City in Italy, in Tuscany. Settled by the Romans in 89 bce, it was one of the four medieval Sea Republics and was conquered by the Medici in 1494. Its oldest musical documents are three Exultet settings, two from the 11th century (campo aperto, almost completely diastematic) and one from the 13th (in central Italian notation). By the 11th century, the cathedral had a canonico cantor (later called magister schola), who directed the clerics in liturgical singing, and there is evidence that it had an organ by the 16th century (its bellows were restored in 1571). On 7 February 1556 the clerics' schola cantorum was replaced by a new cappella based on Flemish models. The cathedral was closed in 1595 because of a fire which apparently destroyed its library; the 17th-century inventories of the library show that during the 16th century the cappella repertory had included works by Willaert, Palestrina, Lassus, Marenzio and Vincenzo Galilei. The building was reopened in 1605. The cathedral organ was rebuilt, according to Banchieri (Conclusioni del suono dell’organo, 1609), by a ‘Flemish’ builder in consultation with the cathedral organist Antonio Buonavita, and Emilio de' Cavalieri. Among the maestri di cappella of the 17th century were Pompeo Signorucci, Vincenzo Mercanti and Teofilo Macchetti, whose musical manuscripts were acquired in 1715 by the Opera del Duomo (the administrative body of the cathedral) and whose liturgical services (mostly lost) were regularly performed. In the 18th century G.C.M. Clari and G.G. Brunetti were maestri di cappella; they performed works by Haydn, Cimarosa and Cherubini and their own four-part compositions with string or organ accompaniment. In the late 20th century the cathedral had a choir of 16 singers, an organist and a music director.
The Cavalieri di S Stefano, a lay order of knights, was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1561. In 1571 their church (S Stefano dei Cavalieri) was consecrated and a cappella musicale founded; it had only voices at first but from the 17th century instruments as well. Notable maestri include Antonio Brunelli, G.L. Cattani and F.M. Gherardeschi. 311 volumes of music dating from the 17th century to the 19th are extant, as well as 65 volumes of chant (the earliest dated 1561). The order was suppressed in 1859 and the cappella disbanded, leaving only an organist. A large organ was built in 1571 by Onofrio Zefferini of Cortona, and a second and smaller one in 1618 by Cosimo Ravani. In 1733–7 A.B. della Ciaia supervised the construction of a new, grand instrument, built by the best Italian makers of the period, with 60 stops and four manuals (a fifth keyboard was a harpsichord), which became one of the most famous organs in Europe. It was modified several times (1839, 1870, 1913–14), and finally connected to the Zeffirini organ and furnished with pneumatic and electric action.
Other centres of sacred music were the church of S Caterina and S Nicola, the church of the Medici grand dukes, who spent Carnival to Holy Week in Pisa regularly from 1601 to 1625 and occasionally until 1684. They brought their Florentine musicians to participate in services at S Nicola, where until 1614 Caccini was maestro di cappella and his family performed; works by Peri were also heard there. The first record of secular music dates from 1588, when two 20-part madrigals by Buonavita, then organist at S Stefano, were performed for the arrival of Grand Duke Ferdinand I. The next year, for the arrival of Ferdinand's bride Christina of Lorena, there were mock battles with three pieces by Buonavita interspersed. In 1605 the grand dukes offered giostre, abbattimenti d'armi, casi armigeri and a ballo martiale to celebrate the marriage of Enea Piccolomini and Caterina Adimari, and in 1606 an Abatimento di Diario et il finto Alessandro with words and music by Duke Ferdinand Gonzaga was performed. Further court performances included an opera by Gonzaga (1607, in the hall of the Consoli di Mare, later the Teatro Pubblico) and C. Galletti’s L’Orindo (1608). Antonio Pisani's cantata Alfea reverente (1639) was composed for the arrival of Vittoria della Rovere, wife of Grand Duke Ferdinand II. A number of court opera performances are documented from 1671 until 1701, after which there seems to have been a hiatus until Carnival 1732. The oratorio Il martirio di San Giovanni Nepomuceno was given in the cathedral in 1737, and another in 1761 at S Francesco; in 1790 Debora e Sisara, an azione sacra by P.A. Guglielmi, was given in the Teatro dei Nobili Fratelli Prini (opened 1771). On the whole, however, secular works seem to have dominated, many in honour of the ruling family, notably works by Brunetti in 1761 and 1766. The Teatro dei Nobili continued to operate until the last years of the century, offering two seasons of opera a year (Carnival and spring). It was later administered by the Accademia dei Costanti (1798) and the Accademia dei Ravvivati (1822); in 1878 it became the Teatro Ernesto Rossi. Operas were given up to 1900; it closed in 1930.
In 1807 an outdoor arena was built, the Teatro Diurno (the Arena Garibaldi from 1882). It was originally intended to be a racecourse, but from 1873 it also presented opera (the first being Verdi’s Il trovatore); it closed in 1895. The Politeama, another outdoor opera theatre, opened in 1865 with Ricci’s Crespino e la Comare; it was destroyed during World War II. The Regio Teatro Nuovo (now the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi) opened in 1867 with Rossini’s Guillaume Tell. It has excellent acoustics, and mounts a short but popular autumn opera season. It was restored from 1985 to 1989 and reopened with the world première of Roberto De Simone's Mistero e processo di Giovanna d'Arco.
A Banda dei Cacciatori was founded by the Cavalieri and other Pisan noblemen in 1765; it played at ceremonies all over Tuscany. In 1803 it was reorganized as the Corpo Filarmonico degli Urbani, in 1819 as the Società Filarmonica degli Alfei, and in 1849 (as part of the Guardia Civica) as the Società Filarmonica Militare degli Alfei. From 1868 it was called the Società Filarmonica Pisana. It was still active in the late 20th century.
The first choral society, the Vincenzo Galilei Male-Voice Choir (founded 1881), was a product of the Scuola Corale. In the early 20th century it began to participate in local opera productions; it was reorganized in 1910 as the Società Corale Pisana, and in 1958, under B. Pizzi, it won first prize in the Arezzo International Choral Competition. In 1976 it became a mixed choir. At S Nicola a children's choir, Pueri Cantores, was established in 1963, followed by a young people's choir, Coro Polifonico, in 1991. In 1973 P. Farulli organized a chorus and orchestra to perform Bach; only the choir is still active.
The first concert society, the Società Amici della Musica (1920–60), was succeeded by a section of the Gioventù Musicale (from 1959), the Goethe Institute (1961–6), the Scuola Normale (from 1967), the Associazione Pisana Amici della Lirica (from 1972) and the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (from 1978). This organization also holds a national piano competition each year. Organ concerts are given in the cathedral, where a new organ by Mascioni was inaugurated in 1981; at S Stefano; and at S Nicola, which has a three-manual Tamburini organ. The Teatro Verdi organizes an annual opera and concert season. Concerts are also given in the Aula Magna of the university, the Sala degli Stemmi of the Scuola Normale, the church of S Paolo all'Orto (restored as a concert hall in 1992) and, in summer, in Giardino Scotto, in the ‘Sapienza’ quadrangle of the university and in the gardens of villas on the outskirts of the city.
As early as the 11th century music was taught at the cathedral school, and from the 16th century at the church of the Cavalieri as well. The Scuola Corale was founded by the Società Filarmonica degli Alfei (1855). Because of the proximity of Pisa to the conservatory at Florence and the municipal music schools at Lucca and Livorno, there are no such establishments in the city. There are, however, two private music schools: the Scuola di Musica Giuseppe Bonamici and the Scuola della Società Filarmonica. The International Society for Music Education has a branch in Pisa. The holdings of the Biblioteca Universitaria include 323 librettos and 334 music and music-related manuscripts, several including medieval treatises. In 1987 the Associazione Toscana per la Ricerca delle Fonti Musicali was founded in Pisa; the university series Studi Musicali Toscani was founded by Carolyn Gianturco in 1993.
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F. Baggiani: Giovanni Carlo Maria Clari (Pisa, 1977)
P. Radicchi: Giovanni Lorenzo Cattani, musicista carrarese al servizio dei Medici (Pisa, 1980)
A.R. Calderoni Masetti: L'Exultet ‘beneventano' del duomo di Pisa (Galatina-Lecce, 1989)
P. Raffaelli: I manoscritti liturgico-musicali della Biblioteca Cateriniana e del Fondo Seminario Santa Caterina dell'Archivio arcivescovile di Pisa: storia e catalogo (Lucca, 1993)
S. Barandoni and P. Raffaelli: L'archivio musicale della Chiesa Conventuale dei Cavalieri di Santo Stefano di Pisa: storia e catalogo (Lucca, 1994)
C. Gianturco and L. Pierotti Boccaccio: ‘Teofilo Macchetti and Sacred Music in Pisa, 1694–1713’, Musicologia humana: Studies in Honor of Warren and Ursula Kirkendale, ed. S. Gmeinwieser, D. Hiley and J. Riedlbauer (Florence, 1994), 393–415
I. Zolesi: I manoscritti musicali della Biblioteca Universitaria di Pisa: storia e catalogo (Lucca, 1998)
STEFANO BARANDONI, CAROLYN GIANTURCO