Renaissance Novellara: Musical Life in the Gonzaga Hinterland

Abstract

Although it has been clear since the nineteenth century that Giaches de Wert worked for the Gonzaga of Novellara during the 1550s, there was little documentation of this important and formative period in his life until the Archivio Comunale in the town became available to scholars during the 1990s. In consequence, new evidence, including thirty-eight previously unknown autograph letters, subsequently published and discussed by the author and others, has permitted fresh insights into Wert’s time at Novellara. Together with legal documents uncovered both there and in Reggio Emilia, these provide detailed information about Wert’s marriage and his economic and social position in the community, as well as his continuing contacts with the town and its rulers in later life following his appointment as maestro di cappella at the Basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua. Based in part on the letters of Leandro Bracciolo, one of Wert’s intimates in Novellara, and in part on further archival research, the present article paints a picture of musical life at a small court in the Po Valley during the mid-sixteenth century, which reveals patterns of familial patronage and personal involvement in musical activity that mark it out from some of the better-known courts in the area including Mantua itself.

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