Andrea Amati and the Spanish Set.

The first thing that I would like to do is to wholeheartedly commend the brilliant work of Marie Radepone, Jean-Phillipe Échard and their colleagues for their 2020 scientific paper Revealing lost 16th-century royal emblems on two Andrea Amati’s violins using XRF scanning. Back in 2005 at The Secrets, Lives, Violins of the Great Cremonese Violin Makers, 1505-1744 conference at the then Shrine to Music Museum (latterly, The National Music Museum), the musicologist Raymond Erickson inadvertently revealed a link to the Spanish court amongst the Andrea Amati instruments that have the word Propugnaculum as part of their heraldic decoration. His revelation came from one of the woodblock letters from Antonio Campi’s Cremona Fedilissima, a history of the city written under Spanish rule in 1584, and for over fifteen years this has been the backbone of a theory that these instruments had been sent to Spain – I remember Ariane Sheets, the curator of stringed instruments and myself muttering in hushed tones when we saw the concordance between Cremonese printed iconography and the instruments in the collection.

Things are not straightforward about the two inscriptions, and it is significant to see such an unusual word used to describe a defender of the faith, and this seems to unite the two. I have not seen any evidence to support the much re-quoted claim expressed by Philippe de Montebello at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that Catherine de Medici herself used the motto Quo unico propugnaculo stat stabitque religio, and I will address what I have found presently.

The instruments with the arms of Charles IX painted on them are the best known of all the Andrea Amati instruments, and the small violin in the Ashmolean is the only one with a reliable and legible original label. It gives the date of 1564, regarded as the earliest dated violin of modern form in existence (this leaves the door open for putatively earlier instruments to also survive). The King Andrea Amati cello belonging to the National Music Museum has soundholes of an objectively more primitive type that are shared by the Lord Wilton viola in the Sau Wing Lam Collection. On The King, the painting of the French royal arms is over the varnish rather than under it suggesting that the painting was added later (within the context of the Charles IX court) but if we are to trust the apparent chronology of design, the two instruments stand to be earlier than 1564. The same museum has a badly mutilated fragment of another Andrea Amati from the French court which bears the painted emblems of Henry II reigned (1547-1559), husband of Catherine de Medici, so it implies that it came to France in the period of his reign. (Happily I had no small influence in persuading the museum to acquire it. My friend Andrew Dipper has gone to considerable lengths to give a plausible reconstruction of the instrument as a lira da braccio, and I think he is right).

Catherine de Medici is the constant elephant in the room concerning all of these instruments, and a future blog will provide some clarity on how a Florentine orphan brought up under the Medici popes in the Vatican would have a connection to Cremona in respect of her ascent to the throne as Queen of France. One of the plausible theories for a Spanish set is that they were built to celebrate the marriage of Catherine’s daughter, Elisabeth de Valois to King Philip II of Spain in 1559. Radepont, Échard (et al.) are certainly right to say that these instruments logically belong to the period of her reign ending with her death in 1568 (she married aged fourteen and died aged twenty-two). Moreover the known links between mother and daughter give rise to another link with Cremona, for Catherine de Medici was responsible for the appointment of the young female humanist scholar and painter from Cremona – Sofonisba Anguissola becoming a lady-in-waiting to Elisabeth de Valois in the court of Spain. Illustrated is a self-portrait miniature of Sofonisba from precisely wearing Spanish court dress and the jewel of the pelican of piety presented to her by Philip II of Spain.

I realise that in the light of overwhelming evidence to the effect that the Spanish propugnulco instruments were for the Spanish court, it seems odd to promote a different point of view. Jean-Phillipe Echard and his colleagues have taken a scientific approach and presented only the evidence that they were able to find and concluded with a strong hypothesis ( – I can offer them only praise! ). However there are a number of things that I have observed during my interest in Andrea Amati’s work that allow me to advance my own strong hypothesis based upon the new evidence that they have uncovered.

To offer the weakest argument first, I have already expressed that Andrea Amati’s instruments go through various distinct evolutionary stages. Instruments like The King and the Lord Wilton viola are demonstrably more primitive (this does not necessarily mean older). Instruments of the 1570s are once again a further step evolved from those of the Charles IX archetype of the mid 1560s. The Spanish set seems to be remarkably congruent with the instruments for the French court, suggesting that they were very likely made at the same time. This is my connoisseurly opinion, and it is fine-slicing within a very small number of years, so regardless of my feeling it is necessary to point out that it is in itself a weak argument even though it helps to build a case that I think is more powerful, but it does mean that I think it less likely that the instruments were made for the wedding in 1558 of Elisabeth de Valois to Philip II of Spain, and more likely made for the 1565 Fête at Bayonne to celebrate the wedding and the sustained (uneasy) peace between the two powers

I was immensely grateful for Radepont & Échard’s X-Ray fluorescence. For many years we knew that these instruments ostensibly had the coat of arms of Philip II. However, the sinister side of the coat of arms was always sufficiently damaged as to be totally illegible. The X-Ray Flourescence was particularly helpful in finding the use of cobalt-blue over the entire surface. (Sinister is what we see as the right side of the coat of arms – if imagined as a shield, that is the bearer’s left side). To my surprise, and I am sure to his, this provided evidence of an unusual variation in which the shield is an impalement (two shields unified into one) only the dexter side being the partial arms of Philip II, and the sinister being the Valois emblem. The coat of arms is therefore unique to Elisabeth’s marriage to Philip of Spain or at the very best to her own household, but quite specifically NOT the arms of Spain. This is highly unusual, marking the union of the two royal houses, rather than as the personal emblem of Philip himself. As far as I am able to discern, there is one other time in which an impalement of the Spanish royal coat of arms took place in which the whole of the sinister side was taken up by the arms of another royal house, and that is in Philip’s earlier marriage (at Winchester) to the English Queen Mary I which lasted from 1554 until her death in 1558. We see this from double-headed English shillings minted at the Tower of London shortly after the marriage, as well as coins from the Spanish kingdom of Naples the impalement of the English and Spanish arms, but these represent an exception rather than the rule for the expression of Philip II’s rule in this short period.

To come to some kind of an answer, we have to return again to Catherine de Medici. In my mind, there may even be a little bit of a red-herring in assigning the instruments to the court of Charles IX, aged fourteen in 1564, despite his coat of arms being so prominent on these, for the conscious imposition of Italian instruments and corresponding musicians has far more of the hallmarks of his mother, Catherine de Medici. The idea that these instruments and the context they served did more to celebrate Catherine than her children provides an answer to one of the other conundrums for the Philippine set of instruments, as they are also decorated with a profusion of Valois fleur-de-lis that additionally ornament the corners of each instrument. Hence whatever representation of Philip exists, it is firmly set within the power of the Valois Court to which Catherine de Medici held controlling influence. Even is we accept that the Propugnaculo motto has nothing to do with Catherine de Medici and everything to do with Philip II, it is not sufficient to balance the emblems of the instrument which seem to be weighted towards a Valois narrative.

During the reign of Charles IX, Catherine embarked on a number of magnificences, great celebrations of the achievements of the Valois dynasty of which she was matriarch having been the wife of Henry II, and by then the mother and regent to the child Francis II before Charles IX. The marriage of her daughter to the Spanish crown had been crucial to a peace settlement between the two great warring nations of the Roman Catholic world, and by the middle of the 1560s her further political intrigue aimed towards further alliances through the marriage of further of her children throughout Europe. (In 1572 her daughter Margaret married Henry III of the other French kingdom of Navarre, in 1574 another son became monarch of the kingdom of Poland & Lithuania, and she had persistent desires to find Queen Elizabeth I of England a match from her offspring).

Elisabeth’s marriage to Philip marked The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559 and as part of the same treaty her aunt Marguerite, Duchess of Berry was to marry the Duke of Savoy on the same day. This was the fateful moment that Henry II was mortally wounded whilst jousting in celebration of his daughter’s marriage. Although the double marriage was something of a washout, it was to include a great ball and banquet – the kind of ceremonial environment in which a band of violins could have seen service. It seems strange that a Valois-heavy Philippine set of instruments should have been used during celebrations heavily embedded in so significant a peace treaty, where everything was to be choreographed to promote a fragile trust between the nations recently at war. On one hand we can argue that the impalement of the two coats of arms is precisely what we would expect to signify the marriage union, and this would also provide a narrative for how these instruments remained in France as I will argue in due course. However, against very good evidence towards this conclusion, I am more convinced that they were commissioned for the 1565 Fête at Bayonne.

As one of the most powerful figures in Europe, the great magnificences, that are intended as a celebration of the Valois dynasty are really a validation of her own power and influence, as seems to be the case here in respect of these violins. Hence in 1565 the Royal Court progressed to Bayonne near the Spanish border to celebrate the harmony and unity that Catherine had engineered with Spain. There remained much distrust between the two nations despite the political marriage, and Philip II remained in Spain, but there was more to it than that. Philip had been absent from the marriage in 1559, with the Duke of Alba standing proxy, and her arrival in Spain was delayed because of the period of grief for her deceased father. In the end the anticipated marriage ceremonies from the Spanish side had been muted, and they had completed the ceremonies at a makeshift chapel when the two met for the first time at Guadalajara. There is a little more sense to see these the iconography of these instruments as demonstrating the harmony brought by the Valois queen of Spain, and certainly to see them through the lens of France, or more particularly the lens of Catherine de Medici’s influence on the great powers of Europe.

The iconography of the Fête at Bayonne is recalled through the preparatory drawings by the French painter and architect Antoine Caron and the element of the Valois Tapestries that celebrates the meeting. Here we see the huge scale of the magnificence with an artificially flooded lake in which a mythical artificial dolphin floated, loaded with musicians as part of the story of Arion – a myth that when interpreted through the lens of the peace between France and Spain seems to cast Catherine de Medici as divine Apollo dispensing justice – it’s not all about you honey! Little wonder that Philip of Spain erred upon staying at home – I think he may have found Catherine’s ego-centric self-fashioning too insufferable.

Here, if we imagine the whole of Catherine de Medici’s politics, it makes sense for union and harmony represented through the musical gaze as being something in which half of the musicians represented the Kingdom of Charles IX and the others, the kingdom of Spain, and it makes sense to see the validation of Catherine de Medici’s own political power in it’s dominance of the representation of both the the Spanish and French crown. For these reasons the idea of a relevance to the Fête at Bayonne, as well as other events representing the Franco-Spanish peace become more interesting. This argument suggests that these instruments are in fact part of the French set of instruments, and were never intended for Spain. This may also explain why the coats of arms are defaced, painted over and otherwise obscured in a manner that is not to be found on the Charles IX instruments – because soon after, the Spanish coat of arms lost its relevance.

THE PROPUGNACULO MOTTOS

Within the study of Andrea Amati’s instruments one of the questions that arises is about the relationship of the painted motifs to to the varnish. The c.1564 Charles IX set has devices painted directly onto the wood with the varnish over them. The result of the interface between the wood and the paint is that there is an element of ghosting as the surface of the instrument oxidises differently. Although it is faint, it is possible to see significant amounts of the decorative scheme even where there is no painted evidence.

By contrast we see no evidence of this ghosting on the Philippine set, and although it is not stated in Echard’s article, from the evidence that is given, we can see that the paint layers are on top of the original varnish layer. We also find in The King and a cello dated 1572 (Musée de la Musique) that the Charles IX emblems are painted over the varnish following the same general patterns, but in a different style, suggesting that these were painted after they had arrived in France. Likewise there are two violins that have never had painted decoration, one from 1572, the other likely the same year, that show signs of having also been procured for use of the French court. I am happy with the idea of these anomalous Caroline instruments having been painted in France. In another blog, I will go into detail about the role of Antoine Caron in supplying the iconography that Cremonese artists adopted for the Caroline c.1564 set, and hence why the c.1572 Caroline paintings above the varnish were probably done in France by mannerist painters from Caron’s own circle. However, the Philippine set is different, and I think it is painted in Cremona, not Paris.

There may be reasons for this. Perhaps the slow drying of the oil painting before applying the varnish was too inefficient and the c.1564 Caroline instruments are the result of an abandoned practice. If between 1564 and 15 June – 2 July 1565 a second commission for the Fête was to be hurried (with concerns for the the benefit of the strong heat of the sun as intimated by Monteverdi to Galileo in 1637 being a possible reason). In whichever case the Philippine instruments could be just a fraction later. If on the other hand they were part of a set of undecorated instruments put into service with a quick paint job, then they could be a little earlier that 1564.

I believe that the use of the moto UNICO PROPUGNACULO STAT STABTIQ[UE} RELIGIO (By this bulwark alone religion stands and will stand), and the corollory in PHI.II.HISP.REX CAT.FIDEI PROPUGNACULUM may be a specific motto for Cremona, either serving as a way for the Amatis to reinforce their cremonese identity, or simply because this was the natural motto to add to the instruments given their own iconography of Philip of Spain. Elsewhere Philip represented himself as Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith) as found on coinage of the period.

By contrast the word propugnaculum is more suggestive of a bulwark, or fortress implying a more aggressive and active form of defence of the Faith. It was in 1541 that Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor made his visit to Cremona and in 1549 that Philip, as Duke of Milan travelled through the Kingdom of his father Charles V to rally support and unity against the threats of France and the protestant reformation of northern Europe. Given the coat of arms, it is important to focus on Philip II who, travelling from Spain, progressed through Italy, receiving a triumphal reception at Cremona. There are a number of preparatory drawings by Giulio and Bernardino Campi – the teacher of Sofonisba Anguissola, and whose family undoubtedly decorated the Caroline c.1564 instruments for Amati, which show painted niches containing illusory pairs of prisoners – certainly consistent with the propugnaculum theme of a bulwark against the threats to the Catholic religion that he was on a mission to settle, but equally possible for the procession of Charles V. As far as I have seen, there is apparently no further use of propugnaculum except in the ornamented capital of Cremona fedilissima specifically cut to memorialise Philip’s entrance into Cremona, except of the painting I will presently arrive at and the violins of Andrea Amati. Perhaps this it was knowledge of this earlier use of the motto in relation to Philip that inspired Bernardino Campi and his studio, recalling the requirements of fifteen years previously, or perhaps calling upon residual iconography of the visit he took it upon themselves to add the motto without further thought or awareness of it’s unique nature.

There is another explanation that indicates Campi/Amati’s intention to self-identify Cremona within the motto. For as a fortress town up against the River Po itself was a bulwark against the many invading forces through history. Perhaps we shouldn’t look any further afield to find uses of propugnaclum, and comprehend it instead as a self-referential acknowledgement that Cremona was to the Philip’s own Duchy of Milan what he was to the Roman Catholic Faith. I have selected a later map below (from the French siege of 1702) that shows the extent of the ‘bulwarks’ of the city, although they are just the same as are found in the 1582 Campi map, just better emphasised.

The third corollary comes from a mid sixteenth century painting of Cremona which I take to be a response to the Marco Girolamo Vida’s Christad, the epic poem of the life of Christ published in Cremona in 1535, which fantasised the Second Coming on the banks of the River Po at Cremona met by the townspeople arranged along the river and the city walls in a manner described. Here too we see a variation of propugnaculum in the motto surround the Cathedral tower; QUORUM OSSA IN TERRIS VERERATUR CREMONA HORUM TUTELA PROPUGNATUR IN COELLIS (Cremona venerates the earthly bones of those whose guardianship is protected in heaven.). Whilst the iconography is astonishing close to Vida’s 1535 text, in which angels clergy and the townspeople of Cremona would witness the Second Coming from the banks of the river po and the walls of the city, it has been transformed to express the 1641 progress of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V through Cremona. For the potentate at the bridge (this is the watergate from the northern part of the city, the river Po is in the background) is grey haired, and his posture fits the familiar iconography of the Holy Roman Emperor (it cannot therefore be the young Philip in 1549). It may be that there is an element of confusion between the structures erected for Philip in 1549 and Charles V in 1541 – the British Museum attributes preparatory sketches by Giulio Campi of prisoners to the design of a triumphal arch for Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. We see (below) a triumphal arch with inset panels that are congruent to these preparatory sketches.

Up until this point, I think that the iconographical evidence for these being French owned instruments paints a very circumstantial picture, even if it seems to me to be well-founded and strong. At least one of the Spanish instruments has been in France for a significant part of its life. E.1731 in the Musée de la Musique, a cut down viola was purchased by Louis-Edouard Besson on 5 January 1830, passing by descent to André de Provigny before coming to the Conservatoire in 1908. None of these appear to have emerged from Spain.

Long ago in studying the Andrea Amati violin and viola of Charles IX in the Ashmolean Museum, it became clear to me that the corner shapes were wrong, having been not only shortened but also rounded by some repairman in the ancient past. As I looked at other instruments by Andrea Amati it became manifestly clear that this aberration had been inflicted on all of the instruments painted with the arms of Charles IX regardless of whether the painting was under or over the varnish. There are receipts in the French National Archives for the expenses of musicians travelling to Cremona to purchase violins ‘for the king’s pleasure’ in 1572 – the fateful year that Margaret de Valois married Henry III of Navarre. The cello in the Musée de la Musique of that year appears to be one of these, and when I was lucky enough to discover an unpainted Andrea Amati from 1572 the first thing that drew my eye to it was the ‘melted’ corners, identical to what I was already familiar with.

It is unusual that an absence of material can provide such solid grounds for identification, but in this unique case it proves as characteristic as any of the intentional features of the maker. Perhaps the long corners that we see on the violins we know never made it to France provided a risk to players for iconography of the musicians at court sees them crammed into tight spaces, and perhaps the reasons why my own Amati was so smashed up tell us a story of why some repairman after 1572 felt compelled to take a file to every corner. It certainly places these instruments in the French court, and as I imagine you have already guessed, is a characteristic we equally see on the Propugnaculo instruments. Unless that annoying repairman took his files and rasps on a trip to the Spanish court in Madrid to inflict the same kind of damage, we must safely assume that the Propugnaculo set was part of French propaganda painted for their own use. One of these instruments did survive this aberration, retaining beautifully pure corners. As we shall see, it holds its own narrative.

Opera Omnia, the 2006 catalogue of the Exhibition of all the surviving Andrea Amati instruments contains 26 instruments. Amongst musicologists there has been a concern which I will address in another blog, that there is an inconsistency between the orchestration of the earliest music that we know for the vingt-quatre violons du Roi, and the apparent spread of instruments that survive from the Andrea Amati set. The Amati set seems to have had two treble violins – what I term the dessus being a slightly smaller instrument tuned the same, but probably with a resultingly different tessatura. I think we can assume that contralto violas did exist, for there is a Giacomo Gennaro viola from around 1650 that is virtually a copy or fake of Andrea’s work. Also if there are two tessituras of violins it is reasonable to expect the same for violas. Tenor violas exist as do bass violins. The largest number of surviving instruments by type for Charles IX are the three dessus violins and for the Propugnaculo set there are three treble violins. Both imply a size of band around twelve, i.e. 3x dessus, 3x treble, 2x contralto speculatively, 2x tenors from the Propugnaculco set and 2x bass – or thereabouts. The idea of the Vingt-quatre violons du Roi as a formal large band of instruments does not emerge until the reign of Louis XVIII, formed in 1626, but if we imagine two bands in union and harmony, one representing the power of France, the other Spain during the Fête at Bayonne, then from as early as 1565 the idea of the 24 violins may have been a reality experienced upon special occasions.

Am I to guess which set represents the earliest examples of making? I have already expressed the remarkable similarity between the two sets. If these were unpainted instruments already in France that got daubed up for the purpose, then they would seem to be technically earlier. It is only the 1564-related Charles IX set that has the paintings beneath the varnish, not the later Charles IX instruments nor the Propugnaculo ones. I can well imagine the technical difficulties and the additional time of waiting for the layers of oil paint to satisfactorily dry before adding the varnish layer, so perhaps this was an experiment that Andrea Amati never repeated. Perhaps in the short space between 1564 and 1565 unpainted Andrea Amati instruments were quickly painted up for this specific use. Until I know more, I think I have to err on the suspicion they were painted in Cremona, not France because of the arguments I have made about the motto. If that is the case, the deductions we can make on such limited information come to a logical conclusion that these are just a smidgen later than the Charles IX instruments, but barely later at all.

DEFACEMENT & ERASURE

There are three Philippine instruments that have their corners filed off, consistent with the Caroline Amatis, but the (reduced) tenor viola in the National Music Museum (inv. no. 03370) and the violin in the same collection both escaped that fate (inv. no. 03366). On the viola the coat of arms is present but it has been overpainted with an opaque oval and monogram which the museum convincingly describes as that of Marguerite de Valois, specifically the daughter of Catherine de Medici who became Queen of Navarre, (and not the sister of Henry II whose 1559 wedding to the Duke of Savoy was to be the evening of Elisabeth de Valois’s marriage to Philip) . An association with Margaret, Queen of Navarre makes good sense because of the period of self-imposed exile from her husband (1585-1599) followed by the annulment of her marriage. Until her death she held court in what the poet Dupleix described as “the Parnassus of Usson” from where she patronised her passions of the arts and letters.

 

 

In 1576 as a result of concessions to the Huguenots by Henry III, the Catholic League emerged as a way to put pressure on the king to pursue the Catholic and maintain the persecution of the Huguenots. The league, led by the Duke of Guise was supported by the Pope, the Jesuits, and by Philip II of Spain. Thus Spain had become antagonistic once again to French internal affairs, escalating into a resumption of the Wars of Religion when in 1585 it became clear that the throne would pass to the Huguenot Henry of Navarre. With the interference of Spain, especially the financial support for the Catholic League, the Spanish became increasingly unpopular in much of France. In this regard it is interesting to examine the state in which these instruments survive, for not withstanding the effects of natural wear to the backs of the instruments and the consequential damage to paintings of the Charles IX set, the condition of the five extant Philippine gives the impression of deliberate erasure, it is only the viola in the Musée de la Musique that survives in a state that can solely be attributed to ware, and the deliberate overpainting of the aforementioned viola indicates a desire to remove evidence directly related to the Philippine coat of arms. Any of the three surviving violins considered individually could be considered to have organically lost their decoration, but when we see all three together, there is the sense of an alternative explanation, that the arms were deliberately removed. Because of the shape of the violin and the positioning of the coat of arms where it has most contact with a case it is not surprising to see a good deal of natural wear in this part of the instrument, but the extent of erasure seems excessive in all examples. This once more provides a tantalising clue that these instruments were unlikely to have been in Spain, and as a part of the French Court, were subject to the changing politics of the times.

With particular thanks to Andrew Dipper and Ariane Sheets for many conversations about these and other instruments, and to Justin Haynes at the department of Classics at Georgetown University for giving a far superior reading of the Latin than I could ever aspire to.