I am most grateful to the staff of the following libraries and institutions for their unfailing courtesy and assistance during the preparation of this article, and for allowing transcribed material to be reproduced as musical examples: Bodleian Library, Oxford; British Library, London; Royal College of Music, London; Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, Bologna; Archivio di Stato, Venice; Archivio Storico del Patriarcato, Venice; Biblioteca Correr, Venice; Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice; Fondazione ‘Giorgio Cini’, Venice; Biblioteca Comunale ‘Ariostea’, Ferrara; Archivio Capitolare, Treviso; Archivio Capitolare, Modena; Archivio Capitolare, Pistoia; Archivio Capitolare, Piacenza; Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona; Biblioteka Jagielloriska, Cracow. I am indebted to Prof. Jeffrey Kurtzman for generously providing extracts of microfilmed material for consultation.Google Scholar

1 Ferrarese, Paolo, Passiones (see Appendix, source 4), preface: ‘mi [the compiler of the publication] hà persuaso la memoria, ch'io, d'un ragionamento che V.S.R. [the abbot, D. Andrea Pampuro] mi fece sei mesi addietro, quando parlando meco in camera sua dimesticamente … mi raccontò, con quanto noia, nel suo per noi ben aventuroso viaggio da Roma à Venetia, havesse udito la settimana santa cantare in Perugia, et in Arezzo le Lame(n)tationi di Geremia Profeta’.Google Scholar

2 ‘Con tante gorghe, e con tante moltitudini di voci, che le erano parute piu tosto un confuso strepito et romore, ch'una distinta musica, & pietosa, e divota, quale si conviene in quei santi giorni’ (ibid.).Google Scholar

3 ‘Hò fatto stampare queste, colme non meno di pietà, & di divotione, che di soavità & dolcezza musicali compositioni nelle quali il canto è cosi bene accomodato alle parole, & ciascuna d'esse, & ogni sua parte vi si sente in modo distinta, & espressa, che non sene perde pur un minimo accento’ (ibid.). I am grateful to Dr Tim Carter for suggesting that the abbot could have been experiencing examples of contrappunto alla mente, and that the impetus for Paolo Ferrarese's settings was the need for notated settings (which is a possible interpretation of the phrase ‘una distinta musica‘) which would supersede the reliance on improvised elaborations of the Lamentations chant.Google Scholar

4 The contract between Girolamo Scotto and the monastery of S. Giorgio Maggiore is referred to in Jane A. Bernstein, ‘Financial Arrangements and the Role of Printer and Composer in Sixteenth-Century Music Printing’, Acta musicologica, 63 (1991), 39–56 (p. 46). The contract is transcribed in Richard J. Agee, ‘A Venetian Music Printing Contract and Edition Size in the Sixteenth Century’, Studi musicali, 15 (1986), 59–65 (pp. 59–60).Google Scholar

5 Cantus monastici formula noviter impressa … cum tono Lamentationis Hieremie Prophete et aliquibus aliis cantibus mensuratis ipsi tempori congruis (Venice, Iunta, 1535; this is a reprint of the 1523 edition) (I-Bc Lit. 22), ff. 54^v–56. The excerpts of the Lamentations are set a2 for supra (F2 clef) and tenor (F4 clef).Google Scholar

6 Table 1 presents a comparison of verse selection in printed liturgies in use in northern Italy during the second half of the sixteenth century. The presence of the seasonal cantica is common to Benedictine Cassinese breviaries throughout the sixteenth century: Breviarium monasticum … secundum consuetudinem nigrorum monachorum Ordinis almifici patris Benedicti congregationis de observantia S. Justine (Venice, Torresanus de Asula, 1492) (GB-Lbl IA 21698), f. 63^v; Diurnum monasticum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti de observantia Cassinensis congregationis alias Sanctae Justinae reformatum atque correctum ex decreto Capituli Generalis novissime typis excussum (Venice, Junta, 1578) (GB-Ob Vet. Fl. f.206), f. 214^v; Breviarium monasticum secundum ritum monachorum Ordinis S. Benedicti de observantia, congregationis Casinensis, alias S. lustinae de Padua: Ex decreto Capituli Generalis millesimo quingentesimo octuagesimo quarto reformatum (Venice, Iunta, 1589) (GB-Ob Vet. Fl. d.28), ff. 81, 194; Breviarium monasticum secundum ritum monachorum Ordinis S. Benedicti de observantia, congregationis Cassinensis, alias S. lustinae de Padua: Ex decreto Capituli Generalis MDLXXXIIII reformatum (Venice, Iunta, 1600) (GB-Lbl Legg 220), f. 253^v.Google Scholar

7 The first of the three cantica in quadragesima consisted of a sequence of verses from Jeremiah (xiv. 17–21), commencing with the second half of v. 17 (‘Deducant oculi mei lachrymas …’) and concluding with v. 21 (‘… fedus tuum nobiscum’); the third canticum was taken from Ezekiel (xxxvi, commencing with v. 24: ‘Tollam quippe vos de gentibus: et congregabo …’). The series of seasonal cantica directly follows the canticle Nunc dimittis in the Office of Compline in the Cassinese breviaries. The use of the cantica was unaffected by the 1584 reformation of the monastic liturgy. There is no indication of the frequency of performance of the Lenten cantica; the equivalent cantica in Advent, however, are specified for Sundays (Diurnum monasticum, f. 211^v).Google Scholar

8 V. 17: insertion of ‘in dolore’ before ‘cor nostrum’; v. 19: ‘permanes’ for ‘permanebis’; insertion of ‘et’ before ‘solium tuum’; v. 20: insertion of ‘ergo’ before ‘in perpetuimi’; ‘derelinquis’ instead of ‘derelinquens’. The setting a2 features further Cassinese traits not present in the settings a3 or a4: v. 4: ‘et’ precedes ‘ligna’; v. 5: ‘nostris’ omitted after ‘cervicibus’.Google Scholar

9 The 7–4/6–3 suspension formula occurs in settings of the Hebrew letters in feria quinta at ‘Aleph’, ‘Beth’, ‘Deleth’, ‘Zai’, ‘Num’, ‘Samech’ and ‘Mem’; in feria sexta at ‘Beth’, ‘He’ and ‘Iod’; in sabbato sancto at ‘He’, ‘Vau’ and ‘Teth’, and at ‘viduae’ (V.3). This cadential formula is used extensively in Tromboncino's setting a4 (Venice, Petrucci, 1506; modern edition of the majority of the setting in Mehrstimmige Lamentationen ans der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts, ed. Günther Massenkeil, Musikalische Denkmäler der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz, 6, Mainz, 1965, 33–50, to which the page numbers below refer): ‘plena populo’ (p. 33), ‘nocte’ ‘(consoletur)eam’ (p. 34), ‘servitutis’ (p. 35); and in the Anonymus IV setting a4 (ibid., 142–8): ‘Jeremiae’ (p. 142), ‘facti’ (p. 143), ‘tuum’ (p. 144), ‘tuum’ (p. 148). The initial occurrence of the simultaneous false relation c#'-c“ is notated in the 1565 print; in identical recurrences of this musical phrase, the tenor's c#’ is not notated (at ‘chorus noster’, ‘capitis nostri‘).Google Scholar

10 Dialogo del R.M. Don Pietro Pontio Parmigiano ove si tratta della theorica, e prattica di musica (Parma, Viotto, 1595), p. 61: ‘le lettioni della settimana santa … queste compositioni siano gravi, e le parole intese benissimo dalli Ascoltanti, acciò à loro rendino devotione. Ne si deve in simili componimenti far Inventione alcuna, ò almeno poche; mà solo esprimer le parole’. Ragionamento di musica, del Reverendo M. Don Pietro Ponto Parmegiano ove si tratta de passaggi delle consonantie, & dissonantie, buoni, & e non buoni; & del modo di far motetti, messe, salmi, & altre compositioni (Parma, Viotto, 1588), p. 158: ‘lo stile, che si tiene nel comporre le lettioni della settimana sa(n)ta, è tale, che co(m)munemente va(n)no insieme … il co(m)positore deve servirsi delle dissona(n)tie; acciò facciano lacrimosa la co(m)positione, che cosi ricercano le parole; … Si suole alle volte fare, ch'una, over due parti facciano movime(n)to, p(er) far che sia la co(m)positione alquanto variata’.Google Scholar

11 Ioannis Paduanii Veronensis … institutiones ad diversas ex plurium vocum harmonia cantilenas (Verona, à Donnis, 1578), p. 14: ‘quod videtur praecipiendum, est ut … quavis lamentatione verba fuerint, flebilem pro sua virili adhibeat concentuum’.Google Scholar

12 A setting a4 by Pietro Poncio (sic) is listed in the Scotto catalogue of 1596; see Mischiati, Oscar, Indici, cataloghi e avvisi degli editori e librai musicali italiani dal 1591 al 1798, Studi e testi per la storia della musica, 2 (Florence, 1984), 105.Google Scholar

13 Ragionamento di musica, p. 158.Google Scholar

14 Dialogo, p. 61: ‘Ne si deve in simili componimenti far Inventione alcuna, ò almeno poche; ma solo esprimer le parole, come si vede nelle lamentationi di Morales, Cioanni Nasco, Gioanni Contino.‘Google Scholar

15 Lamentationi a voce pari (see Appendix, source 3). The material was sent for publication by Nasco's widow, Giacoma Calderara Nasca; the dedication, dated 20 September 1561, states that the publication contains Nasco's last compositions, written shortly before his death: ‘ho pensato di non tener nascoste [I] queste ultime [his compositions], che egli fece poco prima, che morisse’.Google Scholar

16 Threni Ieremiae (1561) (see Appendix, source 2); Threni Hieremiae (1588) (see Appendix, source 17). The 1588 Lamentations publication is not, pace RISM, a reprint of that of 1561, despite the similarity of the wording of the title. The presence of the pre-Tridentine formula ‘Sequitur in lamentatione …’ before lectio i of feria sexta indicates that the 1588 setting dates from before the introduction of the revised Tridentine breviary.Google Scholar

17 Vicentino, Nicola, L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (Rome, 1555), ff. 70^v–71; facsimile edn in Documenta musicologica: Erste Reihe (Druckschriften-Faksimiles), 17, ed. Edward E. Lowinsky (Kassel, 1959). The ‘Jerusalem’ example is transcribed in Luigi Torchi, L'arte musicale in Italia: Secolo XVI, i (repr. Milan, 1968), 145–6.Google Scholar

18 Orationes complures (see Appendix, source 5).Google Scholar

19 William F. Prizer, ‘A Mantuan Collection of Music for Holy Week, 1537’, Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, 2 vols., i (Florence, 1985), 613–25 (p. 616). I am grateful to Dr Iain Fenlon for making me aware of the existence of this article, and to Dr Tim Carter for enabling me to consult its contents.Google Scholar

20 George E. Nugent, ‘The Jacquet Motets and their Authors’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1973), 2 vols., i, 131. The provenance of I-Bc Q23 is uncertain: the verse selection of several of the Lamentations settings indicates an association with regional north-Italian pianura usage (see Table 4); there is close concordance between Q23 and I-Pc A.17 (Jacquet of Mantua, Opera omnia, ed. George E. Nugent, Corpus mensurabilis musicae, 54, iv, Rome, 1982, xxiii); the latter was copied in 1522 for use in Padua cathedral (Manuscrits de musique polyphonique XV^e et X VI^e siècles: Italie, éd. Nanie Bridgman, Répertoire international des sources musicales (= RISM), BIV/5, Munich, 1991, 310). Q23 consists of three partbooks: cantus, altus and tenor; the bassus partbook is no longer extant. There is no setting by Jachet in Q23 lor feria sexta.Google Scholar

21 The dedication is in the quintus partbook only: ‘Reveren. Patri Domino Tranquillo Priori Dignissimo Sanai Salvatoris Venetijs … Iacheti Celeberrimi in Musicis modulus super earn Hieremiae partem, quam Threnos vocant, atque in Christi Passionem nolui thesaurum tantae aestimationis in lucem prodire …‘. The provision of the dedication in only one partbook is not necessarily an indication that the 1567 print may be a subsequent edition of a publication no longer extant; there is, however, no advertisement that the 1567 print is a first edition, and the dedication makes no reference to Jachet having died in 1559.Google Scholar

22 Il primo libro delle Lamentationi (see Appendix, source 11).Google Scholar

23 ‘Nam hosce rhythmos musicos cum non ita pridem elucubrarim tibi … trado.‘Google Scholar

24 By contrast, the printer Vincenti used the ‘nova maniera’ of the falsobordone style as a selling-point two years later for his publication of Isnardi's 1585 Vespers psalms (John Bettley, ‘North Italian Falsobordone and its Relevance to the Early Stile Recitativo’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 103 (1976–7), 1–18 (p. 1)).Google Scholar

25 It is tempting to speculate that, in the course of his journey, Vinci met Galilei in Florence, and that the latter's stylistically experimental setting in 1582 of texts from the Lamentations and Responsories influenced, or was influenced by, Vinci's own innovative use of falsobordone recitation.Google Scholar

26 Lamentationes (see Appendix, source 15).Google Scholar

27 ‘Ne mi curerò ch'altri dica che questa sia fatica di poco studio, poscia che se per mezzo di queste semplici note altri s'innalzera(n)no alla conte(m)platione di Dio, havrò fatto assai; … Non v'è chi niega … che la Musica non debbia essere in ogni tempo, e più anche nei giorni santi, intelligibile, e chiara à tutti, perche questa candidezza d'armonia è più capace al comun senso de gli ascoltanti non è dubbio.’Google Scholar

28 The augmented-triad harmony is used as an expressive device in an anonymous manuscript setting which is probably by Vecchi, for use at Modena cathedral (see Appendix, source 36; e.g. I (‘Incipit‘), bars 4–6; 1.2, bar 12).Google Scholar

29 Musica super Threnos Ieremiae Prophetae (see Appendix, source 25). The Lamentations had been written a short time previously at Piacenza, and the manuscript published at the instigation of the Piacentine dedicatee, D. Giovanni Baptista Rustico, a Benedictine monk of the Olivetan congregation; ‘D. Ioanni Baptistae Rustico Piacentino, Monaco Cong. Mon. Oliveti … Threnos … quos recentiorum temporum modulationi accomodaveram, praeterito anno satis abs te laudatos memini, cum diceres eos tunc manuscriptos in lucem proferri debuisse.‘Google Scholar

30 Devottissime Lamentationi (see Appendix, source 30). This is a subsequent edition of an original publication no longer extant.Google Scholar

31 Viadana, Lodovico, Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae in Maiori Hebdomada concinendae quatuor paribus vocibus … opus XXII (Venice, Vincenti, 1609; RISM V1389): ‘Non si è manco usato il Falsobordone … perche non si canta mai tutte le parole ugualmente.‘Google Scholar

32 Murray C. Bradshaw, ‘Cavalieri and Early Monody’, Journal of Musicology, 9 (1991), 238–53 (pp. 248–50).Google Scholar

33 Le Lamentazioni a 4, 5, 6 ed 8 voci, ed. Raffaele Casimiri, Le opere complete di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, 13 (Rome, 1941); the ‘Jerusalem’ refrains are listed by voice-grouping on page ix.Google Scholar

34 Tromboncino's setting, published by Petrucci in Lamentationum liber secundus (Venice, 1506), features shared material for ‘Jerusalem’ refrains (see transcription in Mehrstimmige Lamentationen, ed. Massenkeil, 36, 45, 50), and repeats musical material to different texts frequently in the course of the setting: ‘Incipit’ (p. 33) = ‘Recordata …’ (p. 39), ‘Peccatum’ (p. 40), ‘De excelso’ (p. 46); ‘Viae Sion’ (p. 35) = ‘O vos omnes’ (p. 44), ‘Infirmata’ (p. 48); ‘Quomodo’(p. 33) = ‘omnes …’ (p. 41), ‘omnis populus’ (p. 43), ‘vigilavit’ (p. 47); ‘Omnes amici’ (p. 34) = ‘Vide domine’ (p. 42), ‘posuit …’ (p. 47); ‘et prevaricationis’ (p. 39) = ‘expandit’ (p. 46), ‘Torcular’ (p. 49). The Jerusalem' refrains of the Anonymus IV setting (I-Fn Fondo Panciatichiano 27) also share musical material (see Mehrstimmige Lamentationen, ed. Massenkeil, 143–4, 145, 148).Google Scholar

35 The refrains in Cavalieri's 1599 and 1600 Lamentations are distributed between the two settings. The settings are transcribed and edited by Murray C. Bradshaw (Emilio de' Cavalieri: The Lamentations and Responsories of 1599 and 1600, Early Sacred Monody, 3, Neuhausen, 1990). The growing use of refrains as a structural device in north-Italian motets in publications from 1572 onwards is outlined in Denis Arnold, ‘Giovanni Croce and the Concertato Style’, Musical Quarterly, 37 (1953), 37–48 (pp. 42–3) and in John Bettley, ‘North Italian Liturgical Music in the Late Sixteenth Century: A Study of the Repertory from c. 1570 to c. 1605’ (M.Mus. dissertation, University of Durham, 1988), 147–55.Google Scholar

36 Frank Carey cites Vicentino as evidence of a ‘significant correlation between the use of men's voices and the content of the words to be set to music’ (‘Composition for Equal Voices in the Sixteenth Century’, Journal of Musicology, 9 (1991), 300–42 (p. 308)); as the present discussion sets out to demonstrate, however, a serious text such as the Lamentations was equally likely to be interpreted by voces communes groupings.Google Scholar

37 Contino, Threni Ieremiae (1561) to the college of canons of Brescia cathedral; Isnardi, Lamentationes Hieremiae (1572) to Guglielmo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua; Varotto, Lamentationes Hieremiae (1587) to D. Cesare Spedano, bishop of Novara and nuncio to King Philip of Spain; Guami, Lamentationes Hieremiae (1588) to the Trevisan aristocrat, Francisco Sugana; Orfino, Musica nuova Lamentationi (1589) to the duchess of Ferrara; Macri, Lamentationes Ieremiae (1597) to D. Giovanni Moroni; Buonavita, Hieremiae Lamentationes (1600) to the archbishop of Pisa (only the setting for feria sexta is a5).Google Scholar

38 Lamentationi (see Appendix, source 21).Google Scholar

39 ‘… le [the Lamentations] dedichiamo perche sappiamo quanto ella [the president of S. Maria Secreta] ama questa maniera di musica atta à commovere gli affetti, et indurre gli huomini à divotione’ (preface from ‘gli heredi di Francesco & Simon Tini‘).Google Scholar

40 Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae (see Appendix, source 14).Google Scholar

41 Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae (see Appendix, source 18).Google Scholar

42 ‘Qui quidem cum hos concentus … non ne tunc animum tuum maxima delectatione permoveri, ac immensa quadam consolatione perfrui senties?’ (preface). Sugana was evidently a practising amateur singer: Guami recommends the setting to him in Sugana's capacity both as a performer (‘vel ipse cantaveris’) and as a listener (‘vel alios canentes audiveris’).Google Scholar

43 Guami sets a8 only the texts for ‘Incipit’, verse 1, and ‘Hierusalem’; verses 2–11 are set a4. The scoring a8 is G2, G2, G2, C1, C3, C4, F3, F4, and not for two similarly constituted choirs.Google Scholar

44 Three partbooks survive: cantus I, cantus II and tenor II (GB-Lbl Add. 34000, f. 14^v; 34001, f. 13^v; 34002, f. 13^v). The laudatory motet Edite Caesareo Boiorum refers to the imperial Bourbonnais blood-line of Prince Albert of Bavaria (d. 1579): ‘Edite Caesareo Boiorum … sanguine princeps Boiorum sanguine princeps Bavariae’. There would be a discrepancy in the assignation of the partbooks to the court of Prince Albert and the dating of the manuscript paper to the early seventeenth century (see Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, i: Sacred Vocal Music, ed. Augustus Hughes-Hughes, London, 1906, 197, 276–7).Google Scholar

45 See Table 2. In his study of polyphonic Lamentations from the first half of the sixteenth century, Massenkeil (Mehrstimmige Lamentationen, 6∗–7∗) assumes that the Council of Trent achieved an obligatory uniform usage; considerable variations in text selection, however, persist into the last third of the century.Google Scholar

46 Officium Hebdomade Sancte secundum Romanam Curiam (Venice, Sabbio, 1522), ff. 32, 65^v, 90; Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae, secundum consuetudinem Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae a Dominica Palmarum sive Olivarum, usque ad tertium diem Pasche (Venice, Iunta, 1563), ff. 38^v, 74^v, 103^v:Google Scholar

Feria quinta	(i) I.1–9	(ii) I.10–19	(iii) I.20–2; II.1–7
Feria sexta	(i) II.8–14	(ii) II.15–22	(iii) III.1–21
Sabbato sancto	(i) III.22–66	(ii) IV.1–22	(iii) V.1–22

The Aquileian breviary reflects the pre-Tridentine grouping in its abridged verse allocation (see Table 1).Google Scholar

47 The Liber usualis text differs in very few details from that in the Tridentine Officium. The text of the Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae secundum Curiam Romanam (1589) reads thus: II.9 ‘principe(m)’; 11.15 ‘capita sua’; III.26 ‘salutare domini’; V.5 ‘cervicibus minabamur’; V.6 ‘saturaremur panibus’.Google Scholar

48 Siro Cisilino assumes that Porta ‘did not have time to complete the Lamentations setting using Tridentine texts, and therefore left it unpublished’ (‘II Porta non avendo trovato il tempo di rifare o completare le sue lamentazioni secondo i testi tridentini, le lasciò inedite’. P. Constantii Porta O. F. M. Conv. (1529?-1601) opera omnia, ed. Siro Cisilino, vii, Padua, 1968, i). The setting corresponds, however, to central-Italian usage, and is a complete setting in this context. Pace Seay, all the textual material of Festa's setting can be identified in the complete Lamentations cycle; for example, the text ‘Recordare paupertatis … sperabo’ corresponds to verses III.19–21 (Constanze Festa: Opera omnia, ed. Albert Seay, Corpus mensurabilis musicae, 25, Rome, 1977, x-xi).Google Scholar

49 Bradshaw, ‘Cavalieri’, 244. Bradshaw provides the verse selection for feria quinta; the verse selection for feria sexta and sabbato sancto (disregarding settings of the Hebrew letters) is:Google Scholar

Rome	Pisa
Feria sexta	(i)	II.8/8, 11/11/11	setting by Isorelli
(ii)	II.12/12/12/12, 13/13, 14/14	III.41, 58
(iii)	III.1–3, 6, 8	III.9, 6, 2
Sabbato sancto (i)	III.22, 23, 24	not set
(ii)	IV.1/1, 2, 3/3	not set
(iii)	V.1/1, 2, 3	not set

50 Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae (1572) (see Appendix, source 7); Lamentationes (1584) (see Appendix, source 13).Google Scholar

51 ‘Et cum in Divae Barbarae tempio rei divinae (ut soles) operam navabis, concinenturq; lamentationes istae’ (preface).Google Scholar

52 ‘Optabam quidem, ex eo usq; tempore, quo Mantuae degebam tibi Excellentissime Princeps toto vitae curriculo inservire, sed postq; fortuna id non permisit, ut testatum apud te relinquam, quod tè semper, ut Principem, dominumq; meum colui, atq; observavi, quodq; tua erga me beneficia mihi minime memoria exciderunt’ (preface).Google Scholar

53 In the order of the setting, the verses occurring out of sequence which emphasize Isnardi's perceived predicament are:Google Scholar

54 Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae (see Appendix, source 29): ‘l'anno santo al sacro monasterio di Subiaco … mi si destò nell'animo un desiderio ardentissimo, di convenire con santa emulatione quel poco di talento che mi hà datto il Signore della musica in cose spirituali; … Per tanto tralasciato ogni altro pensiero, mi diedi à co(m)porre le lamentationi di Gieremia Profeta, alle quali à preghiere d'Amici aggionsi poi anco tutto il resto appartenente all'officio della settimana santa’. The Lamentations setting was written, therefore, in 1600 (when a Holy Year had been proclaimed), and the remaining elements of the Holy Week liturgy were composed later. There is a close correlation between the distinctive verse selection of Cantone's setting (published in Milan by Tradate in 1603) and that of the setting by Dentice, published posthumously by the Tini house in Milan in 1593 (see Table 2 and Appendix, source 21). Why there should be such a degree of agreement between the chosen texts is uncertain: the only other extant setting from the repertory to have been published in Milan (Alcarotti's of 1570) does not share this patterning, and the Breviarium ambrosianum shares the patterning of official Roman usage. Dentice, unlike Cantone, had no overt connections with Milan; his Lamentations possibly date from a period that he spent in Rome. There appear to be two alternative possible explanations: first, that Cantone's Lamentations reflect, together with those of Dentice, an unofficial local usage in the Roman area (Subiaco is 72 km. east of Rome); secondly, that Cantone set an unofficial local Milanese verse selection with which he would have been familiar, and that the Tini editors adapted Dentice's setting to correspond to the unofficial local usage.Google Scholar

55 These textual correspondences are present in settings which emanate from or are dedicated to patrons in Brescia, Verona, Cremona and Piacenza: Contino (1561), prefaced by a dedication written at Brescia to the college of canons there (there is no dedication or preface to the 1588 publication); Falconio (1580), prefaced from the monastery of S. Euphemia in Brescia, and published in Brescia; Jachet (1567), a posthumously published setting edited by a native Brescian, D. Cornelius Brixius; Nasco (1561), dedicated to the members of the Accademia Filarmonica in Verona (it is unlikely to have been written for use at Treviso cathedral where he was maestro di cappella, as the outline of verses in Trevisan usage follows a variant of the usage of St Mark's, Venice); Ingegneri (1588), prefaced from Cremona; Massaino (1599), prefaced from Piacenza.Google Scholar

56 Pie ac devotissime Lamentationes Hyeremie Prophete (see Appendix, source 1).Google Scholar

57 Lamentationi (see Appendix, source 10).Google Scholar

58 Lamentationes (see Appendix, source 34).Google Scholar

59 The manuscript (I-Fn II.1.350 (Magl. XXXVI. 113)) was compiled in the second half of the six teenth century (see Mehrstimmige Lamentationen, ed. Massenkeil, 6∗, 7∗).Google Scholar

60 Romano, Alessandro, Lamentationi: ‘non hò voluto, havendo a dar alla stampa le presenti lamentationi a voci pari, consacrarle ad altri, che a lei [his patron, Paolo Cesi], perche son certo che le saranno ancora un pegno dell'ardentissimo affetto, che le porto, e del desiderio grande, che tengo di far cosa maggiore per lei, essendo che gli esquisi i favori, le gratie signalatissime ricevute dalla infinita liberalità sua in Peruggia quando fui fatto degno di conoscerla, & prendere seco servitù‘.Google Scholar

61 Lilian P. Pruett, ‘Porta, Costanzo’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), xv, 129–32 (p. 130).Google Scholar

62 P. Constantii Porta O. F. M. Conv. (1529?–1601) opera omnia, ed. Cisilino, vii, p. i. The editor is apparently unaware of the regional significance of the verse selection for feria sexta; see n. 48.Google Scholar

63 Croce, Giovanni, Nove Lamentationi per la Settimana Santa a quattro voci … novamente date in luce: Con privilegio (Venice, Vincenti, 1610; RISM C4462); the dedication is to the patriarch of Venice, Francisco Vendramin. The verse selection of the 1610 publication is:Google Scholar

Feria quinta:	(i) I.1/1, 2/2/2;	(ii) 4/4, 5/5;	(iii) 7/7, 8/8/8;
Feria sexta:	(i) II.8/8, 9/9;	(ii) 18/18, 19/19;	(iii) III.7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12;
Sabbato sancto:	(i) III.34, 35, 36, 37, 38;	(ii) 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48;	(iii) V.1–2, 3–4, 5–6.

64 Officium Maioris Hebdomadae, iuxta consuetudinem ecclesiae S. Marci Venetiarum; a Dominica Palmarum, usque ad diem Resurrectionis Domini inclusivè: Nuper emendatum … à Ioanne Stringa eiusdem ecclesiae canonico. Cum Privilegio (Venice, Rampazetto; there is no advertised date of publication, but the dedication is dated 1 March 1597). This is the first extant published version of the St Mark's liturgy for Holy Week; subsequent editions appeared throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (see Marcon, Susy, ‘I codici della liturgia di San Marco’, Musica e liturgia a San Marco: Testi e melodie per la liturgia delle ore dal XII al X VII secolo; dal graduale tropato del duecento ai graduali cinquecenteschi, ed. Giulio Cattin, i (Venice, 1990), 191–272 (p. 204).Google Scholar

65 E.g. II.18: ‘per diem, & per noctem non des requiem ultra’; 11.19: ‘omnium compeditorum‘; III.8: ‘Sed & cum clamaverim & rogaverim exclusit’; III. 11: ‘posuit me desolatum’.Google Scholar

66 The versicles in the St Mark's use are ‘Venite et ploremus’, ‘Cum autem venisset’ and ‘Sepulto domino’. The processio ad sepulchrum was enacted after the meal which followed Mass and Vespers of feria sexta; the procession itself was followed by spoken Compline, and subsequently by Matins for sabbato sancto (Officium, 221–5).Google Scholar

67 The association of Asola's setting of the versicle ‘Cum autem venisset’ with the St Mark's rite is referred to in Giulio Cattin, ‘Canti polifonici del repertorio benedettino in uno sconosciuto “Liber quadragesimalis” e in altre fonti italiane dei secoli XV e XVI inc.’, Benedictina, 19 (1972), 445–537 (p. 476).Google Scholar

68 I-TVca(d) cod. 38, ff. 24–37: the incipits of the Lamentations sections are transcribed in Francesca Ferrarese and Cristina Gallo, Il fondo musicale della Biblioteca Capitolare del Duomo di Treviso, Cataloghi di fondi musicali italiani, 12 (Rome, 1990), 230.Google Scholar

69 The Benedictine Oratio was an exception in being designated for use in Lent (see n. 7). The Office of Matins was celebrated on the evening prior to its specified day during the triduum sacrum, ‘for the convenience of the members of the congregation’: ‘Il seguente Matutino, si dice il Mercordl da sera dopo Compieta, per commodità del popolo’ (Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae secundum Curiam Romanam: Ad missalis, & breviarij reformatorum rationem Pij V Pont. Max. iussu editorum (Venice, Misserini, 1589), f. 39^v).Google Scholar

70 A Coppie of the letter sent from Ferrara the xxij of November 1570 (London, Purfoote) ff. Ai–Aiij. The blame for the earthquake was directed at the duke: ‘the pytyfull Lamentacion of noble gentlewomen & others, & the clamorous criinge out of the people with execrable cursinge of the Duke … In dede his cruell tyrannyes were the occasion of all these ruynes’.Google Scholar

71 ‘La povera Verona fatta per ciò [the plague] timorosa, & mesta, non più compariva, come è di sua natura, leggiadra & allegra … la povera Verona da tutte l'altre città bandita, & abbandonata.’ Alessandro Canobbio, Il successo della peste occorsa in Padova l'anno M.D. LXXVI (Venice, Gratioso Perchacino, 1577), ff. 1–2^v.Google Scholar

72 Beltrami, Daniele, Storia della popolazione di Venezia dalla fine del secolo XVI alla caduta della reppublica (Padua, 1954), 57. Beltrami calculates the population of Venice in 1576 to have been 170,000.Google Scholar

73 Canobbio, Il successo, ff. 14–14^v, 19^v, 24. The plague was declared over in Padua on 29 October 1576.Google Scholar

74 Pullan, Brian, ‘Wage-Earners and the Venetian Economy 1550–1630’, Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1968), 146–74 (pp. 151, 153).Google Scholar

75 Hieremiae Lamentationes (see Appendix, source 26): ‘Incendium illud quo magnificum atque praeclarum Pisanum templu(m) VIII. Kal. Novemb. M.DXCVI eiusdem civitatis more, noctu antequam luceret quinque horas totum conflagravit, nemo sine lacrymis, ululantiq; voce, nemo sine dolore, sine suspirio aspicere potuit … Qui brevi te(m)poris curriculo, non sine magno plangore, & lamentatione perspeximus, ta(n)tum potuisse ignem ure(n)do destruere.’ The Pisan calendar until 1745 began on 25 March, nine months and seven days before the modern commencement of the calendar year; thus, the Pisan year 1596 in the period from 25 March until the end of December is equivalent to 1595 in the modern calendar: see Comte de Mas Latrie, Trésor de chronologie d'histoire et de géographie pour l'étude et l'emploi des documents du moyen âge (Paris, 1889), col. 10.Google Scholar

76 ‘Tabula … dierum … in quibus cantores et organistae tenentur ad nostram Ecclesiam Santj Marcj convenire pro suis officijs de more exequendis … Anno incarnationis MDXV … [cantores] Feria quinta in Missa. Et maturino Feria Sexta in Missa. et passione, processione, et matutino sabbato sancto in Missa et(cetera) de more … [organista] Feria quinta in missa sabbato sancto in missa.’ Bartolomeo Bonifacio, Rituum ecclesiasticorum cerimoniale (I-Vnm MS Lat, III 172 (Collocazione 2276)), ff. 63^v 65, 66.Google Scholar

77 Pace Bradshaw (‘Cavalieri’, 251), the first extant successor to Cavalieri's settings to feature monodic setting of the Lamentations text with instrumental accompaniment of which I am aware is Giovanni Francesco Capello's Lamentationi Benedictus, e Miserere … concertate à cinque voci et istromenti à beneplacito … novamente stampato … con licenza de' superiori (Verona, Angelo Tamo, 1612).Google Scholar

78 ‘Questa sorte di Musica che recita, farà sempre miglior effetto solo quattro buone voci, che cantano co(n) gravità, e schietto, che esser accompagnata con istrumenti.’ Viadana, Lamentationes, postscript addressed ‘Alii virtuosi di Musica’.Google Scholar

79 The performance of Tenebrae on the Thursday of Holy Week, 7 April 1583, in the large hall of the Compagnia dell'Arcangelo Raffaello, is referred to in John Walter Hill, ‘Oratory Music in Florence, I: Recitar cantando, 1583–1655’, Acta musicologica, 51 (1979), 108–36 (p. 113).Google Scholar

80 ‘I Responsorij … andaranno cantati allegri, con misura frettolosa, e strepitosamente, con accompagnar quattro, e cinque cantori per parte. Il verso a falso bordone, andarà cantato più largo, e da quattro soli cantori, facendo poi la replica, pur con gran fracasso, si perche andando da un'estrem'all'altro, questa varietà farà bellissimo sentire.’ Viadana, Lamentationes, postscript.Google Scholar

81 Falconio's Threni (1580) features a Benedictus a8 and Miserere a7: the layout of the partbooks indicates some spatial separation. Varotto's Lamentationes (1587) sets the Miserere as a double-choir dialogue. Macri's Lamentationes (1597) includes seven falsobordone Miserere settings, all of which combine the forces in the measured closing verse: the a13 verse features three choirs a4, a4 and a4.Google Scholar

82 Ferrarese, Paolo, Passiones (preface).Google Scholar