This dissertation describes the musical and religious support of the Medici family to the Medici Chapel in Florence and the historical role of the church of San Lorenzo in the liturgical development of the period. During the later Middle Ages polyphony was allowed in the Office services only at Matins and Lauds during the Tenebrae service, the last three days of Holy Week, and at Vespers anytime. This practice continued until the end of the sixteenth century when more polyphonic motets based on the Antiphon and Responsory began to be included in the various Office hours during feast days. This practice is documented by the increased number of pieces that appear in the manuscripts. Two of the transcriptions from the church of San Lorenzo included in the appendix are selected from this later repertoire.

The musical culture of the female monastic institution called La Concezione, or il monastero nuovo, reflected the political, social and devotional objectives of the Medici court. In 1562, at the close of the Council of Trent, the convent was founded through the last testament of Grand Duchess Eleonora de Toledo de'Medici with the support of Grand Duke Cosimo I's personal knighthood-- the Cavalieri di Santo Stefano. Glorified as a "reformed" institution reflecting the piety of Florence and the rectitude of the Medici family, the public image of the convent required strict adherence to Catholic Reformation ideals of female virtue. Musically, the women of the convent restricted their public performance to monophonic chant. The only universally approved music for monastics, chant was thought to be the most appropriate form of public musical devotion for the virginal daughters of the court. In private, the patrician women perhaps enjoyed the popular polyphonic music that the vast resources of their families, the Florentine court, and their superiors, afforded them. The public image of perfection was of the utmost importance to the Medici; polyphonic performance was only allowed in the most private spaces of the cloister--away from the public eyes and ears. A counter-example to recent scholarship, this view of female monastic music is in contrast to studies that have highlighted examples of wealthy convents that actively sought opportunities for polyphonic performance as part of their public character. This dissertation relies on various extant archival documents of the convent, the Order of Santo Stefano and the Medici family in an examination of the role that music played in both the public and private spheres of the most elite convent of early modern Florence. / text

De l'institution du priorat à la chute définitive de la république en 1530, l'organisation de la vie dans la cité florentine a évolué tant dans ses structures effectives que dans ses représentations, laissant une place plus ou moins importante aux différents groupes sociaux, aux familles et individus qui la composent. au cours de cette période, le genre des livres de famille florentins s'est développé, a fleuri et s'est fané : œuvre dans son immense majorité de marchands, d'artisans qui appartiennent au popolo florentin, partie de la population appelée à participer au gouvernement de la cité, ces livres ont pour fonction de transmettre dans le cadre familial et de génération en génération ce que l'on considère important pour le devenir de la famille. quel lien y a-t-il entre ce genre et la vie de la république florentine, entre affaires de familles et affaires de la cité ? quelle est la place du politique dans cette logique de transmission ? quels aspects de la vie de la cité y sont représentés, comment sont-ils traités ? avec quels mots cette culture politique est-elle exprimée, dans quelle mesure est-elle redevable ou distincte de la tradition politique publique antérieure et contemporaine ? mêlant les approches historique, littéraire, linguistique, il s'agira ainsi de rendre compte de la question de la transmission du politique dans le genre des livres de famille en l'inscrivant dans le cadre global de l'évolution de la cité. / Based on a corpus which consists of 150 family books written between 1260 and 1480, this study intends to define the representations that Florence citizens had of their republic, of its running and of their role within it.The first part aims at identifying which room is given to historical and political passages in these books, and the functions of these excerpts in the overall writing strategy. The point is to study how the building of family identity was connected to the life of the city.The second part contains a stylistic and semantic analysis of the narrative parts that are dedicated to the major events of the 14th and 15th centuries. It offers a series of snapshots that define several specific configurations of the city’s political body and of how families refer to it. This textual analysis also provides us an image of the Florentine intellectual framework and a list of the key-concepts that characterized the political thought of the authors – which goes far beyond a mere interest in chronicles. The third part focuses on the use of those keywords in a diachronic perspective, in order to identify the evolutions, the involutions and the breaking points of this thought over the generations, and questions the link between citizens’ active political participation and their private writing on city affairs. The appendix presents transcriptions of the excerpts on the life of the city contained in the unpublished family books of the Florentine families, as well as biographical notes on their often unknown authors.