Themes of Exile in Willaert's "Musica nova"

The present study proposes that Willaert's Musica nova was written to commemorate the city of Florence, homeland of two of the composer's most devoted patrons, Neri Capponi and Ruberto Strozzi. Supporting evidence for this new hypothesis is culled from extant documents relating to the composition, publication, performance, and reception history of this music; the texts Willaert set in his madrigals and motets; and perhaps most unexpectedly, the texts of numerous liturgical melodies whose opening phrases are quoted in his dense counterpoint. For Willaert's Florentine patrons, these melodic citations and the texts to which they allude constituted a powerful symbolic network that served to commemorate their native city, its fallen Republic, and the most prominent spokesman for that government, the religious reformer Girolamo Savonarola.