Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy

Abstract

Negli anni di Cristo mille dugento ottanta tre fu in Fiorenza grande e felice e buono istato, e molte feste e allegrezze se facevano per tutta la città ispesse volte, e di più paesi vi traevano giucolari e buffoni di più paesi. 1 [In the year of Christ 1283, Florence was in a great, happy, and good state of affairs, and often there were many celebrations and much merriment throughout the city, and there were giucolari and buffoni from many other places.]Performers and entertainers of all stripes were probably a common feature of medieval Italian urban life, but it is not easy to achieve a clear picture of their activities, or of how oral singer-poets fit into that picture. The documents are few (though not as few as some have claimed) and scattered, the nomenclature for secular musicians is notoriously vague, and the witnesses to their activities, mostly ecclesiastical and civic authorities, were predisposed to hold them in low regard. 2 ECCLESIASTICAL WITNESSESThe term used with greatest frequency and flexibility is ioculator (Italian: giullare, or giucolare), which at times designated secular entertainers of all sorts (along with the Latin terms histrio and mimus), but also seems to be the most common designation for singer-poets in particular. In his wide travels throughout Italy, the Franciscan chronicler Salimbene de Adam (1221-ca. 1290) frequently encountered ioculatores, who for him were singers or reciters whose verbal skills ranged from the frivolous to the witty and even dangerous. Salimbene himself took great delight in singing; he had two cousins who were "splendid singers," and an uncle who sang