Dr Nicolò Ferrari (IS PAN), From Burgundy to Hungary: Rethinking L’homme armé in European Crusading Culture
Dn. 4 marca 2025 (wtorek), godz. 12:00, Sala Sobieskich, ul. Długa 26
The tradition of polyphonic settings based on L’homme armé tune is one of the most renowned and studied products of the so-called Franco-Flemish school. Scholars have long debated its origins and fortunes, with some proposing to link them to the late medieval crusading movement and the Ottoman expansion, epitomised by the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Yet, musicologists have largely focused on the roles played by the Dukes of Burgundy and the Order of the Golden Fleece. A striking example is the dedicatory poem found at the end of a manuscript transmitting six anonymous L’homme armé masses (Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale, Ms VI.E.40), seen by many as reinforcing the connection between these musical settings and the Dukes’ promotion of a crusade against the Turks.
Could the celebrated tradition of L’homme armé be more than a mere product of the Franco-Flemish school? In this lecture, I propose to shift the focus away from conventional historiographical perspectives. I argue, instead, that we should understand this tradition in the broader context of the late crusading cultural rhetoric, which permeated European culture. I re-examine the case of the Naples manuscript in relation to its donation to Beatrice of Aragon, Queen of Hungary and wife of Matthias Corvinus, contending that the Hungarian court played a central role in this cultural discourse. In doing so, I aim to challenge the established historiographical centrality of Burgundy by showing how this manuscript—and the early L’homme armé tradition more broadly—contributed to and helped defining a pan-European crusading cultural idiom.
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Dr Nicolò Ferrari jest kierownikiem projektu Krucjaty a muzyka w późnośredniowiecznej i wczesnonowożytnej Europie, 1453-1683 / Music and Crusading in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 1453-1683