City in north-east Italy, capital of the province of the same name in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. In 983 it was ceded by Emperor Otto II of Saxony to Rodoaldo, patriarch of Aquileia, but it was only in the 13th century that the city began to assume some importance. In 1263 the patriarch Gregorio di Montelongo established a collegiate cappella of eight canons with the duties of officiating and singing in the church of S Odorico, recently built at the foot of the castle. In 1334 this church, expanded and decorated by the patriarch Bernardo and probably also endowed with an organ, assumed the name of S Maria Maggiore and the prerogatives of a parish which had been taken away from the older S Maria di Castello (now unsuitable and in an inconvenient location); it was also given a benefice for a precentor and in 1346 a notated gradual. The names of some of the first singing teachers and precentors are recorded from that point onwards: Manino (1347), Wuillelmo (1348), Luchino della Torre (1374–99), Francesco, formerly Filippo di Mercatonuovo (1393), Domenico da Buttrio (1395), Angelo da Spoleto (1398) and Guglielmo. An inventory of 1368 shows an increase in the endowment of books of liturgical music according to the Roman rite, replacing those in the Aquileian rite. The first known organists are Friar Domenico (1407) and Father Andrea (1417–19). In the 15th century other important figures in the cathedral cappella were Nicolò da Capua (1432–4) and Cristoforo da Feltre, or de Monte (1432), the German Giovanni Brith (1471) and the printer and precentor Gerardo di Lisa (before 1488). From at least 1372 the commune of Udine paid for wind players during public celebrations such as horse races, archery competitions, balls and important visits. Wind players were employed with increasing frequency in the 15th century, even during church services and the numerous processions which saw the involvement of local confraternities (in 1507 there were 32) and the Dominican and Franciscan religious communities. Various orders, even the mendicant ones, had their own singers, singing teachers, instrumentalists, music books and organs in their own churches. A book of laude from the 13th to 14th centuries, and a 15th-century Psalter and breviary have survived from the Battuti of S Maria della Misericordia.
The 16th century was particularly rich musically: the maestri di cappella at the cathedral included Giovanni Bayli (he held the post for almost 40 years), Francesco Patavino (Santacroce), Mattia da Ferrara, Gabriele Martinengo, Domenico Micheli, Ippolito Chamaterò, the Frenchman Lambert Courtois, Vittorio Raimondi and Giulio Cesare Martinengo. Organists included Girolamo de Rogatis, Giuseppe a Bobus and Innocenzo Bernardi. The number of wind players grew and they were increasingly employed during civil and religious ceremonies. Families of musicians emerged (including the Mosto, dalla Casa, Bucci, Cesari, Zagabria and Orologio families), skilled players of the cornett, horn, trombone, fife and flute who practised their art in various musical establishments in northern Italy and central and eastern Europe.
In the 17th century the directors of the cathedral cappella were Orindio Bartolini, G.A. Rigatti, Pietro Gambari, Cirillo Pacini, G.P. Fusetti and Teofilo Orgiani; gradually wind instruments were replaced by strings. Directors of the cappella in the 18th century were P.B. Bellinzani, Girolamo Pera, Bartolomeo Cordans, Gregorio Rizzi and G.B. Tomadini, and in the 19th century Giacomo Rampini (ii), Francesco Bonitti, Giacomo de Vit, Michele Indri and Filippo Comelli. One of the outstanding organists was Francesco Comencini, whose compositions were much praised. 20th-century maestri included Giovanni Pigani, Albino Perosa, Gilberto Pressacco and Giovanni Zanette. A great deal of sacred music in manuscript by these composers (particularly from the 17th century to the present day), most of it in the concertato style, is held by the cathedral.
As well as in the churches, there was music-making in many noble households, at academies (particularly that of the Sventati, founded in 1606), in some institutions such as the Casa Secolare della Zitelle (1596), the patriarchal Seminary (1601), the Collegio dei Barnabiti (1679), and during celebrations and the frequent public balls. It is known that there were theatrical presentations from the early 16th century onwards, in the open air, the hall of the loggia comunale or in the grand hall of the castle (rappresentazioni sacre of Christ's Passion had been given in the cathedral from at least 1374). The first theatre, the Teatro Contarini, constructed within the great hall of the Palazzo Comunale, or town hall, was inaugurated in 1672 with Iphide greca by Nicolò Minato and G.P. Fusetti, but was closed after only two years. In 1680 the Teatro Mantica was inaugurated, and it remained in operation until 1754. It was temporarily replaced by the Teatro della Racchetta, or Provvisionale, between 1754 and 1770, during which time a number of noble families oversaw the construction of the Nuovo Teatro della Società dei Nobili, inaugurated in 1770 with Eurione, attributed to Ferdinando Bertoni. This theatre was later renamed the Teatro Sociale (1852), then, in the interwar period, the Teatro Puccini; it was demolished in 1964. From 1730 to 1810 Udine also had the Teatro dei Barnabiti, to which access was by invitation only, and from 1856 until World War 1 the Teatro Minerva. In the second half of the 20th century, after the demolition of the Teatro Puccini, concerts were for decades given in unsuitable or inadequate halls (the Sala Aiace, Palamostre, Auditorium Zanon and various churches) until the Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 with Mahler's Eighth Symphony.
Other notable musical institutions in Udine are the Istituto Filarmonico, a free music school founded in 1824 and taken over by the commune in 1876; it became the Civico Istituto Musicale Pareggiato J. Tomadini in 1925, and finally, in 1981, a Conservatorio Statale; the Associazione Amici della Musica was created in 1922 to run concert seasons, and the Scuola Diocesana di Musica was founded in 1928. Various instrument makers were natives of Udine (notably F. Gobetti, S. Serafino, S. Peresson) and the city was home to organ workshops (including that of F. Comelli). The Civico Museo houses a number of valuable musical instruments from the 16th and 17th centuries, and various portraits of musicians.
DEUMM
A. Battistella: ‘I vecchi teatri udinesi’, Atti dell'Accademia di scienze lettere ed arti di Udine, 5th ser., viii (1928–9), 77–127
G. Vale: ‘La cappella musicale del duomo di Udine’, NA, vii (1930), 87–201
A. Ricci: ‘Vita e cultura musicale in Udine nel dopoguerra’, Atti dell'Accademia di scienze lettere ed arti di Udine, 6th ser., iii (1936–7), 145–62
V. Fael: ‘Gli strumenti musicali del Civico museo di Udine’, Atti dell'Accademia di scienze lettere ed arti di Udine, 6th ser., iv (1937–8), 33–52
G. Perusini: ‘Strumenti musicali e canto popolare in Friuli’, Ce Fastu?, xx (1944), 251–71, esp. 256
G. Pressacco: ‘La musica nel Friuli storico’, Enciclopedia monografica del Friuli-Venezia Giulia, iii/4, ed. D.C. Cadoresi and C. Russo (Udine, 1981), 1947–2042
F. Colussi: ‘Nuovi documenti sulla prassi musicale in alcune istituzioni religiose e laiche di Udine nel Seicento’, Musica, scienza e idee nella Serenissima durante il Seicento: Venice 1993, 221–67
C. Scalon: Produzione e fruizione del libro nel basso Medioevo: il caso Friuli (Padua, 1995), 204–5
R. Meroi: Il nuovo teatro di Udine: storia, cronaca ed attualità di un sogno culturale (Udine, 1997)
A. Alfaré, L. Nassimbeni and A. Zanini: Musica e teatro a Udine, 1595–1866 (Udine, 1999)
L. Nassimbeni and A. Zanini: Giovanni Battista Tonadini (1738–1799): la vita e il catalogo delle opere (Udine, 1999)
FRANCO COLUSSI