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As Van der Straeten says, "it appears that the affection the old man vows for his wife grows greater and greater the nearer the fatal day approaches. The most minute dispositions are made in her regard." Strangely enough Willaert never mentions either his compositions or his daughter Catharine, who was a composer, too.
The Cathedral of San Pietro was restored from his designs and in the Church of San Andrea, in a tomb adorned by his pupils, sleeps the great Mantegna. The history of music at the court of Mantua begins at least as early as the fourteenth century. Vander Straeten found some record of a musician of the Gallo-Belgic school called Jean le Chartreux, or by the Italians Giovanni di Namur.
Carlo Delaunasy, a singer in the service of Isabella, Marchioness of Mantua in 1499, and Marco Carra, director of music to the Marquis in 1503, 1514 and 1525, are among the names unearthed from the archives of Mantua by their keeper at the request of Mr. Vander Straeten.
These papers contained the names of a few other singers, players and directors, but their inadequacy was demonstrated by the fact that they contained no mention of Jacques de Wert, a composer of great activity and talent, to whom Vander Straeten devotes some fifteen pages of his exhaustive work. De Wert was born in Flanders near the end of the first half of the sixteenth century.
I find an interesting example of this custom in the career of a musician, a contemporary of Palestrina's mentioned by Van der Straeten; his name was Ambrosio de Cotes.
From this time forward we find music and musicians in high favor at the court of Mantua. Neither Vander Straeten nor Bertolotti succeeded in obtaining from the archives of the city more than fragmentary mention of musicians of whom we would gladly know more.
The same day Van Straeten, and Casambrot shared the fate of their illustrious friends, in the castle of Vilvorde; with many others whose names only find a place in the local chronicles of the times. Egmont and Horn met their fate with the firmness expected from their well-proved courage. These judicial murders excited in the Netherlands an agitation without bounds.
The Belgian historian, Van der Straeten, has illuminated the crowded shelves of his big work, "La Musique aux Pays-Bas avant Le XIXe Siècle," with various little instances of romance that occurred to the numberless minstrels and weavers of tangled counterpoint in the Netherlands of the old time.
He was the author of a "Libellus Musicus," preserved in the British Museum. He was born at Namur, learned singing, and according to Vander Straeten, studied the works of Boethius under Vittorino da Feltre in Italy. He cites Marchetto of Padua as the first to write in the chromatic manner since Boethius.
Under this law a Brussels advocate, Van der Straeten, was fined 3000 fl. for a brochure attacking the ministers; and several other advocates were disbarred for protesting that this sentence was in conflict with the Fundamental Law. Prosecutions henceforth followed prosecutions, and the press was gagged.
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