No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Mus)-University of Natal, Durban, 1984.

This study is the first step toward a better understanding of the introduction of pervasive imitation at the end of the fifteenth century. The focus is on selected works of Loyset Compère: the ténor motet Omnium bonorum plena, two motetti missales cycles and twenty chansons. Four types of repetition have been identified in these works: imitation, free repetition, repeated modules and doubling. The main analysis is based on the statistical frequency of the different types of repetition. Percentage tables allow us to observe stylistic changes between early and late chansons and also underline some resemblances between late chansons and motetti missales. Different types of repetition tend to vary in length; imitation generally uses longer melodic lines than other types of repetition. I also studied pitch intervals of repetition used by Compère. I have noticed that unlike some composers of the time, Compère used pitch intervais other than the octave and unison, mainly the fifth and principally in his late chansons. Finally, I have constructed a System of modular classification which allowed me to identify unifying devices used by Compère in his motetti missales. The results presented in this thesis suggest that Loyset Compère was a major contributor to the evolution of pervasive imitation.

No description available.

This dissertation consists of two parts. Part I deals with analyses of the textstructure, the content and the possible sources of GKS. 1657. Part II is a critical edition of manuscript GKS 1657 in the Royal Library in Copenhagen. The manuscript dates from the 15th century and is written in the southern Dutch dialect of Brabant but with touches of Flemish. It is an instruction manual for women and deals with pregnancy, childbirth, child-care, menstruation and women's diseases. It is characterized by a frank view on sexuality and shuns value judgements in its attitude towards women. In addition to this neutral, perhaps even progressive attitude, the manuscript also contains scraps of popular magic and cabbala. GKS 1657 is rich in both language and content and provides important documentation of women's culture. In the study GKS 1657 is compared with MS 593, which is from the same period and region. MS 593 also deals with menstruation, women's diseases and, briefly, with childcare, but not with pregnancy and childbirth. Although the subject matter of MS 593 bears in certain parts, a similarity with that of GKS 1657, it is presented differently. MS 593 also lacks the marginal notes indicating that GKS 1657 was in use over a period of 150 - 200 years. The comparison shows the complexity of such manuscripts as well as the inadvisability of attaching simple labels to attitudes in any particular epoch. A major aim of the study is to make manuscript GKS 1657 availible to readers other than those normally interested in medieval texts and to stimulate further interdiscip­linary studies. / digitalisering@umu

Over 450 motets survive from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which were composed with multiple simultaneously sounding texts. The size of this repertory has been underestimated and its importance under-acknowledged. Narratives of the genre overemphasize early fifteenth-century (and earlier) polytextuality due to its association with arcane rhythmic structuring techniques while stressing a new musical-textual ideal later in the century. This thesis is the first attempt to address the repertory of polytextual motets from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries as a whole. It resituates polytextuality as a central aspect of the genre even after the supposed rise of musical humanism. It suggests a new partitioning of the repertory based on different relationships of texts and cantus firmi. It proposes that the function of cantus firmi shifts during this period toward acting in dialogue with the text(s) of the other voices, even though this dialogic aspect fades away by the mid-sixteenth century. It engages in case studies on small groups of motets, in which the notation, composition, and texts of motets are analyzed, especially concerning cantus firmi as elements of musical structure and as bearers of liturgical, biblical, devotional, and other associations. While scholars have undertaken numerous analyses of individual motets, less common are case studies which ask both why certain texts and cantus firmi were combined and how they were integrated into the musical structure. The appendix includes a catalogue of the repertoire of polytextual motets and chansons with Latin cantus firmi over this period, with indexes by cantus firmus and composer. Also included are transcriptions of seven polytextual compositions without published editions. My research demonstrates the importance of polytextuality within the genre, the sophistication of the compositions using it, and its ability to provide commentary on a number of theological, devotional, political, and aesthetic issues.

This dissertation examines the Carvajal family’s century-long transformation from less prestigious knights (caballeros) into influential church leaders and royal advisors to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel. During the 15th century, the Carvajal family successfully utilized the tools of family confederations, occupational patronage, religious endowments, and wealth generation in their pursuit of enhanced status in Castile. Additionally, this work documents a family confederation formed by the Carvajals and the Santa Marías, an influential clan of Jewish converts to Christianity (conversos). The geographic focus of this study is the city and diocese of Plasencia, Spain, and the timeframe is from 1391 to 1516. The key Plasencia families examined in this project are the allied Carvajals and Santa Marías, as well as their rivals, the Estúñigas. Research for this dissertation explored fourteen city, cathedral, provincial, royal, and national archives and libraries across Spain. This pioneering archival history breaks new ground in its exploration of the familial, economic, occupational, and social processes that facilitated the rise of the Carvajals of Plasencia. / text

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The core of this study is a new edition and translation of the Proportionale musices of Iohannes Tinctoris (c.1435-1511). The text is preceded by two introductory sections devoted, first, to reviewing the evidence for Tinctoris's biography and the chronology of his treatises as a whole, and, secondly, to examining the sources employed in the edition. In the section on chronology some new information is presented concerning the printing of the incunabulum De inuentione et usu musice, and on the scope of the original compilation from which the contents of the print were excerpted. In the discussion of sources, the first detailed description of the principal Brussels manuscript is given, in which some evidence is adduced for believing this to be an authorial holograph. Some refinements are also made to current knowledge regarding the dating and provenance of the Valencia and Bologna University Library sources. Following the translation of the Proportionale, some notes on the text are offered. Appendices present (a) the documentary biographical material discussed at the opening; (b) a littie-studied letter from Tinctoris to Joanmarco Ginico; (c) Tinctoris's translation into Italian of the Statutes for the Order of the Golden Fleece; and (d) a transcription of some new fragments of De inuentione et usu musice, rediscovered recently in Cainbrai.

No description available.

This thesis is a comprehensive assessment of the life and work of the Italian Renaissance artist Paolo Uccello (c. 1397- 1475). It employs an interdisciplinary methodology combining the examination of archival evidence of the artist’s personal, social and professional lives, the scientific examination of his artworks, the interpretation of his iconography based on the contexts his works were made for, and an approach to attributions based on documentary, stylistic and technical evidence rather than tradition. Unpublished documents presented here shed new light on Uccello’s family and early career, underlining the importance of his extended family as a point of contact between the artist and the networks of patronage in and around Florence. New scientific analyses of three works conducted for this study, including infrared reflectography, X-radiography and microsampling, reveal the sophistication of Uccello’s technique and help to clarify the chronology of his works. New interpretations of Uccello’s works proposed here, relating in particular to his use of perspective, address the significance of their contexts, highlighting the subtlety and specificity of Uccello’s imagery. / The catalogue raisonne is the most extensive survey of works attributed to Uccello to date, and presents unpublished documents for the provenances of two works attributed to Uccello. Contrary to the image of Uccello as an isolated and eccentric figure commonly encountered in the art historical literature since Vasari’s sixteenth-century biography of the artist, Uccello emerges from a detailed study of the documentary and physical evidence as an artist of his time, involved in Florentine society, religion and commerce, and an innovative artist, a creator of unforgettable images who was admired by his peers and subsequent generations of artists, ensuring his place as one of the protagonists in the field of early Renaissance art.