The Florentines celebrated not only the
pre-Lenten revelry, but also the
Calendimaggio,
which began on May 1 and ended with the Feast of St. John on
June 24. An essential part of the festivities was the singing
and dancing of the
canzona a ballo
in the streets by masked merrymakers. (
Canzona a ballo
denotes in its widest sense any secular song that is danced as
well as sung.)
Under Lorenzo de' Medici, whose rule began
in 1469, the carnivals had become infused with a more intense
life. He strongly encouraged the celebrations, and, following
his lead, the court took a much greater part in them than
previously. Lorenzo has been accused of acting as he did in
order to induce the people to forget their lack of political
liberty. It is more likely, however, that he was simply
indulging his love of display and magnificence and delighting
both the populace and himself by the grandeur of his
contribution to the festivities.
Torchlight processions with decorated cars
of masqueraders were the main feature of the carnivals. Some of
the carri represented the city's trade and craft guilds, others
depicted legendary scenes or the triumph of classical
conquerors. Lorenzo increased the number of these chariots and
the lavishness of their decoration. The triumphs emphasized the
power and glory of the Medici, while the mythical
representations-in contrast to the more popular displays
arranged by the guilds and crafts-gave scope for Lorenzo's
court of nobles, poets, and artists to exercise their talents.
Lorenzo himself wrote poems to be sung not
only by his courtier-actors, but also by the guilds. His
Trionfo d'Arianna e Bacco
and his
Canto di uomini che vendevano bericuocoli e conjortini
(Song of the Sweetmeat Sellers) are among the most famous of
the
canti carnascialeschi
and epitomize the two main types--the mythical; the local and
topical--into which they mostly fall.
The second type, of course, had the more
popular appeal, consisting as it did of songs describing the
various guilds or depicting daily life. Double meanings,
involving an obscene twist, were common. The names of some of
the songs are almost enough, by themselves, to evoke the
vigorous, turbulent life of 15th-century Florence. In the
Canti de' sartori, de' profumieri, de' facitori d'olio, de'
molinari, dei poveri che accattano per carità,
the elegant tailors and perfumers of Florence, the oil-makers,
millers, and beggars who filled the crowded streets, live and
ply their trades again. The
Canto d'uomini che vanno col viso volto di dietro
(Song of the men with their faces turned backward) embodied
some political gibe, while the
Canti della malmaritata, delle donne giovani e di mariti
vecchi, delle vedove, dei giudei battezzati
(Songs of the unhappy wife, of the young wives with old
husbands, of the widows, of the baptized Jews) were intended to
be comic.
Textually, the
canti carnascialeschi
descend from the old
cacce,
which also were topical, descriptive, and full of double
meanings. Musically, however they are chordal and strophic like
the Mantuan frottole. The
canti carnascialeschi,
however, or, as they are sometimes called, the Florentine
frottole
--including, as they did, chariot songs, serenades,
processionals, etc.--were all sung in the open, as were, on
occasion, the
laude
and the
frottole.
Open-air performance may well have determined the chordal
character of this
popolaresca lirica.
The public nature of the performance, the necessity for rising
above the clamor of the crowd, and the acoustics of the
piazze,
all encouraged the use of resounding chords rather than
polyphony.
One of the earliest and most famous
collections of
canti carnascialeschi
(and, until the discovery of a munuscipt in Florence in the
19th century, almost the only known source) is that made in
1559 by Anton Francesco Grazzini, known as
Il Lasca.
It is entitled
Tutti i Trionfi, Carri, Mascherate e Cant'
Carnascialeschi.
The term
mascherata
obviously comes from the custom of singing pieces so named
during carnival masquerading.
During its golden period under Lorenzo de'
Medici, the
canto carnascialesco
on the one hand was the property of the whole community, many
of the c
anti
being anonymous, and on the other hand was enriched not only by
the poems of Lorenzo himself and of his herald Battista
dell'Ottonaio, but by the compositions of his musicians
Alexander Coppinus and the Netherlanders,
Heinrich Isaac
and
Alexander
Agricola
.
Of these, Isaac is the most interesting,
partly by reason of his privileged position at Lorenzo's court.
He arrived in Florence c. 1484, having possibly been called
there for the specific purpose of assuming Squarcialupi's old
post as organist of the Cappella di San Giovanni (the
Baptistery). Later, he became organist at the churches of Santa
Maria del Fiore and the Annunziata. As music teacher to
Lorenzo's sons, he had among his pupils the future Pope Leo X.