Sigismondo d'India

Abstract

Of the early life of Don Sigismondo d'India, Nobleman of Palermo and Knight of the Order of St. Mark, we know next to nothing: we know neither the date of his birth nor where and with whom he studied music. An eighteenth-century document tells us that he was born in 1562 and died in 1630, and one or two present-day scholars have accepted these dates. I think, however, that they ought to be regarded with suspicion, for they happen to be the dates of birth and death of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, in whose service d'India spent twelve years of his life. Certain later events in d'India's life suggest that he was probably born about 1580. We do know for certain, however, that he was born at Palermo. Now, towards the end of the sixteenth century Palermo was already a fair-sized city: its population in 1593 has been estimated at 90,000. Yet neither there nor anywhere else in Sicily did the arts really flourish. Like most of the southern half of Italy, Sicily at this time was under Spanish domination: she was, as has been said, ‘a tiny ship towed by the great Spanish galleon’.

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