Institutional Patronage in Post-Tridentine Rome: Music at Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini, 1550-1650.

Noel O'Regan. (Royal Musical Association Monographs, 7.) London: Royal Musical Association, 1995. 4 pls. + 7 music, x + 117 pp. [pounds]19.50. ISBN: 0-947854-06-1.

Noel O'Regan's Institutional Patronage in Post. Tridentine Rome: Music at Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini is not only a recitation of raw data, but a fine and thorough explication of the facts of the Archconfraternity of the SS. Trinita's history, structure, and organization, the identification of the principal patrons, their family and political connections, the identification of the musicians and their importance to Roman music, and, of course, the music itself. O'Regan's excavation of the archives of the confraternity has been exhaustive. The reader is presented with the facts of the founding of the SS. Trinita in 1548 during the early Tridentine resurgence under Pope Paul III with involvement of S. Filippo Neri, the growth of the organization in size and importance during the post-Tridentine years in its role caring for pilgrims, especially in the Holy Year 1575, and in the fifty years following, as an important, occasional employer of musicians and a conduit for noble and papal patronage. The simple identification of the cardinal protectors, starting with Cardinal Otto Truchsess von Waldburg, followed by Ferdinando de' Medici and a series of papal nephews (Alessandro Peretti Cardinal Montalto, Ludovico Ludovisi, and Antonio Barberini), was important for Tridentine and post-Tridentine music and the development of the reformed, simpler style.

As O'Regan points out, the interest of the papacy and the curia resulted in an ability to hire the best musicians in Rome for the confraternity's large processions or elaborate and solemn ceremonies, especially on Trinity Sunday. The names of these musicians read like a who's who, including Palestrina, Victoria and Marenzio, but also include lesser knowns like Annibale Zoilo, who began the reform of the chant books with Palestrina in 1577, or Giovanni Bernadino Nanino, a papal singer and member of an important musical family. The ubiquity of the singers of the pontifical chapel, among those hired on special feast days, further attests to the patronage system stemming from papal family connections. In addition to hiring musicians ad hoc, from 1575 the SS. Trinita paid a maestro di cappella, usually an organist, and unsuccessfully tried to maintain a regular musical chapel. Because it relied on patronal alms and had only a very small endowment, according to O'Regan, it found itself in financial difficulty throughout its first century of existence.

Although the archives yield no library holdings, O'Regan has been able to piece together a list of printed collections of basic repertory, based on the indexes in the archives of other confraternities in Rome, that the SS. Trinita might have owned. He has also identified some manuscript collections of polychoral works from the period of the SS. Trinita's height (the 1580s and '90s) whose attributions read like the list of maestri employed by the confraternity. This is a most valuable contribution, and it places the SS. Trinita's repertory at the forefront of musical developments in the city.

The valuable information in Institutional Patronage in Post-Tridentine Rome provides a firm basis for further amplification. However, because O'Regan has already done a good deal of work on some of the other confraternities in Rome, particularly surrounding the use of polychoral music, perhaps one could have asked that he provide a more overarching, comprehensive study of the musical life of all the confraternities as well as an elaboration of their rituals and ceremonies. Nevertheless, his work is solid scholarship, and it would be unfair to criticize an author for not having done something that he or she had no intention of doing. But how much more fulfilled both author and reader would be if our vision and our purpose were broader.

MITCHELL P. BRAUNER University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee