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In This Issue... Fabricated Laughter. Wit and Humor in Renaissance Music by Hiroyuki Minamino 1 Jesuit Patronage of the Spiritual Madrigal by Katherine Powers 3 From Ambarvalia to Harvest Home and Beyond: Herrick’s Veiled Christianization of Tibullus in ”The Hock-Cart” by Robert D. Keller 5 From the Editor; SCRC News 8 Book Review: The Cambridge Companion to Galileo Rev. by Renzo Baldasso 9 ISSN: 1097-3494 DISCOVERIES South-Central Renaissance Conference News and Notes Spring 2001 Fabricated Laughter: Wit and Humor in Renaissance Music Himyuki Minamino I at goes on four feet, on two feet and three, but the more feet it goes on the weaker it be?” The Sphinx asked this riddle to whoever passed before her. Those who failed to answer were throttled. It was Oedipus, King of Thebes, in his qumt for truth, who gave the correct answer. Man. The anecdote we are concerned with here is a musical riddle.‘ As the Sphinx’s riddle involve one who pose-s theriddlearidonewhoanswersitthismusical riddle involves one who acts as if he were a sphinx and one who equals the intelligence of Oedipus. The story goes like this: Louis XII, the French King, had for- merly been pleased by some song. So he asked his singers if there was anyone who could compose a song in several voices in which he could also take some part. The singers wondered at this demand, because they all well knew that the King was en- tirely ignorant of music and had a Very inadequate voice. After hesitating a while, the chief of the singers replied that he would compose a song in which the King would be given a place. The following day, he produced a song that was composed in four voices. The top two voices were com- posed in canon, taken from a single theme, and were to be sung by two boys who would sing very lightly and delicately. The composer was to sing the bass, supporting the King at the octave at regular intervals on the alternate tone of the half tempus. The composer had given the King the tenor, a part that would be suitable for the royal voice. It consisted of one note. The King laughed merrily at the trick and gladly dismissed the composer with a present and with the desired favor. This amusing story appears in the book entitled Dodecachordon by a Swiss humanist and monk, Heinrich Glarean.’ The Dodecachordon is a stuffy music treatise on the theory of twelve mods. But at the end of the book the tone is changed as if Glarean were waiting for the moment. He relates several anecdotes in a chapter where he dis- cusses the technical skills of composers. He admits that he is fond of wit and humor in music that are invented for the sake of plea- sure. He defends this kind of jesting only when it is treated with ”dignity and selected for a favorable moment.q What is amusing about Glarean’s anecdote of Louis XII's sing- ing lesson? There are two clues to solve the mystery: the social behavior of Renaissance courtiers and the internal structure of the song. The underlying theme of Glarean’s story is the literary idealization of courtly behavior. Louis Xll's request should be understood within the context of this so- cial attitude. Baldassare Castiglione theorized the courtly behavior that had been devel- oped for quite some time and made popular through the publication of his book Il cortegizmo, The Book of the Courtier. Accord- ing to Castiglione, music was an absolute essential for the ideal courtier, without which he would not be considered perfect. Music lessons for the courtier comprised three main fields: general appreciation, skill in sight singing, and proficiency in playing various instruments. The minimum require- ment for a courtier was a readiness to listen to and to criticize music. A higher level of musical achievement was sight singing and playing musical instrument. If the courtier could not fulfill these re- quirements, it was a disgrace. Thomas Morley, an English composer and theorist, made one such person confess his inability in music. In his music treatise A plnine and
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