Italian family of musicians, instrument makers and composers, active in England. The family (see illustration) originated in Bassano del Grappa, about 65 km north-west of Venice, where they were known as Piva. Jeronimo [Gieronymo, Hieronymus] (i) (d ?Venice, ?1546–50), the founder of the musical dynasty, is first recorded in a contract of his father's dated 24 March 1481; in February 1502 he and his eldest son Jacomo [Jacopo] (b ? Bassano, before 1488; d Venice, 1559–66) were engaged to tune the organs in the churches of Bassano. They seem to have made the move from Bassano to Venice shortly afterwards. Jeronimo was apparently the ‘Ser Jheronimo trombon’ who worked in the trombe e piffari of the Doge of Venice around 1506–12. Numerous documents call him ‘maestro’, probably indicating the leader of an ensemble or an instrument maker. Lorenzo Marucini (1577) describes him as ‘inventor of a new bass wind instrument’ and ‘most excellent pifaro’. Strong circumstantial evidence suggests that Jeronimo was a Jew. Although he and his descendants passed for Christians, they retained some Jewish consciousness into the early 17th century and may well have been practising Judaism in secret. The family coat of arms, on which are displayed three silkworm moths and a mulberry tree, implies that the family had at some time been engaged in silk farming, a trade which the Jews introduced into Italy.
Jeronimo had six sons. At least five were wind players; most or all were also instrument makers. Alvise (d London, 15–31 Aug 1554) worked for the Scuola di San Marco, Venice, in 1515, and the Concerto Palatino in Bologna between 1519 and 1521. He and his brothers Jasper [Gasparo] (bur. London, 8 May 1577), John [Zuane] (d Venice, Sept–Dec 1570) and Anthony [Antonio] (i) (bur. London, 19 Oct 1574) served in the sackbut consort at the English court in 1531 but soon went back to Venice. Anthony returned to England in 1538 and was appointed ‘maker of divers instruments’ to the court. His brother Jacomo came with him but was not appointed to the court and apparently went back to Venice between 1542 and 1545. His descendants formed the Venetian branch of the family; (4) Giovanni Bassano was his grandson. Alvise, Jasper and John emigrated to England in 1539–40 with Baptista (bur. London, 11 April 1576); they and Anthony were appointed ‘brothers in the art or science of music’ to the court, and Anthony gave up his position as instrument maker. In 1531 the brothers had used the surname ‘de Jeronimo’; on their return to England they adopted Bassani or Bassano, and later generations used Bassano exclusively.
The five brothers in England formed a consort of ‘recorders’, which may have played other instruments including an early version of the mixed consort of Elizabethan times. Seven of their descendants also served in the recorder consort: Alvise's sons (1) Augustine and (2) Lodovico, Anthony's sons Arthur (b London, 31 Oct 1547; bur. London, 10 Sept 1624), Edward (i) (b London, 19 Oct 1551; bur. London, 25 May 1615) and (3) Jeronimo (ii), Arthur's son Anthony (ii) (b London, 15 Oct 1579; bur. London, 22 Apr 1658) and Jeronimo (ii)'s son Henry (bap. London, 8 April 1597; bur. London, 29 Aug 1665). Henry also served in the sackbut consort, as did three other Bassanos: Anthony (i)'s sons Mark Anthony (b London, 10 Jan 1546/7; d London, 11 Sep 1599) and Andrea (b London, 12 Aug 1554; bur. Horne, Surrey, 3 Aug 1626) and Jeronimo (ii)'s son Edward (ii) (bap. London, 28 Dec 1588; d London, 22 Oct 1638). Andrea's probable son Thomas (?bap. London, 27 Feb 1589; bur. London, 29 Sept 1617) apparently served in the flute consort, and Anthony (ii) deputized in it. Jeronimo (ii)'s son Scipio (bap. London, 11 Dec 1586; d London, 26 Nov 1613) probably served in the viol consort.
Besides Anthony (i), Alvise also made instruments, and John had a ‘fraterna Compagnia’ (brotherly company) with his instrument-making brother Jacomo in Venice and perhaps Anthony and Jasper. An inventory made about 1571 by Johann Jakob Fugger, superintendent of the music at the Bavarian court, of a chest of ‘beautiful and good’ instruments ‘made by the Bassani brothers’ in London lists 45 wind instruments: six unidentified (perhaps bombards, quiet shawms or bassanelli), seven Pfeiffen (perhaps flutes), ten cornetts and a fife considered as a set, twelve crumhorns and nine recorders, all tuned to organ pitch; an accompanying letter mentions a chest of six large viols and a chest of three lutes. The Bassanos presumably also made some of the instruments in the inventories of Henry VIII's collection (1542 and 1547). Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, bought shawms from Anthony in 1539. Another Fugger, Raimund, an Augsburg banker, listed a case of 27 recorders ‘made in England’, presumably by the Bassanos, in 1566.
The making, and particularly the repairing, of instruments was continued by the next generation. It was probably Arthur, who bequeathed instruments and tools to Anthony (ii) in his will, who sold ‘rare wind instruments’ (apparently cornetts) to Brussels. Andrea jointly held (with Robert Henlake, then Edward Norgate) the office of keeper and repairer of keyboard and wind instruments at the court from 1603 until his death in 1626. Only Anthony (ii) of the succeeding generation seems to have made instruments. It was probably he who made the famous large recorders depicted in Marin Mersenne's Harmonie universelle (1636) which ‘have been sent from England to one of our kings’; Mersenne also apparently knew the Bassanos' crumhorns.
Jacomo's daughter Orsetta married a wind-instrument maker named Santo Griti; Ongaro (1985, 1992) plausibly speculates that he changed his name to Santo Bassano (d Venice, 3 Dec 1586). Santo and Jacomo entered into a business partnership with three musicians of the Doge in 1559, in which the latter became in effect their salesmen in return for a large loan; the agreement mentions cornetts, crumhorns, curtals, flutes, recorders and shawms. Santo took out a patent in 1582 to make and sell a new wind instrument, almost certainly the Bassanelli (although it may well have been invented by Jeronimo (i)).
The maker's mark of the Bassanos has been the subject of much speculation. Lasocki (1983, 1985, 1995) surmised that it was what has hitherto been called the ‘rabbit's foot’ mark found on more than 120 surviving woodwind instruments (cornetts, crumhorns, curtals, flutes, recorders and shawms), and that this mark in fact represents silkworm moths, as found on the family coat of arms. Kirk, building on this theory, suggests that the single mark was used by Jeronimo (i), the double mark by his Venetian descendants (Jacomo and Santo), and the triple mark by the English branch, especially Arthur and Anthony (ii). The HIER.S mark, found on 31 instruments may also belong to the family.
Through instrument-making and business connections the English branch kept up with Venice and made several documented visits there, presumably acting as one of the conduits through which Italian music came to England. Bassano daughters married other court musicians: Ambrosio Grasso, Joseph Lupo, Alphonso Lanier and Nicholas Lanier (i). There is no evidence that the family was related to the Venetian painter Jacopo Bassano (also known as Jacopo or Giacomo da Ponte).
(1) Augustine [Agustino] Bassano
(2) Lodovico [Lodouick] Bassano [Bassany]
(3) Jeronimo [Jerome] Bassano (ii)
(4) Giovanni [Zanetto, Zuane] Bassano [Bassani]
DAVID LASOCKI (introduction, 1–3); DENIS ARNOLD/FABIO FERRACCIOLI (4)
(bur. London, 24 Oct 1604). Wind player and composer. He was appointed to the recorder consort on 18 April 1551 with effect from 25 March 1550. He became a denizen of England on 17 March 1545, presumably having been born in Venice before 1530. In his will he made a bequest of four lutes, but the evidence that he played the instrument at court, as some authors have suggested, is equivocal. A pavan and galliard, probably written as consort music as early as 1550, survive in arrangements for keyboard (GB-Rro Trumbull Add.6), bandora (Cu Dd.2.11) and lute (Lbl Add.29485). Some other pieces are in the style of the third quarter of the 16th century: two six-part pavans by ‘A.B.’, probably Augustine (US-NH Filmer A16/a–c, GB-Cfm 734); and two pavans and two galliards for five-part consort as well as a ‘galliard’ (more likely a corant) headed ‘Aug Bassano set by P.P.’, presumably arranged by Peter Philips from a lute piece (Lbl Eg.3665). Three allmandes for six-part consort by ‘A.B.’ (Cfm 734) are probably late works of Augustine's.
(bur. London, 18 July 1593). Wind player and composer, brother of (1) Augustine Bassano. He was appointed to the recorder consort on 22 July 1569 with effect from the previous 29 September, although he had been serving unofficially since his father's death in August 1554. He married ‘Elizabeth Damon’ (probably a daughter of William Daman) on 13 November 1592. Lodovico may be the composer of three surviving lute pieces. A ‘Pavan Helena. Lo[dovico?]’ is found in Cu Dd.2.11. ‘A pavan … mr Lodwick’ is in Lbl Add.31392 and also anonymously in Lbl Add.38539 and in Cu Dd.2.11 with the instruction ‘4 leaves turn back for the galliard’. In the plague year 1593 he died of ‘a thought’, apparently serious depression.
(b London, 11 March 1559; bur. Waltham Abbey, Essex, 22 Aug 1635). Wind and viol player and composer, cousin of (1) Augustine Bassano and (2) Lodovico Bassano. He was appointed to the recorder consort on 29 January 1579 with effect from the previous 25 March. He served actively until at least 1630, when he was described as ‘the ancientist musition the King hath’. In 1609–13 he also received three payments (one as ‘Musycon for the vyoll de Gambo’) for viol strings provided for court service; therefore he was probably serving unofficially in the newly developed viol consort. He acquired considerable property – enough to merit the title ‘Esquire’ – in Hoxton and Waltham Abbey, Essex. Two six-part galliards (US-NH Filmer A16/a-c), four skilful five-part fantasias (GB-Och 716–720, Lcm 1145), and a six-part fantasia and two wordless madrigals (Cfm 734) probably all date from the third quarter of the 16th century. Three six-part almandes by ‘J.B.’ (Cfm 734) are probably Jeronimo's works from around 1600.
(b ?Venice, 1560/61; d Venice, 16 Aug 1617). Wind player and composer, second cousin of (3) Jeronimo Bassano (ii). In May 1576 he was appointed one of the six ‘pifferi del doge’, a group of instrumentalists placed directly under the authority of the Venetian doge; he was then ‘a very young man’ of 15 or 16, which explains his appearance under the diminutive ‘Zanetto’ in the earliest documents. Indeed, he may well have been the Zanetto who was appointed a boy chorister at S Marco in early 1572; this would help explain his appointment in 1583 as singing teacher to the seminary of S Marco, a post normally reserved for singers. He published his manual of ornamentation two years later. In 1586 he was nominated by the Augustinian friars of S Stefano to provide instrumentalists when required for the convent church. He succeeded Girolamo Dalla Casa as head of the instrumental ensemble at the basilica in 1601; he remained in this post until his death. He was mentioned in 1612 as leader of one of the many companies of instrumentalists who were periodically engaged to play during major festivities in the various parish and monastic churches of Venice. His age at the time of his death (in the parish of S Maurizio) is stated in the necrology as 56.
Bassano is today largely known for his instruction book (1585) and for his examples of embellished motets, madrigals and chansons by Willaert, Clemens non Papa, Crecquillon, Lasso, Rore, Striggio, Palestrina and Marenzio (1591), several examples of which are published in Erig. His method was to decorate continuously a contrapuntal line, which thus stands out from its fellows to form an unequal relationship, obviously akin to that of solo and accompaniment. The actual ornaments are, however, much more rigid than those of the monodists of the following decades, since the music must still obey the criteria of polyphony, and the rhythms of the various figures are thus quite regular. Although Bassano’s collections contain no compositions by his Venetian contemporaries, the similarities between his embellishments and the highly florid works later published by Giovanni Gabrieli suggest that the latter was applying a practice well known in virtuoso circles since the 1580s and probably earlier. Gabrieli’s Canzona in echo (Sacrae symphoniae, i, 1597), probably written for Bassano to play, shows the application of his virtuoso ornamental lines to concertante music in a most forward-looking manner.
Bassano was also a composer of some talent. Some of his charming canzonettas were known (probably through his London cousins) to Morley, who printed them in his Canzonets or Little Short Songs to Foure Voyces (London, 1597). The first volume of his motets was dedicated to the governing body of S Marco, and the music doubtless partly reflects his activities there, but it is also likely that some of the motets were conceived for performance on the major feast days in the other churches of Venice. The works are for cori spezzati, less intense than those of Giovanni Gabrieli but brighter in sonority in the manner of Giovanni Croce and Andrea Gabrieli. Dic, Maria, nobis (1599) is especially attractive with strong rhythms and lively use of the upper voices, much as in the early works of Schütz (who probably knew his music).
all published in Venice
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Motetti per concerti ecclesiastici, 5–8, 12vv (1598; b (org) pubd separately, 1599) |
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Concerti ecclesiastici, libro secondo, 5–8, 12vv (1599) |
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Fantasie per cantar et sonar con ogni sorte d’istrumenti (1585) |
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Canzonette, 4vv (1587) |
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Il fiore dei capricci musicali per sonar con ogni sorte di stromenti, 4vv (1588) |
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Madrigali et canzonette concertate per potersi cantare con il basso & soprano nel liuto & istrumento da pena, con passaggi a ciascuna parte … libro primo (1602) |
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Ricercate, passaggi et cadentie per potersi esercitar nel diminuir terminatamente con ogni sorte d’istrumento (1585) |
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Motetti, madrigali et canzone francese di diversi eccellenti autori, 4–6vv (1591) |
AshbeeR, iii, iv, vi-viii
BDECM
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