Music and the Identity Process: the National Churches in Rome (16th – early 17th Centuries)

This themed session relates to a research project devoted to analysis of the musical model of the national churches in Rome, jointly funded by the European Union (Marie Curie Programme) and the University of Liège.
This research aims to contribute towards the study of music in the national churches in Rome during the 16th and 17th centuries by examining the fundamental issue of cultural exchanges between these institutions and the nations they represented in the pontifical city.
Michela Berti and Emilie Corswarem will present an overview of the results obtained by the project to date, focussing on one of its main aspects: analysis of how the liturgical and paraliturgical traditions, as an expression of ‘nationhood’, may constitute one of the axes around which communities strengthened their identity in a foreign country.
In the second part of the session, Galliano Ciliberti and Esteban Hernandez, collaborators on the project, will focus on concrete examples relating to the churches of S. Luigi dei Francesi and S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli.

Galiano Ciliberti: From a liturgical perspective, the French national church in Rome, S. Luigi dei Francesi, held a particular position among the chapels of the 17th century in Rome. The discovery of three signed volumes by Vincezo Ugolini, dating from the years of his magisterium at S. Luigi (1616-1620 and 1631-1638) opens up new avenues for research. The repertoires contained in these books of vespers for the feast of the titular Saint of the national churches, do not follow the Roman liturgical Rite but the earlier Parisian Rite. Some pieces (such as the Prière du Roy and the Salvuum fac) anticipate the liturgical practice established by Louis XIV at Versailles.

Esteban Hernández Castelló: As numerous publications have already shown, the national churches played an active role in Rome. The increasing 'Spanish' presence and its rise in power and influence in the Urbs in the 16th century was visible in many ways and undoubtedly justify, at least in part, its ambition to establish traditions which were particular to Spanish churches in the town, and which, in some cases, sought to 'contaminate' Roman traditions. The first exhaustive catalogue of the musical archives of Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli (as well as some items belonging to San Giacomo) has revealed - among other things - a musical manuscript, which shows entirely Spanish customs and habits being exported to Rome. In particular, this is true for the subject of this communication: polyphonic song of the Passion for the Dominica in Ramis.