints.¹³⁶

7.2 Apart from these processions, Giovanni Stringa, in his enlarged re-edition of Sansovino's book of 1604, lists another twenty-two andate of the doge and Signoria that were not in trionfo, in other words, without all the symbols of the doge's secular authority.¹³⁷ These processions, which followed as elaborate protocols as the andate in trionfo, were centered around major feast days and religious observances, such as Christmas and Holy Week. The majority of these services took place in St. Mark's, and the processions both inside the basilica and outside in the piazza (and piazzetta) included large numbers of clerics as well as the six scuole grandi on seven specified occasions.¹³⁸ Edward Muir has counted at least 86 different days that had ceremonial significance for Venice by the end of the sixteenth century.¹³⁹ Just how magnificent these andate could be is illustrated in an engraving published in 1610 by Giacomo Franco of a Corpus Christi procession (Figure 4).¹⁴⁰

7.3 A few other andate that did not involve visits to churches are briefly described by Stringa,¹⁴¹ and Giustiniano Martinioni, in his 1663 re-edition of Sansovino's book, lists four other andate in trionfo to various churches established in the seventeenth century. But besides these scheduled, officially delineated processions, numerous andate were performed for special occasions, such as royal visits, receptions for new ambassadors, investitures of high military officials and procurators, victory celebrations, funerals of important civic officials, and any other event calling for official ceremonies, such as the festivities celebrating the end of the plague in 1631.¹⁴²

7.4 In addition to the ducal Andate, processions were organized by lay confraternities, comprising the six Scuole grandi and the numerous Scuole piccole. Each scuola was associated with a particular church, and these processions often had as their goal the patron church where the celebration culminated with a religious ceremony. Celebrations could also be privately sponsored, as in the case of wedding processions, which might conclude with a banquet in the home of the bride or groom's parents.

8. Trombe d'argento in Venetian Ducal Processions

8.1 The iconographic record and documentary evidence regarding Venetian processions in trionfo, or con onori, concentrate on two different groups of instruments in the official cortege, the doge's trombe d'argento and his pifferi. Venice was the proud possessor of six special silver trumpets, dubbed trombe lunghe or trombe d'argento, that according to legend had been a gift of Pope Alexander III in 1177. The legend surrounding the origin of these long silver trumpets was repeated by Venetian historians for centuries as an important aspect of the "myth of Venice." These trumpets were reputed to have been received by Doge Sebastiano Ziani, along with eight banners, from Pope Alexander on the occasion of Doge Ziani's ceremonial entrance into Rome and in honor of the service of Ziani and the Venetians in saving the papacy from German invaders by negotiating a peace between Alexander and Frederick Barbarossa in Venice earlier that year.¹⁴³ The legend of the trumpets was, in fact, one among several that attributed most of the insigne or symbols of the doge to gifts from Alexander. As one would expect, these legends served repeatedly as the basis of pictorial representations of central events in Venetian history. A large painting by Giulio del Moro showing Doge Ziani kneeling at the feet of Alexander III is one among several paintings on this theme adorning the walls in the Great Council Hall of the doge's palace.¹⁴⁴

8.2 The history of the doge's trumpets is obscure, but certainly more complicated than the legend. The first documentation regarding these trumpets is in the promissione ducale, or oath of office, of Doge Jacopo Tiepolo in 1229, wherein the new doge agrees to pay for three silver trumpets made for St. Mark's that will be housed in the ducal palace.¹⁴⁵ Martin da Canal reports that the Easter processions during the reign of doge Ranieri Zeno (1253–1268) featured six silver trumpets, and the promissione of Doge Giovanni Dandolo in 1289 contains an expense for six trumpets.¹⁴⁶ According to Sansovino, there were originally four trumpets, but two were added in 1289. They weighed 24 marche, and in 1318 they were enlarged to 30 marche for greater dignity. They were formerly as long as normal trumpets, but Nicolo Marcello had them rebuilt in 1473 (only completed in 1478) to the size they were in 1581 at the time of Sansovino's writing.¹⁴⁷ Marin Sanudo reports that in 1524 Doge Andrea Gritti had them rebuilt again, this time of silver instead of the copper of which they had previously been constructed (prima erano di rame), and that they sounded well.¹⁴⁸ On the other hand, almost three centuries earlier, Canal, as indicated above, had already described the trumpets as being made of silver.  [Return to note 346.]

8.3 These six trombe lunghe, or trombe d'argento, are the ones employed in the ducal corteo, and from the late fifteenth century they were apparently something quite separate from and longer than the approximately eight-foot straight trumpets of other cities. They could only be used in processions requiring the participation of the doge, they functioned as traditional symbols of civic and ducal authority, and they occupied a special position in the cortege. It is not even clear that they were played in all epochs of Venetian history, but in some periods may have served simply as visual symbols.¹⁴⁹

8.4 Although the trombe d'argento were among the symbols of ducal authority, the appearance of the trombe d'argento in a procession did not always mean that the doge himself was present. On unusual occasions, such as when the doge was ill, the Signoria processed as normal, but without the doge. The trombe d'argento and the pifferi still participated, but several of the symbols of the doge were omitted when he himself was unable personally to attend.¹⁵⁰

9. Trombe d'argento and the Busine

9.1 The trombe d'argento del doge clearly have their origins in the long busine of the middle ages and early Renaissance.¹⁵¹ The iconographical record of trumpets in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries shows these kinds of instruments in use all over Europe. The context of such images is often allegorical or symbolic, but may show quite realistically the instruments depicted. A case in point is a miniature in British Library Ms. Add. 18851, known as the Isabella Breviary, which presents a group of musicians on the steps of a church-like building.¹⁵² According to James McKinnon, this illustration could appropriately be titled, "An introductory illustration to the gradual psalms; levitical musicians play on the steps of the Temple at Jerusalem, while King David looks on and David as pilgrim mounts the steps."¹⁵³ While the theme of the miniature is allegorical, the instruments and the clothing of the musicians appear quite realistic, and the long busine is probably an accurate representation of the size and shape of such an instrument.

9.2 Indeed, a very similar instrument is depicted in an allegorical drawing known as "A Scene of Sacrifice" by the Paduan artist Domenico Campagnola from c. 1514, now in the Uffizi Gallery.¹⁵⁴ Long busine, but without the usual knob where the bell segment is joined to the principal tube, can be seen in a drawing by Lorenzo Lotto of "Festivities in Honor of Padua" (Figure 5).¹⁵⁵ This drawing, now in the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, has been variously dated at c. 1528–30 or c. 1535–38. Such instruments were not confined to outdoor use. A miniature by an anonymous French illustrator of the fourteenth century shows two very long busine playing Tafelmusik together with bagpipes at a banquet.¹⁵⁶

9.3 The busine was also a principal military trumpet of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it can be seen employed by soldiers on horseback leading Christ through the streets of a fanciful Jerusalem on the way to Calvary in a drawing, now in the Louvre, from the sketchbooks of the Venetian Jacopo Bellini from around the mid-fifteenth century.¹⁵⁷ There is no reason to believe that these long busine in Jacopo's drawing do not represent the kind of instruments that would have led a military or other important procession in Bellini's day. Indeed, they closely resemble the trumpets in Gentile Bellini's Processione della Croce in Piazza San Marco of 1496, discussed below. The typology of one or more trumpeters on horseback leading Christ to Calvary survived well into the eighteenth century, as can be seen in a painting by Giambattista Tiepolo in Sant'Alvise in Venice.¹⁵⁸ A prominent example of the military function of such busine (though not as long as in the Jacopo Bellini example) occupies the very center of Vittore Carpaccio's "Martyrdom of the pilgrims and funeral of Saint Ursula" of 1493 from his cycle of Saint Ursula, originally in the Scuola di Sant'Orsola, but now housed together with other paintings from this cycle in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice (Figure 6).¹⁵⁹ [Return to paragraph 31.1.]

9.4 Peter Downey has equated the Venetian trombe lunghe d'argento with the straight trumpets of the German courts.¹⁶⁰ But the Venetian trombe lunghe were different in function, and after 1478, in size. The straight trumpets of German courts served to announce the presence of the prince, especially in processions and other ceremonies, but the trombe d'argento were only one among several symbols associated not with the personage of the doge per se, but with ducal authority as embodying the civic polity and defined by specific laws, ordinances and restrictions.¹⁶¹ Unlike the German courts headed by the personal authority of hereditary rulers where symbols such as trumpets served to emphasize rank and dynastic rule, the trappings of the doge were clearly symbols of the continuity and power of the city itself.¹⁶² The doge could not even exit the palace except when accompanied by the Signoria.¹⁶³ The other, equally important emblems of civic authority attached to the doge were named in the Cerimoniale del doge, were described by Sansovino, and appear prominently in a woodcut by Matteo Pagan and an engraving by Giacomo Franco, described in sections 17 and 19. The relative sizes of German heraldic trumpets and the Venetian trombe lunghe d'argento were also different. No instruments of the length of the Venetian trombe, as depicted by Pagan and Franco, requiring the additional support of boys, are recorded anywhere else in Europe.

10. Pifferi in Venetian Ducal Processions

10.1 The official ensemble of pifferi was also under the jurisdiction of the doge. The earliest surviving document mentioning the pifferi is the same promissione of Doge Jacopo Tiepolo of 1229 where we find the first definitive evidence of the trombe d'argento.¹⁶⁴ A document of 1460 establishes a pay scale for the pifferi and trombetti and the means for paying them.¹⁶⁵ Three years later another document set the ensemble at five, consisting of tre piffari e do trombetti, and raised their salaries as well as those of the trumpeters. At this early date, the term trombetti very likely refers to single-slide trumpets, since U-shaped double-slide trombones, which formed part of the ensemble by the end of the century, were as yet probably unknown.¹⁶⁶ By 1494 the pifferi numbered six.¹⁶⁷ The size of the ensemble ranged over time between four and nine players.¹⁶⁸ Aside from sometimes playing in the ducal church of St. Mark's,¹⁶⁹ playing for official functions, playing at banquets, and playing for balls, the pifferi formed part of every ducal procession in their own distinct garments and fixed position in the cortege.

10.2 Despite the fact that all of the iconographical representations of instruments comprising the pifferi del doge discussed below show the ensemble to be made up of shawms and trombones, documents suggest that as elsewhere in Italy, the shawms began to be replaced by cornettos, at least for indoor performance, by the early sixteenth century. In 1566, one of the members of this ensemble was specifically identified as a cornettist, and Giovanni Bassano, who joined the doge's pifferi in 1576, was also famous for his playing of cornettos and pifferi.¹⁷⁰ A seventeenth-century document refers to cornettos playing at the Elevation during the doge's coronation (an event when the doge's pifferi regularly played in St. Mark's), and the instrumental ensemble of St. Mark's itself (separate from the pifferi del doge) comprised only cornettos and trombones as winds from its inception in 1568.¹⁷¹ It seems highly unlikely that the doge's windband continued to play shawms in St. Mark's and for banquets and dancing in the palace when shawms had been replaced by cornettos for such purposes not only elsewhere in Italy, but also elsewhere in Venice.¹⁷² If this is true, then the pifferi del doge probably played two different sets of instruments by the mid-sixteenth century and perhaps earlier, depending on the occasion. For performances in St. Mark's and in the palace, the ensemble would have consisted of cornettos and trombones, while for processions outdoors (including the indoor component of many processions that originated outdoors), the cornettos would have been replaced by the louder and more penetrating shawms.  [Return to note 273, paragraph 34.5.]

11. Other Instruments in Ducal Processions

11.1 While the trombe d'argento and the pifferi constituted the official instruments of the doge and were always present during a ducal procession in trionfo, processional instruments were not limited to just the doge's trombe d'argento and pifferi. Numerous accounts also mention a separate contingent of trumpets and drums which are often described as comprising two pairs of six each: i.e., twelve trumpeters and twelve drummers.¹⁷³ The presence and position of such trumpets and drums, unlike the doge's instrumentalists and the various classes of dignitaries, were not regulated by the elaborate protocols pertaining to the doge's corteo. In those processions where the doge's trombe d'argento and pifferi were not present (as in funzioni senza onori) or the trumpets did not actually sound (as suggested by Grevembroch for part of their history), a body of trumpeters and drummers might have been the principal vehicle for announcing the approach of a procession that was making its way from one part of the city to another.¹⁷⁴ Visiting dignitaries were likewise often met by smaller or larger processions representing the doge and the state which escorted them to the ducal palace and then to their lodgings with the sound of trumpets.¹⁷⁵ As noted above, processions could contain a large number of elements, depending on the occasion,¹⁷⁶ and when processions included the scuole grandi and the scuole piccole, the scuole brought with them their own singers and instrumentalists, sometimes including trumpets.¹⁷⁷

11.2 A characteristic late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century ensemble of instruments employed by the scuole grandi in ducal and other processions as well as in the culminating mass in their patron church consisted of a hand-held harp, a rebec or other bowed string instrument, and a lute.¹⁷⁸ This ensemble became obsolete by 1530–1535, and pay records of the scuole grandi demonstrate that it was replaced by a group of string instruments of the violin family, usually six, which were hired beginning in the 1530s and 1540s to participate in processions and ultimately other functions of the scuole in addition to, but separate from the wind instruments.¹⁷⁹ [Return to paragraph 13.3.]

11.3 Additional trumpets, drums and other instruments were not the only factors contributing to the sound of processions. Volleys of rifle, blunderbuss or artillery fire, the ringing of church bells and the explosion of fireworks were also common accoutrements to processions.¹⁸⁰ Processions were a major contributor to Venetian identity and civic pride, unifying the city divided by innumerable canals through their dazzling visual display and sometimes deafening auditory components that traveled far over the waters beyond the sight of the corteo itself.

12. Trumpets and Pifferi in St. Mark's and other Major Churches

12.1 St. Mark's occupied a unique position in Venice, not as the cathedral, which was San Pietro di Castello located far from the center of the city, but rather as the private chapel of the doge.¹⁸¹ In contrast to many other European cities, where the cathedral was located in the main square and was a principal focus of civic attention, in Venice it was the basilica of the doge in the Piazza San Marco that occupied center stage for religious and civic ceremonies.¹⁸² As the doge's private chapel, liturgical and administrative matters were under the ultimate jurisdiction of the doge, though the ecclesiastical leadership was entrusted to the primicerio and the administrative leadership to a group of nine procuratori, chosen for life.¹⁸³ Processions were not only conducted out of doors in St. Mark's Square (comprising both the piazza and the piazzetta) but also inside the basilica. This held true for other Venetian churches as well. Thus trumpets and pifferi entered the sanctuaries themselves and at times participated in one way or another in the sacred service, whether mass or vespers.¹⁸⁴ A document from 1460 attests to the use of trumpets and pifferi in ceremonies, possibly inside St. Mark's itself.¹⁸⁵ On December 9, 1512, a solemn mass was celebrated at the high altar of St. Mark's with trombe e pifari.¹⁸⁶ During a victory celebration on September 20, 1515 psalms were sung to the populace in the piazza from above the entrance to St. Mark's to the sound of trombe, pifari, corneti e altri instrumenti musici.¹⁸⁷ A baptism of a bastard son was celebrated in Santa Maria Formosa on April 20, 1517 con gran triumpho, accompanied by trombe, pifari and "all the music that one could find."¹⁸⁸ In 1524 a procession with eight battle trumpets and the doge's trombe et pifferi entered into St. Mark's.¹⁸⁹ The doge's pifferi participated in the service celebrating the anniversary of the election of the doge in 1542 and later that year during the Christmas season as well.¹⁹⁰ In 1548 a dispute over the performance of vespers at the monastery of San Giobbe records that the first psalm was contracted to be played by a group of pifferi, but because one of the instrumentalists didn't appear, the fifth part was taken by a singer.¹⁹¹ The ceremoniale for St. Mark's, compiled between 1559 and 1564 by Bartolomeo Bonifacio, describes the use of piffari in a procession in the church and before the Epistle as well as cornettos at the Elevation.¹⁹² The cerimoniale also calls for the celebration of the feast of Saint Nicholas in a chapel between the church and the ducal palace accompanied by the pifferi del doge, who substitute for the organ and play standing outside the door of the chapel.¹⁹³ The coronation of Doge Giovanni Bembo in 1615 involved a mass col suono delle Trombe all'Elevatione.¹⁹⁴ Since some of the ceremonies at St. Mark's involved elaborate entries into and exits from the basilica, trumpets also sounded directly outside the church and even from the roof over the portal.¹⁹⁵ [Return to: paragraph 12.4, 34.2.]

12.2 One especially grand occasion involved Giovanni Rovetta, the Vice maestro di cappella of St. Mark's, who composed a concerted mass that he conducted in the Palladian church of San Giorgio Maggiore (on the island of San Giorgio, directly across the bacino from St. Mark's square) to celebrate the birth of the future Louis XIV of France in 1638.¹⁹⁶ The official published account of the ceremonies mentions musical instruments in several capacities.¹⁹⁷ Upon their arrival at the church, the company was greeted with a noisy reception produced by mortars, canons, trumpets, drums, pifferi, and viole (members of the violin family).¹⁹⁸ Singers and instrumentalists performed both together and separately in the mass itself.¹⁹⁹ At the Elevation, mortars, canons, trumpets, drums, pifferi, and violoni (another term for members of the violin family) echoed through the air in the square immediately in front of the church.²⁰⁰ At the end of mass, as the company exited from the church, a psalm was sung, trumpets were again sounded, and mortars and canons were fired after the company embarked in gondolas and traversed the grand canal.²⁰¹ The subsequent festivities and banquet in the ducal palace were accompanied by viole, pifari, and other musical instruments, and trumpets, drums, and pifferi sounded from the courtyard of the palace. The toasting of the King of France was accompanied not only by the noise of all the instruments, but also by the firing of eighty large mortars.²⁰² [Return to paragraph 35.2.]

12.3 Despite all the verbal accounts of trumpets in St. Mark's and the eventual appointment of trumpeters to the instrumental ensemble, we are aware of only one pictorial representation of a trumpet inside the basilica itself. An early seventeenth-century painting by Giovanni Le Clerc in the Great Council Hall of the doge's palace depicts the oath of Doge Enrico Dandolo and the military captains as they prepare to embark upon the Fourth Crusade in 1198 (Figure 7).²⁰³ The scene, witnessed by the Patriarch and other church officials, is turbulent, conveying the excitement and energy of purpose of those engaged in the event. In the center foreground is a single figure with a folded trumpet hanging behind his back from a sash around his waist (Figure 8). Obviously, the folded trumpet is anachronistic for the time period represented, but the presence of a trumpet does not even necessarily mean that in the mind of Le Clerc such an instrument would have been played during whatever service accompanied this oath-taking. Rather, the trumpet may simply have served as a symbol for the military significance of this event.  [Return to paragraph 45.3.]

12.4 It is apparent that the use of trumpets and pifferi at St. Mark's and other churches in Venice was not limited only to the occasions for which we have documentation. Such documentation simply establishes the types of ceremonies for which trumpets and pifferi may have been quite regularly employed, i.e., at mass or in a Te Deum honoring any event, personage or feast requiring a specially joyous celebration. But instruments may also have taken part in services at St. Mark's on a fairly frequent basis at least as early as the beginning of the second quarter of the sixteenth century and perhaps much earlier. Trombe e pifari had played at the Elevation during mass in the chapel of St. Nicholas as early as December 6, 1500 (see paragraph 12.1).²⁰⁴ A prohibition against the use of instruments in church issued by the Patriarch of Venice in 1528 specifically exempted St. Mark's, which was under the doge's, not the Patriarch's jurisdiction.²⁰⁵ There would have been no need to mention St. Mark's at all if instruments were not being used there. The Patriarch's prohibition against instruments in other churches was ignored in 1529, when tybicines et sonatores cum tybiis, cornibus et aliis sonis et cantibus inhonestis, participated in a service at the church of Sant'Aponal, prompting the Patriarch's reprimand.²⁰⁶ By the 1560s, instrumental participation in services at St. Mark's was common. Sometime before 1560, Annibale Padovano, first hired in 1552 as an organist in St. Mark's, had organized an instrumental ensemble that played when the doge and the Senate, dressed in purple, entered the church.²⁰⁷ Instrumental ensembles were also hired for Christmas in 1563 and Christmas and Easter in 1564.²⁰⁸ Bartolomeo Bonifacio's 1564 ceremoniale for St. Mark's declares that "in every major solemnity, the singers sing with the organ or the instrumentalists play."²⁰⁹

12.5 Just four years later, on January 29, 1568, a group of pifferi comprising the famous cornettist Girolamo dalla Casa from Udine and his two brothers was contracted to play as salaried employees at St. Mark's for a series of specified feasts. From this point onward, St. Mark's regularly utilized cornettos and trombones, and later violins and a violone, in sacred services.²¹⁰ The practice of hiring extra instrumentalists for particularly important celebrations continued, and both the salaried ensemble and the number of ad hoc instrumentalists increased substantially in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.²¹¹ When and in what manner the pifferi del doge may have also participated in services at St. Mark's after the basilica established its own instrumental ensemble is unclear, but at the very least, as participants in ducal processions, they played during these processions inside the church. They also played for ceremonies in the basilica celebrating the election of a new doge and the anniversary of the doge's election.²¹²

12.6 At some point the pifferi del doge were absorbed into the pifferi of St. Mark's. In 1614, Giovanni Bassano, the leader of the instrumentalists (capo dei concerti) at St. Mark's since 1601, formed a union of six of the instrumentalists (eleven instrumentalists were placed on the regular payroll on December 7, 1614) in order to share among themselves the opportunities for external income from masses, vespers, compline, and the Forty Hours devotion at other churches and the scuole as well as from weddings.²¹³ On November 24, Bassano submitted a petition to the doge for the formation of the union, which the doge referred to the Primicerio of St. Mark's for his opinion. In the petition, Bassano lists himself and his five companions by name as "players of your Excellency . . . all six of us players designated as trombones and pifferi of your Excellency."²¹⁴ By dividing fairly the outside opportunities, competition and contention among the members for extra income could be avoided. The request notes that the ensemble's salary came from the doge and the Procuratoria de Supra.²¹⁵ Traditionally, the doge paid the salaries of his trombe d'argento and pifferi. The Procuratoria was responsible for the financial management of St. Mark's, including the salaries of the musicians, so the salaries of Bassano's ensemble were a combination of the two funding sources. In the by-laws of the union, submitted October 22, 1616, the ensemble is referred to as "the aforementioned six players of your Excellency" at one point,²¹⁶ and at another the six members are named individually and described as "trombones and pifferi of your Excellency and of your ducal chapel and church of St. Mark's."²¹⁷ Toward the end of the by-laws, the reference is made to the ensemble "who are salaried and serve in the ducal chapel of St. Mark's."²¹⁸ A list of eighteen instrumentalists (not including organists) at St. Mark's compiled between March 5 and August 24, 1616, a few months before the submission of the union's by-laws, includes all of the names of the union members except one.²¹⁹ This union remained in force through the middle of the century, and its activities demonstrate that the Patriarch's attempt in 1528 to prohibit or at least limit instrumental participation in other churches obviously did not last long, for by the time of its formation, and certainly considerably earlier, the salaried instrumentalists at St. Mark's were being hired out on a regular basis to play in other churches as well as in the scuole.  [Return to paragraph 13.4, note 169.]

12.7 As we have seen, during the course of the sixteenth century cornettos gradually replaced shawms in pifferi bands all over Italy, without necessarily banishing the latter instruments altogether, especially for outdoor performances. With regard to Venice, the combination of two cornettos and four trombones is described as early as 1505 in a letter from Giovanni Alvise Trombon, a member of the doge's pifferi, to the Marquis Francesco II Gonzaga in Mantua. In this letter, Giovanni, son of Zorzi Trombetta of Venice, announces that he is sending the Marquis several arrangements of motets for instruments; one of these is for four trombones and two cornettos.²²⁰ A member of the pifferi del doge cited in a document of 1520 was Giovanni Maria Bernardi called "del cornetto."²²¹ Girolamo della Casa, head of the wind band at St. Mark's, was famous as a cornetto virtuoso. We are not aware of any document of the Cinquecento or first half of the Seicento at St. Mark's referring to wind instruments that identifies any instruments other than cornettos and trombones.²²² The cornettos, however, gave way to violins in the 1620s and 1630s. Missing the sound of the cornetto, the procurators of St. Mark's, beginning in 1640, made a significant effort to revive it, including the hiring of someone to teach the instrument.²²³ They were evidently successful in revitalizing the cornetto, for it remained an important element of the ensemble throughout much of the century, together with trombones, strings, bassoons and theorboes.²²⁴ Francesco Cavalli's will of 1675 lists the instruments for his requiem mass as two violins, four viole, two cornettos, trombones, bassoon, two theorboes, a violon grosso and three organs, with the performers to be drawn from the best players of St. Mark's and the city.²²⁵

12.8 Trumpeters were still employed at St. Mark's with some frequency on an ad hoc basis for the liturgical celebrations of military conquests and other militaristic events, even after the middle of the seventeenth century when two trumpeters were appointed as salaried members of the instrumental ensemble, the first by 1664 and the second by 1689.²²⁶ Pay records of the procurators show trumpeters and drummers as well as extra pifferi hired in February 1690 (new style) for festivities in honor of Pope Alessandro VIII, and a dozen trumpeters and drummers were hired in January 1691 (new style) for the celebration of the conquest of Valon. In April 1694, a large contingent of trumpeters and drummers was hired to honor Doge Francesco Morosini as he departed on a military expedition for the Levant, and in November 1694 twelve trumpeters were hired to play in the mass and Te Deum when Venice acquired Scio (Chio).²²⁷ [Return to paragraph 34.2.]

13. The Use of Trumpets and Pifferi by the Scuole grandi

13.1 As already noted, some ducal processions included Venice's six large confraternities, the scuole grandi. Moreover, not all Venetian processions were ducal processions—many were initiated by the scuole grandi themselves, especially on the feast day of the titular saint of the church with which each scuola was associated, on the first Sunday of each month and on a number of other occasions.²²⁸ There are no known state protocols regarding the order of elements in the segments of a procession before or after the official ducal cortege or for those processions that were not state functions, though at least one scuola had its own ordine, and it is virtually certain that others did too.²²⁹ Processions by the scuole were frequent and could wend their way through large portions of the city, sometimes making various stops for the singing of laude on the way to their final destination.²³⁰ From descriptions, archival records and iconographical representations of such processions, it is clear that singers and instrumentalists often took part and participated in the liturgical services with which these processions invariably culminated. Numerous pay records show unequivocally that up to the 1530s, a string ensemble comprising a lute, a harp and a viola (rebec) was used by each scuola and that trombe e pifferi often participated in the processions and in the liturgical services.²³¹ [Return to paragraph 16.2.]

13.2 Trombe had been used in processions and sacred services by Venice's scuole grandi since at least 1470, and undoubtedly much earlier.²³² The term tromba, however, like trombetta, had become equivocal by the second half of the fifteenth century. In the first part of the century it meant a trumpet, which could take the form of a straight trumpet of full length or lesser size, an S-shaped trumpet, a folded trumpet, or any shape of single-slide trumpet, but as double-slide instruments developed in the second half of the century, the term tromba also doubled as a reference to what was also called a trombone.²³³ A player of the tromba is listed as a member of the Scuola San Marco in 1470, and the scuola hired five instrumentalists (three pifari and two tromboni) to play at specified feasts in February of 1503 (new style), by which time the term trombone clearly meant a U-shaped double-slide instrument.²³⁴ For the Scuola San Marco, the use of trombe, together with pifferi, not only in processions but also in masses on the first Sunday of each month, is documented from 1515.²³⁵ In order to save money in hard times, the trombe and pifferi were dropped as permanently salaried employees by the Scuola in 1527, though they still could be hired on an occasional basis.²³⁶ In 1525, a visitor wrote that a solemn mass at the Scuola San Rocco was performed ("fu cantata") not with voices, but on pifferi.²³⁷ A 1530 document from the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Misericordia refers to trombe, e pifari et corneti et eziam organo participating in a mass said before the dispensation of dowries to the daughters of deceased brothers of the Scuola.²³⁸

13.3 The ambiguity of terminology makes it impossible in most instances to be certain when trombe refers to trumpets and when to trombones, but a prohibition emanating from the Patriarch in 1639 against the use of trumpets and drums in services of the scuole piccole (see paragraph 14.5) strongly suggests that such instruments were used by the scuole grandi as well. It seems inconceivable that the scuole grandi, with their emphasis on grandiose public display and much larger budgets for such matters, would have made more limited use of instrumental resources than the scuole piccole. The records of the scuole grandi also show that other instruments formed a regular part of the musical contingent.²³⁹ By the 1530s and 1540s, ensembles of strings were favored by the scuole in processions (see paragraph 11.2), though trombe e pifferi were still used in the liturgy. As time went by, strings increasingly supplanted winds in liturgical services, but winds still continued in use well into the seventeenth century.²⁴⁰ After the plague of 1630–31, the hiring of prominent musicians from St. Mark's and elsewhere declined, though some festive events were still occasionally celebrated with the former pomp. In the early eighteenth century, the Scuola di San Rocco hired numerous instrumentalists from St. Mark's, including a trumpeter and an oboist, to perform in the procession, a passion in the church of San Rocco, and music at the Scuola on the patronal feast.²⁴¹

13.4 In 1553, the Council of Ten, in response to a complaint by the Scuola di Santa Maria della Carità about a union of singers that had recently been formed at St. Mark's to regulate participation in and fees for outside performances, attempted to reduce the expenditures for music by abolishing the union and prohibiting the scuole from hiring singers on the grounds that the scuole spent money on music that should have gone to the poor. The other scuole protested the regulation, citing psalm ninety-seven's injunction to "psallite Domino in cithara et voce psalmi in tubis ductilibus et voce tube cornee." The scuole were supported in their protest by the musicians themselves, who complained that their own salaries were so low as to barely escape poverty. After much debate and an appeal from the Procuratori, the Council eventually rescinded its earlier decision and simply limited the amount of money each scuola could spend annually on singers.²⁴² This attempt at forming a union of singers laid the groundwork for later unions of instrumentalists and of singers for the same purpose of eliminating competition and dissension with regard to outside employment on an occasional basis. Decrees by the Heads of the Council of Ten in the 1580s attempted to resolve further such disputes by apportioning companies of instrumentalists among the scuole.²⁴³ The instrumentalists' union of Giovanni Bassano, described in paragraph 12.6, was the most long-lived of such efforts.  [Return to note 213.]

13.5 Whatever limitations on the pomp of regularly scheduled processions the scuole might have imposed in response to the legislation of the Council of Ten, special events always elicited lavish spectacle. An account by Giovanni Stringa of a celebration on the 26th of July, 1598, honoring the peace between Henry IV of France and Phillip II of Spain, describes the procession by the scuole grandi, giving details of each scuola and its elaborate, hand-carried floats (solari). The fifth scuola in this procession was that of San Rocco, and among its floats was one representing the spreading of Fame throughout the world by means of a richly dressed youth playing a tromba squarciata da guerra. The boy had one foot on a replica of the world, and the other foot balanced in the air. No drum is mentioned in the description, but the military association of the tromba squarciata is clear. Immediately following this float came a series of floats representing the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and America, across which the fame of the current peace was disseminated symbolically by the tromba squarciata da guerra.²⁴⁴ [Return to: paragraph 29.2, 34.6, 35.2.]

14. The Use of Trumpets and Pifferi by the Scuole piccole

14.1 The scuole grandi were only six in number, but Venice also hosted other small and sometimes quite large confraternities known collectively as the scuole piccole, which numbered more than two hundred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.²⁴⁵ These confraternities likewise sponsored processions and elaborate liturgical celebrations, principally on the feasts of their patron saints, though sometimes on other occasions as well.²⁴⁶ Pifferi and tromboni are frequently found on their membership lists.²⁴⁷ Instrumentalists took part in their festivities from a very early stage; in 1373 it was already necessary for the Scuola di San Giovanni Battista to reduce the number of instrumentalists who had received free membership in return for their musical services.²⁴⁸ Many scuole also limited the amount of money they could spend on musicians.²⁴⁹ The 1420 protocol for the annual patronal procession of the Scuola di San Giovanni Battista e Sant'Ambrogio dei Milanesi required four trombe e trombetti e nacharini (small kettle drums).²⁵⁰ Likewise, the undated mariegola (by-laws) of the Scuola dei Milanese requires that festal processions be accompanied by quatro trombe e trombete e nacharini.²⁵¹ Here the association with nacharini obviously suggests trumpets, and at this early date, neither trombe nor its diminutive trombetti could refer to double-slide trombones. The distinction between the two terms suggests long straight trumpets versus shorter trumpets, possibly S-shaped, single-slide, or mid-size instruments of approximately half the length of the trombe, pitched an octave higher. Trombetti even could have referred to folded instruments whose tube length would have been the same as long straight trumpets, but which gave the appearance of being smaller instruments.

14.2 The early fifteenth-century mariegola of the Scuola della Beata Vergine Assunta in the church of San Stae calls for the hiring of two trombe, two pifferi and one drummer for the feast of Santa Maria della Gratia.²⁵² The 1442 mariegola of the Scuola di San Francesco declares that pifari et tronbeti must be hired to celebrate Vespers and Mass, as was customary on February 2, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin.²⁵³ Once again the early date of both documents means that the terms trombe and tronbeti must refer to trumpets of some kind.

14.3 Beginning in 1502, the Scuola del Venerabile Sacramento in the church of San Giuliano paid a group of wind players annually on the Feast of Corpus Christi.²⁵⁴ In about 1506, the pifferi del doge, comprising three pifari and three tromboni, became members of the Scuola di Santa Maria dei Mercanti.²⁵⁵ Documents pertaining to the Scuola di San Teodoro, which was one of the scuole piccole until 1552, when it became officially numbered among the scuole grandi, mention trombe e pifferi in a procession on December 15, 1490 and trombetti e pifferi on December 13, 1537.²⁵⁶ The corteo marched to San Marco and the Rialto to announce the feast. In the first instance, trombe could refer to either trumpets or trombones, though given the event, trumpets are certainly possible. In the second instance, trombetti much more likely refers to trumpets of some kind.²⁵⁷ In 1516 and 1517, the Scuola di Sant'Orsola hired six tronbetti ett [sic] pifari for the vigil and the day of the feast of St. Ursula, not only to play for first and second vespers and the mass, but also for a procession from San Marco to the Rialto.²⁵⁸ Processions by the scuole to San Marco and the Rialto, accompanied by tronbe e pifari, were commonplace and served to invite the populace and the scuola's membership to its host church to honor its patron saint.²⁵⁹

14.4 During the sixteenth century, the Scuola della Trinità regularly engaged musicians from St. Mark's and other well-known players for their feast.²⁶⁰ In 1604 the Scuola della Beata Vergine Assunta began celebrating a musical Compline with salaried singers and instrumentalists. In 1626 they reduced the number of instrumentalists, eliminating the trombone as superfluous.²⁶¹ In the late sixteenth century, the nuns of the convent of Spirito Santo complained that because of the obstinacy of the guardian of the Scuola dello Spirito Santo, the first day's Pentecost celebrations had not been performed with the customary pomp, including hired singers and instrumentalists who were to have participated in the mass.²⁶² In 1637 the Scuola and convent hired Francesco Cavalli at an expensive rate to provide music and musicians for the three days of elaborate Pentecost celebrations.²⁶³ The year before Cavalli had also been hired to provide similar services for the founding of the Scuola di San Domenico di Soriano, festivities which included the participation of tamburin e tronbete.²⁶⁴ Further documents of the Scuola dello Spirito Santo demonstrate ongoing problems and preoccupation with the expenses and character of the music for Pentecost throughout the seventeenth century.²⁶⁵ The contract of the maestro di cappella in 1691 for the annual Pentecost music called for a choir of twelve (three on a part) as well as "three organs, a violone, two violas da gamba, four violins, four violas, two cornettos, a theorbo, and a trumpet," all hired from St. Mark's.²⁶⁶

14.5 It is obvious that in the early seventeenth century some of the scuole piccole performed music in their host churches as sumptuous as that produced by the scuole grandi.²⁶⁷ The frequency of trumpet playing in the host churches prompted the Provveditori di Comun, at the request of the Patriarch of Venice, to warn the scuole piccole on April 1, 1639 to correct a number of excesses and abuses, including avoiding the use in sacred services of trumpets and drums, which were more suitable for armies than the house of God.²⁶⁸ Such admonitions usually had limited effect: in 1641 and 1642 the Scuola di Santa Catterina di Siena paid large sums of money for music at their annual feast, hiring in the latter year Natale Monferrato, later vice maestro di cappella and maestro di cappella at St. Mark's, to provide the music.²⁶⁹ [Return to paragraph 13.3.]

14.6 There are no surviving documents regarding the order of elements in processions of the scuole piccole in Venice, but the Scuola di Sant'Antonio di Padova in Padua had a protocol for the order of its processions, and it is very likely that other scuole in Padua and Venice did as well.²⁷⁰ Although the order of procession for the Scuola di Sant'Antonio di Padova does not mention musical instruments, it is nevertheless quite probable that trumpets and pifferi, possibly with the addition of drums, led the procession and participated in the liturgical service, as in so many other documented cases.²⁷¹

14.7 The quantity of records from as early as the fourteenth century suggests that such processions involving trumpets and pifferi, sometimes also including nacharini, were typical. These same instruments very likely also participated in the mass and vesper services of the scuole even prior to their frequent documentation in sacred services from the late fifteenth century.²⁷² The list of participants in musical activities by the scuole (mostly scuole piccole) published by Elena Quaranta covering the period 1373–1613 sometimes lists trombetti e piffari (also pifferi or pifari), more frequently trombe e piffari, occasionally trombe, piffari e nacharini, sometimes simply suonatori or cantori e suonatori, rarely cantori alone, and sometimes even just musicisti. Some of these entries are too early for the term tromba to refer to an instrument with a slide, but by the fifteenth century a single-slide instrument could have been meant by tromba or trombetta when mentioned in connection with pifferi. The word trombone doesn't appear in these pay records as a distinct item, though single-slide instruments were possibly subsumed under the term pifferi in the early fifteenth century, and double-slide trombones could also have been included in the same word by the end of the fifteenth century. Pifferi is the most ambiguous and imprecise among many problematic terms for instruments in this period. The pifferi employed by the scuole were not limited to shawms or cornettos and trombones as in the pifferi del doge. In earlier times, the principal instruments would indeed have been shawms, gradually supplemented or replaced by cornettos in the sixteenth century as cornettos became more popular. However, other instruments could also take part in an ensemble of pifferi, such as trombones, bagpipes, recorders, cross flutes, and viols.²⁷³ Thus the pifferi could be a mixed bag of mostly wind instruments, depending on the occasion and what instrumentalists were available for hire. Strings were likely added to the winds in processions, just as they were in the scuole grandi, and the 1691 document from the Scuola dello Spirito Santo cited in paragraph 14.4 demonstrates that strings became major participants in the liturgical services of the scuole piccole as well.  [Return to note 13.]

15. Funeral Processions and Ceremonies

15.1 Trumpets and drums were common accompaniments to funeral processions in northern Europe, as can be seen in a well-known engraving of the burial ceremony of Charles V at Brussels in 1558, the original by Wellens de Cock.²⁷⁴ This engraving shows fourteen trumpeters holding folded trumpets, each with a banner appended, two men carrying kettledrums both in front and at their backs, and a director of the ensemble. How the drums on the drummers' backs might have been played is suggested by another engraving from the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels of trumpeters and drummers assembled for a funeral procession at the court of Archduke Albrecht, Governor of the Netherlands, in the early seventeenth century.²⁷⁵ This illustration shows twelve unusually large folded trumpets, kettledrums affixed to the front and back of two men, and two other men carrying mallets, who are obviously the players of the drums appended to the backs of their predecessors.²⁷⁶ While the trumpets in these engravings are not muted, muted trumpets were commonly used in funeral processions throughout Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including Florence and Naples.²⁷⁷ A small late seventeenth-century painting by Alessandro Piazza in the Museo Correr in Venice depicts a military funeral procession, "The Transport of the Body of the Doge [Francesco Morosini, 1688–94] from Napoli di Romania" (Figure 9). About halfway back in the procession are eight trumpeters playing straight trumpets about three feet long followed by two drummers (Figure 10).²⁷⁸ [Return to note 358.]

15.2 We have almost no information regarding trumpets or other musical instruments in funeral processions in Venice itself. Both Sansovino and Stringa wrote extensively about the protocols and order of funeral processions of persons of various rank, but no instruments are named by either.²⁷⁹ Since the funerals of doges emphasized the continuity of state authority rather than the former role of the deceased, it is virtually certain that the trombe d'argento would not have participated in any funeral procession of a doge.²⁸⁰ A large eighteenth-century painting of a doge's funeral at San Giovanni e Paolo by Gabriel Bella from the Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia illustrates a large crowd participating in the procession, but no musical instruments nor any other symbols of ducal authority are visible. ²⁸¹ In times of plague, as in 1630–31, it was essential to bury immediately the bodies of those who died from the disease in order to avoid further contagion, and elaborate funerals, like other large gatherings of the populace, would generally have been avoided. Music played a role in the frequent funeral processions of the scuole grandi, but often consisted of no more than simple singing of unspecified music by the least well-trained musicians of the scuole. There is no evidence of the use of instruments by the scuole for funeral processions.²⁸²

15.3 Funeral liturgical ceremonies, however, could indeed use instruments. In 1675 the will of Francesco Cavalli, maestro di capella at St. Mark's, requested a concertato Requiem mass in the church of San Lorenzo with the best singers and instrumentalists of the chapel and the city, to be directed by the maestro di capella of St. Mark's. Cavalli even lists the required instrumentation: two violins, four viole, two cornettos, two theorboes, trombones, a bassoon, a violone, and three organs.²⁸³ [Return to note 225.]

References to Part II

¹²⁶Muir, Civic Ritual, 60. It is clear, however, from the description of Roman cavalcades and official Bolognese processions cited in note 82 and quoted in Document 2 that Venice sometimes had competition from elsewhere in the lavishness of processions.