Dear Stewart and friends,
I believe we should not dismiss the possibility that
Milan`s system of tablature might have been an
offshoot of Neapolitan tab. There were strong ties
between the Aragonese and Valencian courts and Naples
which was also a Spanish possession. Besides, an
interesting piece in this jigsaw is the snippet of
tablature found written in the flyleaf of the
_Epistolariun familiarum_ by Lucio Marineo Siculo,
published at Valencia in 1514, now in the British
Library in a unique system, where, again, the upper
line indicates the first string and the "0" is used
for the first string. The Valencian connection is - I
believe -significative. Bearing this in mind, and
despite all the differences between the Marineo Siculo
fragment and Milan's tab, a case might be made for
calling tablature with the upper line for the first
string and "0" for the open string "Valencian".
(For those interested in having a look at this source,
see _Early Music_, vol. xx, no. 4, November 1992, pp.
594-600. A photograph of the piece appears in p. 594.)
On other subjects, sorry Göran, but Milan never signed
his name as Luis (or Luys) de Milan, but simply as
Luys Milan (no "de" there to suggest a Milanese
provenance). On the other hand, he did not speak
Italian either. The only concordance between
Castiglione's book and that by Milan is the name. The
former (which was published in a Spanish translation
by Juan Boscan at Barcelona in 1534) deals with the
appropriate attitudes, behaviour etc. of a gentleman;
the latter (Valencia, 1562) describes Milan's life and
adventures at the Valencian court of Germaine de Foix.
Milan tended to be quite vain, and it shows clearly
both in this book as well as in the woodcut of _El
Maestro_, where he equates himself with Orpheus.
Incidentally, among the accomplishments Milan was
proud of was that of being poet, and this is one of
the reasons why Juan Fernandez criticized him in the
source you mention ("Coplas de Juan Fernandez..."),
This collection of poetry was also published at
Valencia, in 1562 (_Las Obras de don Ioan Fernandez de
Heredia assi temporales, como espirituales dirigidas
al ilustrissimo seńor don Francisco de Aragon_). Here,
again, Milan never appears as Luis de Milan. As an
example, there is a the poem called "Don Joan
Fernandez a Don Luys Milan"; or later on it is
mentioned that: "Don Luys Milan embio vn colloquio muy
largo a don Ioan Fernandez". Fernandez is rather harsh
in his judgement of Milan as a poet, but in this same
poem he admits that he can play well:
Si la vihuela oluidays,
y trobays y componeys,
tomays lo que no sabeys
y lo que sabeys dejais (...)
(If forget the vihuela
and write and compose verses
you take what you don't know
And leave aside waht you know ...)
With best wishes,
Antonio
--- Stewart McCoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
escribió: > Dear Göran,
>
> You refer to Milan's tablature as Neapolitan. There
> seems to be some
> confusion about this, if only in my own mind.
>
> Milan's tablature for vihuela has open strings
> notated as 0. A chord
> of F major (assuming G tuning) would look like
>
> =2=
> =3=
> =3=
> =0=
> ===
> ===
>
> Milano's tablature for viola has open strings
> notated as 1. A chord
> of F major (assuming G tuning) would look like
>
> =3=
> =4=
> =4=
> =1=
> ===
> ===
>
> Milano's tablature is called Neapolitan tablature,
> but should we
> call Milan's tablature Neapolitan too? I remember
> discussing this
> point with June Yaxley at a meeting of the Lute
> Society in London,
> not long before she died. She maintained that both
> tablatures should
> be called Neapolitan. I have always thought that
> Milano's viola
> tablature should be called Neapolitan, and Milan's
> tablature
> Spanish. More observant Lutenetters might have
> noticed how careful I
> was to side-step this issue in my message of 12th
> December
> ("Vihuela").
>
> Certainly it would be convenient to use different
> words for
> different systems. I would be interested to know
> what you and others
> think.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Stewart.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "G.R. Crona" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 10:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Names of composers (Was: Vihuela)
>
>
> Dear Arthur,
>
> when reading the postings of this thread, it
> suddenly struck me:
> Luís de
> Milán... Luigi da Milano. Was he actually an
> Italian? Or did he get
> his
> epithet from having spent part of his life in
> Milano? In those days,
> surnames often indicated provenance. His music was
> quite italianate
> and his
> book "El cortesano", (1561) was apparently based on
> Castiglione so
> he
> probably spoke Italian. I gather, that not much of
> his earlier life
> is
> known, so hypothetically he could have been an
> expatriate Italian,
> seeking
> his fortune in Spain. Also his unique (and in my
> view superior) use
> of
> Neapolitan TAB.
>
> Funny how threads on this list suddenly trigger a
> new question!
>
> Best Regards
>
> Göran
>
>
>
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