(fl 1473–92). Franco-Flemish composer. From 1473 to 1492 he lived and worked sporadically in Florence, employed as a singer at the cathedral, the baptistry and the SS Annunziata. He also taught music to the novices at the Ss Annunziata's convent, where he resided for a number of years. He was a friend of Lorenzo de' Medici, for whom he recruited singers, and he knew the English theorist John Hothby, who mentioned him (Arnulphus Gilardus) in the Dialogus in arte musicae. In 1479 he was commissioned by the cathedral to write music for Holy Week (now lost) that was performed there well into the 16th century; a ceremonial motet in honour of Siena, Sena vetus, was composed for an unnamed patron in the mid-1480s. Only one work, Le souvenir, is set to a French text; it quotes the opening of Morton's chanson of the same name, though it continues differently. Piangeran gli occhi mey and O invida fortuna may be contrafacta of French chansons. The sacred works are set in alternatim style and paraphrase chant melodies while making abundant use of fauxbourdon. The surname ‘Giliardi’ comes only from the ascription of Piangeran gli occhi, which is hard to read with confidence. There is a distinct possibility that he is to be identified with the theorist Arnulf of St Ghislain and/or the writer and musician Arnoul Greban.
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Magnificat, 3vv, F-Pn |
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Magnificat, 4vv, I-Md, ed. in AMMM, xv (1969) |
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Ave maris stella, 3vv, A-Wn, Sup only; F-Pn, anon. |
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Le souvenir, 3vv, attrib. Arnulfus G, I-Rvat C.G.XIII.27, ed. in A. Atlas: The Cappella Giulia Chansonnier (New York, 1975–6) |
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O invida fortuna, 3vv, Fn Magl.XIX.176, ed. in D'Accone, 1970 |
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Piangeran gli occhi mey, 3vv, Fn Magl.XIX.176, ed. in D'Accone, 1970 |
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Sena vetus, 4vv, Sas, ed. in Luciani and D'Accone, 1997 |
S.A. Luciani: La musica a Siena (Siena, 1942), 33–43
A. Seay: ‘The Dialogus Johannis Ottobi Anglici in arte musica’, JAMS, viii (1955), 86–99, esp. 92
H.M. Brown: Music in the French Secular Theater, 1400–1550 (Cambridge, MA, 1963), 134–5
F.A. D'Accone: ‘Some Neglected Composers in the Florentine Chapels’, Viator, i (1970), 263–88, esp. 264–71
W.F. Prizer: ‘Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Rés. Vm.7 676 and Music in Mantua’, IMSCR XIV: Bologna 1987, 235–9
F.A. D'Accone: The Civic Muse: Music and Musicians in Siena During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Chicago, 1997)
FRANK A. D'ACCONE