YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

ORLANDO DI LASSO ET AL.:
ANEW READING OF THE ROMAN VILLANELLA BOOK (1555)
Donna G. Cardamone Jackson
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
This article focuses on the second book in a series published by Valerio Dorico in
1555 to inaugurate the marketing of three-voice villanelle in Rome. 1 The first book
has not survived, but it was probably published under the same title as the second:
Villanelle d’Orlando di Lassus e d’altri eccellenti musici. Although Lasso’s name figures
prominently on the title page, Dorico failed to attribute any villanelle to him or
the ‘other excellent musicians’, in effect producing an anthology that was anonymous
by design. It seems that Dorico regarded villanelle – by nature short, formulaic pieces
– as categorically anonymous in character in order to acquire for himself a quasiauthorial
role in promoting the genre. 2
The production of anthologies was a highly commercial process that required
hiring musicians to fulfill multiple roles, such as obtaining pieces by colleagues known
to work quickly at cheap rates, writing new pieces as needed, and collecting desirable
compositions circulating casually on loose sheets. Hand-to-hand transmission
was a well-established tradition in Rome by mid-century, enabling professional editors
to compile and publish works by upcoming composers without contractual agreements.
But they took pains to cover their tracks with flattering dedications that polished
the images of all concerned, including their own capacity for happening upon
rare works by chance and rescuing them from oblivion. 3 Before launching his villanella
project, Dorico often relied on the financial support of local editori. However,
by 1555 he had obtained a generous subsidy from Francesco Guidobono, a pre-adolescent
priest, to whom he offered the villanelle in the second book as gifts of amusement.
4 Significantly, in his dedicatory letter Dorico did not take credit for collecting
the villanelle, nor did he mention the featured composer who, by 1555, had settled in
Antwerp. Thus some scholars believe that he placed Lasso’s name on the title page
1 Two partbooks have survived: the cantus from the 1555 edition (D LEm) and the tenor from Dorico’s
reprint of 1558 (USSR Lsc). The bass parts of six villanelle can be reconstructed through concordances
(see Table 2).
2 M. FELDMAN, Authors and Anonyms: Recovering the Anonymous Subject in Cinquecento Vernacular
Objects, in K. VAN ORDEN ed., Music and the Cultures of Print, (Critical and Cultural Musicology,
1; Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 2027), New York – London, 2000, pp. 169–175.
3 For dedications to Roman books printed in the 1550s by Dorico and Antonio Barré, which include compositions
by Lasso, see D. CARDAMONE, The Salon as Marketplace in the 1550s. Patrons and
Collectors of Lasso’s Music, in P. BERGQUIST ed., Orlando di Lasso Studies, Cambridge, 1999, pp.
75, 77, 79.
4 For Dorico’s dedication, see CARDAMONE, The Salon as Marketplace, p. 68.
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