Italian family of music patrons. They ruled Mantua and the Mantuan territories between 1328 and 1707 as captains and marquises and from 1530 as dukes, a title bestowed on them by the Holy Roman Emperor. After the death of Vincenzo II in 1627, the direct line became extinct and the succession eventually passed to the Gonzagas of Nevers. From 1536 the Gonzagas also ruled the marquisate of Casale Monferrato, and other branches of the family ruled over Bozzolo, Sabbioneta, Novellara, Castiglione, Guastalla and Luzzara.
The period of the captains and the first marquises was marked by important performing and didactic activities, particularly in the school founded by Vittorino da Feltre under the patronage of Gianfrancesco Gonzaga (d 1444), which Gaffurius attended in his youth. The arrival at Mantua in 1490 of Isabella d'Este (14741539) as wife of Francesco II (d 1519) marks the beginning of one of the most brilliant periods at the Gonzaga court. While the Franco-Flemish school continued to find favour, the popular native frottola also flourished there, and many of the leading frottolists, including Bartolomeo Tromboncino and Marchetto Cara, either lived at the Gonzaga court or maintained relations with it. In 1510 Francesco II established a permanent court chapel, after which the Gonzaga musicians served both the court and the principal churches of the city. Federico II (d 1540) was particularly active in promoting musical performances, but his brother Cardinal Ercole, who ruled from 1540, exerted a more lasting influence and founded an ecclesiastical chapel which rivalled the court establishment.
The palatine basilica of S Barbara was founded by Guglielmo Gonzaga (d 1587), a skilled administrator and competent composer, and completed shortly after his accession. During his reign and that of his son Vincenzo I, several distinguished composers were successively associated with the Mantuan court, including Alessandro Striggio (i), Gastoldi, Wert and Benedetto Pallavicino. Monteverdi is first recorded at the court as an instrumentalist between 1589 and 1590. Vincenzo I (d 1612) regarded music as a necessary ornament of court life, and the development of theatrical productions and the expansion of the musical establishment that took place during his rule can be attributed to his idealized concept celebratory, ceremonial, spectacular of the role of a prince. Musical productions included Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607), Arianna (1608) and Il ballo delle ingrate (1608), Marco da Gagliano's Dafne (1608) and two plays by Guarini, Il pastor fido and L'idropica, which included elaborate intermedi with music. The music for L'idropica was provided by Monteverdi, his brother Giulio Cesare, Salamone Rossi, Gastoldi, Gagliano and Paolo Birt.
After Vincenzo's death the duchy experienced a severe financial crisis, which caused a decline in musical activities despite the strong musical interests of Ferdinando Gonzaga (d 1626). He succeeded to the duchy in 1612 and was an amateur composer who had close contacts with the early 17th-century Florentine school. Theatrical works with music attracted the considerable favour and attention of the Nevers branch of the Gonzaga family (Carlo II (d 1665) was a singer), who succeeded after the sack of Mantua by the imperial army in 1630. The last Gonzaga duke, Ferdinando Carlo, employed Caldara as maestro di cappella between 1701 and 1707. Between 1665 and 1707 he granted many licences for the patronage of virtuosos, actors and ballerinas. The family archives and those of the court are at Mantua (in I-MAa), and most of the surviving printed and manuscript music from the S Barbara collection is at Milan (in I-Mc).
See also Gonzaga, Francesco.
BertolottiM
FenlonMM
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A. Luzio: L'archivio Gonzaga di Mantova (Mantua, 1920)
S. Brinton: The Gonzaga, Lords of Mantua (London, 1927)
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C. Gallico: Un libro di poesia per musica dell'epoca di Isabella d'Este (Mantua, 1961)
G. Coniglio: I Gonzaga (Milan, 1967)
P.M. Tagmann: La cappella dei maestri cantori della basilica palatina di Santa Barbara a Mantova (15651630): nuovo materiale scoperto negli archivi mantovani, Civiltΰ mantovana, iv (1970), 376400
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C. Gallico: Corte e beni musicali a Mantova, duca Guglielmo Gonzaga, IMSCR XIII: Strasbourg 1982, ii, 253
R. Sherr: Mecenatismo musicale a Mantova: le nozze di Vincenzo Gonzaga e Margherita Farnese, RIM, xix (1984), 320
C. Mozzarelli: Mantova e i Gonzaga (Turin, 1987)
P. Besutti: La corte musicale di Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga ultimo duca di Mantova (Mantua, 1989)
S.H. Parisi: Ducal Patronage of Music in Manua, 15871627: an Archival Study (diss., U. of Illinois, 1989)
CLAUDIO GALLICO