City in northern Italy. A powerful and prosperous city in Roman times, it has two surviving buildings important to its musical history: the theatre, which was probably begun in the 1st century bce, and the amphitheatre or arena (cap. 25,000), built in the 1st century ce. These are the oldest and largest Roman theatrical buildings in northern Italy. About the mid-4th century Verona belonged to the province of Venetia and Istria, and in the 5th century the diocese was under the rule of the patriarchs of Aquileia. St Zeno was Bishop of Verona from 362 to 372, and the reference to chant in his Tractatus is the earliest evidence of musical activity in the city. A schola sacerdotum was founded at the cathedral before 517, and in the 9th century the Benedictine abbey of S Zeno became an important Veronese cultural centre. The earliest musical documents are manuscripts with neumatic notation, both northern Italian and Nonantolan, dating from the 10th and 11th centuries (in I-VEcap). Two 10th-century works, a so-called salutatio magistri entitled O admirabile Veneris idolum (in Rvat Cod.lat.3227; GB-Cu Cod.Gg.5.35 olim 1577; see Paganuzzi, 1978–9) and a cantus peregrinorum entitled O Roma nobilis (in I-Rvat Cod.lat.3227; MC Cod.Q.318), are of Veronese provenance. Music was an essential part of the education of the cathedral clerics, and according to a detailed account of Raterius, Bishop of Verona for several periods between 931 and 968, the canons of the Veronese church could sing the Office (psalms, hymns and canticles) better than those of any other church in Italy (J. Migne: Patrologiae cursus completus, ser. lat. (Paris, 1881), cxxxvi, section 479, col.615). The Carpsum ‘collection’ (I-VEcap Cod.XCIV 89), an 11th-century document containing directions for cathedral services throughout the year, including musical performance of the liturgy, is based on an earlier work by the cantor Stephen. The cantor supervised the musical education of the younger pupils as well as performing the musical part of the liturgy. After 1225 four mansionarii led the choral singing.
Verona was one of the principal centres of the Ars Nova in the first half of the 14th century. Marchetto da Padova finished his treatise Lucidarium (1309–18; GS, iii, 64–121) there, and Dante stayed at the court of Cangrande della Scala (d 1329), which had an active musical culture; at a later date Petrarch was also in Verona. A poem by the Roman Immanuel Giudeo (d 1330) indicates that the city was filled with music: ‘Chitarre e liuti, viole e flaùti, voci alt'ed acute qui s'odon cantare. Qui boni cantori con intonatori, e qui trovatori udrai concordare’. Cangrande's nephew Mastino II (d 1351) also received renowned composers as guests, including Jacopo da Bologna, Giovanni da Cascia and Magister Piero. These composers wrote madrigals to texts infused with local dialect, some on Veronese subjects. After Donato da Cascia the Servite Andrea de Florentia came from Florence in 1383 to play the organ at the convent of S Maria della Scala for the meeting of the general chapter. Two important trecento treatises on poetic-musical metre and accidence are dedicated to the Scaligeri: to Alberto II Delle rime volgari by Antonio da Tempo, a Paduan, and to Antonio (reigned 1374–87) Lo tractato e la arte de li rithimi volgari by Gidino da Sommacampagna, based on Tempo's treatise.
The end of the Scaligeri rule in 1387, and the struggles between the Carraresi and the Visconti and between the Visconti and the Venetians, led to a decline in musical life in Verona, which in 1405 surrendered to the Venetians and in 1439 became part of the Venetian Republic. The following year, Pope Eugenio IV (the Venetian Gabriele Condulmer) founded the Mensa Acolythorum (college of acolytes) for the religious, literary and musical education of the clergy and of gifted, poor young men. The accoliti were instructed by 12 sacerdoti. Gaffurius was in Verona in 1476–7 as teacher of the accoliti, indicating a musical revival further evidenced by the flowering of a generation of Veronese frottolists, most of them former accoliti, including Michele Pesenti, Marchetto Cara, Giovanni Brocco, Antonio Rossetto and Peregrinus Cesena.
One of the most notable members of the college was Biagio Rossetti, first a pupil and later a teacher, who became a chaplain, cantor and organist at the cathedral, and also published Libellus de rudimentis musices (Verona, 1529), a manual for the training of choirboys and cantors, concentrating on plainchant. The book is dedicated to Bishop Gian Matteo Giberti (1524–43), who required excellent musicians for the school and the cathedral. Maestro di cappella in the first half of the century were Girolamo Richini (to 1520), Francesco ‘Gallo’ (i.e. French; 1520–25), Francesco da Lodi (1525–7), Jacques Colebault (later called Jacquet of Mantua; 1527–33), Jacques (?Du Pont, from Rome; 1534–5), G.M. Lanfranco (c1535–8), Nicolaus Olivets (1539–46) and Jacquet de Berchem, formerly appointed in 1546.
The progressive political and economic consolidation in Verona during the early 16th century stimulated one of the most important eras in the city's musical history. The Accademia Filarmonica was formed on 23 May 1543, from the union of two earlier academies – the Incatenata and the Filarmonica. At first the academy's activities centred on music (although later literature and philosophy were also cultivated); in 1549 Il Geloso by Ercole Bentivoglio was given with music written and performed by members. Musicians engaged by the Accademia included Jan Nasco, Vincenzo Ruffo, Alessandro Romano, Lambert Courtois, Agostino Bonzanino (one of the academy's founders), Ippolito Chamaterò, Pedro Valenzuela, Paolo Bellasio, Alessandro Sfoi, Paolo Masnelli, Stefano Bernardi and Carlo Calzareri, who was also maestro di cappella of the municipality. Other academies and ridotti (‘retreats’) in the city included the ridotto of Count Mario (and later his nephew Alessandro) Bevilacqua, famous in Italy and abroad; the Accademia alla Vittoria, which united with the Filarmonica in 1564; the Accademia dei Moderati, of which Giammateo Asola was a member; the Accademia dei Novelli, directed by Pietro Cavatoni; and the ridotto Ridolfi.
In addition to the flourishing musical activities in the academies, sacred music was cultivated in the cathedral and the churches of S Maria in Organo, S Eufemia, S Fermo Maggiore and S Anastasia. From the second half of the 16th century the cathedral maestri di cappella were Vincenzo Ruffo (1551–60, with interruptions), G.B. Girri (1561–?1566), Gabriele Martinengo (1566–84), Bartolomeo Spontone (1586–8), Asola (1590–91), Ippolito Baccusi (1592–1608), G.F. Anerio (periodically 1609–11), Stefano Bernardi (periodically 1611–24), Cristoforo Guizzardo (1624–34), Simone Zavaiolo (1635–44), Nicolò Fontei (1645–7), Dionisio Bellante (1658–85), Gasparo Gaspardini (1685–1714), Giovanni Porta (1714–16) and Domenico Zanata (1724–46). As elsewhere, the use of instruments in musical ensembles increased during the 16th century. Noted violinists at the cathedral were Giuseppe Maccacaro (from 1566), Francesco Lauro and Antonio Bertali, who were both engaged by the Accademia Filarmonica. Giuseppe Torelli was violinist at S Stefano (occasionally, 1676) and then at the cathedral (1683–4). The most important maestri at other churches were Valerio Bona at S Fermo Maggiore (1613–c1620) and Carlo Milanuzzi at S Eufemia (1621–2).
Only from the 18th century was there any important theatrical activity. One of the earliest public theatres after Roman times was the Teatro dei Temperati (1656; after 1677 called di Palazzo), a small theatre seating 108 which operated until 1715, reopening for a short time in 1749. The most important theatre, the Teatro Filarmonico, was inaugurated on 6 January 1732 with the pastoral play La fida ninfa by Scipione Maffei, with music by Vivaldi (see fig.1). The theatre, built on a site owned by the Accademia Filarmonica, was designed by Francesco Galli-Bibiena and was one of the most beautiful in Italy. In 1744 it gave the première of Il Tigrane by the Veronese composer Daniel Dal Barba; it burnt down in 1749 but was reopened in 1754 with Hasse's Alessandro nell'Indie and David Perez's Lucio Vero. Mozart gave a concert there on his first trip to Italy in 1770. Several works had their premières at the Filarmonico during the 18th and 19th centuries, including Traetta's Olimpiade (1758), Cimarosa's Giunio Bruto (1781) and Pedrotti's Romea di Montfort (1846). Bombed and burnt in February 1945, it was rebuilt (1961–71) and thereafter managed by the municipal Ente Lirico. The Teatro dell'Accademia (later called Vecchia) presented operas from 1722 until the 19th century; it was closed in 1873. There were several theatres briefly active during the 19th century, including the Teatro di S Tomìo (or Teatro Morando), the Teatro Ristori and notably the Teatro Nuovo, which opened in 1846 with Verdi’s Attila and gave the premières of Pedrotti's Fiorina (1851) and Tutti in maschera (1856). On the initiative of the tenor Giovanni Zenatello, a series of open-air performances at the Arena was inaugurated in 1913 with a performance of Aida. With the exception of the war years, operas have been mounted there each summer and are among the most important musical events in the city (fig.2).
Other musical organizations include the Società Amici della Musica, active from 1909; and more recently the celebrated Coro dei Concerti Spirituali della Cattedrale. The Scuola d'Arco (founded 1877) and the Scuola di Pianoforte, Composizione e Organo were amalgamated in 1927 as the Civico Liceo Musicale, which became a state conservatory in 1968 known as the Conservatorio E.F. Dall'Abaco (in honour of one of the city's many natives who had important musical careers elsewhere). The Biblioteca Capitolare has a music collection, and the Accademia Filarmonica holds a collection of 16th- and 19th-century instruments.
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A. Piazzi and others: Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona (Florence, 1994)
ENRICO PAGANUZZI