¹ Sansovino, Francesco, Le cento novelle scelte da' più nobili scrittori della lingua volgare […] Di nuovo ampliate, riformate, rivedute & corrette per il medesimo (Venice: Sansovino, 1562 ²), end of giornata ix, p. 396Google Scholar (the sentence is missing in the editio princeps of 1561).

² Venice, Museo Correr, ms Cicogna 1049, fol. 3^v.

³ PS-Oliv, ms 193bis.

⁴ PS-Oliv, ms 191.

⁵ Rossi, V., ‘Appunti per la storia della musica alla corte di Francesco Maria I e Guidubaldo della Rovere’, Rassegna Emiliana di Storia, Letteratura e Arte, 1 (1888), pp. 453–69.Google Scholar

⁶ Saviotti, A., ‘Un'artista senese del Cinquecento: Virginia Vagnoli da Siena’, Bollettino Senese di Storia Patria, 26 (1919), pp. 105–34Google Scholar (the most detailed study on Virginia Vagnoli before the present essay).

⁷ After the death of Francesco Maria II (1631), the last duke, the Duchy of Urbino became a part of the Papal states. The archive was divided into at least three parts, one of which went to Florence as a part of the inheritance of Vittoria della Rovere (the last duke's granddaughter, who married Ferdinando de' Medici); of the remaining portions, one went to Rome (and is currently in the Archivio Segreto at the Vatican), and another remained in Pesaro (and is currently in the Biblioteca Oliveriana and the Archivio di Stato di Pesaro). The Dukes of Urbino, both Guidubaldo II and his father, Francesco Maria I, preferred to reside in Pesaro, the main seat of their court from the 1530s; they went to Urbino only in the summer, and otherwise spent their time in the Villa Imperiale on the hills of S. Bartolo (northwest of Pesaro).

⁸ Luigi Firpo also mentioned Virginia Vagnoli in his studies on Lodovico Agostini: see Firpo, L., Lo stato ideale della Controriforma (Bari, 1957), passim.Google Scholar

⁹ For a preliminary account of Guidubaldo's musical patronage, see my ‘Guidubaldo, la musica e il mondo’ Il Saggiatore Musicale, 4 (1997), pp. 249–70Google Scholar, and my ‘Musica e musicisti attorno ai della Rovere’, in Brancati, A. et al. (eds.), Pesaro nell'età dei Della Rovere, Storia di Pesaro, iii/2 (Venice, 1999).Google Scholar

¹⁰ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. B, b. 10, fols. 38–39; for a complete transcription of the contract see Saviotti, ‘Un'artista senese del Cinquecento’, pp. 119–20. The contract (written by a copyist but bearing the autograph signature ‘GuidUbaldo’) can be found in a fascicle relating to Guidubaldo II. The entire busta contains similar fascicles, each concerning one of the members of the della Rovere family, in chronological order; papers contained in Guidubaldo's fascicle are official, and sometimes important, original documents regarding his life and career. Vagnoli's contract is the third document, coming after one which can be dated 1534 (marriage contract between Guidubaldo II and his first wife Giulia Varano da Camerino) and before another which can be dated 1552 (text of the discourse which the Bishop of Senigallia read before the Venetian Senate, informing the Serenissima of Guidubaldo's decision to leave Venetian service); but its placement seems to be entirely casual, and furthermore it is impossible to reconstruct whether this was its original place or whether it was put there by a later archivist.

¹¹ This property would become theirs and could be passed on to their heirs.

¹² The document, as we can read it now, bears no indication of additions or corrections, but the fact that it is undated gives the impression that it may be a later copy of the original contract, including the added ‘Viennese’ clause; the generic chronological indications included in the text (‘alcuni mesi’, ‘per questo anno’, ‘alcun tempo adietro’)imply that the original version must have been dated and thus reinforce the impression that the extant document is only a later (and probably corrected) copy.

¹³ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 222, carteggio di Venezia, fol. 198^r, letter of Giovan Francesco Agatone, ducal ambassador in Venice, to Guidubaldo II, Venice, 25 November 1564.

¹⁴ Maximilian was probably thinking in terms of private employment for Virginia at court, perhaps in the service of the Empress, as we soon shall see (for a brief account of Maximilian's interest in chamber music, see Lindell, R., ‘Filippo, Stefano and Marha: New Findings on Chamber Music at the Imperial Court in the Second Half of the 16th Century’ in Pompilio, A. et al. (eds)., Atti del XIV Congresso della Società Internationale di Musicologia. Trasmissione e recezione delle forme di cultura musicale, 3 vols. (Turin, 1990), III, pp. 869–75)Google Scholar, since no female singers were employed in the Hofkapelle as described in Pass, W., Musik und Musiker am Hof Maximilians II (Tutzing, 1980)Google Scholar, where no mention is made of the Vagnoli affair. Neither that affair nor the emperor's personal interest in Virginia Vagnoli is discussed either in Bibl, V. (ed.), Die Korrespondenz Maximilians II, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1916–1921), ‘Familienkorrespondenz 26 July 1564 – 27 December 1567’Google Scholar or in Bibl, , Maximilian II. Der rätselhafte Kaiser (Hellerau, [1929]).Google Scholar What is more disappointing is that, for reasons which I cannot explain, there is no trace of these matters in the ‘Diplomatisches Korrespondenz’ between the emperor and his ‘oratori’ in Venice (who discussed the Vagnoli affair with Guidubaldo's ambassador Agatone). A thorough investigation of these papers - the numerous dispatches and ‘avvisi’ sent by the ambassadors to Maximilian II, and his instructions and commissions to them by him – reveals nothing about the Vagnolis and their contacts with the Imperial court, though there are scattered references to other musical matters (music by Annibale Padovano and Gabriele Martinengo sent to Vienna, the emperor looking for tenors and basses for his Hofkapelle, matters concerning Girolamo da Udine and the lutenist Valentin Bakfark) in this correspondence (now in the Österreichisches Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna). Information about the conversations between Maximilian's ambassadors Franz von Thurm or Vitus von Dorimberg and the Urbino ambassadors Francesco Agatone was probably sent to Vienna by a means unknown to me; the absence of such reports in these papers leaves the impression that they were a special private matter not to be treated either among official and diplomatic concerns (obviously the subject of the greater part of the Diplomatisches Korrespondenz) or among small commissions. The possibility that letters or documents concerning the Vagnoli affair might be filed among non-diplomatic correspondence seems to be ruled out by the fact that the manuscript catalogue of the Imperial Familienkorrespondenz, with name index of senders and addressees, contains no mention of the Vagnolis.

¹⁵ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 222, carteggio di Venezia, fol. 257^r–v, letter of Giovan Francesco Agatone, ducal ambassador in Venice, to Guidubaldo II, Venice, 25 January 1566: information given together with diplomatic news and ‘avvisi’ about the war.

¹⁶ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 222, carteggio di Venezia, fol. 296^r, letter of Giovan Francesco Agatone, ducal ambassador in Venice, to Guidubaldo II, Venice, 9 03 1566.

¹⁷ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 222, carteggio di Venezia, fols. 396^r and 519^r: letters of Giovan Francesco Agatone, ducal ambassador in Venice, to Guidubaldo II, Venice, 12 August 1566 and 22 April 1567 the new ambassador was Vitus von Dorimberg.

¹⁸ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 222, carteggio di Venezia, fol. 544^r’, postscript to a letter of Giovan Francesco Agatone, ducal ambassador in Venice, to Guidubaldo II, Venice, 30 May 1567 evidently Guidubaldo II was irritated by meeting his obligations to protect his singer against the summons to Vienna.

¹⁹ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 222, carteggio di Venezia, fol. 570^r, letter of Giovan Francesco Agatone, ducal ambassador in Venice, to Guidubaldo II, Venice, 26 July 1567.

²⁰ This document was known to Saviotti (‘Un'artista senese del Cinquecento’, pp. 127–8), who did not publish it and erroneously dated it February 1570.

²¹ On Zanobi, see Pass, W., Musik und Musiker am Hof Maximilians II, pp. 222–3.Google Scholar He is documented as being in the Hofkapelle from 1 November 1569 to 1 November 1573, remaining at court until the 25th of the same month; Pass mentions neither the connection between him and the Vagnolis nor his visit to Pesaro.

²² Pietro Vagnoli's greed was well known far outside the duchy. Guidubaldo's Roman ambassador Traiano Mario, informing the duke about the possibility that a young instrumentalist might leave Rome and come to Pesaro to enter his service, writes as follows: ‘credo che egli se disponerà facilmente a venire da V. Ecc.za per quel che ne ho sentito, ma la difficoltà batte nel padre vecchio che è un terzuolo [= hawk], a punto di quello di Virginia, per ciò che vivendo sul suo guadagno, non lo lascia andare un passo senza lui' (italics mine). ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 138, Carteggio di Roma (ministri, agenti e corrispondenti ducali), fol. 501 ^r-v: letter of Traiano Mario to Guidubaldo II, Rome, 18 November 1570.

²³ This can be deduced from the central role which Agostini gives to Virginia in describing the musical activities of the courtiers of the Giornate soriane; but if the validity of this evidence may be questioned as the literary invention of a writer who was in love with Virginia, we may believe more neutral informers such as Carlo Macigni, steward of Guidubaldo II, who depicts her in the company of Pesarese ladies: ‘vorei in oltre che mi facesse un'altro servizio che mi mandasse qualche canzonetta allegra et bella, che ne sono ricerco da queste SS.re di Corte che imparano, et da mad.a Virginia, et qualche canzone spagnola se fosse possibile, ma avertischi che vogliono canzoni, et non napoletane, pur mi rimetto al suo bel giuditio perche le vogliono poi metter sul leuto’ (PS-Oliv, ms 375, vol. VI, fol. 123^r: letter of Carlo Macigni to Simone Fortuna, Roman secretary of Cardinal Giulio della Rovere, Pesaro, 6 January 1568).

²⁴ In a letter of 1582 to his sister Caterina, Lodovico Agostini writes: ‘Nel qual tempo [1569] sapete come passò la pratica della giovane sanese, che con tanto suo travaglio {erased: et mio} et de nostri comuni padri, dopo una volontà firmata di cinque anni che mi fece perdere le tre altre occasioni simili, convenne far altra risolutione et annullar le carte che fra noi conditionate si stavano.’; PS-Oliv, ms 193ter, Lodovico Agostini, Lettere, fols. 67–68, at fol. 68^r.

²⁵ The beginning of the 1570s was financially a very difficult period in the Duchy of Urbino, and Guidubaldo II was forced to impose more taxes, which caused a bloody rebellion in the town of Urbino that ended only in 1573. The sonnets by Agostini in which he alludes to the breaking of his engagement and to the possibility that Virginia would leave Pesaro often mention gold and Pietro's venality as the chief reasons for Virginia's new social and professional projects; see e.g. sonnet no. 276 (PS-Oliv, ms 193bis, fol. 85^v): ‘Se l'oro che vi tien, Donna, in catena, / come da voi et vien da me spregiato, / fosse da Pietro parimente odiato / per pietà almen de la gran vostra pena, / io crederei vedervi un dì ripiena / di maggior or, in più felice stato / et di più honor il valor vostro ornato / di cui vostr'alma à meraviglia è piena / […].’

²⁶ PS-Oliv, ms 193bis, fol. 76^v, sonnet no. 244, quoted by Saviotti, ‘Un'artista senese del Cinquecento’, p. 129; Agostini's sonnets prove only that the emperor's approach to the Vagnolis was known at Pesaro.

²⁷ See Piperno, ‘Guidubaldo, la musica e il mondo’, p. 256.

²⁸ Vittoria Farnese, Guidubaldo's second wife and Francesco Maria's mother, lamented this situation already in 1567 in a letter of 16 June to her brother Ottavio, Duke of Parma: ‘Vorria che V. Ill.ma mi facessi gratia di farmi sapere quel che fu di quel partito de la figlia della Duchessa di Loreno per che il sig. Duca mio ha aviso che quella di Baviera piglia il Duca di Guisa e quella di Loreno piglia il principe di Baviera di modo che noi resteremo come V. Ill.ma può pensare. […]’; ASP, Carteggio estero, Pesaro, b. 288, alla data.

²⁹ Guidubaldo carefully organised the musical aspect of the feast; in addition to his musical employees, he hired Fabrizio Dentice, Orazio Bassani and several violinists (‘violini’) from Parma, as well as a number of Venetian musicians and cornettists; there was music for banquets and also for the intermedi to a comedy by Felice Paciotto. Descriptions of those musical entertainments are to be found in some handwritten accounts in ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. B, fols. 654–660; see Baccini, Giuseppe, Nozze illustri. Descrizione dell'ingresso e delle feste fatte in occasione delle nozze di Lucrezia d'Este col principe Francesco Maria d'Urbino, Firenze, Bencini 1882.Google Scholar

³⁰ Guidubaldo's and Francesco Maria's preoccupation about that matter emerges clearly from a letter with instructions sent to the Pesarese ambassador in Ferrara, Livio Passeri, on 16 December 1570; ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 280, Minute di lettere 1570–1571, fol. 311^r-v.

³¹ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. E, b. 81, Carteggio del card. Giulio della Rovere, fol. 1089^r, letter from Ferrara of Cesare Torcella. To my knowledge this is the latest biographical document regarding the renowned Ferrarese cornettist Antonio dal Cornetto; according to reference books, no information about him after 1567 has hitherto been known.

³² Zanobi took this opportunity also to show his musical skills to Alfonso II; in fact, some years later he entered the service of the court: see Newcomb, Anthony, The Madrigal at Ferrara 1579–1587 (Princeton, 1980), i, pp. 181–3, at p. 182Google Scholar: ‘In January 1589 he came to Ferrara to serve at Duke Alfonso's court. He was apparently sufficiently impressive as a musician to hold out for very favorable terms of employment.’

³³ This is suggested by the fact that in Agostini's canzoniere sonnets on the Ferrara earthquake (nos. 255 and 256, fol. 80^v) are found after those on Zanobi' pretensions (sonnet no. 251, fol. 78^v and three unnumbered sonnets on fols. 78^v–79^r; see note 36 below); from sonnet no. 253 (fol. 79^v) it is evident that Zanobi had left Pesaro before news of the earthquake had arrived there.

³⁴ Cornelia Varana, a member of the family of Guidubaldo's first wife Giulia, died on 30 November.

³⁵ That is, Virginia had not the least interest in this marriage proposal, preferring to hold out for a wealthier and more civilised husband. The fact that Virginia would never agree to marry Zanobi is noted, with great satisfaction, by Agostini in some of his sonnets; he first expresses indignation for the absurd marriage proposal which ‘parmi / che tropp'innanzi l'ignoranza passi’, then states that ‘ben Cesare si mostra mal'accorto / poi che Colei, ch'ai regni suoi non degna, / vuol ch'altri {erased: vile} indegno, in suo favor ottenga’, and finally dismisses the poor cornettist scornfully: ‘Ritirisi hoggimai, pria che sostenga / costui lo scherno, et l'altrui honore scorto, / voltisi à parte, come lui, men degna’ (PS-Oliv, ms 193bis, fol. 78^v, sonnet no. 251). On the same subject Agostini wrote three other unnumbered sonnets (two of them erased); the first reads as follows (fol. 79^r): Un misero Triton d'Adria sonoro dal gran Danubio temerario torna per seco haver, che tutt'Italia adorna, l'alta Sirena, ch'io cotanto honoro.Torni scornato al suo pannonio choro con le sue torte e distemprate corna che chi fra noi con tant'honor soggiorna schiva l'imperio et ogni suo thesoro. Che non fia mai che tra sì fier' costumi ov'è di Bacco l'immondizia e'l lezzo viva colei c'ha sì pregiati vezzi. Et tu c'hai tanto la virtude in prezzo, Padre di lei, apri ben saggio i lumi, che la tua pietra il fumo, o l'or non spezzi.

³⁶ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 244, carteggio di Ferrara e Modena, fols. 288–291: letter of Livio Passeri, Pesarese agent in Ferrara, to Guidubaldo II, Ferrara, 16 December 1570, fol. 288^r.

³⁷ The term here used by the ambassadors, especially coming after information from Ferrara (Guidubaldo's letter had not yet arrived at this point), defines the relations between the duke and the singer quite differently from what the duke himself says in his letter; this allows us to suspect that Guidubaldo's statement that the Vagnolis were not his subjects was merely an excuse.

³⁸ ASM, Carteggio estero, Ambasciatori, Germania, b. 27, fasc. 2 (Norimberga, Praga, Vienna 1571 gennaio–dicembre): letter of Renato Cato and Alessandro Fieschi, Ferrarese ambassadors in Vienna, to Alfonso II d'Este, Prague, 14 January 1571, fol. 2^v. Pigna's letter to which they refer is one of two which they found when they reached Prague: the dating of these letters, on the 9th and the 12th ‘del passato’ (i.e. December 1570), means that they were written before Guidubaldo's official letter had arrived in Ferrara (15 December) and proves that there had been secret consultations between Pesaro and Ferrara. To those two letters from Pigna should be connected the one sent by Alfonso d'Este, dated from Ferrara, 9 December 1570, and addressed to Maximilian II, in which the Duke of Ferrara asked the Emperor to accredit his ambassadors who would soon, on his (Alfonso's) behalf, submit a matter to him directly. Alfonso does not indicate the subject, but there is no doubt that it was the Vagnoli affair (Vienna, Österreichisches Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Diplomatisches Korrespondenz, Italien -Kleine Staaten, Karton 10, Ferrara, fol. 116^r).

³⁹ ASM, Carteggio estero, Ambasciatori, Germania, b. 27, fasc. 2 (Norimberga, Praga, Vienna 1571 gennaio–dicembre): letter of Renato Cato and Alessandro Fieschi, Ferrarese ambassadors in Vienna, to Alfonso II d'Este, Prague, 23 January 1571, fol. l^r. This letter includes an answer by Maximilian II which cannot be found in either the Ferrarese or the Urbino archives. It is to be observed that the portions of those letters quoted here are obviously not in cipher – unlike other portions of these letters, as well as the greater part of the correspondence between Vienna and Ferrara in which delicate diplomatic questions are reported. The tone used here by the Ferrarese ambassadors seems appropriate to idle gossip and reveals the low esteem in which they held the commission from Pesaro (since they were accustomed to deal with important political issues), as well as a certain irony towards the kinds of diplomatic problems which preoccupied the Duke of Urbino.

⁴⁰ ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 252, carteggio di Germania, fols. 34–35.

⁴¹ Zanobi's name appears again in the Vienna–Urbino correspondence when, after the cornettist had left the Viennese court without permission in 1573, Guidubaldo II was asked by Maximilian II not to employ him should he come to Pesaro (ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 252, carteggio di Germania, fol. 44^r: letter of Massimiliano II to Guidubaldo II, Vienna, 20 November 1573).

⁴² Passeri, who was in Ferrara on 4 June, did not return to Pesaro from Bologna before the 17th of the month.

⁴³ Passeri wanted to please Alfonso II, who was hostile to Cosimo I, by suggesting that the plot had been devised by the Duke of Florence.

⁴⁴ The secrecy of the negotiation and the duke's consequent surprise are aptly conveyed by Agostini in his sonnet no. 269 (fol. 83^v): ‘Puose del suo signor nel lato aperto / il santo d'hoggi la sua mano ardita / ne pria credette la novella udita / che ‘1 veder e ‘l toccar non lo fe' certo’.

⁴⁵ Guidubaldo will have kept Virginia in Pesaro to gratify Lucrezia d'Este's love of music.

⁴⁶ Passeri seems to let us believe that Cosimo de' Medici also wanted Virginia in his service and for this purpose had sent Striggio to Pesaro to marry her; Striggio was actually wealthier and of higher status than Zanobi. Agostini also refers to Virginia's possible move to Florence, when he laments that ‘se chi Idalio e Cholco regge, à ornarmi / come di fiamma, de suoi mirti havesse, / farei sonoro assai più ch'Arno, Isauro” (that is, if Guidubaldo had made him a wealthy man so that he could have married Virginia, she would now still be singing near the Isauro river (in Pesaro) and not near the Arno (in Florence); sonnet no. 310, fol. 95^r).

⁴⁷ We do not know either when they met or when these negotiations began. It must be observed that, curiously enough, the names of Virginia and Striggio are already linked in Sansovino's account of Virginia's Venetian performances, mentioned at the beginning of this article: she played the viola as well as the renowned Striggio and Alfonso della Viola.

⁴⁸ This and the following document fix the approximate date and place – previously unknown – of Striggio and Virginia's marriage to about 18 June in Rimini.

⁴⁹ Where Passeri seems to underline Guidubaldo's tactful behaviour towards Pietro Vagnoli (‘al Padre fece dire ch'andasse in Rocca’), Salandri simply reports ‘ha fatto mettere in Rocca m.r Pietro’.

⁵⁰ Guidubaldo II may have also sent reports like the one by Passeri to other ambassadors and princes, with the purpose of protecting his own image and preventing the circulation of inaccurate and unfavourable versions of the story; one of Guidubaldo's more positive reports was certainly received by his Venetian ambassador Agatone, who answers the duke as follows: ‘Quanto alla discortesia usata dalla Virginia musica, mi servirò di quanto V. Ecc.^a mi scrive in caso che ne senta ragionare’; (ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 223, carteggio di Venezia, fol. 251^r, letter of Giovan Francesco Agatone, ducal ambassador in Venice, to Guidubaldo II, Venice, 23 July 1571).

⁵¹ Nevertheless, the Vagnolis remained on good terms with Agostini. In a letter to Pietro Vagnoli of 1582 the poet refers to the good memory he had of the Vagnolis in these words: ‘Or essendomi chiarito che molti [many of Agostini's friends], perchè la Dio mercè, franchi si vivono, sì come in particolar’ si è inteso di voi et di M.^a Virginia et dello Strigio suo consorte, restandomi intender’ de' lor figli et della nostra D.^a Bite amorevolissima vengo hora con questa mia à procacciarne novella: acciochè io sappia et meglio et più distintamente di voi tre principali di casa et poscia de gli altri che accessoriamente vi fanno compiuta et lieta famiglia. Non mancando in questo mentre raguagliarvi che tutti gli Augustini più vostri che loro et gli Accademici tutti, Baregnani, Macigni, Rinalducci, Almerici, Salandri, con tutta la preteria musicale, vivi sani et ricordevoli di voi unitamente si stanno’ (PS-Oliv, ms 193ter, Lodovoco Agostini, Lettere: fol. 57^r–v.

⁵² ASF-Urb, Cl. II, Div. A, b. 17, ‘Libro de ricordi n. 2’ dei cancellieri e maestri delle entrate, 1571–1593, fol. 21^r; a slightly inaccurate transcription of this document is given in Saviotti, ‘Un'artista senese del Cinquecento’, p. 130, who took it from PS-Oliv, ms 389, fasc. XXI, fol. 272^v. The Roman ambassador Traiano Mario, in a letter from Rome dated 21 July 1571, thanks the duke for the ‘dono’, which he has particularly appreciated, being aware that Guidubaldo ‘se trova nel stretto e scarso termine che io so – that is, he is in financial difficulties (ASF-Urb, Cl. I, Div. G, b. 138, Carteggio di Roma (ministri, agenti e corrispondenti ducali), fols. 893–894).

⁵³ PS-Oliv, ms 193bis, fol. 78^r, sonnet no. 250, transcribed with some errors in Saviotti, ‘Un'artista senese del Cinquecento’, p. 129.

⁵⁴ For this, see Piperno, ‘Guidubaldo, la musica e il mondo’.