MUSICAL CONFRATERNITIES. – Associations of music enthusiasts and professionals (teachers, singers, organists and organ builders, instrumentalists and manufacturers of musical instruments), who, under the protection and name of s. Cecilia, came together to safeguard their own interests or on the occasion of religious festivals, like the other guilds of arts and trades. They existed in every city of some musical importance, and some developed into genuine schools of music.
As early as 1502, a musical society established in Louvain was named after s. Cecilia, and works of art from the 14th–16th centuries representing the Roman martyr with musical instruments (organ, violin, etc.) are certainly connected with these professional associations, which may date back to the Middle Ages. The custom of celebrating the feast of s. Cecilia (22 Nov.) with musical performances is ancient, and the religious Orders, among whom the musical tradition was kept alive, promoted the erection of altars to s. Cecilia in their churches, which became the seat of the respective musical confraternity. In 1571 the association « Le puy de musique » was established at Évreux in Normandy; it promoted contests and competitions among composers and performers. Orlando di Lasso, Eustachio du Cauvoy and Giacomo Salomon competed in these contests. Similar confraternities were also widespread in England and France; through devotion to the virgin and martyr Cecilia, they promoted the cultivation of sacred music and the artistic training of their members. The oldest Italian musical confraternity whose history is known is the « Congregazione di S. Cecilia », founded in Rome in 1584, not by Palestrina, as was believed, but by the Venetian Alessandro Marini, a Lateran canon, who in 1585 obtained its approval through a brief from Sixtus V. Similar associations, which also had the purposes of mutual assistance, worship and devotion toward deceased confraternity members, making arrangements for funerals and prayers for the dead, existed in Milan, Brescia, Padua, Venice, Bologna, and many other cities of Italy. Paolo Guerrini