NANINO, GIOVANNI MARIA. - Musician, b. at Tivoli in 1545, d. at Rome on 12 March 1607. He was buried in S. Luigi dei Francesi. He studied under the guidance of Pierluigi da Palestrina, whom he succeeded in 1541 as maestro di cappella at S. Maria Maggiore. He withdrew from that post in 1575 and went on to direct the musical chapel of S. Luigi de' Francesi in Rome, which he left in Oct. 1577 to join the college of singers of the Sistine Chapel; he became its maestro director pro tempore in 1604-1605.
In his school of music, which was the first opened in Rome by an Italian, there were trained, through the lessons given by him and by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, his brother Giovanni Bernardino, Gregorio Allegri, Antonio Cifra, Antonio Brunelli, Pier Francesco Valentini, Romano Micheli and others.
In his works, from the printed collections of motets for 3 and 5 voices (1578-79-86) to the Psalms for 8 voices, one can observe the whole arc of that polyphonic art which illustrated the glorious Roman sixteenth century: from the early works, in which he shuns the solid contrapuntal construction of the severe and traditional style, to the last, in which there already creeps that decadence which would be complete at the end of the century. Among the motets the Haec dies for 5 voices stands out, and so does the one for 6 voices, Hodie noble, which is still performed today by the Sistine Chapel on Christmas morning. Among the other works, the mass Vestiva i colli for 5 voices (ms. at the Sistine Chapel) and the 5 Lamentations for 4 voices (ed. by Haber in the Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrb. of 1891) are especially outstanding, to which one may add the Miserere edited by Proske in his Musica Divina. The genre, however, in which he was particularly successful was that of the madrigals, in which it has been said that he even surpassed Palestrina himself: numerous reprints of them were made, which confirmed their form and their success. As a theorist he left didactic treatises: Centocinquantasette contrappunti e canoni a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 e 11 voci sopra il canto fermo, intitolato la base di Costanzo Festa, warmly praised (ms. at the Bibl. Corsini, Rome); Rudimenti e regole di contrappunto, e Regole di contrappunto doppio a 4 e 5 voci, thus gathering together that vast heritage of knowledge which was to constitute the primary source from which drew the new generation of musicians that was being formed by his precious teachings and those of Palestrina.
Many of his works were published in editions of the time, but many are still unpublished in the collections of the Cappelle Giulia and Sistina at the Vatican Library, in the Archive of the Chapel of S. Giovanni in Laterano, in the Bibl. Casanatense in Rome, in Bologna, in Munich, in Münster, in Vienna.
GIOVANNI, younger brother of the preceding, b. at Vallerano (Viterbo) around 1560, d. at Rome in 1623, studied at his school. He too was maestro di Cappella at S. Luigi de' Francesi, from 1591, and, subsequently, at S. Lorenzo in Damaso. He excelled in the madrigal, a form to which he devoted three books of compositions, but, more than his brother, he cultivated sacred music, publishing 5 volumes of motets, one of Vesper Psalms for 4 voices for Sundays and other minor compositions (invitatories, antiphons, responsories, etc.). Proske published 4 psalms for 4 voices by him in his Musica Divina. Many works are in manuscript in Vienna and in other libraries of Europe.
Bibliography
Luisa Cervelli