Nicolaus Zacharie (c.1400 or before – 1466) was an Italian composer of the early

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

. Until recently he had been confused with the earlier composer Zacara da Teramo, but recent research has established his identity; he was one of a few native Italian composers working in the early 15th century whose work has survived.

Life

He was probably from

Brindisi Brindisi ( , ) ; la, Brundisium; grc, Βρεντέσιον, translit=Brentésion; cms, Brunda), group=pron is a city in the region of Apulia in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Brindisi, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Histo ...

or somewhere nearby, on the evidence of papal archives. The earliest solid record of his life is February 7, 1420, when he was employed at

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

Cathedral as a singer; on the evidence of his motet ''Letetur plebs'', which includes the comment in the score "composed in

Taranto Taranto (, also ; ; nap, label=Tarantino, Tarde; Latin: Tarentum; Old Italian: ''Tarento''; Ancient Greek: Τάρᾱς) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto, serving as an important comme ...

, in a great hurry" it is presumed he was already active as a composer prior to coming to Florence in 1420. Just a few months later – June 1 –

Pope Martin V Pope Martin V ( la, Martinus V; it, Martino V; January/February 1369 – 20 February 1431), born Otto (or Oddone) Colonna, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 November 1417 to his death in February 1431. Hi ...

hired him during a trip to Florence, taking him back to the papal choir in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, probably in September when he returned there, having successfully ended the

Western Schism The Western Schism, also known as the Papal Schism, the Vatican Standoff, the Great Occidental Schism, or the Schism of 1378 (), was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417 in which bishops residing in Rome and Avignon b ...

a few years before. Zacharie remained in the choir until 1424, and after an absence of ten years joined again for a few months in 1434; his whereabouts between those two periods is unknown. At the end of his life he was a chaplain at the church of Santa Maria in Ceglie Messapico, about 40 km west of Brindisi in the far southeast of Italy.

Music

Only three works by Zacharie have survived with reliable attribution: a

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Ma ...

, a Gloria, and a secular song, a

ballata The ''ballata'' (plural: ''ballate'') is an Italian poetic and musical form in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. It has the musicapenim AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same texts. It is thus most similar to the Fre ...

. The longest is the motet ''Letetur plebs''. It begins with a long passage in

imitation Imitation (from Latin ''imitatio'', "a copying, imitation") is a behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form of that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our culture. I ...

, but the rest of the composition uses none at all. As is true of much music from southern and central Italy of the

quattrocento The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encom ...

, there is very little French influence; the influence of the ''

ars subtilior ''Ars subtilior'' (Latin for 'subtler art') is a musical style characterized by rhythmic and notational complexity, centered on Paris, Avignon in southern France, and also in northern Spain at the end of the fourteenth century.Hoppin 1978, 472 ...

'' is not to be found in Zacharie's surviving music. On stylistic evidence, all three of his surviving compositions were probably written around the same time, most likely between 1415 and around 1430.

Works

# ''Et in terra pax'' (3 voices) # ''Letetur plebs fidelis/Pastor qui revelavit'' (4 voices) # ''Già per gran nobeltà trihumpho et fama'' (2 voices) (ballata)

References

* David Fallows: "Zacharie, Nicolaus", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 20, 2006)
Grove Music Online
* Gustave Reese, ''Music in the Renaissance''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zacharie, Nicolaus Italian classical composers Italian male classical composers 1466 deaths Renaissance composers 15th-century Italian composers Year of birth uncertain