Publisher's Synopsis
This book is a companion volume to Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Mantua I. The relationship between the volumes is not direct in the sense that specific references are made in volume I to specific features of the works in volume II. Rather, the present volume stands on its own as an anthology of compositions which could all be described as products of the system of patronage discussed in volume I. In various ways these ceremonial and domestic compositions illuminate the environment that brought them into being and that enabled them to survive. At the same time, the selection illustrates the variety of styles employed by composers in the Gonzaga service from Jacques of Mantua to Claudio Monteverdi. The collection includes works both by little-known Mantuan musicians and by some of the most important composers of the sixteenth century.
