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Schubinger, Lorenzo de’ Medici and Isaac

Markus Grassl

The Florentine piffari performed the typical duties of urban wind ensembles: they provided music at ceremonial or representative events of the commune (such as processions or receptions of high-ranking guests), at banquets, and at public dance festivals (which, as mentioned, did not exclude the musicians from taking on private engagements). A specific feature was their integration into the patronage system characteristic of Florence under the Medici. The Medici did not maintain their own court ensembles but used their economically and politically dominant position to support the city’s instrumentalists and the chapel choirs at church institutions, primarily by actively recruiting (first-class) musicians for these institutions.[31] This resulted in patron-client-like relationships between the Medici and the singers and instrumentalists they patronised, who were effectively employed as their court musicians in addition to their official ecclesiastical or municipal duties.[32]

Lorenzo de’ Medici was decisive in appointing Augustin Schubinger to the trombonist position that became vacant in 1489, in collaboration with the Schubinger family’s network. Lorenzo, or his agent in this matter, the Florentine piffaro Jacopo di Giovanni, initially considered two individuals for the post: Bartolomeo Tromboncino and Augustin Schubinger. The young and already renowned Tromboncino ultimately declined due to his commitments to Francesco Gonzaga, and remained in Mantua.[33] Schubinger had apparently caught the attention of the Florentines during a stay in Milan in February 1489. In June 1489, Jacopo went to see Augustin’s brother Michel in search of Augustin, only to find that Augustin’s current whereabouts were unknown. However, Michel sent a letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici as a precaution, reaffirming his brother’s willingness to move to Florence.[34]

Another socially and musically significant trace of the networks in which Augustin Schubinger was involved is preserved in the form of a rental agreement recorded in December 1489 for a house on Via Argenti in the parish of San Lorenzo.[35]

Abb. Schubingers Florentiner Mietvertrag / Abb. Schubinger's Florentine rental agreement

Schubingers Florentiner Mietvertrag

[ 4. Zeile links:] Locatio

Item postea et cetera eisdem anno et indictione die II decembris 1489. Actum in dicto / palatio presentibus Francisco Nicole Simonis et / ser Ioanne Baptista Pierantonii de Paganuccis testibus.
Iohannes … de Tondinis olim capsonarius florentinus pro se et suis / heredibus locavit ad pensionem
Augustino Ulrighi de Almania tromboni ad presens dominationis / Florentie presenti et conducenti et cetera
Vnam domum cum sala et cameris et curia, puteo interno et aliis suis
habituris positam Florentiae in populo Sancti Laurentii de Florentia in via / Argenti nuncupata cui a primo dicta via, a secundo bona Gerozii de Medicis a tertio / bona sotietatis del Bigallo a quarto dicti locatoris in predictis confinis / pro tempore undecim mensium proximorum futurorum initiatorum die primo presentis mensis infrascripti / dexembris pro pensione dicti temporis XI mensium florenorum septem largorum de grossis et / solvendorum per hos menses per totum mensem aprilis florenos quattuor similes residuos videlicet florenos 3 1/3 per totum mensem octobris / mensibus infrascriptis;
promictens dictus locator conductori predicto dicta bona alteri non locare et cetera et e / converso dictus conductor et visis presentibus et mandatis.
Cornelius Laurentii de Alamania et                         cantores et ipsius quilibet se
Arrigus Ugonis de Alamania                                       principaliter et in solidum et cetera obligando
promiserunt dicto locatori petere et cetera excipere et cetera quod dicta bona […] dictus conductor / adhibere boni, loci et cetera sive temporis denuntiet et cetera et solvere pensionem et cetera ad / pretium alias predictum proprio de sermone et cetera promiserunt […]

Florenz, Archivio di Stato, Notarile Antecosimiano 1972 (1489), fol. 147. Edition und Transkription in: Schwindt/Zanovello 2019, 3–4.

 

[on the left:] Rent


Item afterwards etc. the same year and indiction, day 2 of December 1489.
Drawn in the said palace, in the presence of ser Francesco of Nicola of Simone and ser Giovanni Battista of Pierantonio Paganucci as witnesses.
Giovanni … Tondini, former banker, on his behalf and on behalf of his heirs leased for a rent to Augustin of Ulrich from Alemania, trombone player, currently present and residing in the territory of Florence etc. 
One house with hall and rooms and courtyard, an internal well, and its other annexes, located in Florence, in the parish of San Lorenzo in via dell’Argento delimited in the first place by the said street, then by the property of Gerozio de’ Medici, then by the property of the society of the Bigallo, and finally by the [property of the] said landlord in the aforementioned boundary for the time of the next eleven months, beginning on the first day of the present month of December inscribed above for a rent of said 11 months of seven large florins and to be paid for those months for the whole month of April four similar florins, that is 3 . for the whole month of October [to be paid] for the months mentioned above 
Said landlord promises not to lease the said property to others etc. and for his part the tenant has considered the present scripture and rules. 


Cornelio di Lorenzo from Alamania and singers and each pledging for himself 
Arrigo d’Ugo from Alamania and offering a full guarantee of repayment, promised to the said landlord to request etc. etc. that said tenant will use the property, the place etc. and observe the rental period etc. and will pay the rent etc according to the amount registered elsewhere according to the contract etc. promised.

Florence, Archivio di Stato, Notarile Antecosimiano 1972 (1489), fol. 147. Edition and transcription in: Schwindt/Zanovello 2019, 3–4.

As guarantors for “Augustinus Ulrighi de Almania trombone” were – as usual in the legal practice of late medieval Florence – two “countrymen’ from the same professional milieu, namely Cornelio di Lorenzo “de Alemania,” a singer from Antwerp at the Church of Santissima Annunziata and the Baptistery of San Giovanni,[36] and “Arrigus Ugonis de Alemania,” that is, Henricus Isaac. The close personal connection between Schubinger and Isaac, expressed in the solidarity act of a guarantee declaration, suggests that their relationship was not only musically productive (» H. Kap. Textlose Kompositionen). Furthermore, their acquaintance may have been a significant factor in Isaac’s entry into Habsburg service in 1496. As Nicole Schwindt and Giovanni Zanovello have plausibly argued, it was likely Schubinger, who was already working at Maximilian I’s court at the time, who directed his employer’s attention to the composer, who was still in Florence but seeking new employment.[37]

[32] McGee 1999, 740–743; see also McGee 2005, 145–149; McGee 2008, 178–189.

[33] See the letter from Bartolomeo Tromboncino to Lorenzo de’ Medici dated June 10, 1489; edited in: Becherini 1941, 108–109.

[34] Letter from Michel Schubinger to Lorenzo de’ Medici dated June 7, 1489, in: Becherini 1941, 107–108. See also McGee 2008, 185–186. The stay in Milan may have been related to the wedding of Gian Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Isabella of Aragon on February 2. Details are unknown. It is certain, however, that Schubinger was not in the entourage of Friedrich III, who was in the Netherlands at that time.

[35] This document was first highlighted by Böninger 2006, 127. An in-depth analysis of the historical implications can be found in Schwindt/Zanovello 2019.

[36] About Cornelio di Lorenzo: D’Accone 1961, 334, 337, and 341–343.

[37] Schwindt/Zanovello 2019. See also Schwindt 2018c, 259–260.