The Ruined Bridge: Studies in Barberini Patronage of Music and Spectacle, 1631-1679 (review)

The Ruined Bridge: Studies in Barberini Patronage of Music and Spectacle, 1631-1679. By Frederick Hammond. (Detroit Monographs in Musicology/Studies in Music, no. 56.) Sterling Park, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 2010. [xix, 303 p. ISBN 9780899901510. $55.] Music examples, maps, facsimiles, illustrations, bibliography, index. Those who work in the area of seventeenth-century musical spectacle are acutely aware of the issues plaguing our discipline, specifically the small number of extant documents regarding the performances of these events. Additionally, the documents that allow us to reproduce the performances are often no longer extant, or if they are, are either damaged or incomplete. In Frederick Hammond's The Ruined Bridge: Studies in Barberini Patronage of Music and Spectacle, 1631-1679, the author deals with these issues head-on, making do with the documents that are extant and placing them in their social and political context. The focus of Hammond's study lies in the chivalric musical spectacle under Barberini patronage in seventeenth-century Rome. His study, as he notes, is based on five hypotheses, now generally accepted in the remarkable development of Barberini studies during the last three decades. First, that all the important members of the family of Urban VIII personally influenced artistic projects. Second, that these artistic projects embodied identifiable goals for the papacy and for the family. Third, that these goals were specific and consistent enough to comprise what may be termed a program. Fourth, that this program was expressed in a coherent symbolic language. Fifth and last, that the Barberini program changed in emphasis and forum in response to political and intellectual events during the two decades of Urban VIII's pontificate. (p. 3) He notes that this study is an outgrowth of his previous book, Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Barberini Patronage Under Urban VIII (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), in which he "attempted to trace the musical patronage of the pope and his three nephews during the period of their hegemony" (p. xvii). He notes that the archival work performed for this earlier book has in some way surfaced in the material of the current volume. He does remark, however, that this first book might be considered as "a coda in a minor key to Music and Spectacle" (p. xvii). Hammond's new volume is rich in its reproduction of primary source material. He provides an examination of manuscript orthography as well as illustrations of the choreography used in these events. The book is plentiful when it comes to engravings, supporting the author's points and illustrative descriptions. He copiously outlines the various expenses associated with opera and other chivalric spectacle, sparing no detail, and gives the same attention to the funerals as the celebrations, right down to the expense of the candles and the manner in which they are sold. The book is divided into nine chapters, each of which examines a different aspect of music in Barberini patronage, often devoting a chapter to one or more works. Hammond's writing performs a rarelyachieved feat: it is scholarly, yet accessible. The book's opening chapter is devoted to La Contesa of 1631, one of several works discussed belonging to the Ferrarese tradition of the opera-torneo, noting that "the plot of the torneo was built on the familiar conceit or inventione of personifying the cities by the rivers" (p. 21). In the following chapter he sets the political context for the music and spectacle, specifically examining Il berrattino di Pietro. Chapter 3 looks at the ways in which the Galileo Galilei scandal affected Barberini patronage. The next two chapters pertain to entertainments put on for members of the Barberini family, first examining the social and political context of Le pretensioni del Tebro e del Po, a work composed for the entertainment of Don Taddeo Barberini in Ferrara, as well as the alterations made to the manuscript score; then looking at the entertainment set up by Don Taddeo Barberini for his brother, Cardinal Antonio. …