Innocenzio Alberti

Innocenzio Alberti did not publish much music. His Pavanne and Galliard set in the Lumley manuscript, British Library R. App. 74, f. 41 rev, are the only known instrumental pieces. His madrigals appear in three of his own books and at least one collection.

I was not able to find any transcription of the Pavanne and Galliard online. They are included in the Musica Britannica volume XLIV Elizabethan Consort Music I by Paul Doe.

My setting is based on the manuscript images and compared to the Doe version.

“John Lumley’s collection was one of the largest of the Elizabethan libraries. It comprised the collection of Lumley’s father-in-law, Henry Fitzalan (b. 1512, d. 1580), 19th Earl of Arundel, Chamberlain to Henry VIII and Edward VI and Lord High Stuart to Mary I. Arundel’s collection was composed mainly of manuscripts acquired during the dissolution of monasteries. It was augmented significantly by the library of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer’s manuscripts (c. 100 volumes), which were confiscated by the Crown after the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor, granted to the Earl, and housed in his residence at Nonsuch. These books typically bear the archbishop’s signature, ‘Thomas Cantuarensis’, written in black ink on their front pages.

In 1557, after the death of Arundel’s only son, Lumley moved to Nonsuch Palace. At that point Lumley’s own collection merged with that of his father-in-law’s and the names of both collectors were added into the volumes. At least 70 books and manuscripts also bear the name of Humphrey Lloyd (d. 1568), a physician whom Arundel brought from Oxford following his brief appointment as the Chancellor of the University. Lloyd advised Lumley on the composition of his library and married his sister. His manuscripts passed to Lumley after his death.” The British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts (bl.uk)

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