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Conceits similar to those that were the beauty spots of the Lord Giovanni's verses are ubiquitous in yours, and above all there is the same fervent earnestness, the same burning tone of sincerity that rendered his strambotti so worthy of admiration."
There was Galeotto del Carretto, the Montferrat poet and historian, who left his home at Casale to compose plays and sonnets for Beatrice, and who, like Niccolo da Correggio, was one of Isabella's favourite correspondents, and sent her eclogues and strambotti to sing to the lute.
Then there was the blind poet Francesco Bello, the author of the "Mambriano," that heroic poem on the favourite Carlovingian legend; Andrea Cossa of Naples, who sang his own rime and strambotti to the music of the lute; Niccolo da Correggio, called by Isabella d'Este and Sabba da Castiglione "the most accomplished gentleman of the age, the foremost man in all Italy, in the art of poetry and in courtesy," who devoted his muse to the service of gentle ladies, and composed canzoni and capitoli or set Petrarch's sonnets to music for Isabella and Beatrice's pleasure.
But in spite of his dwarfed stature and elfish appearance, Serafino sang his own strambotti and eclogues so well, and had so fascinating a way of accompanying himself on the lute, that the Este and Gonzaga ladies all entreated him for new verses, and literally wrangled over the man himself!
She laid a hand upon his arm to stay him. "Not now, Gonzaga," she begged, "I am in no humour for your song, sweet though I doubt not that it be." A shade of disappointment and ruffled vanity crossed his face. Women had been wont to listen greedily to his strambotti, enthralled by the cunning of the words and the seductive sweetness of his voice.
They "sang the same strambotti to the Virgin and the lady of their love, to the rose of Jericho and the red rose of the balcony." Here, then, we find a significant difference between the liturgical drama and the sacred representations. The chant, which was the musical garb of the former appears to have had no position in the latter.
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