Historical Introduction

1. The Choirbooks with Polyphonic Music of the Ducal Chapel of St Mark’s

[§1] The music collection of the Cathedral Basilica of St Mark’s contains a nucleus of fourteen choirbooks and some fragments with polyphonic music which, together, represent the most important remains of the specific polyphonic repertory of the Venetian Ducal Chapel. The polyphonic repertory transmitted in the fourteen choirbooks includes six complete cycles and three fragments of the ordinarium missae, a Requiem mass, three cycles of voces turbarum for Holy Week, thirty-one hymns, seven Magnificats and a fragment of a further Magnificat, and twelve motets (see Index of Compositions).

[§2] Most of these compositions are unattributed in the sources. Most frequent among the attributed compositions is the name of Giovanni Rovetta, author of a mass (Choirbook 11), a fragment of ordinarium missae (Choirbook 18) and two cycles of voces turbarum (Choirbook 2). Other explicitly attributed compositions in the sources are as follows: three masses by Natale Monferrato (Choirbooks 5 and 6), three Magnificats by Antonio Lotti (Choirbooks 9 and 10), a Missa pro defunctis by Giovanni Croce (Choirbook 1) and a cycle of voces turbarum by Giovanni Matteo Asola (Choirbook 2). In at least three cases, concordances and, in particular, the reconstruction of the material history of the manuscripts have led to attribution of previously anonymous or dubious compositions. Examples are the Missa feriae quintae sexagesimae (Choirbook 3), a copy of Clément Janequin’s Missa super La Bataille (with a number of significant variants); two hymns (Choirbook 4), in all probability the work of Francesco Cavalli; and a Magnificat (Choirbook 8) and at least five motets (Choirbook 12) attributable to Giovanni Rovetta. Largely anonymous are the two extensive collections of polyphony for the liturgy of the Hours (Choirbooks 13 and 14: see Index of Composers). The choirbooks were mostly copied between 1670 and 1720, with a particular concentration in the period 1670–1690. Exceptions are Choirbook 10 (containing two Magnificats by Lotti), compiled between 1720 and 1736, and sections 3, 4 and 5 of Choirbook 13, copied before 1755.

Ms.	Content / Angeli’s inventory (1720)	Date
1	Giovanni Croce, Missa pro defunctis Inventory, no. 17	1683 / 1691
2	Giovanni Rovetta and Giovanni Matteo Asola, Turbe Inventory, no. 18	1682 / 1686
3	[Clément Janequin], Missa feriae quintae sexagesimae Anonymous, Fragment of Credo Inventory, no. 54	1670 / 1671
4	[Francesco Cavalli], Two hymns Inventory, no. 43	1672
5	Natale Monferrato, Missa quinque vocibus Inventory, no. 4	1678
6	Natale Monferrato, Two 4-part masses Inventory, no. 4	1677
7	Antonio Biffi, Missa brevis Inventory, no. 11	1715
8	Giovanni Rovetta, Magnificat Inventory, no. 46	1682 / 1683
9	Antonio Lotti, Magnificat	1720
10	Antonio Lotti, Two Magnificats	Before 1736
11	Giovanni Rovetta, Missa quattuor vocibus Anonymous, Fragment of Kyrie Inventory, no. 6	Before 1671
12	[Giovanni Rovetta?], Magnificat and six motets Inventory, no. 41	Before 1690
13	Anonymous, Hymns, Magnificat, motets Inventory, no. 31	Before 1720 / Before 1755
14	Anonymous, Hymns, motets, antiphons, Magnificat Inventory, no. 33	Before 1720?
18	Giovanni Rovetta, Missa brevis [fragment] Inventory, no. 6	1682 / 1683

[§3] In October 2014, the choirbooks with polyphonic music of St Mark’s were granted UNESCO World Heritage status. Between 2015 and 2016 they underwent restoration. A study of their material history was conducted by Luigi Collarile as part of a research project financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2013–2014). The present digital catalogue is the result of a further research project financed by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and coordinated by David Bryant and Luigi Collarile of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, with the invaluable contribution of Augusto Celentano and Renzo Orsini of the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, and in collaboration with the Cathedral Basilica of St Mark’s and the Swiss National Science Foundation (2016–2017).

2. Investigating the History of the Music Collection of the Venetian Ducal Chapel

[§4] The history of the choirbooks is inextricably linked to the musical life of the Ducal cappella. The volumes were first catalogued in modern times by Francesco Passadore and Franco Rossi, in their important bibliographical survey of the music collection of St Mark’s (Passadore, Rossi: San Marco, vol. 4, pp. 1477–1503). Formerly housed in cupboards located in the organ lofts of the basilica (together with materials then used by the cathedral choir), in the 1990s they were transferred to the Archivio Storico del Patriarcato di Venezia (henceforth I-Vasp), where they are preserved to this day.

[§5] The difficulties of access clearly emerge in a letter addressed by Gianfrancesco Malipiero to Sandro Dalla Libera on 8 September 1960: ‘Who was that scoundrel who destroyed the archive of St Mark’s? [...] I am convinced that the music manuscripts are rotting in some storage room of the church. I have attempted more than once to penetrate the deposits of St Mark’s, without success’ (Fondazione Cini, Fondo Dalla Libera: ‘Chi fu quel delinquente che distrusse l’archivio di San Marco? [...] Sono convinto che i manoscritti musicali marciscono in qualche magazzino della Chiesa. Più volte ho tentato di penetrare nei depositi di San Marco, senza riuscirvi’). An inventory of the music archive of the cappella compiled by Matteo Tosi, a priest, in 1932 (I-Vasp) notes that the ‘fourteen manuscripts, almost all belonging to the first period of decadence, are indeed miserable fare! What remains of the glorious Venetian School?’ (Passadore, Rossi, San Marco, vol. 1, p. 663: ‘Quattordici Codici, appartenenti quasi tutti al primo periodo della decadenza, sono ben misera cosa! Che cosa è rimasto della gloriosa Scuola Veneziana?’).

[§6] The surviving choirbooks figure in the inventory compiled by Francesco Caffi ‘shortly after the wretched year of 1797’ (Caffi, Storia della musica sacra, p. 447: ‘poco dopo il miserando anno 1797’). In Caffi’s view, the dispersion of the collection was linked to the ‘deplorable consequences’ (‘deplorabili conseguenze’) of the Napoleonic conquest of Venice (ibid.). In reality, the process of impoverishment had its origins in the thoroughgoing reform of the musical repertory of the cappella and related ceremonial enacted under Baldassare Galuppi between 1765 and 1766, which determined both a significant reduction in the number of performances ‘in bigonzo’ and the abandonment of numerous choirbooks. Only those volumes still in use were preserved. A rare snapshot of the collection in the decades preceding the reform is offered by the Inventario de’ libri musicali inservienti all’uso della Cappella di S. Marco compiled by padre Marchio Angeli, custodian of the music of the cappella, in September 1720 (Figure 1; cf. vmo.unive.it/inventory1720).

[§7] The number of choirbooks then in use was considerably higher and the repertory included significant traces of sixteenth-century polyphony. 3. Perspectives for a Material History Preparatory research for the present digital catalogue has unearthed valuable information on various aspects of the material history of the sources. Sixteen different copyists can be identified on the basis of calligraphy (see Index of Copyists). Though most are anonymous, named copyists make a far from negligible contribution. The earliest of these is Lorenzo de’ Rossi. Employed as a ‘viola’ player from January 1649, he was also active in the Ducal Chapel as a copyist until 1678. Three of the surviving volumes bear his hand: Choirbooks 3 (copied in 1670–1671), 4 (copied in 1672), and 6 (copied in 1677).

[§8] The largest contribution is that of Giovanni Francesco de Sartis, active as a copyist in the Ducal Chapel from the end of 1682 to the early months of 1692. On 13 April 1683, he was paid for having copied the ‘[…] mass; Magnificats, motets and hymns of the former maestro di cappella Roeti [= Giovanni Rovetta]’ (Venice, Archivio di Stato, Procuratoria de Supra, Chiesa, reg. 148, sub data: ‘[…] Messa; Magnificat, Motetti, et Inni del già Maestro di Capella Roeti’). His admission to the Ducal Chapel was formalized on 4 October 1685 in the double role of bass singer and copyist, charged ‘[…] with copying everything [which] shall be commanded by the Sig.r Maestro [Giovanni Legrenzi]’ (Venice, Archivio di Stato, Procuratoria de Supra, Chiesa, reg. 148, sub data: ‘[…] e per dover copiar tutto quello li sarà comandato dal Sig.r Maestro’). His last appearance in the documents of the Ducal Chapel dates to 19 January 1692 (1691 more veneto), when he was paid as ‘music copyist for paper and binding of music books, in accordance with the note [supplied by] Mons[igno]r [Giovanni Domenico] Partenio V[ice] maestro di cappella’ (Venice, Archivio di Stato, Procuratoria de Supra, Chiesa, reg. 36, sub data: ‘coppista di musica p[er] carta e ligattura de libri di musica, giusto la polizza di mons[igno]r Partenio V[ice] maestro di capella’). Giovanni Francesco de Sartis is the compiler of Choirbooks 1 (copied between 1683 and 1691), 2 (copied between 1682 and 1686), 8 (1682–1683) and 18 (1682–1683). In 1678, padre Leonardo del Carmine was paid for his services as music copyist. He is perhaps identifiable with the anonymous hand (Anonymous 3) responsible for Choirbook 5, which bears the following sigla and date: ‘F.L.P.C.V.S. Anno D[omi]ni | 1678’.

[§9] During restoration of the manuscripts, some hitherto unknown fragments came to light. Two fragments found in Choirbook 3 had been used to reinforce the covers of the manuscript. These fragments, which contain some sections of an anonymous four-part Credo, were originally part of the same page. A further fragment was found in Choirbook 11 when the verso of the last folio was detached from the back cover, to which it was previously glued. This led to the recovery of the complete Cantus and Tenor parts of what was probably a four-part Kyrie, copied after the mass by Giovanni Rovetta in the same manuscript – a fact which, together with the loss of the first sheet of the choirbook, suggests that Rovetta’s mass was extracted from a larger collection and newly bound. In all probability, the latter operation dates to after the reform of the musical ceremonial introduced in 1765. Given that the music collection of the Ducal Chapel contained several masses by Rovetta, only one of which survives intact, it is possible that another is featured in the newly-recovered fragments. No concordances are known.

[§10] Examples of elaboration and recomposition of heterogeneous materials are visible in other choirbooks. Choirbook 13 brings together four separate bibliographical units, compiled at different times and for different reasons. The first, third and final sections contain polyphony. The second section contains plainchant for Easter Vespers, when the doge and his retinue paid visit to the church of San Zaccaria, and for the feast of Sts Philip and James (1 May), when the procession made its way to the nearby church of the same name. It is not possible to establish when these various sections were united. It is, however, certain that the manuscript was bound after 1755. The verso of the final page, glued to the cover but detached during restoration (2015), bears the following annotation: ‘D. Francesco Bertolini was substituted [as] custodian of the musicians in the year 1755 on 25 May [in place of] the former custodian D. Angelo Vianello [who suffered an] apoplectic stroke’ (‘D. Franc[esco] Bertolini fù sostituito | Custode de Musici l’anno 1755 li 25: maggio | per caduta Appopletica di D. Angelo | Vianello fù custode’).

[§11] The present state of Choirbook 12 is the result of one or two operations leading to the modification of the opening section. Two earlier numerations are visibile. The older of these, located in the upper right corner of each recto, runs from ‘48’ to ‘62’. The other, located in the middle right corner of each recto, runs from ‘47’ to ‘59’ (corresponding to fols 48–60 of the earlier numeration). The verso of the last sheet containing music is blank. Thus the manuscript originally consisted of 62 sheets, of which only sheets 48¬–62 are now extant. The first 47 sheets, now lost, were presumably removed in two distinct phases: first a single sheet, then a further 46 sheets. In this case, too, the physical modification of the manuscript may date to the second half of the 18th century. Despite its many merits, the restoration of 2015 involved a number of arbitrary modifications, in particular regarding the flyleaves and endpapers of some choirbooks: these interventions are noted in the descriptions of individual manuscripts, where appropriate details of the previous layout are also given.

4. The Sound of St Mark’s: Composers, Ceremonial and Performance Practice

[§12] As noted above, the music collection of the Venetian Ducal Chapel has suffered considerable loss of materials in the course of its long history. Yet the surviving choirbooks are of maximum importance in observing and investigating various aspects of the specific polyphonic repertory of the cappella. In St Mark’s, the manuscripts are linked to performance specifically from the ‘pulpitum magnum cantorum’ (also called ‘bigonzo’ in local usage), a hexagonal pulpit situated near the iconostasis at the right-hand pillar of the central cupola (Figures 2 and 3). Before the reform of musical ceremonial enacted by Baldassare Galuppi in 1765, the ‘pulpitum magnum cantorum’ represented the principal location of the singers of the Ducal Chapel. Here the musici performed a cappella polyphony from the large choirbooks placed on a lectern fastened to the pillar. The scene is depicted in Canaletto’s celebrated drawing of spring 1766, which shortly postdates the reform. Perhaps, as James Moore suggests, it represents a performance during Holy Week: in this case, the open volume on the lectern would correspond to Choirbook 2, which contains the voces turbarum of the Passiones.

[§13] After the reform of 1765, the a cappella repertory performed from the ‘pulpitum magnum’ was drastically reduced. A cappella performance was maintained for some specific occasions: Holy Week, some traditional celebrations (for example, mass on Giovedì Grasso / Shrove Thursday), and perpetual celebrations such as masses for the souls of illustrious personages. The surviving choirbooks represent the limited needs of the new ceremonial. Performance practices and repertories that had represented the day-to-day sound of music in the Ducal Chapel for over two centuries were replaced by a more regular presence of instruments. Moreover, the normal position of the cappella was redesignated to the organ lofts, previously used for performances of large-scale music with instruments and few-voiced concertato motets with organ. Despite their limited number, the surviving choirbooks provide clear characterization of the essential “sound” of the Ducal liturgy before the mid 18th century: a monumental and centuries-old presence, constant point of reference for every maestro di cappella and unmistakable symbol of the Ducal Chapel, whose identity as private chapel of the Doge is fortified by repertory and sound in the unique context of a liturgy and ceremonial of notable impact.

[§14] Though the oldest surviving choirbooks were copied only in the second half of the 17th century, several volumes transmit earlier repertories. Choirbook 3, which transmits a version of the Missa super La Bataille composed by Clément Janequin in celebration of the victory of Marignano (1515), provides the most obvious example. As mentioned above, this version contains a number of significant variants vis-à-vis the printed tradition. The music was performed for over three centuries during mass on Giovedì Grasso / Shrove Thursday. Its entry into Venetian state ceremonial marks the resemanticization of an earlier ceremony, thus transformed to celebrate the principal Venetian protagonist in the military victory, Andrea Gritti, influential patrician on the local political scene and Doge from 1523. Most likely introduced on the occasion of the Venetian visit of Francis I, king of France, in May 1519, the mass continued to be performed throughout the 18th century, though its author was no longer remembered.

[§15] Various re-elaborations date from the 16th to 19th centuries. No less enduring was Giovanni Croce’s Missa pro defunctis, transmitted in Choirbook 1. In all likelihood, this was performed during solemn funerals in St Mark’s, as also on the occasion of perpetual masses for the souls of the dead (for example the Requiem mass for cardinal Giovanni Battista Zen, an annual recurrence in Ducal ceremonial). The latter became increasingly frequent from the 17th century (Collarile, Suono dell’eterno). A further success story regards Giovanni Rovetta’s Missa brevis, in all probability composed around 1655 and, by virtue of its extreme brevity, adopted in the context of the exceptionally long and complex liturgy of Holy Thursday. Regularly performed on various other occasions, Rovetta’s Missa brevis is one of the most emblematic examples of the staple polyphonic repertory of the Ducal Chapel (Drennan, Giovanni Rovetta’s ‘Missa brevis’; Collarile, Suono dell’eterno).

[§16] The presence of permanent musical elements as essential and irreplaceable parts of Ducal ceremonial raises various questions regarding, on the one hand, the maestro di cappella’s creative freedom and, on the other, the possible impact of this repertory on the genesis of new compositions for use of the cappella. Emblematic are the two hymns transmitted in Choirbook 4. Anonymous in the manuscript, these may be attributed to Francesco Cavalli on the basis of external documentary evidence (Collarile, Cavalli). In all probability, their composition dates to around the same time as the manuscript (1672), when Cavalli was maestro di cappella. They illustrate his expertise as a composer in stile antico, though his fame rests above all on his operatic production. The hymns are proper to two neighbouring festivities in the liturgical calendar, closely intertwined in Ducal ceremonial: the Nativity of St John the Baptist (24 June) and the Apparition of the Body of St Mark (25 June). Given their liturgical importance, these feasts would inevitably have required the performance of polyphonic hymns even before Cavalli’s contribution. It may thus be asked why Cavalli set about composing two new a cappella hymns and ordered copies to be made in note quadrate. The most plausible hypothesis is that the new music replaced or provided alternatives to compositions no longer deemed appropriate for reasons of style, performance practice or suitability to Ducal ceremonial. Since the earlier repertory is unknown, it is impossible to establish to what degree Cavalli took account of or even re-elaborated this music in preparing his new compositions. He was undoubtedly well acquainted with the repertory, given his many years of activity in the cappella (Collarile, Suono dell’eterno).

[§17] An interesting example of re-elaboration of pre-existing material regards the voces turbarum for the Passio of Holy Tuesday, transmitted in Choirbook 2. In the manuscript, the cycle is attributed to Giovanni Matteo Asola, who in 1595 had published a collection of materials for the liturgical functions of Holy Week: Officium Maioris Hebdomadae, videlicet Benedictio Palmarum, atq[ue] Missarum solemnia: et quae in quatuor Euangilistarum passiones concinuntur. quatuor paribus decantanda vocibus. Et in eisdem passionibus, Christi locutio, ternis vocibus. The music of Choirbook 2, copied between 1682 and 1692 by Giovanni Francesco de Sartis, corresponds to one of the 1595 cycles. Yet the manuscript version presents significant variants compared with Asola’s printed original. One of the most evident differences regards the octave transposition of the Tenor part. Asola’s ‘voci pari’ clef combination (C1, C2, C3 and F3) is thus re-cast as a normal combination of Cantus, Altus, Tenor and Bassus). The original musical text is modified at various points, generally in the direction of simplification of the polyphonic interplay. The need for a new cycle was dictated by a change in ceremonial which obliged the presence of the cappella dei musici on Holy Tuesday. Interesting, in this context, is the decision not to commission a new composition but to re-elaborate earlier music by a well-known composer (though never employed at St Mark’s), available in print. It is presently impossible to establish who carried out this operation. The main suspects are Francesco Cavalli and Natale Monferrato: both were engaged in wide-ranging projects aimed at reorganizing the specific repertory of the cappella, with copies of works by earlier maestri di cappella, in particular Giovanni Rovetta and Giovanni Croce. Both, moreover, were active in amplifying the repertory of the Ducal cappella with new compositions in stile antico (Collarile, Suono dell’eterno).

[§18] These cases raise a number of questions regarding the extensive anonymous repertory transmitted by the surviving choirbooks. As in the case of the Missa super La Bataille, many of these compositions may have been much older than the manuscripts in which they are contained. In other cases, they may have substituted older materials, as in the case of the hymns of Choirbook 4. Or, again, they may have been the result of processes of selection and re-elaboration, as with the voces turbarum of Holy Tuesday (Choirbook 2). The surviving choirbooks, in their interaction with performance practices that for centuries made up the principal soundscape of the Ducal Chapel, thus transmit a complex musical tradition.

Luigi Collarile & David Bryant

Last Update: 1 May 2020

Selected Bibliography

Thomas Bauman: ‘Musicians in the Marketplace: The Venetian Guild of Instrumentalists in the Later 18th Century’. Early Music 19 (1991), pp. 345–356

David Bryant: ‘Liturgia e musica liturgica nella fenomenologia del «mito di Venezia»', in Mitologie, convivenze di musica e mitologia, ed. by Giovanni Morelli. Venice: La Biennale di Venezia, 1979, pp. 205–214

David Bryant: 'Il «Suono di San Marco»', in Andrea Gabrieli 1585–1985. Venice: La Biennale di Venezia, 1985, pp. 59–66

David Bryant: ‘The cori spezzati of St Mark’s: Myth and Reality’. Early Music History 1 (1981), pp. 165–186

David Bryant: 'Una cappella musicale di stato: la Basilica di S. Marco', in La cappella musicale nell'Italia della Controriforma (conference proceedings: Cento, 13–15 October 1989), ed. Oscar Mischiati and Paolo Russo. Florence: Olschki, 1993, pp. 67–73

Francesco Caffi: Storia della musica sacra nella già Cappella Ducale di S. Marco in Venezia (dal 1318 al 1797), ed. Elvidio Surian. Florence: Olschki, 1987 (Studi di Musica Veneta, 10)

Giulio Cattin: Musica e liturgia a San Marco. Testi e melodie per la liturgia delle ore dal XII al XVII secolo dal graduale tropato del Duecento ai graduali cinquecenteschi. Venice: Edizioni Fondazione Levi, 1990–1992

Luigi Collarile: ‘Ad uso della Cappella Ducale di Venetia. Intorno a due inedite composizioni sacre di Francesco Cavalli’. In Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Musica Sacra in occasione del centenario di fondazione del PIMS (conference proceedings: Rome, 26 May – 2 June 2011), 3 vols, ed. Antonio Addamiano and Francesco Luisi. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013: vol. 2, pp. 639–664

Luigi Collarile: ‘Giovanni Domenico Partenio’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 81 (2014). Online: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-domenico-partenio_(Dizionario-Biografico)

Luigi Collarile: ‘Legrenzi sacro. Intorno a alcuni manoscritti dimenticati’. Studi Musicali. Forthcoming

Luigi Collarile: Marchio Angeli’s Inventory (1720). The Music Books of the Ducal Chapel of St. Mark’s, Venice, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Published: 2019 (last update: 1 May 2020) [online] http://vmo.unive.it/choirbooks

Luigi Collarile: 'Die Missa super La Bataille im Zeremoniell und Repertoire der venezianischen Cappella Ducale’. Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 98 (2014), pp. 59–84

Luigi Collarile: ‘Natale Monferrato’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 75 (2011), pp. 543–547. Online: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/natale-monferrato_(Dizionario-Biografico)

Luigi Collarile: ‘Natale Monferrato. Ritratto di un musicista veneziano del Seicento’. Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 42 (2007), pp. 169–234

Luigi Collarile: Sacri concerti. Studi sul mottetto a Venezia nel secondo Seicento. Turnhout, Brepols, Forthcoming (Venetian Music Studies, 2). New edition of Ph.D. diss., University of Fribourg, Switzerland, 2010.

Luigi Collarile: Il suono dell’eterno. I libri corali con musica polifonica della Cappella Ducale di Venezia. Forthcoming

Jonathan Drennan: ‘Attributions to Giovanni Rovetta’. Early Music 33 (2005), pp. 413–421

Jonathan Drennan: ‘Giovanni Rovetta’s Missa brevis: a Symbol of Musical Longevity’. Recercare 22 (2010), pp. 111–146

Claudio Madricardo: ‘La gioia ch’adorna il diadema regale. La Cappella Ducale di San Marco dalla seconda metà del Seicento alla caduta della Serenissima’, in La cappella musicale di San Marco nell’età moderna (conference proceedings: Venice, 5–7 September 1994), ed. Francesco Passadore and Franco Rossi. Venice: Edizioni Fondazione Levi, 1998, pp. 279–297

James H. Moore: ‘Bartolomeo Bonifacio’s Rituum ecclesiasticorum ceremoniale: continuity of tradition in the ceremonial of St. Mark’s, Venice’, in Musique et le rite sacré et profane (conference proceedings: Strasbourg, 29 August – 3 September 1982), 2 vols. Strasbourg: Association des Publications près les Universités de Strasbourg, 1986: vol. 2, ed. Marc Honegger and Paul Prevost, pp. 365-408

James H. Moore: Vespers at St. Mark’s: Music of Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Rovetta and Francesco Cavalli, 2 vols. Ann Arbor (Mich.): University Microfilms International, 1981 (Studies in Musicology, 30)

Francesco Passadore, Franco Rossi: San Marco: vitalità di una tradizione. Il fondo musicale e la cappella dal Settecento ad oggi, 4 vols. Venice: Edizioni Fondazione Levi, 1994–1996

Paolo A. Rismondo: Pietro Francesco Caletti Bruni detto il Cavalli: tappe per una biografia. S.l.: s.n., 2009

Eleanor Selfridge-Field: ‘Rovetta’s Music for Holy Week’, in La cappella musicale di San Marco nell’età moderna (conference proceedings: Venice, 5–7 September 1994), ed. Francesco Passadore and Franco Rossi. Venice: Edizioni Fondazione Levi, 1998, pp. 401–441

Eleanor Selfridge-Field: Venetian Instrumental Music from Gabrieli to Vivaldi. Third, revised edition. New York, Dover, 1994

DOI: 10.14277/unive/vmo/soundstmark/2017/introduction