Description
Between 1537 and 1570, at least 75 different editions (not counting reprints) of Canzoni villanesche alla napolitana were printed, and the phenomenon, formally speaking, continued copiously until beyond the early 1600s, to enumerate, according to our RIM-Novissimo Vogel database-repertoire a total of 180 books. It may seem paradoxical that about 80 % of this rich repertory was printed in Venice rather than Naples. The reasons for this happening are related not only to the great publishing vitality of the Venetians in the 16th century and beyond but also to other reasons that we have investigated through the study of the texts used and set to music by musicians around the figure and school of Adrian Willaert and especially Baldassare Donato.
Among the many subjects of this repertoire, a singular theme peeps out in an apparently rarefied way among these canzonettas and insofar as it has been little investigated, it has been focused by us with a targeted research on the approximately 54000 complete poetic texts (i.e. set to music) reproduced in RIM bringing to light 27 occurrences, i.e., song songs integrally dedicated to this theme.
Similar texts such as those intoned by Willaert , very unedifying, always insulting and full of contumely and revulsion towards old women, would even be unworthy of dissemination as would that of Giovan Tomaso Di Maio who begins Tutte le vecchie son maleciose in his Primo libro di villanesche. The theme of the old hag, envious and dirty (the forerunner of the modern witch) was thus quite common, heartfelt and all but stigmatized in the Madrigal era. The musical channel is thus a sure medium for both performance and representational dissemination of the figure of the Witch.
A chronological inventory and a more systematic investigation of this theme, also read from a musical perspective, might illuminate some aspects of one of the saddest anti-feminist phenomena in the history of Western culture
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