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Updated: May 10, 2025
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.
He attributes to Vittorino da Feltre the introduction of the systematic study of music and credits him with publicly teaching the art and inspiring in some measure the treatise of Jean le Chartreux. From Bertolotti we learn that Maestro Rodolfo de Alemannia, an organist, and German, living in Mantua, obtained in 1435 certain privileges in the construction of organs for six years.
Bertolotti reproduces sundry interesting letters which passed between the courts of Ferrara and Mantua and dealt with musical matters. Perhaps an epistle from the Duke of Milan in January, 1473, might cause a passing smile of amusement, for in it the Duke confides to the Mantuan Marquis a project for the revival of music in Italy.
The delicate oval outline, the pale wild-rose colouring, the reddish-brown of the fine, glistening tresses, the amber-hazel of the wistful, brilliant eyes, reproduced to a wonderful degree the modelling and tinting of the wonderful Guido portrait, the white-draped head in the Barberini Gallery, which, in defiance of Bertolotti and the Edinburgh Review, will always be associated with the name of the sorrowful-sweet heroine of the most sombre of sex-tragedies.
The celebrated composer of frottole, Bartolomeo Tromboncino, was for some time in the service of the Mantuan court. It was formerly believed that he went to Mantua in 1494, but Signer Bertolotti unearthed a document which showed that his father was engaged there in 1487. From which the learned Italian investigator reached the conclusion that the young Tromboncino was with his parent.
The supposed portrait of Beatrice in the Barberini Palace had powerfully affected his imagination, and he fancied that her story would form the fitting subject for a tragedy. It is fortunate for English literature that the real facts of that domestic drama, as recently published by Signor Bertolotti, were then involved in a tissue of romance and legend.
Only the young well-to-do grocer, who had lived in Vienna, the Bertolotti, came later in the afternoon inquiring for the party. And towards sunset I saw the elderly man of the group stumbling home very drunk down the path, after the two women, who had gone on in front. Then Paolo sent Giovanni to see the drunken one safely past the landslip, which was dangerous.
Bertolotti in his searching examination of the records of Mantua found numerous names of musicians employed at the court or permitted to exercise their calling within the boundaries of the marquisate. He notes the predominance of Flemish masters and the supremacy of their ideas in the music of Italy.
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