Andrea Amati Opera Omnia The Court of France

Cremonaliutaria
Andrea Amati Opera Omnia
The Court of France - Cremona and Andrea Amati
O
ne of the most precious instruments in our collection is
“Charles IX”, made by Andrea Amati
in 1566 for the King of France. It is
one of only four surviving instruments
of the group of 38 (composed of 12
small violins, 12 violins, 6 violas and
8 cellos) ordered by the King.
But why did the King of France need
so many instruments? And why did he
order them from the Cremonese Amati?
Let’s begin by making clear that the
King, Charles IX, has little or nothing
to do with this story! In 1560, after a
scant seventeen months on the throne,
Francis II, the firstborn son of Caterina
de Medici, died. Charles, her second
son, was then only ten years old. The
mother, after three years of combating
the hostility of the Guisa and of the majority of the French nobility, managed
to have him crowned King. So Charles
IX ascended to the throne in 1563,
when he was only thirteen (at the time,
this was the minimum age established
in France to become King) and he appointed his mother Superintendent of
the State. As a matter of fact, Charles
never reigned, in the sense that he never made the important decisions, and
rina de’ Medici has been discredited (or
at least scaled down) by modern historiography. In the past she was held responsible for the massacre of the
Huguenots during the night of St.
Barthelme (24th august, 1572), when
20 to 30,000 Protestants throughout
the country met their deaths. Today,
even though there is still controversy
over the role she played, we tend to mitigate her misdeeds, partly because those
events really caused a crisis to her reconciliation and cohabitation policy. In
any case, Caterina has long been regarded as an example of feminine double-dealing and remorseless Italian
Machiavellianism. She was accused of
using poisons and commissioning murders. In point of fact, however, Caterina, who was no saint, had only one
goal throughout the entire period in
which she reigned in France (roughly
30 years): to establish peace in the
country and with the nearby countries
in order to strengthen the monarchy and
ensure the succession of the dynasty.
She was convinced that the Catholics
and the Protestants could live together in
the same nation, and that, after all,
there was some truth in all religions,
and that these posed no impediment to
Marsilio Ficino, Pico and others, in revising the doctrines of Pythagoras, Plato and the neo-platonics, view earthly
music as an illustration of the Harmony
of the universe. According to them, music possesses magical and therapeutical
virtues since it activates the benign influences of the planets and heals the
body by reviving the soul. Music, according to Ficino in the De Vita, exerts
an amazing force in soothing, moving
and influencing the soul and body.
The musical instrument is a powerful
intermediary between the terrestrial,
heavenly and supra-heavenly world,
principally the lute and secondly the violin, which is a powerful catalyst of
higher forces and can have a magical effect on our spirit. One could say that a
well made instrument and suitable music become, to a certain extent, powerful “talismans”. We should not be astonished by the values of the “symbols”,
which were very popular in renaissance
culture. Isn’t it true that in the renaissance paintings a lute’s broken string
represented a rupture of the heavenly
harmony, generally (but not always)
related to the death of Jesus? This is evidenced by Andrea Alciati (14921550), author of a treatise, Emblema-
A. Amati, violino Carlo IX, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (photo Pearson Bruce)
certainly not in 1566, when he was just
sixteen, at the time when the instruments were ordered from Amati. He
died at twenty-four, undone by syphilis
and tuberculosis. Only in his last years
did he try to be a bit more independent,
but his decisions were frequently disastrous. Caterina de’ Medici is the protagonist of our story. She was the one
who decided to order the instruments to
Andrea Amati. But there remains a
question: Why?
Caterina ruled the State in a time of
great difficulty. France was ravaged by
the religious wars between Catholics and
Huguenots, and each faction had powerful support from abroad. Rigorously
Catholic Spain and Protestant England
and Holland, got involved periodically,
trying to capitalize on French weakness.
Moreover, the French nobility, in addition to being divided, arrogant and
quarrelsome and disdainful of any central authority, could barely tolerate
these Italians as leaders of their country.
Caterina was a smart woman, well educated and very good at listening and
mediating. The “black legend” of Cate-
obeying the laws of a secular sovereign.
In order to achieve these goals she commissioned murders, broke alliances and
betrayed people. Not entirely out of line
with the behaviour of her co-protagonists, after all. Unfortunately, she
achieved only partial success. The religious wars continued, although the
crown’s prestige and authority survived...
In all this, Caterina was very Florentine, and a neo-platonic thinker, as several books in her library testify. She was
educated in Florence: among her tutors
were renowned humanists like Marsilio
Ficino and Pico Della Mirandola. The
pivotal principles of that philosophy were
religious tolerance, the elevated role of
the sovereign and what interests us
most; a great consideration for music.
Italian neo-platonism presented several nuances, but very often it was mingled with and influenced by hermeticism
(from Ermete Trimegisto, mysterious
author of several widely read books in
those times and spokesman of an extremely ancient and supposedly Egyptian wisdom) and by magical and mystical temptations.
ta, which helps us to understand the
iconological messages in many works of
art.
Search for peace, elevated role of the
sovereign and the role of music: this explains the central role that Caterina de’
Medici attributed to life at court and to
her famous parties. Long before the time
of the Sun King and the splendour of
Versailles, she understood that the removal of the noblemen from their fiefdoms, combined with the splendour and
magnificence, the exquisite pleasure of
life at court, could work in favour of
the crown.
From January 1564 to May 1566
Caterina travelled, visiting the castles
and cities of France, and dazzling everyone with the magnificence and the fascination of the court. In the following
years she expanded the Louvre, built
the Tuileries and enriched the court by
building royal residence with splendid
gardens throughout France, surrounding
herself with painters and sculptors, architects, poets, astronomers and philosophers.
And always and everywhere, banquets!
She was accused of absolute cynicism,
and it is true that no famine or slaughter
ever halted her amusements. But she
had a precise political design: to use entertainment and pleasure as bait for the
nobility, compelling them to become
courtiers, so that Catholics would meet
Protestants on neutral ground, in order
to have them experience love affairs and
adventures. At the time, Catholic and
Protestant critics alike depicted Caterina’s court as the reign of lasciviousness,
a den of all imaginable vices. As a matter of fact, given the morals of those
times, life at court could seem a continuous scandal.
We all know that feminine seduction
can be one of the most powerful
weapons. Caterina did not hesitate to
resort to it. She surrounded herself with
a numerous (roughly eighty) flock of
nice-looking young damsels, whom history has dubbed the “flying squad”.
Their principal task was to disseminate
good manners, to instruct the overly aggressive French noblemen in gallant
games, to help courtesy and the pleasure
of polite intercourse prevail. In confidence, they became privy to information and secrets, which they dutifully
reported to the Queen. Their main danger was the “prominence of their belly”. Those who became pregnant were
invited to depart from the Court, very
often to respectable situations, in order
to lead at least a well-to-do life.
The game of seduction required almost
constant feasts and balls. Hence the importance of music, the musicians and
their musical instruments. Together with
the above-mentioned philosophical reasons, the value of the music and the
feasts was enhanced by the political motivations that we alluded to above. This
is the reason why the court of France
needed such a large number of instruments. But we have a second question:
why Amati and Cremona? Because,
one might answer, this was the best that
the European market then offered. This
may well be true. But the historian is
not satisfied and he asks other questions:
why all this excellence in Cremona?
And how did Caterina come to know
of it? Answering all these other questions as well would tax our endurance.
Let it suffice to mention, as far as Cremona is concerned, the extraordinary
cultural and artistic development there
in the mid 1500s. Historians are well
aware of it. “How learned the various
social classes were, with respect to the
citizens of Milan, Pavia, Padua or
Brescia, it is not possible to know for
certain today”, as Giorgio Politi says in
his History of Cremona. And he adds:
“We can find some clues, and these elements strongly support the hypothesis
that the Cremonese aristocracy of those
times was quite cultivated, with a remarkable preference for two disciplines:
vocal and instrumental music and painting”.
Moreover, the “class” of the administrators, or as we would call them today, the “politicians”, was also cultivated. The “Podestà” were cultivated,
as were the members of the City Council, who were able to follow and appreciate the official speeches in literary
Latin.
In this refined and learned scenario
flourished a school of highly skilled wood
carvers (we have sublime evidences in
the early ‘400) and clever violin-making
craftsmen. Andrea Amati did not “invent” the violin. The term “invention”
should be used with great caution in
writing about history. It is more likely
that a series of minor or major transformations accumulated over time, until one or more craftsmen (we will never know just who) fashioned the instrument, more or less as we know it today. Laborious transformations involving the rebeck and the “viella” which finally led to the violin. Cremona became
one of the privileged places of its production. Finally, as an answer to the
question about the relationship between
Caterina and Cremona, we should first
of all remember that Caterina de’
Medici was quite familiar with Florentine culture and policy.
The State of Milan, of which Cremona
was a part until the times of the Spanish
conquest, was a leading ally of Florence
under the Medici. In fact, on many occasions its “great protector”. In one of
his letters, Lorenzo the Magnificent
even said he ruled Florence on behalf
of the Duke of Milan! The relationships
between Cremona and Florence, therefore, mediated by Milan, had always
been quite remarkable. Besides, a basic characteristic of French policy in the
previous seventy years had been an
abiding interest in the State of Milan.
The abandonment of direct control over
Milanese territory in favour of the
Spanish didn‘t had not eliminated the
plots, conspiracies and espionage, just
as it hadn’t put an end to the connections and exchanges. In both Milan
and Cremona there have always been
strong pro-French “forces”.
I will conclude with a provocative proposal: if what I have asserted so far is
true, why not change the name of Andrea Amati’s splendid “Charles IX” to
“Caterina de’ Medici”?
Gian Carlo Corada
Mayor of Cremona
A. Amati, violoncello Carlo IX, Julius Berger, Hohenschwangau, Germania
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