Venice and Bologna

Venice suffered severely from the devastating plague of 1630, and in the year that followed, music publishing was suspended almost completely. Between 1620 and 1630 many collections of songs with alfabeto had been printed every year, but there are no such publications at all from 1631 and 1632. After the plague, the demand for songbooks recovered to some extent, and in 1633, printer Alessandro Vincenti started to add titles to his catalogue again. Yet the downturn of this genre could not be stopped.

The former success of the guitar in accompaniment did not immediately lead to the creation of a solo repertoire in the new mixed style. Alfabeto books had been printed mainly in a few geographic centers—Florence, Rome, Milan, and Venice—while books with music in the new battuto-pizzicato style mostly came from Rome and Bologna. It was not Venice but Bologna that gave birth to a school of guitar music. While la Serenissima, the mercantile republic of Venice, was the place of frivolous carnival disguises, singing, and dancing, Bologna was host to the oldest university of the Western world. Its cultural climate was much more intellectual and serious, and there was a keen interest in the study of musical theory. The city was under papal rule and the Church was omnipresent, which could explain a lesser focus on the lighter genres of secular monody.

There was no single aristocratic family governing Bologna and acting as dominant patrons of the arts, like the Medici in Florence or the Gonzaga in Mantua. The city was governed by a senate, almost like a republic. Nine senators, called the Anziani della Signoria, were chosen from the Bolognese aristocracy for a two-month term. These influential families sponsored performances, both public and private, of dramas, comedies, operas, and oratorios. Less prestigious genres profited as well from this constellation, and the publication of works for instrumental ensembles and solo instruments such as the guitar thus found ready support. The cappella musicale of the church of San Petronio employed distinguished instrumentalists. It contributed to the city's fame as a center of vocal and instrumental music.