Antonio "Zacara" da Teramo (in Latin Antonius Berardi Andree de Teramo, also Zacar, Zaccara, Zacharie, Zachara, and Çacharius; c.1350/1360 – between May 19, 1413 and mid-September 1416) was an Italian composer, singer, and papal secretary of the late

Trecento The Trecento (, also , ; short for , "1300") refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history. Period Art Commonly, the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history. Painters of the Trecento included Giotto ...

and early 15th century. He was one of the most active Italian composers around 1400, and his style bridged the periods of the Trecento, '' ars subtilior'', and beginnings of the musical

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

Life

Antonio was probably from Teramo, in northern Abruzzo ( Kingdom of Naples), not far from the Adriatic coast.Fallows, ''Grove online''. The possibility that two different composers, "Antonio da Teramo" and "Zacara da Teramo", were conflated into one person was removed by research into the composer's life by Agostino Ziino. (Another composer with a similar name,

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

, was of the following generation of composers). Antonio's nickname "Zaccara" (or "Zachara"; often regularized in modern editions as "Zacara") probably is a reference to his short stature (he is described as having "statura corporis parva" in a 15th-century biography). The name Zacara means a small thing or a thing of little value; hence the reason why Antonio never used the nickname himself and documents produced in circles close to the composer are careful to call him some variation on "Antonius vulgatus dictus Zachara" (Anthony, commonly called Zacara). Nothing is known about his life until he is recorded 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 ...

, in 1390, as a teacher at the

Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia The Hospital of the Holy Spirit ( it, L'Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia) is the oldest hospital in Europe, located in Rome, Italy. It now serves as a convention center. The complex lies in rione Borgo, east of Vatican City and next to the mo ...

; the document mentions that he was not young at the time of this appointment, but his exact age is not given. In the next year he became a secretary to

Pope Boniface IX Pope Boniface IX ( la, Bonifatius IX; it, Bonifacio IX; c. 1350 – 1 October 1404, born Pietro Tomacelli) was head of the Catholic Church from 2 November 1389 to his death in October 1404. He was the second Roman pope of the Western Schism.Rich ...

; the letter of appointment survives, and indicates that he was a married layman as well as a singer in the papal chapel. He stayed at this post through the papacies of

Boniface IX Pope Boniface IX ( la, Bonifatius IX; it, Bonifacio IX; c. 1350 – 1 October 1404, born Pietro Tomacelli) was head of the Catholic Church from 2 November 1389 to his death in October 1404. He was the second Roman pope of the Western Schism.Richa ...

(to 1404), Innocent VII (1404–1406), and

Gregory XII Pope Gregory XII ( la, Gregorius XII; it, Gregorio XII; – 18 October 1417), born Angelo Corraro, Corario," or Correr, was head of the Catholic Church from 30 November 1406 to 4 July 1415. Reigning during the Western Schism, he was oppose ...

(1406–1415). This was during the turbulent period of 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 ...

, and from his surviving letters, as well as the numerous hidden, and probably subversive political references in his music, Zacara seems to have been involved in the machinations of the time. It is not known exactly when he abandoned service to Pope Gregory, but if the ballata ''Dime Fortuna poy che tu parlasti'' is indeed by Zacara then we can read in its text evidence that he left Gregory before the

Council of Pisa The Council of Pisa was a controversial ecumenical council of the Catholic Church held in 1409. It attempted to end the Western Schism by deposing Benedict XIII (Avignon) and Gregory XII (Rome) for schism and manifest heresy. The College o ...

in 1409. He is recorded as a singer in the chapel of John XXIII in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

in 1412 and 1413. Two documents of 1416 (one or them dated 17 and 20 September) describe him as being already dead; he owned substantial property in Teramo as well as a house in Rome at the time of his death. The illuminated ''

Squarcialupi Codex The Squarcialupi Codex (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Pal. 87) is an illuminated manuscript compiled in Florence in the early 15th century. It is the single largest primary source of music of the 14th-century Italian ''Trecento'' ( ...

'' contains an illustration of him. He was a small man, and had a total of only ten digits altogether on both hands and feet, details which are not only evident in the portrait but mentioned in his entry in an 18th-century Abruzzi necrology.

Music

Studies on Zacara's music are all relatively recent, and much remains to be solved in terms of chronology and attribution. He seems to have been active as a composer throughout his life, and a stylistic development is evident, with two general phases taking shape: an early period, dominated by song forms such as the

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 ...

, similar in style to the work of

Jacopo da Bologna Jacopo da Bologna (fl. 1340 – c. 1386) was an Italian composer of the Trecento, the period sometimes known as the '' Italian ars nova''. He was one of the first composers of this group, making him a contemporary of Gherardello da Firenze ...

Francesco Landini Francesco Landini ( or 1335 – 2 September 1397; also known by many names) was an Italian composer, poet, organist, singer and instrument maker who was a central figure of the Trecento style in late Medieval music. One of the most revered c ...

; and a period possibly beginning around 1400, when he was in Rome, during which his music is influenced by the '' ars subtilior''. Both sacred and secular vocal music survive by Zacara, and in greater quantity than most other composers from the period around 1400. Numerous paired mass movements, Glorias and Credos, are in a

manuscript (Q15), compiled beginning around 1420; seven songs appear in the

(probably compiled 1410–1415) and 12 in the

Mancini Codex Mancini () is a surname of Italian origin which, etymologically, comes from the Italian adjective ''mancino'', which literally means "left handed". People Art and literature * Antonio Mancini (1852–1930), Italian painter *Dominic Mancini, 15th ...

(probably compiled around 1410). Three songs are found in other sources, including the ars subtilior, Latin-texted ''Sumite, karissimi, capud de Remulo, patres''. Apart from one caccia (''Cacciando un giorno''), a Latin ballade (''Sumite, karissimi''), and a madrigal (''Plorans ploravi''), his secular songs are all ballate (Fallows 2001). A recent study proposes attribution to Zacara of a French-texted two-voice composition, ''Le temps verrà'', found in the manuscript T.III.2, in part on stylistic grounds, and in part on the basis of the politically charged, satirical subject matter of the text. The songs in the Squarcialupi Codex and Mancini Codex differ greatly in style. Those in the former document were probably written early in Zacara's career, and show influence from lyrical mid-century Italian composers such as Landini; the music in the Mancini Codex is more closely related to the mannerist style of the ''ars subtilior''. While exact dates on the music have not been established, it is possible that some of the music in the Mancini Codex was written after Zacara left Rome, and was more likely to be influenced by the Avignon-based avant-garde ''ars subtilior'' style; on the other hand he may have been consciously trying to create a Roman response to the music coming from the court of the schismatic antipopes. One of the strangest of Zacara's songs, occurring in the

, is ''Deus deorum, Pluto'', a two-voice invocation to the Roman god of the underworld; the text is filled with the names of the inhabitants of the infernal regions. It is "an enthusiastic prayer to Pluto, king of the demons"—not the kind of composition one would normally expect from a pious Vatican secretary. Zacara even used this song as a basis for one of his settings of the Credo of the

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

. Zacara's mass movements appears to have been influential on other composers of the early 15th century, including

Johannes Ciconia Johannes Ciconia ( – between 10 June and 13 July 1412) was an important Flemish composer and music theorist of trecento music during the late Medieval era. He was born in Liège, but worked most of his adult life in Italy, particularly ...

and

Bartolomeo da Bologna Bartolomeo da Bologna (fl. 1405 – 1427) was an Italian composer of the transitional period between the late medieval style of the Trecento and the early Renaissance. Life Little is known with certainty about his life, but he was probably fro ...

; some of his innovations can even be seen in Dufay. Zacara may have been the first to use 'divisi' passages in the upper voices. His movements are much longer than other 14th century mass movements, and use imitation extensively, as well as

hocket In music, hocket is the rhythmic linear technique using the alternation of notes, pitches, or chords. In medieval practice of hocket, a single melody is shared between two (or occasionally more) voices such that alternately one voice sounds wh ...

(a more archaic technique). In general, his paired movements—Gloria, Credo—are a link between the scattered, ununified movements of the 14th century ( Machaut's '' Messe de Nostre Dame'' being the significant exception) and the

cyclic mass In Renaissance music, the cyclic mass was a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass, in which each of the movements – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei – shared a common musical theme, commonly a cantus ...

which developed in the 15th century. Some of Zacara's pieces are found in very distant sources, indicating his fame and wide distribution, including in a Polish manuscript and in the English Old Hall Manuscript (no. 33, a setting of the Gloria).

Recordings

''Zacara da Teramo: Enigma Fortuna'' (Complete Works), ALPHA640, by La Fonte Musica and Michele Pasotti (2021). 3 hours 57 minutes. For a complete discography of Zacara until 2004, see Gianluca Tarquinio, "Discografia di Antonio Zacara da Teramo," in Zimei 2004, pp. 421–34. Four discs comprise entirely or mostly the music of Zacara: * An LP, ''Zaccaria da Teramo'', RCA 2G8KY-19714/15, by "Gruppo Mensura Musicae" (1978). * A CD, ''Zachara, cantore dell'antipapa (XV secolo)'', Quadrivium SCA 027, by an Italian group called "Sine Nomine" (1993). * A CD, ''Un Fior Gentile. L'Ars Nova di Zacara da Teramo'', Micrologus CDM 0012.00, by the Italian group " Ensemble Micrologus" (2004). * A CD, ''Spinato Intorno Al Cor'', Lawo Classics, by the

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

early music ensemble Currentes (2011).

References

*Bent, Margaret (1998). "Early Papal Motets". In ''Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome'', edited by Richard Sherr, 5–43. Oxford: Clarendon Press in association with Library of Congress, Washington; New York: Oxford University Press. * Cuthbert, Michael Scott (2004). "Zacara's D’amor Languire and Strategies for Borrowing in the Early Fifteenth-Century Italian Mass," in ''Antonio Zacara da Teramo e il suo tempo'', edited by Francesco Zimei, (Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana). pp. 337–57. (Reprinted in ''Ars Nova'', Ashgate, 2010) * Di Mascia, Elvira, and Lucia Marchi (2001). "'Le temps verrà tamtoust aprés': Una proposta di attribuzione ad Antonio Zacara da Teramo". ''Studi musicali'' 30, no. 1:3–32. * Fallows, David. "Zacara da Teramo". ''Grove Music Online'', ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 18, 2006)
(subscription access)
* Ghisi, Federico (1946). "Italian Ars Nova Music, the Perugia and Pistoia fragments of the Lucca Codex, and other unpublished early 15th century sources," ''Journal of Renaissance and Baroque Music (= Musica Disciplina)'' 1.3, pp. 173–191. With musical supplement in 1.4. .b. the Pistoia fragments are no longer considered part of the Lucca codex* Gómez, Maricarmen. "Mass". ''Grove Music Online'', ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 18, 2006)
(subscription access)
* * Marchi, Lucia (2003). "Intorno all'origine del codice T.III.2 della Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino". ''Recercare: Rivista per lo studio e la pratica della musica antica'' 15:7–37. * Nádas, John (1986). "Further notes on Magister Antonius dictus Zacharias de Teramo," ''Studi Musicali'' 15 (1986), pp. 167–82. Corrections in vol. 16 (1987), pp. 175–76. * Pirrotta, Nino. "Zacara Da Teramo" (1984). In ''Music and Culture in Italy from the Middle Ages to the Baroque'', edited by Lewis Lockwood and Christoph Wolff, 126–44. Studies in the History of Music 1. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. * Reaney, Gilbert (1980). "Zacar". ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'', 20 vols., edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Publishers. * * Ziino, Agostino (1979). "Magister Antonius dictus Zacharias de Teramo: alcune date e molte ipotesi," ''Rivista Italiana di Musicologia'' 14, pp. 311–48 * Ziino, Agostino (1994). ''Il Codice T.III.2, Torino, Biblioteca nazionale universitaria: studio introduttivo ed edizione in facsimile''. Ars nova 3. Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana. * Zimei, Francesco, editor (2004). ''Antonio Zacara da Teramo e il suo tempo'' (Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana).

Notes

External links