Ep 7. Andrea Amati Part 4, Don’t mention the war, sending threats on violins now are we?

The Violin Chronicles Podcast

We look at how the French Monarchs used music as a political tool and the symbols on the instruments Andrea Amati made were not just a pretty decorations but part of court intrigue and a declaration of war.

If you're captivated by the allure of Renaissance courts, the artistry of violin making, and the power of music as a symbol of prestige, the musical court of Catherine de Medici is a good place to start.

The French wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants were in full swing, this is even witnessed in the choice of instruments made by Italian violin makers and the symbols painted on them by renaissance artisans, in this episode we let these historical instruments tell their story.

In this episode I speak to Expert Benjamin Hebbert, Violin maker Carlo Chiesa, Historian Dr Susan Broomhall, Fashion Historian Dr Emily Brayshaw and Historian Dr John Gagne.

The Music you have heard in this podcast is as follows.

Café Chianti – Jonny Boyle

Bloom – Roo Walker

The retirement of major Edward – Jacob Taylor Armerding

Ambush – Brandon Hopkins

Unfamiliar faces – All good Folks

Harpsichord Fugue – No Copyright music

A Peasant’s Sonnet – Jonny Easton

Banquet of Squires – Jonny Easton

ACO Home to Home - Liisa Palallandi and Timo-Veikko Valve

Transcript

  During the Middle Ages, Cremona was under the dominion of the Holy Roman Empire. At that time, the people of the city were forced to pay an oppressive tax of three kilograms of gold every year to the emperor, which for convenience was melted into a sphere. One day, fed up with paying this tax, the people of Cremona decided it was time to break away from imperial rule. And so the Mayor Giovanni Baldessio was challenged by the Emperor King Henry IV to a duel in order to settle the tax dispute. Mayor Baldessio was able to knock the king from his horse, thus sparing Cremona from its annual three kilogram golden ball tax, which was instead issued to the Mayor's fiancee for her dowry. Back in the city, Giovanni began to be called Zaden de la Bala by all, and he married Berta de Zori, a beautiful girl of noble origins, who brought him many landed properties as a dowry and a big ball of gold. In another version, which is probably more plausible for a civil servant, is that the duel that took place between Cremona's mayor and the emperor was not a sparring match, but a tournament of bowls, or bocce, and Giovanni came out the victor. In memory of that heroic enterprise, an arm with a ball in hand was added to the city coat of arms with the inscription meaning “my strength is in the arm”.

And this is why the Cremonese coat of arms has a hand holding a ball of gold.

Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting, violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French violin making school some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Lutherie in Mirecourt. As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture.

So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love, artistic genius, revolutionary craftsmanship. Determination, cunning and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.

Welcome back to Cremona, a city you can find in Northern Italy on one of the bends of the impressively long Po River. Bursting with artisans and commerce in the mid-1500s, we return to our story of instrument maker Andrea Amati and his workshop.

Andrea Amati was not a lone artisan in this city, he was surrounded by merchants and trades people, busy in industry. There were belt makers, embroiderers, blacksmiths, carpenters, boat builders, masons, terracotta artisans, weavers, textile merchants, and printers. Just to name a few of the 400 trades listed in the city at this period.

I speak to Benjamin Hebbert, Oxford based expert, dealer, and author about Andrea Amati's making methods.

It's really difficult to know. I mean, so Andrea Amati, you've spoken about Brescia before and, what I imagine your listeners will have heard of is that Gasparo Da Salo is very much the established figure in Brescia.

Before, they're kind of the same age, but Gasparo Da Salo actually comes out of a tradition which goes back centuries, and Andrea Amati turns up out of absolutely nowhere, and it's Andrea Amati who makes the violin as we know it. It's the thing that we're familiar with, it's the, it's a design which repeats itself throughout his family in Stradivari. Even to the point, there's a, there's a really interesting observation that although the Brescians were making viols and citterns and all sorts of things beforehand, when it comes to the violinists, the violins that survived, they're all copies in one way or another of what they were observing from Cremona.

So this late starter, Andrea Amati, actually seems to be the starting point, even for Brescian violins, even though they come from a longer tradition.

By this time, Andrea Amati had perfected the outline of the modern-day violin. He and his eldest son, Antonio Amati, were working on patterns and jigs to make the instruments for a royal order for the King of France. The order was for 12 large sized violins, 12 small sized violins, 6 violas, and 8 bassoons. Bass, violins, or cellos.

Each instrument was to be decorated with specific symbols and motifs, representing the royal house and portraying an image of how they wanted to be perceived. When Andrea Amati received the commission for these instruments, things were really starting to kick off at the French court. Civil war was brewing and no amount of entertainments by Catherine, the Queen Regent, was going to put out this particular flame.

In the Kingdom of France, a great conflict arose between two groups of people. The Catholics and the Huguenots, the French Protestants. This conflict became known as the French Wars of Religion. It all started when the Huguenots, who included not only peasants and the artisan class, but nobles as well, demanded more religious freedom and equal treatment under the law. This did not sit well with the Catholic majority, who saw the Protestants belief as a threat to their own faith. As tensions rose, violence erupted in the form of sporadic attacks on Huguenot communities by Catholic mobs. The French monarchy, looking to maintain control, attempted to suppress the Huguenots by force. However, the Huguenots, under the leadership of figures such as Admiral Gaspar de Colligny, organized and fought back. Several wars broke out, with battles being fought across the country. The conflict raged on for over 30 years, causing immense destruction and loss of life.

The French court was filled to the brim with intrigue and power struggles. Tensions between the Catholic majority and the Huguenot minority was only increasing. At the centre of it all was the French royal family, trying to maintain control over a divided country. The king and queen, surrounded by their advisors and courtiers, were grappling with finding a solution to this conflict. Meanwhile, in the shadows, whispers of conspiracy and betrayal echoed through the halls. Allies became enemies, and trust was a rare commodity. The court was full of ambitious individuals, each seeking to advance their own interests and increase their power. One day, rumours spread of a Huguenot plot to assassinate the king. The court was thrown into a frenzy, with spies and informers working overtime. It was a dangerous time to be a Huguenot at the French court, and even the slightest suspicion could lead to an arrest or execution.

The Amati instruments destined for the French royal court were part of this much bigger story that was unfolding and would involve many of the contemporary superpowers of the day. Not only did the royal house have to navigate internal court intrigues, there were also the neighbours, Europe’s other powerhouses, all looking to France in its weakened state. Like vultures contemplating a wooden wildebeest on the Serengeti.

To understand where Andrea Amati’s instruments were headed, we will first take a look at the woman who may possibly have been responsible for ordering them in the first place. Catherine de Medici, the original Black Widow. I spoke to Susan Brimhall about this fascinating woman. I know we've already spoken about her, but we're gonna talk about her again.

I got the feeling, sort of looking at Catherine, that she arrives in France and the king that, the prince that, what, was he a prince when she married him? He wasn't king. Yeah, he's a duke. Yeah. So she, she marries him, and I feel like from the Duke, he was a little bit nonplussed about it. And then, she loses her dowry at some point. Is that right?

Well, so there's a bit of a story here that, um. The Medici house, when she is a, is a girl, a young girl, is ducal. So they're a set of dukes. And when she marries into the French royal family, she's marrying very much up into a royal family. So a ducal house is moving up the ranks to have a marriage with a royal house, and the reason that, I mean, normally a royal house will be looking for other royal houses to keep the bloodline at the royal level, if you like. But in this case, the French have been at war, uh, they've been at war trying to claim pieces of Italy which has exposed them to a whole lot of culture in Italy that they bring back to France, and that's an important part of this story. But they've also bankrupted much of the state. And so the French king, at the time, Francois I, he’s also looking for something to fill the coffers. And the Medici family is very, very wealthy at this time. It always creates a kind of a black mark on Catherine that she's never really quite of the bloodline. They didn't have children for a very long time. After a time, well, they basically used the money that Catherine had brought to the marriage, but her marriage negotiations had been made by the Pope, who had since died, and you know, the money the French expected wasn't quite forthcoming, let's say. I'm not sure it ever quite pans out the way the contract said. They were going to be, but in this case it certainly didn't. So, you know, black mark that she comes from a ducal family, not a royal family. Black mark that it's kind of new mercantile money rather than any kind of old money from an impoverished house, let's say and then further black mark that the money isn't actually being delivered as expected, at least by the French. And then fourth black mark, she's not delivering children. So for a whole lot of reasons, things look pretty bleak for Catherine very early on in that marriage.

So Catherine, she doesn't have much going for her, and would I be correct in thinking that she sort of uses the arts to endear people to her?

So most of Catherine's known artistic patronage is in the second half of her life. But we do know that from the time she married, most sort of, most royal marriages, people adopt a kind of an emblem or a symbol. Sometimes it will be a bit like a motto, and sometimes it will have a visual component part. And when Catherine marries, she adopts Iris, which is, um, a bringer of, she's a bringer of peace in mythology and her symbol is the rainbow. And so on early, some early structures where Catherine has an opportunity to impose herself, if you like, in the design, we see some small elements where she uses the rainbow symbol as a sign of her as somebody who's bringing peace and prosperity to France, but really mostly when her sons are in power, because as I said earlier, three of her sons become king and they all become king relatively young and her second son, Charles the Ninth, I think he's about 10 when he, when he arrives on the throne. She is, more or less the regent for him for the first three or four years of his reign and at that time she really has a great deal of power. I don't think we should ever think that Catherine, her motivations might be to, to explain a version of herself that makes sense to the public in certain contexts. But they're also always about her children and about the dynasty that she's married into and about the longevity of that dynasty and the work that they've done for France. So that dynasty is called the Valois. The Valois family are the family that she's married into and much more than she's ever celebrating the Medici, that doesn't really make sense in France. What she's doing is celebrating the dynasty that she's married into and the future that her children represent for that dynasty in France.

Back in the Amati workshop, the instruments would have been made in a series so that they would all be identical. And this would also make the whole process faster. A few extra hands would have to be hired to help out with such a large order if they were to get them all finished on time, but they could definitely achieve this.

Violin maker, expert, author and researcher in Milan, Carlo Chiesa.

It is also worth noting that the Amatis at that point, they were wealthy enough people. This is very important because, uh, it means they, the kids had an education. Uh, they were able to, go to school, uh, to be trained properly, not just in the workshop. And they were artisans of a high level anyway. So the daughters of Andrea Amati who got married, they usually got married with the people who were from the same social status and that is also worth noting, it means that they were not working for low class musicians, but usually their commission went to noblemen or high class customers which they were able to deal with. That is also another of the reasons for the success of cremonese making, because the artisans were able to deal with the high-class customers. The greatness of the Amatis was that they, uh, set up a method for making instruments, which is basically the same as we do today with an internal mould and blocks glued to that mould. So that you can repeat time after time, the same outline. Bressian makers did not have the same. That is, I'm quite sure.

This would not be the only time Andrea Amati would fulfill a royal order for the House of Valois. A set of five instruments also decorated with Royal Insignia and with the motto. By this bulwark, religion stands, printed on the sides, had been delivered to the French monarchs, who were making a point about their religious conflicts, even on the instruments to be played at court. The French royal family felt the threat of the Protestants at court to the extent of having reminders in a somewhat passive aggressive form painted on the orchestra even.

So the whole idea of symbolism, do you think it was kind of stronger during that time? And I'm thinking of the, the Charles IX instruments in all the decorative paintings they have on that, because they're symbolic as well. Would they have had sort of a more profound meaning than like, we would go, Oh, isn't that nice? It's a painting. But for them, would they have seen it?

I spoke to Dr. John Gagne, Senior Lecturer in History at Sydney University.

Maybe the first thing to say is that this is, it's common for rulers to put their, uh, heraldic mottos on everything. Actually, I just read a PhD dissertation about, uh, the court of Ferrara and the banqueting apparatus at the court of Ferrara. And part of the theory was perhaps that rulers feared that their own Employees would steal things and so they tended to mark everything with, you know, their, their, labels so that they wouldn't be stolen. That may just be actually kind of, uh, bad vibes against lower class people. But I think maybe more than that, it intends to extend the image of the ruler into as many places as possible. It's like a radiating sun. I mean, that, that is actually the metaphor that's often used for pre modern rulers is that they're, they're like a star and that the rays of the star goes out in all directions and what better way to sort of send out your rays than actually physically to implant your, your motto or your heraldic crest on things that then travel around the world and represent you. So this seems to me to be exactly what's going on both in terms of banqueting plates, but also musical instruments, because they're probably actually not so different in value actually. Sort of fine plateware and musical instruments. They're things that would, were at the pleasure of the ruler and that were seen as belonging to him or her more broadly So with the so called Amati violins, you’ve got the sort of template seems to be the crest of the king in the centre, surrounded by two pillars, which are then flanked by two women, which are then flanked by two Ks.

The Ks are for Carolus, which is the Latin for Charles, which is Charles IX, the king of who supposedly commissioned these violins. The figures are piety and justice, we think and then the pillars were very commonly used in the rule of Charles IX. It seems as though the most common mythological figure that Charles IX was associated with during his tour of France in the 1560s was Hercules.

And Hercules, you know, one of his labours was to sort of crack through this mountain. The ruins of which left, you know, these two pillars, which became the sort of entrance to the Mediterranean or the exit into the Atlantic. So they're known as the Pillars of Hercules, uh, and they today, of course, separate, um, southern Spain from North Africa. And so I think the pillars may refer to the idea that the king is like a Hercules. He is this sort of, you know, even though he's a child, a teenager, he's an invincible king. Uh, and the crest in the centre sort of reminds you of who that Hercules is. It's Charles. Well, yeah, because Catherine, she had as her symbol, Isis? Iris? Iris or Isis? Um, the one and it was the rainbow. And she had the rainbow. Maybe it is Iris, you're right. Yeah, Iris is the goddess of messengers. Iris, Isis is an even more ancient Egyptian goddess. The problem is Catherine is also associated with a number of classical figures, I mean as is Charles. Occasion determines what classical figure best represents the spirit you want to.

Yeah, so I think the rainbow thing was for harmony. We thought her peace and harmony vibes. And I thought it was funny because, um, I think it's, is it Mary, Queen of Scots, the Scottish. I don't know if it was her motto, but the Scottish one is a unicorn. And so they literally, there's like

rainbows and unicorns, um, yeah.

So she would be like harmony. And then I'm imagining that Catherine probably would have had a hand in the decision of, we'll go with Hercules maybe, like, cause, to show the strength, the whole idea was trying to, wasn't it like, she was worried, she had a child king, it was, uh, to have a weak political situation she needed to, like, bolster things up and make it stronger.

And, you know, I mean, uh, you know, obviously in 1559, Henry II dies dramatically in a terrible way. He is, gets basically splinters in the eye to kill him because they puncture his brain and, and all she has is basically children. I mean, they're not adults. Um, her first child, the second dies within a year. Charles the ninth is the second one to take over. But you know, he, he's in his teens. He dies before he is 25. Doesn't one of them die after playing tennis? Like he played a game of tennis? Well, that's probably Francois, actually. Caught a cold and died.

Yeah. It's like 1560 You just can't count on these kids dying after a game of tennis.

And 1560 is also the year when the first religious war breaks out in France. So that's the real, so this is Catherine's real challenge, is that, you know, she's a new widow. All she has is underage children. She's got a kingdom that's breaking apart in religious war, and her job is to bring it back together.

And so the, you know, the reason for this tour in 1564- 65 is to unify the kingdom. Rainbow style with by parading this, the new king, even though he's in his teens around the country so that he's able to, you know, make relationships basically with all the major cities.

But if he's Hercules, that's cool. Hercules was quite young, right? When he was doing all these things. So right. She's harmony. She's got Hercules.

Yes. The other thing too, that, I mean, there are some, we, you know, there's no, one of the interesting things about, um, monarchical symbolism is that they're often. Multivalent. They can be read in multi different ways, many different ways. And so, the pillar, the columns might mean Hercules. There's also, uh, a theory that they could refer to, um, the twins, Castor and Pollux from antiquity, who were sons of Leda. One was immortal and one was mortal. And it may be that that was a way of referring to her two children, the sort of children who are closest in age, uh, Charles and his, his brother, um, who became Henry III. That, you know, they're two strong brothers side by side, and so there's, there's force in unity, let's say. And that the column, you know, you can't hold up a building with one column, you need two columns. So there may have been, uh, further, uh, reinforcement of the idea of strength through the columns as well.

So both, it both invokes Hercules, but it also invokes, uh, Stable. Stableness, basically. Yeah, and once again, um,

It's funny that they keep choosing figures from antiquity and not sort of, like, Biblical figures that they could possibly have done, but because it's the Renaissance.

Yes, I mean, it's true. They often, both are in the mix. Um, and there are all kinds of, you know, most, if you went to, let's say, one of the entries at these, as the Charles IX entered a city, you'd see both. I mean, there would be religious music, there would be psalms that would be sung or spoken. But yes, it's leavened and intermixed with classical culture as well. And they were seen as mutually reinforcing, right? That often a classical king was a, let's say, a typology that meshed with a religious figure as well. So that was part of the deep layers of Renaissance culture was the overlapping of the classical and the biblical. So, just because you may invoke Hercules doesn't mean you can also not, um, invoke a religious figure who sort of resembles Hercules. Whether it's, you know, David and Goliath or something like that, you know. Uh, so there would be, let's say, layers as well. But you're right. The, the classical was the, was the, say, the cover of the book, let's say. Um, and it's so, and it was kind of around this time that, uh, the, the Charles IX instruments are made.

So, so the idea is, yeah, it's around when she's doing that, they're doing that, the tour of France and there are these decorated instruments, but also, um, there are other decorated instruments. There's one for Marguerite de Valois, and then Henry the fourth, he has one after all his problems, and then he has an instrument, an Amati instrument that has, um, Le roi de France par la grâce de Dieu, and you're like, you know, the king of France by the grace of God, or something to that effect, and you're like, well, yeah.

It was like, it wasn't easy for him to be, to remain king and not get killed.

When Catherine de Medici arrived at the French court at the age of 14, no one expected that one day she would be more or less ruling the country through her children. When she was doing this, her main preoccupation was to ultimately keep the peace and promote the House of Valois, into which she had married. And when you're strapped for cash, war is never a good idea, economically speaking. The intrigue and plotting at court made it a precarious place to be. War was not good. Besides the fact that if you weren't careful you could easily get yourself topped off. Conflict was dreadful for the economy. And the state of the royal coffers was definitely not good. But Catherine had a plan, and it was this. Distract the nobles with spectacular events and they might be too preoccupied to kill each other. A key element to these events was music, music and theatre, where she would have Catholic and Protestant nobles at the court play act that they were living in harmony rather than scheming to kill one another. Which is what they were most probably doing, straight after coming home from one of Catherine's magnificences where they would have been fighting side by side with their rivals, liberating a skimpily clad damsel from the clutches of a paper mache dragon on a lake in the castle grounds.

They had a lot of structure, structures in their, in their clothing.

Yeah, they did. They did.

So, um, what's happening, uh, something that came in the 1570s was the French Farthingale.

Dr. Emily Brayshaw is an honorary research fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney School of Design.

And that kind of popped up around then and it's the new silhouette really. And this is women's fashion. And it's like a stuffed roll around the hips, known as a bum roll, and a hoop with horizontal stiffeners tied around the waist. And it made the skirt stick out from the body. And this is the French farthingale. So you can kind of think of it like a tabletop and then the fabric. Falling from the bottom. And this is kind of different from the, um, Spanish farthingales, which were more cone shapes. And what they're really doing is essentially hiding the body through tailoring and creating a completely new body, which we're seeing and, and different, different silhouettes. Italian dressing is kind of a lot softer and not as structured as like English or French or Spanish, which is very highly structured as well.

It sounds incredibly uncomfortable and heavy.

It was very heavy, but some of these devices like the farthingale are actually built to support the weight of these fabrics. Okay. As well.

It's like a whole, like a little building you're walking around with.

Yeah, yeah, you are. But, and then you've got sort of, um, heavily woven gold fabrics, velvet woven with gold. You've got your jewelry embroidered in over the top. Um, this is, uh, Catherine de Medici here. She has like this bodice with just pearls and jewels. Lots of different parts coming together. Yeah, she has this like really delicate lace collar and then these pearls and jewels sort of making like a diamond shape on the corset.

And then these furry Yep, the big ermine fur sleeves. Pearl necklace. We've got the high forehead and pale skin that was very popular throughout Europe. Lots of pearls. Pearls were very, very expensive at the time and showed access to trading routes as well that she would have had. But also, um, all of these layers, we need to remember that it was actually really kind of cold.

Yeah. And these drafty big old castles were not, like, the heating was not great. And so all of these layers would also keep you quite snug. Right.

But for Catherine, keeping those scheming courtiers occupied was a full time job. And one of her right hand men to help her with all this was a fellow Italian, of course, called Balthazar de Beau joyeaux. He would help Catherine stage her productions. Keeping the nobility from their fiefdoms. So the queen mother could keep an eye on those volatile nobles and constantly bedazzling them at her, sorry, the King's court. Along with her entertainments, she also embarked on an extensive building program, enlarging the Louvre and landscaping its majestic gardens. She surrounded herself with painters, sculptors, astronomers, poets, architects, philosophers, and musicians. The constant arranging of banquets and entertainments meant music was an integral part of life at court and its presence was everywhere. From intimate chamber music for the royal family, to banquets, and more lavish entertainments, music accompanied everyday life, as it does in some ways today. So, music, musicians, their instruments, and by extension, those who made them, were hugely important. And a major component to her toolkit for success and or survival. If she had had an operations manual, it may have looked a bit like this. 1. Try not to get self and children murdered by scheming factions at court. Music as a magical force on our souls and a harmony keeping element in the universe must be used. 2. Distract above mentioned scheming factions by keeping them occupied with a packed program of activities and throw beautiful women in their paths that they will have liaisons with and extract any useful information via pillow talk back to the Queen Mother. Strategically placed lute players around the court could help with the atmosphere. Now, this team of charming damoiselles Catherine used to glean information about any plots afoot were called her Flying Squadron, and for all intents and purposes, appeared to do the job, supplying the Queen with constant information and, at least on one occasion, uncovering an assassination attempt on the Royals. Number 3. Hide the fact that the Royal coffers are empty. Thanks to wars both abroad and now between the Catholics and the Huguenots at home, they had sucked the bank dry. So the best solution here would be to carry on in an extravagant fashion as per usual so no other power can see their weakness. Music and merrymaking shall be had at all times. 4. Strengthen the royal house of Valois. Show the world its greatness, order an orchestra of stringed instruments with beautiful painted decorations so everyone can witness their place appointed by God on violins that hold a connection between this world and the divine. Keep in mind that music represented the harmony of the universe. And according to some Neoplatonic thinkers, possessed magical and therapeutic properties as it activated the benign influence of the planets and healed the body by reviving the soul. The thinkers of the Renaissance saw music as a medicine, an elixir for your being. The instruments as a powerful intermediary between the terrestrial, heavenly and super heavenly world. Both the violin and the lute were tangible links to higher forces and were thought to have a magical, mystical effect on our spirit. How important, then, is the luthier who makes these instruments that have such an effect on our immortal body and soul? The symbol of a broken lute string in paintings of the period represented a rupture of the heavenly harmony. Perhaps there was hushed silence lute player snapped one. I mean, today you're just peeved because let's face it, strings are expensive, but at least we don't have to worry about disrupting heavenly spheres every time we snap a chord.

Susan Broomhall.

So, when we look at those instruments that, you know, are typically clustered together called kind of the Charles IX set of instruments, they very clearly have markings on them that one would associate immediately with Charles IX. So, you know, we've been talking a little bit about a set of symbols that each royal individual has that kind of marks them out and separates them from some, somebody else, and usually they try to signal something about that person and what identity they want to bring and Charles the Ninth, I mean, his most simple symbol is a K for Carolus so that's just a Latin version of Charles it's usually a K with a crown on top. So if you see that symbol, that's usually a first you know, guess that this instrument is, or this thing, whatever it might be, because they're often on buildings as well. It will tell you that the building is made for him in his reign, something around that. So it's a good dating mechanism. So we see that immediately on a number of these instruments, but it's also combined with a number of other things that we associate with him.

So I said also, sometimes it's pictures, sometimes it's words, mottos. And on these instruments we're either seeing the words, um, in English, piety and justice. Those two words are often associated with Charles IX, not because he necessarily was wonderfully pious or just, but this was very much part of the identity of what kind of a king he was going to claim to be and it's often combined with, say, an image of a woman who represents justice, so she might have the scales in her hand, and there is one of the instruments in that collection. Well, I think she's been sliced in half now, but, you know, you can clearly see she's lost her scales, I think, and she's lost her stomach.

That one, that's really interesting. So off the top of my head, I can't remember which image it is, but the one that has been, It's a cello, yeah. And so you can look at one and kind of take a pretty good stab at what was represented on some of the others. So some of them are a bit faded, but they mostly share a set of symbols that we would expect, so fleur de lis as a sign of France, the crown, the initial and the crown together, so the K for Charles. If that makes Latin, you know, for Charles. The columns with ribbons, garlands around them, the image of justice. But I mean, some of them also have the heraldic symbols of, um, his arms and the, the, the chain of St Michael's, which is the, you know, in England, um, One might hear about the Order of the Garter, which is a particular order that only a certain number of people, it's usually about 24, people are ever allowed in at any one moment, and it's a kind of sign of those who have, you know, most proximity and prestige near the king. France has the same thing with the Order of St Michael, and you can see the chain of St Michael on, um, surrounding a number of the heraldic arms symbol on some of those instruments. So, my understanding is one of the instruments looks like it may have a date of 1564 in Roman numerals. And that would be completely consistent with obviously the timeline of Charles IX.

But for Catherine, she really does have a lot of money at her disposal in her later life, and so what she is doing is investing in whole palaces, whole garden complexes, and all the things that go with that. So, you know, all the interior artwork. Um, all the sculptures and these gardens that she's laying out, as well as the interior space of these palaces, often have very, very large rooms that are suitable for big performances. So indoors and outdoors performances that often involve performances of dance. They'll almost, you know, they'll certainly have musical components. They look a bit like theatre. They look a bit like ballet. Sometimes they'll have horses, um, and so there's kind of like a staged horse equestrian performance in the middle of it. They can sometimes look like kind of mock jousting, mock battles. Sometimes they'll have mythological themes. It's a really kind of complex art form. So when you say performance, it's not quite theatre, it's a bit of everything. And perhaps, um, what's significant or particularly significant, apart from the fact they cost an awful lot of money. There's a strange combination where these things are being designed by people who work for Catherine, but they often involve the royal family and all the courtiers actually performing in these things. So it's not like, uh, the royal court sits back in a theatre environment and watches something on a stage. The king and the queen will be dancing in the middle of the performance and they'll of course be in leading roles. Um, you know, so the whole structure of the performance is. Also a kind of political, of course, it's political messaging, but they're right in the middle of it. Um, so it's perhaps quite unusual to think about. It's not just, oh, we're putting on a theatre piece, but these people are in the middle of it. And this is something very much associated with Catherine de Medici. So these things are, uh, you know, yes, they might be pretty and they're certainly extremely expensive, but by getting the courtiers to act in them, uh, she's also trying to kind of, I guess, model certain kinds of behaviour amongst them and to, and I think this is where music and dance are really important about establishing a kind of tone at the court, which is about harmony, always about harmony. Um, sure control by the royal family over the court here. So there's a bit of establishing of hierarchy, but it's always about trying to bring the French court together and find common interests against external enemies.

Oh, it's kind of like, um, 17th century team building.

Indeed, indeed. Yeah, so she has three sons who become kings. The first one is Francois II, and he really only lasts about a year, um, and perhaps he's most famous for being married to Mary, Queen of Scots. Um, so then Francois II, then the king who follows him is Charles IX. He comes to the throne, I think he must be about 10 at the time he comes to the throne. Um, so he requires a regent, um, and Catherine. I should also add at this point, France is fracturing very clearly into two large factions of Protestants and Catholics would dominate, but Protestants are quite a powerful and politically well set up force who have a great deal of power and because of the competing factions at court, I think in the end, a decision is made that, well, Catherine de Medici, she's his mother, she might be the best person to kind of protect him and steer him through this really fractious moment. Because if you appointed anyone else, you know, they would represent one side or the other. But the assumption is, and again, this is a kind of emotional way of thinking, is that the mother only has his best interests at heart and therefore will, you know, guide him down the middle of this. And then when he's about 13, he announces his majority, as it's called and then in 1564, she and Charles participate in what's called the Grand Tour of France. And for two years, they basically travel around the country, sort of saying, Hey, here's Charles, this is your king.

On this infamous Tour de France, the court made its way south to Bayonne, where the Queen Consort would see for the first time after years, her teenage daughter, who had married the King of Spain Philip II. Diplomatic talks would take place and everyone knowing that the young French king did not wield the power, it was his mother Catherine who had to be told by the Spanish that she was being far too lenient with the dangerous Protestants in her court and why hadn't she killed them all yet?

So yeah, there are a series of perhaps Really famous extravaganza and, um, one of those, the one you're referring to happens when she, so her daughter, Elizabeth becomes the Queen of Spain. They spend a long time writing letters to each other and then she wants to meet her daughter again. So they arranged this meeting at the border between France and Spain and everybody cries when they catch up. It's, you know, all the eyewitness ambassadors talk about how everybody cried, including the king. And then one of his courtiers told him off that it wasn't appropriate for a king to cry. It's the first time they've seen each other since Elizabeth got married and went off to live in Spain. So they're kind of, it's a big catch up for the family, the Valois family, if you like.

So that's the king who cries at the ceremony? Okay. Not, not Philip.

No, not Philip. Philip doesn't attend. Um, there's some discussion about whether or not he should attend or whether, uh, Catherine might be too beguiling. A series of these magnificences or extravaganzas not only took place and were written about by ambassadors and then sometimes had printed accounts with some illustrations showing what happened at them, but they are also turned into a set of tapestries. And I wonder if that's why you picked it, because, you know, in this kind of. multimodal milking of the event, and I guess you may as well, if you spent lots and lots of money on it, get every possible use out of it. A series of the biggest kind of extravagances during her time in power, Catherine's time in power, are then translated into tapestries.

So they're displayed in their own right, right? So they're pieces of art, but they're art that's telling you about other art that Catherine has done, if that makes sense.

The Amati set of instruments may have travelled with them, being played by the court musicians to add an extra layer of bling to the affair. In any case, it would be unthinkable for the royals to set off without their musicians, and the Valois musicians would play on nothing but the best.

John Gagne

Yes, so this is maybe, of all the French kings who loved music, maybe Charles IX is not top of our list. We think of other kings from later periods. But there's been a lot of research done recently on King Charles IX, who, you know, died when he was 25, so he didn't have a lot of time to become a music lover, but it seems like he was really interested. A lot of members of the court testified to his love of singing, the fact that he would, like his father, often leave his pew in church and go join the choir to sing. When a mass was being performed, both Tai and Dessus, so that's the lower voice and the higher voice, seem to be capable of both. And there are some drawings by Antoine Caron, who was one of the court artists, showing him seated at a table with a bunch of, with a score and surrounded by musicians. With all the instruments sitting in repose, the idea being that the focus here is on Reading of the score and sort of, you know, musical literacy rather than, let's say, instrumental literacy. So this is about, you know, learning your notes and how to sing. But in addition, maybe three things to mention.

First is his foundation of an academy, l'Académie Royale de Musique which was quite early 16th century academy for the arts that he founded, including members of his, like, friends of his, like, Baille and Ronsard, poets, and then his composer servants, including Guillaume Cotelet, who was his organist, and left a number of published songs, both religious and secular that I listened to the other day, they're quite lovely. And maybe most famous is, uh, Orlando di Lasso, uh, Italian composer who served the King of France, and who we have records of several letters being sent to him saying the King is basically willing to pay him anything for him to come into his service, to join him on his tour of France, to, uh, be there when he wants to, you know, wants his services. The letter, in fact, stipulates he'll be paid on sort of like three levels, like he'll get a base salary, he'll get a salary as the First composer of the King, and then he'll get a supplementary salary. So he was being loaded with cash. So it tells us something about even before he reached the age of 25 that Charles IX was, you know, soaking himself in a highly literate, musically literate environment, which makes the acquisition of Amati instruments more compelling, let's say, because he would have been looped into, through the composers probably, and some of the servants who brought their musical skills from Italy to networks of knowledge where he might have been able to trace some of the finest Italian makers and really learn he should have as a king of France to embellish his court.

The Amati set of instruments were sent to the French court and would provide entertainment for both the royal family and the nobles at court. In the previous episodes, we saw how Catherine de Medici used spectacle and entertainment as a political message when she toured the French kingdom with her son. Back in the capital, she would do the same using court festivities as a means to this end. At this point, you may notice that Charles IX is no more. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 23, and it is now his brother, King Henry III, Not to be confused with his brother in law, Henry, who was mixed up in the St Bartholomew Day's massacre, who would eventually become Henry IV. Are you following? There are a lot of Henry's, it's really confusing. In this episode, we have seen how the French wars of religion caused economic hardships for artisans and tradespeople as far away even as Cremona. These problems caused by the religious conflicts were the same that Gasparo Da Salo in Brescia was facing when he too had to borrow money just to make ends meet.

We also see how the painted instruments of Charles IX made sense in the French court, where symbolism and extravagance played a political role at court, and the messages the monarchy were trying to convey were printed on multiple platforms. Charles IX is a music loving king in a court filled with theatre and drama.

Andrea Amati's instruments were accompanying the court intrigues, balls and spectacles with their musical accompaniments, used for both pleasure and strategic plays at court. So here we have what is perhaps the oldest set of violins placed in their historical context. These violins would not be disposed after the Valois royal house stopped ruling, but would be used with others to entertain the court for many years to come.

I would like to thank my delightful guests, Dr. John Gagne, Dr. Emily Brayshaw, Dr. Susan Broomhall, Carlo Chiesa, and Benjamin Hebbert. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. You can subscribe to the podcast at theviolinchronicles. podbean. com to know when new episodes are posted, and you can write a comment or question if you want there.

So join me as we wrap up the life of the Baroque master, Andrea Amati, and head towards some cool new designs by the brothers Amati amid a smattering of wars, invasions, pestilence, and disease thrown in. Thank you so much for listening, and if you like what you hear and would be into supporting the podcast so I can make even more episodes, please sign up to Patreon.

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