
Isabella d'Este was an avid musician, a patron of music and musicians, and a connoisseur of musical instruments. As a member of the nobility, she learned to sing, dance, and play musical instruments as a child – her music tutor was the Netherlander Johannes Martini, maestro di cappella of her father’s ducal chapel, she learned to play musical instruments with Girolamo da Sextula, and Lorenzo Lavagnolo taught her to dance.1 As an adult, too, she continued her studies, both in music and in humanist literature. Her library, catalogued at her death, includes a substantial number of texts in ancient Latin and Greek, including works by Seneca, Horace, Catullus, Pliny, Cicero, Aristotle, Ovid and Virgil, and a host of compositions by more modern writers, including Petrarch, Dante, Sannazaro, Galeotto del Caretto, and Nicolò da Correggio. Also prominent in this collection are several books of psalms and the Fior di musica by Franchino Gaffurio of Lodi.2
For her engagement in 1480 to the marchese of Mantua, Francesco II Gonzaga, Isabella's father commissioned a music manuscript now known as Rome, Casanatense 2856. This is the only surviving Ferrarese music manuscript from the late 15th century, and it is filled with French chansons inscribed with only the first few words of their poetic texts. As a result, scholars sometimes assume that the collection was intended for performance by instruments, such as Ercole I d’Este’s famous wind band – a reminder of Isabella’s childhood home.3
As marchesa, Isabella made concerted efforts to increase the size of the musical establishment at Mantua. Among the noblewomen of Italy, Isabella was unique in establishing her own musical household, employing her own musicians, and maintaining a collection of musical instruments.4 This was typical of noblemen, but not of noblewomen. Soon after her marriage in 1490, Isabella asked her father to send Johannes Martini and Girolamo da Sextula to Mantua, so she might continue her music lessons. When Sextula left her court around 1495, she hired the great lutenist Giovanni Angelo Testagrossa, who taught her to play the lute and other viole. She sent Mantuan musicians to Ferrara to study and requested musical instruments to be sent from Ferrara. In 1491, she commissioned Johannes Martini to find her two singers: a contralto and a soprano. Over time, she hired over a dozen new musicians for the Gonzaga court.5
When Isabella first arrived in Mantua, she began having a set of rooms (camerini) built to showcase her books, artworks, and musical instruments, and to provide her with spaces for reflection, contemplation, and intimate music-making. Her first camerini were in the Castel San Giorgio in Mantua, adjacent to the Camera degli Sposi, which is decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna. The room Isabella dedicated to the display of paintings was called her studiolo, and the room dedicated to music was the grotta. The grotta features a gilded, barrel-shaped vaulted ceiling, a shape that creates a warm acoustical environment, which is decorated throughout with Isabella’s musical symbol, the impresa di tempi e pause.

(Continue reading)