This article is part of a larger study entitled ‘English Musicians in the Age of Exploration’, in preparation.Google Scholar

1 Williams, Peter, ‘Organ’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), xiii, 727.Google Scholar

2 Rockhill, William Woodville, The Journey of William, of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World, Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 4 (London, 1900).Google Scholar

3 Williams, ‘Organ’.Google Scholar

4 Stevenson, Robert, ‘The Afro-American Musical Legacy to 1800’, The Musical Quarterly, 54 (1968), 478.Google Scholar

5 Greenlee, William Brooks, The Voyage of Pedro Álvares Cabral to Brazil and India, Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 81 (London, 1938), 201.Google Scholar

6 Lopes, David, Chronica dos Reis de Bisnaga (Lisbon, 1897), 92. For an English translation of the narrative of Paes, see Sewell, Robert, A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar) (London, 1900).Google Scholar

7 The account in Ramusio is based partly on Ho Preste Joam (1540) and partly on a lost source. See the introduction to Charles Fraser Beckingham and George Wynn Brereton Huntingford, The Prester John of the Indies, Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 114–15 (Cambridge, 1961).Google Scholar

8 Alvares, Ho Preste Joam, f. 3.Google Scholar

9 Ramusio, Delle navigazioni, f. 206.Google Scholar

10 Alvares, Ho Preste Joam, f. 60^v.Google Scholar

11 Ramusio, Delle navigazioni, f. 241^v.Google Scholar

12 Alvares, Ho Preste Joam, f. 89^v.Google Scholar

13 Ramusio, Delle navigazioni, f. 253.Google Scholar

14 Cartas (Alcala, 1575), f. 48^v; Antonio de San Roman, Historia general de la Yndia oriental (Valladolid, 1603), 664.Google Scholar

15 Josef Franz Schütte, Valignanos Missiongrundsätze für Japan (Rome, 1598), ii, 479.Google Scholar

16 Eta Harich-Schneider, A History of Japanese Music (London, 1973), 463.Google Scholar

17 Harich-Schneider, Eta, ‘Renaissance Europe through Japanese Eyes’, Early Music, 1 (1973), 19–25.Google Scholar

18 Galtieri, Guido, Relationi della venuta degli ambasciatori giaponesi (Rome, 1586), 153, 159.Google Scholar

19 Lettera del Giapone degli anni 1591 et 1592 (Rome, 1595), 40.Google Scholar

20 Hakluyt, Richard, The Principal Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (London, 1598). All references, henceforth Hakluyt, are to the edition published in 12 volumes by James MacLehose in Glasgow (1903–5). Hogan's account is in vi, 285–93.Google Scholar

21 Willan, Thomas Stuart, Studies in Elizabethan Trade (Manchester, 1959), 307.Google Scholar

22 Willan, Thomas Stuart, The Early History of the Russia Company 1553–1603 (Manchester, 1956), 105.Google Scholar

23 Sir Edward Augustus Bond, Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century, Hakluyt Society, 20 (London, 1856), 217.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., 220.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., 222.Google Scholar

26 Willan, The Early History, 172.Google Scholar

27 On the general history of the Levant Company, see Wood, Alfred Cecil, A History of the Levant Company (Oxford, 1935).Google Scholar

28 The following documents are transcribed in S. A. Skilliter, William Harborne and the Trade with Turkey 1578–1582 (Oxford, 1977), 184, 191.Google Scholar

29 Hakluyt, v, 243–58.Google Scholar

30 Foster, Sir William, The Travels of John Sanderson in the Levant 1584–1602, Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 67 (London, 1931), 277.Google Scholar

31 Hakluyt, vi, 94–113.Google Scholar

32 Horatio Robert Forbes Brown, Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy, 1592–1603 (London, 1897), 107.Google Scholar

33 Dallam's Diary was published by James Theodore Bent, Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant, Hakluyt Society, 87 (London, 1893). Stanley Mayes, An Organ for the Sultan (London, 1956) is based on this account and also incorporates material from the Public Record Office (S. P. 97). Michael Praetorius, in Syntagma musicum, ii: De organographia (Wolfenbüttel, 1618), tells, somewhat fancifully, the story of an organ presented to Suleiman by Francis I during the period of the Franko-Turkish alliance.Google Scholar

34 Public Record Office, S. P. 31 January 1599. In the late sixteenth century, German craftsmen were renowned for their mechanical instruments and musical clocks – hence the allusion. Their instruments were highly prized throughout Europe. In A True Relation of All the Remarkable Places and Passages Observed in the Travels of the Right Honourable Thomas Lord Howard (London, 1637), William Crowne describes a collection of musical clocks kept in the treasure room of the Emperor of Bohemia at Prague: ‘Then in the middle of the roome are rare clocks of all kinds; the first was like a globe with musike; the second was set round about the middle with litle pillars, and a bullet running round in a cresse out and in, and over it hung two little cords, which being puld, wee heard sweet musike, but could not discerne from whence it was; the third had a faire lively face and hand looking out, and musike with voyces singing, not to be discovered; the fourth a close clock, and by it a faire table of Mozaique worke; the fifth, with four ascents set severally with pillars, and a bullet running round in a cresse up to the top, playing with musike; the sixth, like the top of a globe, the gold coloured like a green field, and a Bucke running round in and out, and hounds after making a noyse, and beneath musike and Anticks, dancing in a round within it.‘Google Scholar

35 Brown, Calendar, 375.Google Scholar

36 Foster, The Travels, 173–5.Google Scholar

37 Bent, Early Voyages, 2–5.Google Scholar

38 Ibid., 35–7.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., 58.Google Scholar

40 Mayes, An Organ, 165.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., 170.Google Scholar

42 Bent, Early Voyages, 64–5.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., 67–71. Dallam's description of the organ itself is of course very well known indeed. It is one of the most frequently cited passages in the whole diary. The Illustrated London News of 20 October 1860 published a drawing of an organ with a list of the specifications (see Figure 1). This is believed to be Dallam's organ, but the source has not been traced.Google Scholar

44 For a general history of the East India Company during its early years, see Chaudhuri, Kirti Narayan, The English East India Company (London, 1965).Google Scholar

45 On Portuguese music in the Mughal mission, see Sir Edward Douglas Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul (London, 1932), 289–90; and Arnulf Camps, Jerome Xavier S.J. and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire (Freiburg, 1957), 228–35.Google Scholar

46 The mission is described in Charles Herbert Payne, Akbår and the Jesuits (London, 1926).Google Scholar

47 Beveridge, Henry, The Akbarnāma of Abu-L-Fazl, The Asiatic Society of Bengal, Biblioteca Indica, New Series, 138, pt. 3 (Calcutta, 1910–39), 322–3.Google Scholar

48 Lowe, William Henry, Muntakhab-Ut-Tawåríkh by Abd-Ul-Qådir Bin Malúk Shåh known as Al Badåóní, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Biblioteca Indica, 97, pt. 2 (Calcutta, 1884–98), 299.Google Scholar

49 Rehatsek, Edward, The Emperor Akbar's Repudiation of Esllåm and Profession of his Own Religion (Bombay, 1866), 45, translates: ‘It looked like a large box as high as a man, and a European sitting within struck its chords, whilst two others were without, striking with their fingers five peacock-feathers and other things.‘Google Scholar

50 Another organ illustrated by a Mughal artist is reproduced in Ernst Kühnel and Hermann Goetz, Indian Book Painting (London, 1926), Plate 28.Google Scholar

51 Fernāo Guerreiro, Relaçam annal das cousas (Lisbon, 1603–11), v, f. 158^v. For a translation of the parts of the Relaçam relating to the Mughal mission, see Payne, Charles Herbert, Jahangir and the Jesuits (London, 1930).Google Scholar

52 Maclagan, The Jesuits, 289.Google Scholar

53 British Library, Add. MS. 9854, f. 164^v (an incomplete letter from Father Jerome Xavier at Agra, some time after 31 July 1611).Google Scholar

54 The Original Correspondence and the Court Books of the East India Company are calendared in William Noël Sainsbury, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies, China and Japan (London, 1862). An edition of the early correspondence was begun by Frederick Charles Danvers, Letters Received by the East India Company from its Servants in the East (London, 1896). The series was continued by Sir William Foster, ii (1613–15), iii (1615), iv (1616), v (1617), vi (1618).Google Scholar

55 Foster, Sir William, The Voyage of Thomas Best to the East Indies 1612–14, Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 75 (London, 1934), 114.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., 34.Google Scholar

57 Original Correspondence, i, no. 102.Google Scholar

58 Foster, The Voyage, 163.Google Scholar

59 Nicholas Withington's journal has been lost. It was published in A Journey over Land (London, 1735), an edition of which is given in Sir William Foster, Early Travels in India 1583–1619 (Oxford, 1921).Google Scholar

60 Original Correspondence, i, no. 110.Google Scholar

61 Foster, Sir William, The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India 1615–1619 (London, 1926), 449.Google Scholar

62 Original Correspondence, i, no. 117.Google Scholar

63 Foster, Early Travels, 201.Google Scholar

64 Ibid.Google Scholar

65 Original Correspondence, i, no. 110.Google Scholar

66 Foster, Early Travels, 204.Google Scholar

67 Court Book, iii, 247. The suggestion that the Company should hire a harpist is interesting. Had someone read António de Gouveia's Relaçam em que se tratam as guerras e grandes victorias (Lisbon, 1611), 209, in which the Shah is reported to have been greatly pleased by a performance upon the harp?Google Scholar

68 Court Book, iii, 321.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., 332.Google Scholar

70 Original Correspondence, ii, no. 252.Google Scholar

71 Foster, The Embassy, 48.Google Scholar

72 Foster, Letters Received, iv, 78.Google Scholar

73 Foster, The Embassy, 76.Google Scholar

74 Ibid., 449.Google Scholar

75 Ibid., 98.Google Scholar

76 Foster, Letters Received, iv, 289.Google Scholar

77 Ibid., v, 89.Google Scholar

78 Guildhall Library, London, Commissary Court of London (London Division), Will Register 9171/23, f. 204^v.Google Scholar

79 Temple, Richard Carnac, The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia 1608–1667, Hakluyt Society, Second Series, 35 (London, 1914), ii, 208.Google Scholar

80 Court Book, iv, 3.Google Scholar

81 The best modern edition of Ricci's own account is Pasquale M. D'Elia, Fonti Ricciane: Storia dell introduzione del Cristianesimo in Cino (Rome, 1942–9).Google Scholar

82 Jonathan D. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Rica (London, 1985), xiii–xiv.Google Scholar

83 D'Elia, Fonti, i, 259.Google Scholar

84 Ibid., i, 32.Google Scholar

85 Ibid., ii, 134, n. 6.Google Scholar

86 de Pantoja, Diego, Relation de la entrada de algunos padres de la Compañia de Jesus en la China (Valencia, 1606).Google Scholar

87 The wide range of terms used by historians and translators for Ricci's harpsichord makes an interesting case-study in some of the difficulties posed by the musical terminology used in Jesuit reports. It is a fair assumption that most Jesuits knew the difference between an organ and a string keyboard instrument, though many would not have been able to distinguish a harpsichord from a clavichord. With due caution, eyewitness accounts can be relied on for this much. But in the process of second-hand reporting and translating, the original identity of an instrument quickly became obscured. Ricci's harpsichord, widely reported, gave rise to the following complex of terms: ‘gravicembolo’, ‘manicordio’, ‘clavicembalo’ (It.); ‘cravo’, ‘monacordio’ (Port.). The process of translation produced: ‘clavicordium’, ‘gravicimbalum’ (Lat.); ‘regales’, ‘grosses cimbales’, ‘espinette’ (Fr.); ‘monocord’ (Eng.).Google Scholar

88 Trigault, Nicolas, De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu ex P. Matthaei Ricci ejusdem societatis commentariis (1615), 344. Trigault does not give a reliable text of Ricci, but he was responsible for the publicity given to Ricci's achievements in early seventeenth-century Europe. For an English translation of Trigault, see Gallagher, Louis Joseph, China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci: 1583–1610 (New York, 1953).Google Scholar

89 D'Elia, Fonti, ii, 29.Google Scholar

90 Ibid., 91.Google Scholar

91 Ibid., 132–4.Google Scholar

92 The texts of the songs were published in Prima collezione di libri cristiani (1629). See D'Elia, Fonti, ii, 134, n. 6.Google Scholar

93 Ricci is the main source of information about Goes; see D'Elia, Fonti, ii, 426. See also Guerreiro, Relaçam, iv, 24.Google Scholar

94 D'Elia, Fonti, ii, 32, n. 2. See also George Harold Dunne, Generation of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1962), 313.Google Scholar

95 D'Elia, Fonti, ii, 132, n. 2.Google Scholar

96 Relations de Divers Voyages Curieux (Paris, 1664).Google Scholar

97 See Gouveia, , Relaçam, 209.Google Scholar

98 The passage is cited in Frank Llewellyn Harrison, Time, Place and Music: An Anthology of Ethnomusicological Observations c. 1550 to c. 1800 (Amsterdam, 1973), 120–33.Google Scholar

99 A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia (London, 1937), 491, 981–2. I am most grateful to Monsignor Francesco Mocchiuti of the Sacra Congregazione for photocopies of the relevant letters.Google Scholar

100 Cited by Gordon Dodd in the Newsletter of the Viola da Gamba Society, 61 (1988).Google Scholar