Orlando de Lassus (1532-1594)
Tityre, tu patulae a 6
Dulces exuviae a 5 et 6
Alma Venus a 5

Adrian Willaert (?1490-1562)
O socci, durate a 6
Dulces exuviae a 4

Cipriano de Rore (1515-1565)
O socii, per varios casus a 5
Dissimulare etiam sperasti a 5, 6 et 7

Josquin des Prés (1440-1521)
Chanson de Josquin a 4
Dulces exuviae a 4

Jacques Arcadelt (1507-1568)
At trepida et coeptis immanibus effera Dido a 4

Marbrianus de Orto (?1460-1529)
Dulces exuviae a 4

Jacquet de Mantua (1483-1559)
Enceladi Ceique soror a 5

Ensemble De Labyrintho
Walter Testolin, direction

Imago, Dido’s one of the last words as she approaches death after having been abandoned by Aeneas, becomes the emblem of this overview on Virgil’s musical fortune during the Renaissance. To the humanists, Publius Vergilius Maro (Andes, near Mantua, October 15th 70 BC – Brindisi, September 21, 19 BC) was a model to aim for, by virtue of his garland of subjects and perfection of style. The search for manuscripts of his works is documented to have been ongoing since the late fourteenth century. In Mantua, amongst his collections, Francesco Gonzaga (1366 – 1407) had Vergilian codices and a copy of the Aeneid in vernacular; Isabella d’Este Gonzaga (1474 – 1539), born and educated in Ferrara, once become Marquise, began to cultivate reading Virgil and planned to honour the poet with a monument, designed by Andrea Mantegna. At the courts of the Padan Plain, Virgil’s verses became moreover creative material for musicians, who, with increasing frequency, set them to music according to the forms and styles of the moment. To gather them, means also to draw a line which, from Josquin Desprez to Orlando di Lasso, traces Virgil’s fortune amidst the flow of compositional research of those years. Although the use of the Latin text in fact characterises the form of the motet, usually elevated and abstract, it will not escape notice that especially the passages from the Aeneid inspire compositional solutions similar to those experimented in the tumultuous world of the madrigal in Italian. Wanting thus to give a hint of this very turmoil, vocal arrangements were chosen which enhance the narrative texts, and some passages were entrusted solely to the instruments – practice much in vogue at the time. The selection, which is only part of the existing repertoire, follows a narrative thread: the bucolic exordium, the epic and encomiastic occasions, the telling of Dido, the inspiration given by Virgil.