Abstract:

The bond between the Flemish composer Heinrich Isaac (c.1450-1517) and the city of Florence almost symbolizes the encounter between the world of northern polyphony and the civilization of fifteenth-century Italy. In this dissertation, I examine several aspects of this unique encounter--patronage, musician's personal and social identity, and artistic osmosis. The main aims are a definition of Isaac's integration in Florence, in both biographical and musical terms, and a reconstruction of its evolution in response to the city's changing political scenarios.

Chapter 1 consists of a survey of music in the public rituals of late-15th-century Florence and a study of the various forms of Medicean patronage. In Chapter 2, I present the newly discovered records of the payments Isaac made to the Florentine Confraternity of Saint Barbara; I also revise the composer's later Florentine biography for the years 1502-1517 accordingly. The new evidence corroborates the hypothesis that Isaac had chosen Florence as the residence of his last years by 1502, a decision possibly prompted by reasons outside the professional sphere. The third chapter is devoted to the peculiar Missa Misericordias Domini , the Ordinary cycle that perhaps best embodies Isaac's fusion of Franco-Flemish background and Italian indigenous style. My analysis of this work ranges from philological aspects to stylistic matters; among the most interesting points are a new reconstruction of the work's transmission and an interpretation of its musical relationship with the Italian frottola In focho in focho la mia vita passa , the beginning of which is identical to the Mass head motif.

This re-examination of Isaac's relationship with Florence sheds new light on the life and work of the most "Italianate" among the late-fifteenth-century Flemish composer, and offers new insights for a more complete investigation of the social and artistic integration of northern composers active in fifteenth-century Italy.