At the end of the 2008/2009 academic year, I decided to study the musical practice in the Urbino dukedom during the 16th century. I was attending the last year of Baroque Sing classes at Gioacchino Rossini conservatoire in Pesaro.
After my degree thesis about this subject - “The Ilarocosmo: the last musical fruit of the Della Rovere oak” –, I decided to go on with this research following different paths. One of these brought me to study the intermezzos, Moorish dances and musical performances that took place at the court of Urbino Dukes and also the Polyphonic Theater that was a vey common practice at the epoch. As a matter of fact, this practice “was used during the 16th and 17th centuries into the plays, as intermezzos between two acts first and then as a real part of the plays themselves. Most of the tims it consisted of original tunes that were composed on purpose. This sort of ‘madrigal plays’ presented various formal and stylistic elements at the same time and their stage framework included all those expressions such as dialogues, onomatopoeia, linguistic and narrative realism that could be previously found in normal polyphonic collections”¹.
Urbino was a nerve center of culture and arts during the 15th and 16th centuries; a place where “the most pleasant and excellent people that could be found in Italy summoned”². It is logical to suppose it was a crucial point for new musical experiences and trends too: even Eistein³ assumed that it housed a circle whose aims were very similar to the Camerata Fiorentina’s ones, thus bearing witness to the existence in the town of debates and experimentations similar to the ones that were emblematic in Caccini’s work. To support this idea, it is useful to mention two famous natives of Urbino coming from different artistic experiences: Simone Balsamino and Biagio Micalori.
The first one was a musician and a poet; he composed the first tunes for Aminta by Torquato Tasso, that is Novellete a sei voci composed in the occasion of the performance in Pesaro commissioned by Lucrezia d’Este. Apart from the originality of the title – according to Eistein the term “Novelette” refers directly to the more famous one “Nuove Musiche” – some passages Balsamino put in the introduction to the dedication are enlightening. As a matter of fact he made reference not only to a particular artistic coterie, but also to a precise artistic location , la Piazza – that is the square where the Palazzo Ducale faces – he also called Theater and that, together with the term attione, makes us think to an unprecised “performing” context that could not be restricted to vocal music only: “Eccovi Urbinati miei Signori et patriotti le mie NOVELETTE tanto da voi adimandate, massimamente in quella Piazza, Teatro ove sì commodamente e di giorno, e di sera vi si trattiene ogni sorte de ingegno, di qualunque Virtù, et ivu si assottiglia per più propriamente in presentia de l’Auttore giudicare, e commendare senza alcuna adulazione, ciascheduna attione”.
As to the playwright Biagio Micalori, it is important to remark the curious prologue to his Fuga amorosa (1621) he wrote in the occasion of the wedding between Federico Ubaldo Della Rovere, the last Urbino Duke, and Claudia De Medici. In this prologue there is a close squabble between two characters, Recitante and Morescante. After various long dissertations, Morescante expatiates upon the peculiarities of musical intermezzos. In fact, since he comes from Urbino, he claims the invention of intermezzos themselves for his town and he rejoices in the revived use of them thanks to the approval of the Prince : “…le Commedie d’oggidì sì per la loro lunghezza, come per l’empiture e stiracchiamenti, che in esse sono, riescono per lo più tediose, è forza d’indolcire la bocca a gli spettatori con qualche vago et ingegnoso Intermedio, rappresentandosi, quasi con mutolo parlare, ballando e morescando, istorie, favole et altre cose nelle quali anche si scorge calar nuvole, apparir mari, aprirsi inferni, sorgere Città, comparire animali, con estrema meraviglia dè riguardanti, come vedrete fra poco, se vi degnerete di ritirarvi. Invenzione, che ha avuto origine in questa felice Patria d’Urbino”.