YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

126 DONNA G. CARDAMONE JACKSON
without permission for promotional reasons, thereby controlling the expectations of
readers. 5
But, as Roger Chartier has argued, “every textual or typographic arrangement
that aims to create control and constraint always secretes tactics that tame or subvert
it”. 6 Readers with a previously gained knowledge of anthologies would surely have
noticed that featuring the name of a single composer in the title was not normal practice,
and they might have wondered why Dorico did not boast about his success in
bringing new music to light. 7 By deliberately not representing himself as a collector,
Dorico gave sharp readers reason to believe that another person had obtained the villanelle.
Moreover, by broadcasting Lasso’s name and at the same time reducing him
and the others to anonyms, he publicly acknowledged sharing authorial power with
a composer – now liable to be construed as both collector and provider of new music.
No documentary evidence exists to prove or disprove this reading; nonetheless, there
are compelling grounds for preferring it to the received view, which rests solely on
the fact that Lasso was not living in Rome when the anthology was published. The
new reading I will propose raises the possibility that Dorico negotiated an ad hoc
arrangement with Lasso before his departure in spring 1554, and it accounts for the
services that Lasso was uniquely qualified to offer.
Collecting enough villanelle to fill two anthologies was an ambitious project,
most likely set in motion when Dorico realized that a large colony of Neapolitans had
formed in Rome following popular uprisings against Viceroy Toledo in 1547. This
colony not only provided an ideal target market, but also a means of accessing repertory
transmitted from Naples or composed by such newcomers as the Neapolitan
nobleman Luigi Dentice, exiled in 1547 (accompanied by his eldest son Fabrizio),
and Lasso, who came to Rome from Naples in December 1551. 8 The core repertory
they presumably put into circulation was bound to expand, eventually attaining the
level that Dorico needed to seize control of the market. But patterns in his production
levels reveal that he was attending to other projects while villanelle were spreading
5 A. EINSTEIN, The Italian Madrigal, Princeton, 1949, p. 497; W. BOETTICHER, Orlando di Lasso
und seine Zeit, Kassel, 1958, p. 42.
6 R. CHARTIER, Texts, Printings, Readings, in L. HUNT ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley, 1989,
p. 173.
7 In the early history of publishing Neapolitan dialect songs, only one other anthology includes the name
of a composer on the title page: Elletione de canzone alla napoletana a tre voci di Rinaldo Burno con
altre scielte da diversi musici, delli quali la tavola dimostra per ordi[ne] nel veri nomi de ssi auttori,
[Padua, Fabriano and Bidoni], 1546. But in his dedicatory letter the editore, Dionisio De Palii, takes
credit for bringing the works of Burno and ‘equally talented musicians’ to light.
8 It is not known how long the Dentices remained in Rome, but they were probably there in 1553 when
the second edition of Luigi’s treatise, Duo dialoghi della musica, was published by Dorico’s associate,
Vincenzo Lucrino.