CARISSIMI MANUSCRIPTS IN PARISAND BOLOGNA:

PROBLEMS OF AUTHENTICITY ANDDATING

BY ANDREW V. JONES

THE LACK of autograph manuscripts from the pen of a seventeenth-century Italian composer would not normally cause surprise. In thecase of Carissimi, however, it is known that his employers, theJesuit priests at the German College in Rome, took steps to ensurethe safety of his manuscripts: he died on 12 January 1674, andeighteen days later a papal brief was obtained from Pope ClementX which prohibited anyone, under pain of excommunication, fromremoving any of his music from the college.' Sadly, none of itremains today. Its loss is the more regrettable since it would surelyhave included autograph manuscripts. Pietro Alfieri, a nineteenth-century priest who had been a student at the Roman Seminary,carried out a search for the missing manuscripts, but withoutsuccess. He attributed their disappearance to two events: at thetime of the suppression of the Society ofjesus (1773) the contents ofthe archives of S. Apollinare (the adjacent church used by theGerman College for its services) and of the Gesu were sold as wastepaper; and during the French occupation of Rome (1808-14) theproperty of convents, monasteries, colleges and churches wasplundered, and many archives containing sacred music werebarbarously pillaged.'

Some of Carissimi's compositions, chiefly motets, were printedduring his lifetime, but our knowledge of a large part of his output,sacred and secular, has to be based on manuscript copies made byvarious scribes from the seventeenth century onwards. One of thebasic problems still associated with research into the music ofCarissimi is that of authenticity, and the heavy dependence thathas to be placed on secondary sources naturally exacerbates the

' There are three copies of the papal brief in the archives of the German College, nowsituated on Via S. Nicola da Tolentino. The document is printed in Thomas D. Culley,Jesuits and Music, i (Rome & St. Louis, 1970), 358-9.

* Alfieri published the results of his research in two articles: 'Notizie intorno a Ludovicoda Viadana e a Giacomo Carissimi, sommi compositori di musica', Cazzetia musicale diMilano, 1851, p. 41, and 'Altre notizie intorno a Giacomo Carissimi', ibid., 1855, p. 347. Thecrucial parts of Alfieri's articles were reprinted in Alberto Cametti, 'Primo contributo peruna biografia di Giacomo Carissimi', Rivisla musicale italiana, xxiv (1917), 385-6. Alfieri'sexplanation of the disappearance of the manuscripts is translated in Andrew V. Jones, TheMotets of Carissimi (unpublished dissertation), University of Oxford, 1979, pp. 74-75 (incourse of publication by UMI Research Press).

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problem.3 Not only the original scribes but also later annotatorsand compilers of library catalogues vary considerably in theirreliability. The three manuscript volumes that form the basis of thisstudy illustrate some of the difficulties involved; and in the light ofrecent research it is possible to correct certain errors that havefound their way into print.4

The manuscripts Paris, Conservatoire National de Musique,Res.F.934a-b apparently purport to contain exclusively music byCarissimi. The two large volumes were copied by the same Frenchscribe, who clearly conceived them as a pair, since he called them'Tome Ier> and Tome II ' respectively. The title-page of the firstvolume reads: 'RECUEIL/DE/PLUSIEU[R]S PIECES SAINTES/ET/MoTETs/composez en Musique par/MoNSiEUR CARissiMi/Maistrede Musique de S' Pierre de Rome/ToME P71649'; that of thesecond is similar apart from the addition of 'et plaisanteries' after'MOTETS' and the lack of a date. The identity of the portrait in Vol.1 has already been investigated by Gloria Rose.5 The present articleis concerned with problems of authenticity and dating.

In a by no means exhaustive investigation of the printedrepertoire of motets, mostly by Italian composers, in the periodc. 1620-80, no fewer than 64 printed attributions have come to lightthat conflict with manuscript attributions to Carissimi.6 It seemsreasonable, in principle, to accept a printed attribution as thecorrect one. There are often additional reasons for doubting amanuscript attribution: the scribe may be known to be unreliable,or the attribution may have been added by a later hand, or thesource may be a late unicum, or the composition may show stylistictraits uncharacteristic of Carissimi.

With reference to the two manuscripts under consideration,nine motets that are known not to be by Carissimi are listed inTable I. In addition, the plaisanterie 'Nominativo hie' (Res.F.934a,pp. 263-78) was published three times in mid-seventeenth-centuryanthologies as the compostion of Tarquinio Merula (1594/5—1655):7 Johann Erasmus Kindermann's Intermedium musico-

3 All known manuscript sources of Carissimi's motets are listed in Jones, op. cit.Appendix C (ii. 142-206). Problems of authenticity are discussed in Chapter 3.

4 For lists of contents of all three manuscripts, together with attributions proposedduring the course of this article, see Appendix, pp. 187-8 below.

' Although said to be of Carissimi, it is in fact a portrait of a Protestant theologian,Alexandre More (or Alexander Morus) (1616-70), who worked as a pastor or professor inGeneva, Middelburg, Amsterdam and various parts of France. See Gloria Rose, 'A Portraitcalled Carissimi', Music & Letters, li (1970), 400-403. In fact Henri Quittard, over 60 yearsearlier, had correctly identified the subject of the portrait in Giacomo Carissimi: Histoires sacrees(selection) . . . ('Concerts spirituels (Serie ancienne) . . . publies . . . par la ScholaCantorum . . .', i), Paris [c.1905], p. 34.

6 A complete thematic and source catalogue of all motets attributed to Carissimiappears as Appendix A of Jones, op. cit., including full details of conflicting printedattributions.

'See Wolfgang Witzenmann, 'Domenico Mazzocchi (1592-1655): Dokumente undInterpretationen', Analtcta musicologica, viii (1970), 116-17.

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Volume, pages

Res.F.934a239-45

Res.F.934b25-35

37-43

121-5

155-63

169-75

211-22

223-33

TABLE I

First words

Iste sanctus pro lege dei

Adoremus Christum

O quam clemens

Gaudia felices

Deus quis similis erit cibi

Benignissime Jesu

Domine, ne in furore tuo

Vox turturis audita est

Conflicting printed attribution

F. Foggia, Sacrae cantiones . . ., O p . 8,Rome, 1665

F. Foggia, Litame et sacrae cantiones . . .,Op. 4, Rome, 1652

A. Vermeren, in the anthology Floridaverba . . ., Antwerp, 1661*

B. Graziani, Motetti. . . libro terzo, Op.7, Rome, 1656

G. Tricarico, in the anthology R. Flo-idus . . . istas alias sacras cantiones . . .,Rome, 1664

B. Graziani, Motetti. . . libro terzo, Op.7, Rome, 1656

B. Graziani, Motetti . . ., [Op. 1],Rome, 1650

Alessandro Melani, Delectus sacrorumconcentuum . . . liber secundus, Rome,1673

251-60 Salve Jesu spes nostra G. Carisio, Sacri concerti . . ., Op. 1,Venice, 1664

•There is also a manuscript attribution to F. Fogeia in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale,MS Vm'.1185

politicum (Nuremberg, 1643); Jakob Banwart's Teutsche mil newcomponierten Stucken (Konstanz, 1652); and Musikalische Zeitvertreiber(Nuremberg, 1655). As far as is known, seven of these ten pieces areascribed to Carissimi in no other source. Accuracy was evidently amatter of little concern to the scribe: he describes Carissimi as'Maistre de Musique de S' Pierre de Rome', a post the composernever held. If the scribe could be careless, ignorant or wilfullymisleading in this respect, it need cause no surprise that he wasnegligent also with regard to attributions. The two motets that doappear elsewhere ascribed to Carissimi are 'Deus quis similis erittibi' (Res.F.934b, pp. 155-63) and 'Benignissime Jesu' (ibid., pp.169-75). The former is in Lyon, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS134025, pp. 23-24, where it is a tone lower (in C major) and scoredfor two sopranos and bass instead of alto, tenor and bass (the twosopranos are written a seventh higher than the Paris alto and tenorparts), the latter in Lyon, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 28329,pp. 25-28, and in Paris, Conservatoire, Res. Vmb.ms.6, pp. 28-29.As a source for 'Deus quis similis erit tibi' Res.F.934b probablypre-dates Lyon 134025, since D major, the key of the motet in theConservatoire manuscript, is the key in which the motet wasoriginally printed in 1664. (These two manuscripts are also theonly sources for another composition attributed to Carissimi, 'Duoex discipulis'.8) Hence it is likely that the scribe of the Lyonmanuscript transcribed 'Deus quis similis erit tibi' from the Parismanuscript, and the scribe of the latter would thus have been

"Ed. Lino Bianchi in Ciacomo Carissimi: Oratori, vi (Rome, 1960), 12-46.

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responsible for the incorrect attribution. The three manuscriptscontaining 'Benignissime Jesu' are also interrelated: Lyon 28329and Paris, Conservatoire, Res.F.934b have in common five motetswrongly or doubtfully ascribed to Carissimi, for three of whichthese two manuscripts are the only extant sources; and Paris,Conservatoire, Res.Vmb.ms.6 and Res.F.934b share three suchmotets, for one of which these two manuscripts are the only extantsources. Of the three manuscripts, Res.Vm .ms.6, consisting of aset of part-books, is probably the earliest; it was copied out byAndre Philidor (1647-1730), and is reliably dated 1688.9 Whetherthe scribe ofRes.F.934a-b transcribed 'Benignissimejesu' from theLyon or from the Philidor manuscript, his source was an unreliableone: of the seven motets in the former attributed to Carissimi, one isdefinitely not by him and the remaining six are all of doubtfulauthenticity; and of the 32 motets in the latter attributed toCarissimi, eight are definitely not by him and nine are of doubtfulauthenticity. The plaisanterie 'Nominativo hie' exists in several othermanuscripts, but all are of a later date than Res.F.934a and are inall probability derived from it.

For any of the ten compositions wrongly ascribed to Carissimi inRes.F.934a—b there may have been earlier sources, carrying asimilar attribution or left anonymous, which no longer survive. Onthe existing evidence, however, we must certainly accept theprinted attributions as the correct ones; and it will be argued belowthat the Conservatoire manuscripts do not even have chronologyon their side: the manuscripts must have been copied out over 30years later than the date written on the title-page of the firstvolume. These ten errors suggest that, in the absence of reliablecorroborative evidence, the scribe's attributions must be treatedwith caution.

In the first volume, Res.F.934a, the oratorios Jephte (pp. 1-62)and Jonas (pp. 63-116) and the motet 'Si linguis hominum' (pp.189-204) all survive in various manuscripts whose scribes areaccurate in their attributions;10 five more motets were printed underCarissimi's name between 1642 and 1675 and are certainlyauthentic: 'Turbabuntur impii' (pp. 117-43), 'Vidi impium' (pp.145-56), 'Insurrexerunt in nos' (pp. 205-16), 'O dulcissime Jesu'(pp. 246-50) and 'Militia est vita' (pp. 251-61)." But the remainingfour motets and four plaisanteries must be considered as of doubtfulauthenticity. 'Quare fremuerunt gentes' (pp. 165-84) and 'Quidescendunt mare' (pp. 217-26) are unica. 'Sub umbra noctis' (pp.

9 The dating of Res.F.934a-b is discussed below.10 Jephte and Jonas are both in Hamburg. Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek, MS M

C/270. There are in addition 27 other manuscript sources for Jephte, and part of the finalchorus was printed in Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia univcrsalis . . . , Rome, 1650, i.604-5; andthere are two other sources for Jonas. 'Si linguis hominum' is known from six othermanuscript sources, details of which are given in Jones, op. cit., Appendix A.

" See Jones, op. cit., Appendix B.

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157-64) and 'Revertimini praevaricatores' (pp. 227-38) bothsurvive also in Paris, Conservatoire, Res.Vmb.ms.6, the unreliabil-ity of whose scribe, Andre Philidor, has already been mentioned. Inaddition, the former is in Tenbury, St. Michael's College, MS1424,'2 pp. 38-43 (also the work of Philidor), and the latter is inParis, Bibliotheque Nationale, Vm'.1267, No. 4, whose scribe isknown to have made one incorrect attribution and four doubtfulones. In view of the incorrect attribution of 'Nominativo hie', thereis no reason to accept the other four plaisanteries (pp. 279-306) asCarissimi's compositions.'3 One of them—the Requiem burlesque—has a French text in the two soprano parts and these two voices singa contrived and awkward canon over a rhythmicized version of the'Requiem aeternam' plainchant in the tenor. This composition thuscontains features unknown in any of Carissimi's authentic works: acanon from beginning to end, several grammatical errors (fourthsabove the bass) and the dubious humour of its superimposed texts(while the tenor sings the Introit from the Mass for the Dead, theFrench text describes a husband's physical cruelty to his wife).

In the second volume, Res.F.934b, two motets were printedunder Carissimi's name: 'Ecce sponsus venit' (pp. 67-74) in 1654and 'Surgamus eamus properemus' (pp. 112-20) in 1649, 1652,1656 and (with instruments added) in 1666.H The remainingsixteen motets must be considered as of doubtful authenticity. Tenof these are unica. Of the six that do survive in other sources, four,'Vanitas vanitatum' (pp. 102-11), 'O admirabile commercium'(pp. 126-34), 'Audi Domine' (pp. 164-8) and 'Cantate Domino'(pp. 176-84), are in Lyon, Bibliotheque Municipale, 28329; one,'Duo ex discipulis' (pp. 86-101), is in Lyon 134025; and two,'Cantate Domino' and 'O miracula miraculorum' (pp. 234—46), arein Paris, Conservatoire, Res.Vmb.ms.6. It has already beenobserved that these manuscripts are all interrelated, and in anycase none of the scribes concerned is completely reliable in hisattributions.

It is noteworthy that while the scribe of Res.F.934a-b for themost part wrote Carissimi's name at the top of alternate pages inboth volumes, he omitted it altogether on the pages occupied byeight motets in the second volume: 'Vanitas vanitatum', 'Deus quissimilis erit tibi' (pp. 155-63), 'Audi Domine', 'Cantate Domino','Domine ne in furore tuo' (pp. 211-22), 'Vox turturis audita est'(pp. 223-33), 'O miraculum miraculorum' and 'Salve Jesu' (pp.251-60). The omission of Carissimi's name above these motets may

12 This manuscript is now in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale.13 See F.-J. Fetis, Biographic universelle des musiciens, 2nd edn., Paris, 1875, ii. 190; R. Eitner,

Biographisch-bibliographisches Qucllcn-Ltxikon . . ., Leipzig, 1900, ii. 333-5; H. J . Moser, Corydon.. ., Frankfurt, 1933, ii.43-50, 60-61, 68-76; F. Ghisi, 'Le composizioni vocali umoristiche diGiacomo Carissimi', Revue beige de musicologie, xii (1958), 67-70 (reprinted in Studi e testi dimusica ilaliana dall'Ars Nova a Carissimi, Bologna, 1971, pp. 195-8).

14 See Jones, op. cit., Appendix B.

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be significant: all of them, as has been demonstrated, are eitherdefinitely not by Carissimi or are of doubtful authenticity. Indeed,in the case of'Vox turturis audita est' the scribe has even indicatedthe true composer in his heading: 'Mottet/a deux voix et la bassecontinue/Per la Madona Melani'. But it must be admitted that thetitle-pages, in giving only Carissimi's name without qualification,are misleading; and the scribe did write it at the head of alternatepages in five other motets which are not by Carissimi: 'Iste sanctuspro lege dei' and 'Adoremus Christum' (both by Foggia), 'O quamClemens' (by Vermeren), and 'Gaudia felices' and 'BenignissimeJesu' (both by Graziani).

Information regarding the chronology of Carissimi's music isscarce; it is therefore understandable that Gloria Rose, in drawingattention to the date 1649, which appears on the title-page ofRes.F.934a, should stress its 'important and rare distinction'.15

Howard E. Smither has also accepted the date and its chronologic-al implications.16 It is to be hoped, however, that the date will notreceive general scholarly acceptance, since it is virtually impossibleto have been that at which the manuscript was copied.

The handwriting throughout both volumes is identical, exceptthat the index of the second is in a different hand. Certain featuresdemonstrate that the two title-pages were written at about the sametime: the layout and the style of writing are identical; on bothtitle-pages faint orange guide-lines have been ruled and the capitalletters lightly sketched in; dots are interspersed between variouswords in a similar fashion on both pages; and although it is only thetitle-page of Vol. 2 that mentions the plaisanteries, it is Vol. 1 thatactually contains them in the musical text, which suggests that thescribe had in mind the contents of both volumes as a whole. Thepaper in Vol. 1 appears to be slightly more yellow than in Vol. 2,but the style of writing is the same. The date '1649' in the bottomright-hand corner of the title-page of Vol. 1 appears, after closescrutiny, to be in the original hand and the original ink.

Engraved prints are inserted at various places in the twovolumes; some, but not all, are relevant to the composition oppositewhich they appear." They are clearly later additions to themanuscript: either they appear on an unnumbered page betweentwo pages numbered consecutively by the scribe, or they are pastedon to an available blank side of the original manuscript. Two of theengravings are dated, thus providing a clue to the date at which the

13 'A Portrait called Carissimi', p. 402.16 A History of the Oratorio, i: The Oratorio in the Baroque Era, Chapel Hill, North Carolina,

1977, p. 225." For example, opposite the motet 'Si linguis hominum' (Res.F.934a, p. 188), the text of

which is taken from 1 Corinthians xiii, on the virtue of charity, appears a picture of St.Elizabeth of Hungary giving money to a beggar. On the other hand, opposite the motetTurbabuntur impii' (ibid., p. 117) there has been inserted an engraving of a fireworksdisplay. The motet text describes the terrors of hell, but it seems unlikely that the engravingalludes to infernal flames.

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two volumes were bound: the engraving opposite page 63 in thefirst volume is entitled 'Dessein du feu d'artifice dresse devantl'hotel de ville pour la Publication de la Paix le 16e. 9 b r e 1697'; and,also in the first volume, the engraving opposite page 117 is entitled'Dessein du Feu d'Artifice dresse devant PHotel de Ville de Parispour la Publication de la Paix entre la France et 1'Empire le 8.Ianvier 1698'. These dates do not invalidate the date of 1649, sincea considerable time could have elapsed between transcription andbinding. But there are further pieces of evidence which must also betaken into account:

1. It is odd, in view of the careful and symmetrical layout of therest of the title-page, that the date is not incorporated into theoverall pattern but is added, in small characters and in aninconspicuous position, at the bottom right-hand corner of thetitle-page. It must, clearly, have been inserted later—perhapsimmediately after the page had been written, as an afterthought,or perhaps after a longer lapse of time; but the possibilityremains that it was written by the original scribe to signify thedate at which he copied out the manuscript.

2. Five motets in the two volumes were first published aconsiderable time—fifteen years or more—after 1649: 'Turba-buntur impii' in 1666 (and again in 1675), 'O dulcissime Jesu' in1670 (and again in 1672), 'Deus quis similis erit tibi' (byTricarico) in 1664, 'Vox turturis audita est' (by Melani) in 1673and 'Salve Jesu spes nostra' (by Carisio) in 1664. These largetime-gaps between the supposed terminal date of compositionand the dates of publication, while not disproving the date of themanuscript, do cast some doubt on it. It was common in theseventeenth century for a printed edition to act as progenitor toa number of manuscript copies. For a manuscript copy—andnot the composer's autograph—to precede a printed edition byfifteen years or more is strange.

3. The commonest watermarks in both volumes are a bunch ofgrapes and (less often) a fleur-de-lys above three letters.Nothing is found in Heawood'8 that corresponds to the latter;but Ex. 2120 is extremely close to the former. The provenanceand date given for this example are Paris, 1683.

4. The motet 'Vox turturis audita est' poses the most seriouschallenge to the authenticity of the date 1649, for its composer,Alessandro Melani, was baptized on 4 February 1639.'9 Infantbaptism was the rule in seventeenth-century Italy, so in 1649 hewould have been ten.years old. Available information about18 Edward Heawood, Watermarks, Hilversum, 1950.19 Information about Alessandro and Atto Melani is drawn from Luigi Ferdinando

Tagliavini, 'Melani', Die Musik in Geschichte und Cegenwart, ix (Kassel, 1961), 4—7, and LaMusica: Dizionario, ii (Turin, 1971), 291-2.

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Alessandro Melani and his brother Atto confirms the obviousassumption: that he could not possibly have composed 'Voxturturis' in or before 1649. Alessandro (1639-1703) was in Parisfrom 1648 to 1650 in the service of Cardinal Mazarin;presumably it was in these years that his fame was firstestablished in the city. From 1667 he held various posts in Rome(and before that in Pistoia). His brother Atto (1626-1714) spentfar more time in Paris: after two early periods of residence there(1644—5 and 1647-50) he returned in 1672 and remained inParis until his death in 1714. Hence he could well have beenpromoting the music of his younger brother in the years after1672. We might even surmise that Alessandro sent Atto a copyof Delectus sacrarum concentuum . . . liber secundus (Rome, 1673),which contains his motet 'Vox turturis audita est'. The fact thatthere is a copy of this publication in the Bibliotheque Nationaleat Paris adds weight to the hypothesis. Finally, Alessandro isknown to have been composing operas from 1669 to 1697 andoratorios from 1675 to 1693; his motets were printed between1670 and 1717; there is no evidence that he composed anythingas early as 1649.

In the light of this evidence, how can the date 1649 beexplained? It might be suggested that, while on Res.F.934a it is anauthentic date of transcription, Res.F.934b, which is the volumecontaining 'Vox turturis audita est', was copied out much later. Ifit post-dates its companion by about 25 years, the scribe could thenhave copied 'Vox turturis' from the published source. The chiefobjection to this hypothesis is simply that everything about thepaper, the handwriting and the layout of the two volumes suggestsstrongly that they were copied at about the same time, and indeedthis is the opinion also of Gloria Rose.20 And if transcription didfollow publication in the case of'Vox turturis' in Vol. 2, this wouldsurely be the case also with regard to two motets in Vol. 1 whichwere first published at about the same time: 'Turbabuntur impii'(in 1666) and 'O dulcissime Jesu' (in 1672).'" Furthermore theevidence of the watermarks strengthens the likelihood of a laterdate of transcription, probably in the 1680s. Alternatively '1649'might not be a date at all, but perhaps some kind of referencenumber, though it is more likely that a reference number wouldhave been written in a more conspicuous position such as the topright-hand corner of the title-page. A third hypothesis is that thescribe added '1649' as a possible date of composition for the firstwork in Vol. 1, Carissimi's oratorio Jephte, part of which, as we haveseen, was printed in 1650."

20 'A Portrait called Carissimi', p. 402.21 See Jones, op. cit., Appendix B.M See note 10 above.

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The first hypothesis suggested above is almost certainlyuntenable, and neither the second nor the third is particularlyconvincing. The fact that the figure '1649' remains enigmatic doesnot invalidate the conclusion reached earlier—that it cannotrepresent the date at which the music was copied out and hencecannot serve as a terminal date of composition for the contents ofthe two volumes.

Bologna, Civico Museo Bibligrafico Musicale, MS X 233,unlike the Paris manuscripts, has no pretensions to being exclusive-ly a Carissimi collection. Gaetano Gaspari described the manu-script and its contents thus:23

Carissimi Giacomo. Messa a otto voci, e mottetti a quattro, condiverse altre composizioni.—Ms. in piccol foglio, autografo, di carte26.

A car. 14 tergo trovansi Litanie a 4 con questa soprascrizione: delGreg.i dopo le quali appare di nuovo il nome del Carissimi.

Despite its lack of precision, this entry certainly implies that all themusic on ff. l r-14 r is by Carissimi, and it states that the manuscriptis an autograph. As will become clear in due course, neither theimplication nor the statement is true.

In an article on Carissimi's Masses, Giinther Massenkeilaccepts Gaspari's description of the manuscript as an autograph.24

Francesco Vatielli, in his edition of 'Pulchra et decora', describeshis source as 'manoscritto, probabilmente autografo'.25 (BolognaMS X 233 is the only known source in which the motet could beconsidered to be attributed to Carissimi.)

Carissimi's name appears in the Bologna manuscript at the topoff. lr above the first item: the Kyrie, Gloria and Credo of a Massfor eight voices.2" The composer's name is in the hand of theoriginal scribe, who is not Carissimi: the spelling of the Christianname ('Giacomo') differs from the composer's practice ('Jacomo'),and the style of the writing differs from that of autographdocuments in the archives of the German College.2'

The entire musical text from f. 1 to f. 26 is the work of the samescribe, although he copied out certain pieces after the main body of

23 Catalogo delta Biblioteca del Liceo Musicale di Bologna, ii ( B o l o g n a , 1 8 9 2 ) , 4 9 .24 'Uber die Messen Giacomo Carissimis', Analecta musicologica, i (1963), 29. Cf.

Laurentius Feininger, 'Zu einigen Handschriften der Biblioteca Vaticana (Fondo CappellaGiulia)', Analecta musicologica, ix (1970), 295-8, who states that three of the Masses listed byMassenkeil are spurious (Massenkeil's Nos. 1, 3 and 4), that one is by F. Foggia (No. 2) andthat three are by Benevoli (Nos. 5, 6 and 7).

25 Antiche cantate spirituali, vi ( T u r i n , [ 1 9 2 2 ] ) .26 The Credo is not quite complete: it ends at 'et vitam venturi saeculi' without a final

chord. The Mass is printed in Luigi Torchi, L'arte musicale in Italia, v (Milan, [c.1900]), 1-36.Torchi did not specify his source, but Bologna MS X 233 is the only known source for theMass.

27 One is reproduced in Culley, Jesuits and Music, PI. VII.

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the manuscript had been written. Hence it is not unreasonable forGaspari to have assumed that 'del Sr Giacomo Carissimi' on f. Vapplied to all the music as far as f. 14r. (On f. 14V appears theattribution 'del Greg.', and there are more composers' names fromf. 16V to f. 23V.) It is clear from the change of ink and pen (but not ofhand), and from the way they have been squeezed into theavailable spaces, that two of the ten compositions between ff. 6V and14r—'Laetentur caeli' and 'Veni sponsa Christi'—were added afterthe rest had been transcribed. Although only these two motets aretranscribed with a basso continuo, it is obvious from the musicaltexture of the remaining eight that they should all have a continuopart: there are solo passages, for example, in 'Deus tuorummilitum', which make no sense without a harmonic support. Onstylistic grounds alone Carissimi's authorship of the works on ff.6v-14r is highly questionable: they are quite unlike anything hewrote. Again, the study of seventeenth-century Italian publicationsof motets yields at least a partial solution: the eight compositions inthis group which represent the original transcription are byGiovanni Ghizzolo (d. 1625); they are contained in his Quarto librodelli concerti. . . con le letanie . . . Opera decima sesta . . . (Venice, 1622).An incomplete copy of the first edition survives in the BibliotecaComunale at Cesena28 and a complete copy of the second edition(Venice, 1640) in the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale atBologna. The authorship of the two items added later ('Laetenturcaeli' and 'Veni sponsa Christi') has not yet been determined, butthere is no reason to suppose that they are by Carissimi.

The Litany on ff. 14v-16r is given the attribution 'del Greg.'; thisprobably refers to Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652).

As may be seen from the list of contents (see Appendix below),the scribe indicated the composers for eight of the ten piecesbetween ff. 16V and 26r; these eight are contained in the printedanthology Scelta di motetti. . . raccolti da Filippo Berretti (Rome, 1643),an exemplar of which (now incomplete) survives in the CivicoMuseo at Bologna.29 The first anonymous piece in this group oftenis 'Io di vera pieta', for soprano and continuo, which appears on thebottom two staves only of ff. 17v-22r.30 A clue to its source isprovided by the heading 'Religione': it is the recitative ('Io di verapieta') and aria ('Quei chi sospirano') from Act II scene 9 ofStefano Landi's opera / / Sant'Alessio, first performed at Rome in

'•" See Sergio Paganelli, Catalogo delle opere muskali a stampa dal '500al '700 conservalepresso laBiblioteca Comunale di Cesena, Florence, 1966, pp. 325, 331.

29 Only the alto and continuo part-books survive there. All five part-books are extant atComo Cathedral, and three survive at Rome, Arciconfraternita di S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini;see Helene Wessely-Kropik, 'Mitteilungen aus dem Archiv der Arciconfraternita di SanGiovanni dei Fiorentini, detta della Pieta in Rom', Studien zur Musikwisscnschaft, xxiv (1960),57.

30 The scribe's practice of writing straight across a full opening from left to right is thecause of the curious foliation of the manuscript. Thus the Gloria begins on T (top right),continues on lv (bottom left), 2' (bottom right) and so on, and ends on 3 r.

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1632-and printed there two years later. The second anonymouspiece, 'Insurrexerunt in nos', is known from three publications31

and various manuscripts32 as a composition of Carissimi. Theanonymous four-part 'Miserere mei' at the very end of the volume,after an inserted letter, is not in Carissimi's style. Thus X 233, farfrom being a Carissimi autograph, contains only three composi-tions by the composer: part of a Mass, and the motets 'Emendemusin melius' and 'Insurrexerunt in nos'.

The letter just mentioned poses a problem. It is written fromSiena by someone who signs himself 'Hilario Carm"; it is dated 7July 1648 and addressed to his 'Amatimo fratello', whose full nameis not given. The writing is similar to that of the scribe who copiedout the music, but it is not the same: there are clear differences inthe formation of certain letters,'D' and 'A' in particular and also' V , 'b', T and 'p!. The reasons why the letter is bound in with thismusic volume are probably the following: the not unreasonableassumption that 'Car1™' is an abbreviation for Carissimi; thesimilarity of the handwriting of the letter to that of the musical text;the belief that the music in the first part of the volume is byCarissimi; and perhaps the long-standing contiguity of the two. Aswell as the fact that the handwriting of the letter and that of themusical text are not identical, the following facts should be noted:Giacomo Carissimi had no brother called Hilario; Giacomo's namedoes not appear on the letter; and as far as is known he had nofamily connections in Siena. There is also the obvious fact that,even if the two hands were taken to be identical, this wouldestablish X 233 not as an autograph of Giacomo Carissimi butrather as a transcription by the sender of the letter: HilarioCar[issi]mi. The contents of the letter are vague and offer little inthe way of clues to the identity of either writer or recipient, butthere is no reason to assume that it is in any way connected withGiacomo Carissimi.

31 See Jones, op. cit., Appendix B: 1642, 1649, 1653.K Ibid., Appendix A.

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Pages1-62

63-116

117-43

145-56157-64

165-84

189-204

205-16

217-26

227-38

239-45246-50251-61

263-78279-87

288-99

301-3

304-6

APPENDIX

(a) Paris. Bibliotheque du Conservatoire. MS Res.F.934a

MS title (in table of contents) First words Composer

Histoire de Jephte a six Cum vocasset in prelium Carissimiparties

Histoire de Jonas 2 Choeurs Cum repletus esset Ni- Carissiminive

Plainte des Damnez a trois Turbabuntur impii Carissimivoix et deux dessus deviolon

L'Impie Mottet a 3 voix Vidi impium CarissimiMotet Sur Le Purgatoire a Sub umbra noctis

trois voixPseaume 2C . . . a trois voix Quare fremuerunt

gentesMottet sur la Charite a 3 Si linguis hominum Carissimi

voixMotet a 3 voix Versets d'un Insurrexerunt in nos Carissimi

PseaumeMotet a 2 basses et une Qui descendunt mare

basse ContinueMottet a 3 voix

Mottet a 3 voixMottet a 2 voixMottet a 3 voix

[Plaisanteries]Le Rudiment en MusiqueHistoire des Cyclopes

Histoire de Le'Ane [sic]

Revertimini prevarica-tores

Iste sanctus pro lege deiO dulcissime JesuMilitia est vita

Nominativo hieFabri cum per in cudem

[rede periucunde?] sefundunt

Rusticus cum mortuumsuum

Venerabilis barbaca

F. FoggiaCarissimiCarissimi

T. Merula

La veneration de la barbedes Capucins

Le Requiem burlesque latin Quand mon mari vientet francois de dehors/Requiem

(b) Paris, Bibliotheque du Conservatoire, MS Res.F.934b

Pages MS title (at head of each piece) First words

1-12 Motet Po. le tres S1 Sacre- Cernis panemment

13-24 Motet Pour le Tres S'Sacre-ment

23-35 Motet du Tres Saint Sacre-ment

37-43 Motet Po. la Slc Vierge44—50 Motet Pour la Slc vierge51-66 Motet Pour la Sainte Vierge Errate per colles67—74 Motet Pour la Sainte Vierge Ecce sponsus venit75-85 Mot te t Pour la Sainte Tolle sponsa

Vierge86-101 Histoire Des Pellerins des Duo ex discipulis

Maus [rede d'Emmaus].Pour le Temps de Pas-ques

102-11 Mottet sur La Vanite deshommes

112-20 Mottet de la S lc vierge

121-5

O vere et care Jesu

Adoremus ChristumRegem

O quam ClemensO piissime Jesu

Mottet Pour le Temps de Gaudia FelicesPasques

Composer

F. Foggia

A. Vermeren

Carissimi

Vanitas vanitatum

Surgamus eamus prop- Carissimieremus

B. Graziani

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126-34

135-47148-54

155-63164-8

169-75176-84185-97198-210

211-22223-33

234-46

247-50

251-60

Mottet Du Tres Saint Sacre- O admirabile commer-ment cium

Mottet Sicut cervus desideratMottet a voix seule et la Adeste mortales

Basse ContinueMottet Pseaume 82Mottet a voix seule et la

basse continueMottet Du tres s1 sacrementPseaumePseaume 75Motet

Mottet a deux voix et labasse continue Per laMadona Melani

Motet Du S' Sacrement

Mottet Po. la feste de SaintPierre

Deus quis similis erit tibiAudi Domine

Benignissime JesuCantate DominoNotus in Judaea DeusQui non renonciat [rede

renunciat] omnibusDomine, ne in furore tuoVox turturis audita est

G. Tricarico

Graziani

GrazianiAlessandro

Melani

O miraculum miracu-lorum

Tu es petrus

Salve Jesu spes nostra G. Carisio

Folios

(c) Bologna, Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, MS X 233

First words MS attribution/composer

V-2'2r-(lv)-3r

3'-6r

6'-7r

7v-8r

8r-(7v)-8r,Hr*8'-(9r)-8"8v-10r

9v-ll r

10'-llr

12-13't13'-14r

13'-14r

14'-16r

16r-(15')-16v

16'-(18r)-17v

17'-(19r)-18v

17'-22r:18'-(20r)-19'19'-(21r)-20v

2O'-(22r)-21v

21'-23r

22'-24r

23'-25r

24'-26r

f!2rl§ri2'l

Missa

KyrieGloriaCredo [incomplete]

Pulc[h]ra et decoraJubilate gaudete et exuhateMott" a voce sola: L[a]etentur c[a]eliDulcissima Christi mater almaVeniat dilectus meusAlleluia Jubilat [recte Jubilet] EcclesiaDeus tuorum militumKyrie eleison, Christe audi nosAgnus Dei . . . parce nobis DomineVeni sponsa ChristiKyrie eleison, Christe audi nosAgnus Dei . . . miserere nobisEmendemus in meliusIste sanctusIo di vera pieta . . . Quei chi sospiranoMult[a]e fili[a]eVeni sponsa ChristiGaudeant angeliAnima meaPeccavi sup[er] numerumQuae est istaInsurrexerunt in nos [lacks final ca-

dence][Letter dated 7 July 1648]Miserere mei deus

del Sr Giacomo CarissimiCarissimi]Carissimi]Carissimi

G. Ghizzolo]Ghizzolo]

GhizzoloGhizzoloGhizzoloGhizzoloGhizzoloGhizzolo

del Greg. [Allegri]G. Allegri]del Carissimidel [S.] DuranteS. Landi]Stefano Fabridel [V.] Mazzoc[c]hidel [O.I Benevolidel [T.] Cimadel Durantedel [A.] AntonelliCarissimi]

* At the end off. 8r the scribe has drawn a hand pointing to the right and has written theinstruction 'voltate 3 cart dacapo'. The completion of the motet is written on the top four andbottom four staves of the sixteen-stave page.

fThe sequence of foliation is broken at this point. What would have been f. 11'' isnumbered (in pencil) 12; then comes f. 13r, followed by [13'], 14r and so on. in the originalsequence.

JVVritten on the bottom two staves.§The numbering of the last folio in the volume is in ink, but it is not in the hand of the

original scribe.

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