YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

SELLING THE MADRIGAL: PIERRE PHALÈSE II AND THE FOUR ‘ANTWERP ANTHOLOGIES’
merchant-banker then active in Antwerp). 23 Over the next two decades, the Laet firm
issued four publications containing madrigals by Hubert Waelrant (1558), Séverin
Cornet (1563), Noe Faignient (1568), and Jean de Castro (1569) with addresses to
Italians. 24 With the ‘Antwerp anthologies’, Phalèse tapped into an established tradition
of Italian patronage of madrigals in the north.
Relatively little is known about the relationships between the Italian dedicatees
and the compilers of the ‘Antwerp anthologies’. Philips’s dedication of Melodia
olympica to Giulio Balbani, for instance, is entirely conventional and reveals only
that Balbani was patrono mio osservantissimo, which merely implies that Philips was
financially obligated to Balbani in some way. 25 The dedications of Musica divina and
ANTHOLOGY DEDICATEE AND OCCUPATION SIGNED BY
Musica divina (1583) Giovanni Battista Bartolomei, Pierre Phalèse
jeweler
Harmonia celeste (1583) Cesare Homodei, Andreas Pevernage
merchant from Milan;
resided first in Antwerp,
then in Cologne
Symphonia angelica (1585) Cornelio Pruenen, Hubert Waelrant
Antwerp city treasurer and local
merchant specializing in Baltic trade
Melodia olympica (1591) Giulio Balbani, Peter Philips
banker in Antwerp;
family from Lucca *
* Balbani belonged to a noble family from Lucca that was earlier active in Bruges, and, in the sixteenth century,
based in Antwerp; see art. Balbani, Giulio, in A.M. GHISALBERTI ed., Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani,
5 (1963), pp. 322–324; and HOEKSTRA, The Reception and Cultivation of the Italian Madrigal, p. 150.
Table 2. The patronage of the ‘Antwerp anthologies’.
23 On Italian sponsorship of music in Antwerp, see HOEKSTRA, The Reception and Cultivation of the
Italian Madrigal, pp. 133–135, 148–150; FORNEY, Antwerp’s Role in the Reception and Dissemination
of the Madrigal, pp. 239–240; S. WILLAERT and K. DERDE, Het mecenaat van de Genuese natie in
Antwerpen in de tweede helft van de 16de eeuw, in I. BOSSUYT ed., Orlandus Lassus en Antwerpen
1554–1556, Antwerp, 1994, pp. 47–56; and D. CARDAMONE, The Salon as Marketplace in the 1550s:
Patrons and Collectors of Lasso’s Secular Music, in P. BERGQUIST ed., Orlande de Lassus Studies,
Cambridge, 1999, pp. 64–65. See also K. BOSTOEN, Italian Academies in Antwerp: Schiappalaria
and Vander Noot as ‘Inventors’ for the Genoese Community, in D. CHAMBERS and F. QUIVIGER
eds., Italian Academies of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1995, pp. 195–204. On the foreign ‘nations’
(as they were known) in Antwerp, see G. ASAERT et al., De Antwerpse Naties: Zes eeuwen actief in
stad en haven, Tielt, 1993. On the Italian merchants, in particular, see J. DENUCÉ, Italiaansche koopmansgeslachten
te Antwerpen in de XVIe–XVIIIe eeuwen, Mechelen – Amsterdam, 1934, pp. 43–56.
24 For their contents, see WEAVER, A Descriptive Bibliographical Catalog, no. 16, pp. 81–87; no. 25,
pp. 120–124; no. 32, pp. 149–154; and no. 34, pp. 155–160.
25 HOEKSTRA, The Reception and Cultivation of the Italian Madrigal, p. 149.
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