Music and Territory. The Case of the National Churches in Rome (Panel Music and Territory in the Low Countries (16th-17th Centuries))

As for any other religious institution, the calendars of the national churches in Rome are characterized by various feasts whose deployment goes far beyond the space of the church. Thanks to the numerous ephemeral decorations and buildings installed both inside and outside the church, the festivals can spread over large portions of the city. Yet, the musical performances which are usually associated with them play an important role during the feast. As archetypal ephemeral phenomena, they make the representation audible, indicate to any inhabitant the "extraordinariness" of the event and intensify its power of communication. Discussing the feasts of these churches during the 16th and 17th centuries, this paper examines how some streets, or even some complete areas of the city, could be converted temporarily into the sounding board of a given nation. Setting up a specific music apparatus, they change some Roman spaces into "national areas."