Renaissance Music and Culture in Croatia

Book excerpt: This book is the first more comprehensive effort dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of Renaissance music in Croatia. On the pages of this book the dramatis personae comprise priests and heretics, noblemen and tradesmen, men of learning and illiterate fishermen, ladies from high society and courtesans, printers and scribes, patrons of the arts and their proteges - in other words, people participating in one way or another in cultural and artistic events. In spite of grave political problems during the 15th and 16th centuries (the Turks established their power in the north and eastern regions), the Croatian soil was a theatre of vivid musical life. The variety of cultural influences (most important comming from Italy) has been reflectedin some specific phenomena in the Croatian cultural and musical life. Among them are the Catholic liturgy in the native language, the Petrarchan poetry in the Italian language, with which some Dalmatian poets managed to attract the attention of contemporary Italian composers, and finally, the fact that the Croatian coastland was the extreme south-eastern point reached by the widely spreading Netherland Renaissance polyphony. This book focuses on identifying, contextualing and presenting this less known European musical heritage to the wider international public.