Shepard-The Medici Codex As A Gift

Constructing Identities in a Music Manuscript:
The Medici Codex as a Gift*

by T I M S H E P H A R D
The motet manuscript known as the Medici Codex is associated by modern scholarship with the
1518 marriage of Lorenzo II de Medici and Madeleine de la Tour dAuvergne. It was once
thought that the manuscript was made in France and given to Lorenzo by Francis I, but now it is
almost unanimously agreed that it was made in Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X. Since
this revision, no one has put forward a detailed view of how the manuscript relates to the
circumstances under which it was given and to the individuals involved, or how it functions as
a gift. This study places the manuscript in the context of other gifts associated with the marriage to
arrive at such a view.
1. I N T R O D U C T I O N
t has long been known that the Medici Codex, a large presentation
manuscript containing fifty-three motets, had something to do with the
1518 marriage of Lorenzo II de Medici (14921519), nephew of Pope
Leo X (14751521), to Madeleine de la Tour dAuvergne (ca. 14951519),
a cousin of King Francis I (14941547).1 It is very likely that the
manuscript was a gift, given to Lorenzo (or to the couple) by Leo X, and
as such it sits among a number of other gifts prepared for the occasion, in
particular a series of paintings by Raphael (14831520). Under the
circumstances, the roles of a gift were various and subtle, ranging from
commemoration to serving the symbolic and diplomatic ends of the donor,
and to fulfilling the practical needs of the recipient. Such a gift might readily
*
Please see the online version of this article for color illustrations.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge with gratitude the kind help and suggestions of Bonnie
Blackburn, Anthony Cummings, James Munk, Philip Weller, and the Articles Editor and an
anonymous reader for this journal in the preparation of the present study. My work on the
Medici Codex more generally has been greatly assisted by the generous, often critical, advice
of Stanley Boorman, David Fallows, Joshua Rifkin, and Peter Wright, to whom I also extend
my thanks. Translations are the authors unless otherwise credited.
1
On the Medici Codex, properly Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, MS
Acquisti e Doni 666, see Lowinsky, 1957, 1968, 1977, and 1979; Perkins, 1969b;
Sparks, 1972 and 1973; Rifkin, 1973 and 1977; Crawford; Finscher; Lockwood, 1979,
24146; Staehelin; Dean, 1984, 11029; Sherr, 1985. For convenience, a list of the
manuscripts contents is given in the Appendix below, pp. 12223.
Renaissance Quarterly 63 (2010): 84127
[84]
THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT
85
serve to define a range of important identities in relation to one another:

those of the donor, the recipient(s), the new union, and the dynasties and
individual agents involved in arranging it. Its role would also be contingent
upon the circumstances of its presentation, a moment that could be used to
draw a musical gifts potency into the realm of immediate experience.
This study aims to anatomize the Codex as a gift, and as a document of
contingent identities. In particular, it will investigate the role of the Codex
among Leo Xs strategies of self-presentation and diplomatic efforts, and its
function in the construction of his nephew Lorenzo as a despotic ruler. In
pursuit of this aim, I will situate the Codex within the complex of gifts associated
with the wedding, allowing interpretative approaches suggested by the historical
and art-historical contexts to offer new perspectives on the manuscript. My
conclusions will suggest that Leo X configured the manuscript as a strategically
constructed image of himself, and sent it as his own agent to meet Lorenzo and
Madeleine in Florence, in the hope of both offering his legitimating supervision
of the match and reconfiguring Lorenzo in the image of a duke.2
2. T H E W E D D I N G
AND THE
CODEX
The election of Cardinal Giovanni de Medici as Pope Leo X on 9 March 1513

brought respite from the militaristic foreign policy pursued by his predecessor,
Julius II (14431513).3 The new popes attentions were immediately devoted
to ending the long-running conflict with France over the Duchy of Milan,
concluding a peace with Louis XII (14621515) on 9 December. The
succession of Francis I to the French crown on 1 January 1515, however,
brought with it a renewal of the war, culminating in the victory of French over
papal and Swiss forces at the Battle of Marignano on 15 September 1515. A
meeting between Francis I and Leo X was held in Bologna shortly after the
battle to agree to a lasting settlement, and throughout 1515 the pope took steps
to place his brother Giuliano de Medici (14791516) in close alliance with the
French monarchy, arranging for him a marriage to Filiberta of Savoy
(14981524) and the bestowal of the title of Duke of Nemours.
2
Although Leo X was certainly involved in some way in making the Codex, the evidence
would not support a clear definition of the practicalities of his involvement. However, for
such a gift his involvement might range through conception, planning, and design, both
personally and via agents familiar with his intentions.
3
On the events described in this paragraph, see Roscoe, 1:295334, 36190, 2:182,
186206; Lowinsky, 1968, 3:45, 1415; Seay; Stephens; Shearman, 1987a, 20911; Reiss.
In this article I cite from the first volume of Lowinsky, 1968, which comprises volume 3 in
the series Monuments of Renaissance Music: all references cite this as volume 3 (as labeled
on the volume itself).
86
RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY
Thus freed of the French threat, Leo X, with the help of his sister-in-law
Alfonsina Orsini de Medici (14721520) and other family members, set
about consolidating the position in central Italy of the Medici, who had only
returned to Florence from exile in 1512, and who aspired to a more
unassailably noble status.4 The Duchy of Urbino, once the target of
Alexander VI as a seat for his nephew Cesare Borgia, became in 1516 the
subject of a new coup effected on behalf of Leo Xs nephew (Alfonsinas son)
Lorenzo II de Medici.5 The popular incumbent Duke Francesco Maria della
Rovere was himself a military commander, and thus proved impossible to
unseat permanently until he ran out of money to pay his mercenary troops.
Lorenzo was securely ensconced as Duke of Urbino in September 1517.
Meanwhile, the death on 17 March 1516 of Giuliano de Medici left
Leo X short of a tangible connection to France. The last few months of 1517
were dedicated to the negotiation of a new French alliance through the
marriage of Duke Lorenzo to Madaleine de la Tour dAuvergne. The
arrangement was largely concluded by January 1518: Lorenzo left for France
on 22 March and was married in Amboise on 2 May.
It is easy enough to see the reflection of these events in the Medici
Codex. The motets in the manuscript are listed in the tavola so as to form the
acrostic VIVAT SEMPER INVICTVS LAVRENTIVS MEDICES DVX
VRBINI May Lorenzo de Medici, undefeated Duke of Urbino, live
forever making an obvious reference to the difficulties experienced in
securing Lorenzos duchy (fig. 1). The acrostic is signposted on the facing
page in a large diamond-shaped inscription, which reads Canon: in the first
letters it is written of you.6 Medici heraldry and devices appear abundantly
in the first few folios of the manuscript, as well as elsewhere in the decorative
script of one of the manuscripts scribes. Decorating the bottom margins of
the first opening of music are facing painted panels (fig. 2): that on the left
presents the arms of Leo X accompanied by those of Cardinal Giulio de
Medici (14781534) and Duke Lorenzo de Medici; that on the right
impales the Medici palle with the arms of de la Tour dAuvergne beneath
a ducal coronet.7 The senior members of the Medici family are thus placed in
4
Stephens, 95, identifies two ambitions evidenced in Medici diplomacy and politics of
this period: to secure for themselves the support of the strongest of the great powers of
northern Europe and to create or conquer lordships for themselves in Italy.
5
On Alfonsinas advocacy at the papal court on behalf of her son Lorenzo, and her
extremely important role in the events described, see Tomas, 7582, 8788; Reiss.
6
Canon: In primis litteris scriptum est de te. Abbreviations have been spelled out.
7
These are the identifications arrived at in Lowinsky, 1968, 3:14.
87
FIGURE 1. Medici Codex. Dedication, canon, and tavola. Florence, Biblioteca

Medicea Laurenziana, Ms. Acq. e Doni 666, fols. iiv1r. Photo: GAP s.r.l., Rome.
conjunction with a symbol of the alliance they have forged, and of the ducal
identity they have created.
In the first modern study of the manuscript, Edward Lowinsky gives an
insightful account of the Codex as a wedding gift, arguing that it was made in
France on behalf of Francis I and given to Lorenzo at some point during his
visit to France in 1518.8 His assessment is based on the observation that a
significant number of motets in the manuscript were composed by musicians
who were members of, or were otherwise connected to, the royal chapels of
France. These include a few occasional motets linked directly to events of
French significance, including one celebrating victory at the Battle of
Marignano and one mourning the death of Anne of Brittany (14771514).
Since the publication of Lowinskys study, scholarly opinion has shifted
overwhelmingly (and undoubtedly correctly) to the view that the manuscript
was produced in Rome, and was given to Lorenzo by Leo X after Lorenzos
return to Florence, to mark the occasion of his marriage.9
8
9
Ibid., 3:327.
See, in particular, Perkins, 1969b; Sherr, 1985.
88
FIGURE 2. Medici Codex. Willaert, Virgo gloriosa Christi, Margareta, first

opening. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ms. Acq. e Doni 666, fols.
2v3r. Photo: GAP s.r.l., Rome.
The predominance of French music, taken by Lowinsky as the primary

evidence of French origin, is now to be explained by Leo Xs French musical
tastes, whose strength and parameters have been amply described within
musicology.10 Most recently, Richard Sherr has suggested that the Codex
10
On Leo Xs enthusiastic patronage of music and his musical tastes, including
discussion of their French leaning, see Pirro; Frey; Lowinsky, 1968, 3:2841, 50, 6065,
7274, 7980, 14142, 15455, 17071, 178, 207; Bragard; Lockwood, 1979; Sherr,
1987; Blackburn, 1992; Cummings, 1992, esp. 1184. Composers in the Medici Codex
associated with the French royal chapels include Jean Mouton (Lockwood, 1979), Adrian
Willaert (Lockwood, 1979), Josquin des Prez (Fallows), Pierre Moulu (Brobeck), Antonius
Divitis (Picker, 1977), Pierrequin de Therache (Freedman), Jean Richafort (Brobeck, esp.
44059), Antoine Bruhier (Lockwood, 1979), Boyleau (Lowinsky, 1968, 3:125), Jean
Lheritier (Perkins, 1969b) and Antoine Brumel (Hudson). Striking in this connection is the
absence from the Medici Codex of Leo Xs highly favored maestro di cappella, Carpentras,
as well as other members of his chapels. Also missing are the musicians of Florence, such
as Bernardo Pisano and, more significantly, Heinrich Isaac, a composer who enjoyed
considerable Medici patronage; perhaps the explanation in the latter case is simply that
Isaac was thought of in Italy as German, not French, and therefore did not further the
manuscripts (or rather its patrons) diplomatic aims.
89
reflects Leo Xs taste so exactly that it cannot initially have been designed as
a gift for his nephew. He finds support in Joshua Rifkins account of the
manuscripts creation, which appears to rule out a political purpose.11 In what
follows I will argue against these views. In light of the historical circumstances
outlined above, it seems inescapable that Leo Xs Francophilia, while
presumably genuine, was also a political strategy. I will later conclude that
it is in the extent to which it closely reflects Leo Xs taste that the Codex reveals
most clearly its role as a gift for his nephew.
Nonetheless, Sherrs brief analysis of the Codex offers key starting points
for the present study. Sherr has observed that an equivalence might be sought
between the Codex and Raphaels portrait of Leo X, and I shall devote
considerable time to extending and fleshing out that hypothesis. He further
notes that the Codex appears to prompt, rather than to reflect, Lorenzos
courtly identity, a strategy that I will both quantify and contextualize.12
Finally, Sherr also argues that Madeleine was the primary owner of the
Codex, and while I find this conclusion improbable, he is certainly right to
draw attention to Madeleines important role alongside Lorenzo as the
manuscripts audience: following this lead will help us to understand the
motivations for the manuscripts gift from Leo Xs point of view.13
3. T H E C O D E X
AMONG THE
WEDDING GIFTS
The phenomenon of the gift and the gift economy is the subject of a large
and growing scholarly discourse, in which the locus classicus is the work of
Marcel Mauss.14 According to the standard formulation, the gift participates
11
Sherr, 1985, 63133. Rifkins views on The Creation of the Medici Codex were put
forward in a paper bearing that title at the 1983 meeting of the American Musicological
Society, a copy of which he has been kind enough to send me. His reconstruction would
appear to rule out a pervasively political interpretation of the manuscript, but it is not the
only reconstruction possible.
12
Sherr, 1985, 63133.
13
Ibid., 63132, argues that the impaled Medicide la Tour dAuvergne arms were
specifically those of Madeleine, rather than constituting an arrangement commemorating
the union more loosely. The presence of a ducal coronet above and laurel branches
(laurelLorenzo) below the escutcheon suggest that, on the contrary, both Madeleine and
Lorenzo are invoked. Sherr further suggests that these arms were not added at the same time
as the other decoration, and that they indicate only that Madeleine owned the manuscript at
some point between the wedding and her death in 1519. This conclusion is not supported by
any discontinuity of style or layout between the impaled arms and the other decorations
quite the opposite, in fact.
14
See Mauss. For a convenient overview of the discourse, see Firth, 36871, 385; Davis,
316.
90
in a mode of exchange in which no reciprocation is specified, although all

parties involved understand that it is expected.15 A successful transaction
rests on a system linking obligation with status: to give increases ones status,
whereas to be in debt diminishes it.16
Genevieve Warwick offers a model that tailors Mausss ideas to the giftexchange of art objects among early modern aristocrats. The veil of gifting,
she argues, served to ennoble transactions that would otherwise be baldly
commercial, and thus preserved the decorum of status. To exchange by gift,
as opposed to by purchase, was therefore in itself a marker of status. While
no price was specified or demanded, it was tacitly understood that gifts
operated within a system of exchange, rather than one of disinterested
philanthropy. Benefits received in return might be both tangible money,
another gift and intangible prestige, power, honor, status.17
The moneyed classes of the High Renaissance in Italy participated
wholeheartedly in the mechanisms, semiologies, and ideologies of gift
exchange. They gave one another and their favored retainers medals,
antiquities, clothing, musical instruments, verse, even people; they gave
their communities decorated churches, chapels, hospitals, and orphanages;
they received as gifts paintings, drawings, books, and compositions. As
intangible gifts, they received service, loyalty, honor, and favor.18 It was
immensely important, both to their noble status and to the social aspirations
of their suppliers, that the offering be configured as a gift; but the offering
was never disinterested. The gift of a musical instrument or composition
might be reciprocated with a gift of funds, or of board and lodging; the gift
of service by the gift of a commercial privilege or ecclesiastical benefice; the
gift of a medal by the gift of a verse.
A wedding was an obvious arena for the operations of a gift culture: in
Christiane Klapisch-Zubers words, the wedding in Renaissance Italy was
15
Mauss, 13.
Ibid., 11.
17
Warwick, 63032.
18
It would be superfluous, not to say ill advised, to attempt a bibliography of such
exchanges in the High Renaissance. A glance through the literature on any obvious
subject for instance, Isabella dEste (see recently S. Campbell) with an eye to the gift
would instantly confirm my assertions. The subject of musical gifts in particular has been
recently broadly considered in Wegman. Examples of music manuscripts configured as gifts
include the Casanatense chansonnier, perhaps associated with Isabella dEstes betrothal or
wedding (see Lockwood, 1984, 22426) and the Newberry partbooks, perhaps a gift of the
late 1520s from the Florentines to Henry VIII (see Slim, 1:1640, 10516). Other examples
are given in Wegman, 429, 43233; Blackburn, 1996.
16
91
a structure of exchanges founded on gift and countergift.19 Most

characteristically, such exchanges focused on the dowry and trousseau, on
gifts made by friends and relatives to the affianced, and on gifts made by the
groom to his bride, particularly gifts of clothing and jewelry. While these
were certainly involved in the 1518 match, we find also copiously attested
a further, less-paradigmatic exchange: Leo X and Lorenzo arranged for a large
cargo of gifts to be sent to Francis I and other members of the French royal
family.20 In the context of a marriage intended to cement foreign relations,
such gifts are easily (and justifiably) passed off as diplomatic, but it is worth
asking where they fit within the social mechanics of exchange, and why in
particular they were required. Leo X, one imagines, expected nothing tangible
in return, but it is unlikely that they were mere gestures of goodwill. In view of
the considerable social gap between the Medici and the French monarchy, it
may well be that these collateral wedding gifts were intended to fulfill an
obligation placed upon the pope by Francis Is gift of Madeleine herself.21
The gifts sent to France in connection with Lorenzos wedding establish
an enlightening context for the Codex, and they are worth describing in
some detail. Throughout 1518, the painter Raphael was kept busy in Rome
on a catalogue of commissions from Leo X and Lorenzo destined for the
court of France.22 In the correspondence between Duke Alfonso I of Ferrara
(14761534), another client of Raphael, and his agents in Rome, the duke is
fed a string of excuses for the lack of progress on his own commissions that
allows us to see, in part, the sequence of Raphaels work for France.23 Further
evidence is supplied by the correspondence between Duke Lorenzos
19
Klapisch-Zuber, 224. On marriage gifts in Renaissance Italy, see ibid., 21346; see
also Bestor; and (on sixteenth-century France) Davis, 4448.
20
On some of the gifts associated with the events of 1518, but intentionally overlooked
in the present study, see Stephens, 10506.
21
On the use of marriage to effect Medici social elevation, see ibid., 9598, 10507.
22
A summary of these commissions and their political context is in Shearman, 1987a,
20911. Further interesting comments on Lorenzos preparations for his marriage can be
found in Sherman, 2003, 1:31617.
23
The correspondence between Alfonso and his Roman agents in touch with Raphael in
this period is published in Shearman, 2003, 1:177 (document 1514/13), 19091 (1514/10),
19596 (1514/1213), 28388 (1517/56, 910), 29697 (1517/1718), 304 (1517/23),
306 (1517/26), 30912 (1517/29, 3133), 31518 (1518/13), 32627 (1518/1415), 330
(1518/19), 33233 (1518/24), 34344 (1518/40), 36162 (1518/58), 37180 (1518/6674,
76), 38688 (1519/2, 4), 39297 (1519/912), 43843 (1519/1617, 19, 2122), 44649
(1519/2627, 29), 45253 (1519/3233), 46061 (1519/4243), 463 (1519/45), 47273
(1519/4950), 47679 (1519/5254), 48184 (1519/5659), 55355 (1520/12), 56062
(1520/79), 578 (1520/18), 58687 (1520/25), 58996 (1520/29, 3132, 3436, 3840),
599 (1520/43), 608 (1520/50), 61314 (1520/5556), 67172 (1521/5).
92
secretary Goro Gheri and his contacts at the papal court in Rome, through
which we get some idea of the planning involved, masterminded by the pope
himself.24 On 27 January 1518, Alfonsos agent in Rome informed him that
Duke Lorenzo was in the city to order the drapes and presents to make to
Madame the bride, and to organize transport to France for various material
gifts.25 According to the report of Cardinal Giulio, Duke Lorenzo was in
Rome again from 27 February to 5 March to solicit and resolve many
things with [Leo X], pertaining to his journey [to France].26
In fulfillment of matrimonial tradition, Raphaels first task was to paint
a portrait of Lorenzo de Medici to be sent to Madeleine; the portrait was
in progress in late January (when Alfonsos agent reported in code on
preparations for the marriage), and sent on 13 February, having first been
inspected by both Cardinal Giulio and Leo X.27 A portrait in a private
collection is identified by some scholars with this painting, and it is significant
that in it Lorenzo is dressed in contemporary French style. The format of this
portrait has itself been traced to French precedents; presumably such tactics
were adopted (admittedly, by the already-Francophile Medici) to make sure
Lorenzos image made the best impression possible at the French court.28
By 1 March, when he again made excuses to Alfonso, Raphael had
several new portraits and other projects in progress for the pope and this
24
Shearman, 1987a, 22729 (documents 1723); Shearman, 2003, 1:31923
(documents 1518/5, 810), 3378 (1518/31), 345 (1518/42), 3623 (1518/59) (here are
also to be found further letters not included in Shearmans earlier study).
25
Shearman, 1987a, 227 (document 16); Shearman, 2003, 1:318 (1518/3): Beltrando
Costabili in Rome writes to Alfonso dEste that Duke Lorenzo is in Rome principalmente
per ordinare le cose sue, et la famiglia per landata de Francia, et per ordinare li drapi et
presenti da fare a Madama la sposa: Perche, per essere mandato il man.to, lo anello, et cio che
fa bisogno, et ancho el ritrato, se tene pur el matrimonio habij a seguire, et per qual offerta
se voglia incontrario, non se habij ad impedire. Costabilis information was out of date, as
Lorenzo had left Rome for Florence on 20 January: Shearman, 1987a, n7.
26
Shearman, 1987a, 210, 220n9 (Cardinal Giulio de Medici to Amboise, 28 February
1518): Lorenzo e` venuto per sollicitare et resolvere molte cose con N.S., che occorrono per
la partita sua.
27
Ibid., 210. The relevant letter to Alfonso, from Costabili and dated 22 January 1518,
is published in Shearman, 2003, 1:31617 (document 1518/2). Letters between Medici
agents reporting the inspection of the picture and its actual departure are published in
Shearman, 1987a, 22728 (documents 1720); with extra documentation in Shearman,
2003, 1:31923 (documents 1518/510).
28
On the portrait, its attribution to Raphael, and its French style, see Oberhuber,
1971b, esp. 44043. Ibid. provides a color reproduction of the portrait, as well as several
details. On the inescapably political subtext to the espousal of national fashions in the High
Renaissance, see Newton, 43, 13244. For another sixteenth-century example of the
diplomatic use of national dress in a portrait, see L. Campbell, 205.
93
Duke [Lorenzo], linked by John Shearman with the conference of Leo X,

Lorenzo, and Cardinal Giulio begun on 27 February in Rome. Chief among
these new distractions was a Saint Michael, life-sized, to be given to the
Most Christian King [i.e., of France], a painting still known today (fig. 3);
but Shearman also connects the Holy Family (fig. 4) and the Saint Margaret
(fig. 5) with this phase of activity.29 Francis I was the head of the Order of
Saint Michael, instituted in 1469 by Louis XI the orders badge shows the
saint in a pose closely resembling that adopted by Raphael. The Holy Family
may have been intended specifically for Queen Claude, and the Saint
Margaret for Margaret of Valois, Francis Is sister.30
Lorenzo left for France on 22 March. Presumably by that time the other
gifts for whose transport arrangements had been made in January were
already on their way, and later played a ceremonial role in the marriage
celebrations. Raphaels consignment of pictures lagged behind, and
understandably: we learn from Goro Gheris correspondence that on 7
May Raphael was ready to send these pictures and that they will make ten
or more crates.31 Presumably among the gifts were the Saint Michael, Holy
Family, and Saint Margaret, but these would not have filled ten crates,
and several more paintings or other objects of which nothing is now
known must have been sent. In May the plan was to send them by sea to
meet Lorenzo in France, but, in the interests of safety and after a delay, they
were eventually dispatched by land on 2 June in seven or nine crates.32
Lorenzo and Madeleine remained in France for about three months after
their wedding, which took place on 2 May, and presumably the hope was for
Lorenzo to present the gifts to Francis I in person, as part of the ongoing
festivities. The couple were in Lyons on 28 July, and must have left France
shortly afterwards, as they arrived at Florence on 25 August; but the
29
Shearman, 1987a, 210; Shearman, 2003, 1:32627 (document 1518/14) (from
Costabili to Alfonso, dated 1 March 1518): S. Michaele grande come el naturalle per
donare al Chr.mo Re. Vasari, 4:365, confirms that this picture, among others, was made to
be sent to France: He made to be sent to France many pictures; and particularly for the
king, Saint Michael, who combats the devil; held to be a marvellous thing.
30
On these three paintings, see Oberhuber, 1999, 20304, 206, 21860 (esp. 21821);
Goffen, 274. Shearman, 2003, 1:34344 (1518/40), appears to confirm that the Holy Family
was meant for the queen.
31
Shearman, 1987a, 210, 228 (document 21); Shearman, 2003, 1:33738 (document
1518/31) (from Baldassare Turini to Goro Gheri, 7 May 1518): Raphaello da Urbino mi
dice hara presto expedito quelle picture et che saranno x. some o meglio.
32
Shearman, 1987a, 210, 228 (document 22); Shearman, 2003, 1:345 (document
1518/42 (Turini to Gheri, 1 June 1518): Li quadri che ha facti Raphaello da Urbino si sono
assettati bene et per mano di Raphaello di Vitale si rimeranno domane che saranno some da
vij in viiij.
94
FIGURE 3. Raphael Sanzio. Saint Michael, 1518. Paris, Louvre. Photo: Giraudon /
The Bridgeman Art Library.
paintings did not reach the French court until around 10 August, and so
were instead presented to the king by the papal legate Bernardo Bibbiena.33
The distribution thus effected of Roman gifts among the French
dynasty was overly profuse, indeed, suspiciously so. In other instances of
nuptial over-giving, usually documented on the part of the groom, the
motivation appears to be a kind of social paranoia brought on by a sense that
the brides family is doing him a favor, in terms of social status.34 Apparently
Leo X harbored a similar paranoia with respect to Madeleine and Francis I,
33
Bibbiena reported the event on 10 August: see Shearman, 1987a, 210, 228 (document
23); Shearman, 2003, 1:36263 (document 1518/59). Another painting was given to
Francis I by Bibbiena as his own personal gift: Shearman, 1987a, 210.
34
See Bestor, 67; Klapisch-Zuber, 24146. Competition is also an established function
of gift exchange, with the winner the most generous enjoying an enhancement of
status: see Davis, 4; Mauss, 18, 25, 28.
95
FIGURE 4. Raphael Sanzio. Holy Family, 1518. Paris, Louvre. Photo: The
Bridgeman Art Library.
96
FIGURE 5. Raphael Sanzio and Giulio Romano. Saint Margaret, 1518. Paris,
Louvre. Photo: RMN / Droits reserves.
97
and found it necessary to exercise his ennobling liberalitas as much as

a means of closing the social gap as to pay off his debt.35
The Medici Codex shares several aspects with these gifts. The paintings
Saint Michael, Holy Family, and Saint Margaret treat potentially liturgical
subjects, but as it seems (at least in the case of the Saint Michael ) that they
were destined from the start to be gifts for secular rulers, there is no reason to
suppose that Raphael and the pope had a specific liturgical setting in mind.
When the painting is mentioned in the Rome-Ferrara correspondence and by
Vasari, it is as a Saint Michael for Francis I, not as an altarpiece, and no altar
is connected with it. Presumably their value as gifts was still religious, but they
carried their religion as secular objects of beauty, evidencing and servicing
a religious sensibility that had more to do with the symbolic, totemic, and
intercessory power of saints than with liturgical observance.
In this respect, I suggest, they make a direct parallel, both in terms of
symbolic potential and of eventual function, with the motets of the Medici
Codex, many of which set texts that are compounds or developments of
standard liturgical and biblical texts. The Codex was prepared as a gift for
a secular prince from a pope who was certainly familiar with the use of
motets as secular objects of beauty and as vehicles for rhetoric. Though there
is plenty of evidence for the discretionary use of motets as an adjunct to
the liturgy in the Renaissance some of the motets in the Codex would
have lent themselves to such employment I think it is a fair guess
that Lorenzos daily mass, when heard at court, would have taken place
on a scale too small to require or admit them.36 His chapel at court in
Florence, where he lived even as Duke of Urbino, may well have been
too small to comfortably accommodate a choir, and an elaborate service
would probably have been neither necessary nor desirable on a daily basis.37
The repertoire of the Medici Codex could have found a use at the
Florentine religious institutions that fell under Medici control, but this
35
Firth, 38485: In the stimulus to provide a counter-gift, two main themes may be
involved . . . the theme of recoupment, of compensating the original donor for his loss . . . the
theme of re-assertion, of establishing the original recipient once more on a level of equality.
Both have material expression, but the latter can more easily assume a symbolic significance,
and as such neglect equivalence in favour of over-compensation.
36
A consideration of the evidence for the liturgical, secular, and paraliturgical use of
motets in sixteenth-century Rome can be found in Cummings, 1981.
37
By way of comparison, Ercole I dEstes habit of hearing a lengthy sung Mass every
day was considered unusual, and tried the patience of his courtiers, disrupting the normal
schedule of meals: see Lockwood, 1984, 13536.
98
would not explain the manuscripts significance as a personal gift.38 It

seems likely, therefore, that, irrespective of their original purpose, when
offered to Lorenzo as a gift the motets of the Medici Codex were largely
intended to serve purposes that were in part devotional and in part for
entertainment.39 While it may be that even a wealthy commoner would
have lacked the necessary musical resources and instruction to use complex
polyphony in this way, Lorenzo was both a Medici and a duke, and it was
therefore in some sense his duty to do so.40
Besides motets that are manifestly political in their significance, several
of the texts present in the Codex can be understood in terms of colloquial
religious devotion as or more readily than in terms of specific liturgical
contexts. What we might call portrait-motets such as Jean de La Fages
(fl. 151830) Elisabeth Zachariae (no. 13), describing the role of Saint
John the Baptist, and Adrian Willaerts (ca. 14901562) Beatus Joannes
(no. 24), giving a summary biography of Saint John the Evangelist are
obvious examples.41 The cult of Mary was strong enough in the Renaissance
to support enormous private interest, as evidenced by her powerful presence
in Books of Hours, and for this the Medici Codex, in common with other
music sources, supplies considerable ammunition, involving texts some of
which can only be called paraliturgical.42 Several motets in the Codex set
Bible passages that self-evidently had a life outside of the liturgy, and that in
some cases participated in the popular religious practices of the age. For
38
On Medici influence at the Duomo and Baptistry of Florence, as well as specific

evidence on the use of polyphonic music at those institutions, see DAccone. On the
possibility that the motets preserved in the Medici Codex found their way into the repertoire
of the large Florentine institutions, see Cummings, 1983, 275, 28182, and the inventory of
the manuscript Florence BN II. I. 232 at 30627.
39
Wexler gives a generally contrary view of the motets, linking them to contemporary
Roman liturgical practice.
40
Nonetheless, it is difficult to envisage specific situations in which this might have
taken place. On Lorenzos music patronage, for which specific information survives only for
the years 151517, see Sherr, 1985, 630. On the duty of a Medici to patronize music
magnificently, see the exchange of letters between Cardinal Giulio and Lorenzo published in
Sherr, 1985, 628, 634n8, 634n11, 635n12.
41
See the Appendix below for a numbered list of motets in the Medici Codex. In this
article, I refer to motets by name, followed by a number in parentheses that corresponds to
the numbering in the Appendix. This numbering follows the order in which the motets
appear in the manuscript, which is not the same as the order in which they appear in the
manuscripts tavola.
42
A study of the Marian cult in relation to music focused on the Te Matrem, a setting
of which can be found in the Medici Codex can be found in Blackburn, 1967. The
subject is further developed in Blackburn, 1997 and 1999.
99
instance, included is a setting of the preface of the Gospel of John by Boyleau

(no. 2), the text of which also served in the Renaissance as a talisman, hung
by some around the neck to ward off misfortune.43
This equivalence offers us a starting point in describing the Codex
according to the anthropological mechanics of the gift. Warwick notes that for
seventeenth-century art collectors the ennobling power of an art gift was
improved if the object was severed from its conventional functionality: its loss
of economic and practical value was balanced by a consequent gain in
semiotic power.44 For all their colloquial spiritual resonances, it is difficult to
see the altarpieces sent by Leo X to secular patrons in France in any other than
these terms. The gift-value of the paraliturgical (sometimes even aliturgical)
motets of the Codex lay partly in a similar re-allegorization: their religious
significances were turned to, and intertwined with, secular symbolic ends.
4. T H E C O D E X
AS A PORTRAIT? RAPHAELS
AND THE GIVING OF THE GIFT
LEO X
The Codex offered by Leo X to Lorenzo is easily configured in terms of

status and exchange, quite apart from its obvious commemorative value. It
conferred dignity and status upon its donor by the bare fact of its donation;
it conferred dignity and status upon its recipient because of its richness and
because of the status of the giver. However, its mechanisms in this respect are
considerably more subtle than this bald summary would suggest, and bear
more detailed investigation.
One further painting-gift ordered by Leo X from Raphael is closely
associated with the marriage, but, unlike the others, it never left Italy. The
painting in question is the portrait of Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de Medici
and Luigi de Rossi (fig. 6), in which the pope appears with two cardinalrelatives, both close collaborators in his rule.45 Giulio de Medici was Leo Xs
cousin and Archbishop of Florence and Narbonne; Luigi de Rossi (1471/
741519) was his nephew, and a familiar close enough to reside in the papal
apartment.46 Setting this portrait closely alongside the Codex will help us
in two respects: in understanding the relationship between the gift and its
43
Minnich, 1025.
Warwick, 633.
45
A concise bibliography of this much-discussed painting includes Oberhuber, 1971a;
Beck; Jones and Penny; Sherr, 1983; Cox-Rearick; Davidson; Jungic; Shearman, 1992; Del
Serra et al.; di Teodoro; Nesselrath; Reiss; Minnich; Woods-Marsden. For a fuller list, see
Minnich, 100510, who gives a very good summary of previous literature and arguments.
46
Minnich, 101518, who gives further bibliography.
44
100
FIGURE 6. Raphael Sanzio. Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de Medici and Luigi de
Rossi, 151718. Florence, Uffizi. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library.
donor, Leo X; and in contextualizing the moment of donation, itself an

important performance.
Surprisingly good evidence survives that details the role of Raphaels
portrait in the circumstances surrounding the wedding. At the beginning
of September 1518 we find an agent in Rome organizing for the transport
101
of a portrait of Leo X presumably that by Raphael to Florence; he

was working on behalf of Goro Gheri, who in turn was acting for
Lorenzo.47 A letter of 1 September reports that the painting will be sent
the following morning, but that it was not possible to send it by horse and
would take at least four days.48 Another letter, dated 2 September, was sent
with the couriers of the painting, detailing the payments that the recipient
should make to the bearers: it is noted that the price is a high one, but the
agent explains that he wanted to ensure the painting arrived on time.49
The attendant circumstances suggest a likely occasion.
As soon as news arrived on 18 August that Lorenzo and Madeleine had
reached Lombardy on their journey home, the dukes mother Alfonsina
Orsini de Medici began making plans with the city government for
festivities to mark their entry into Florence.50 News reached Rome, and
several members of the papal court, including Cardinal Luigi de Rossi
but not Leo X left to attend the celebrations.51 On 25 August the
newlyweds arrived at the Medici country villa of Cafaggiolo, to the north of
Florence, where Madeleine stayed receiving visitors while Lorenzo proceeded
to the city, presumably to supervise the preparation of the festivities. On 4
September the plans were nearing completion, and Madeleine moved to the
Medici villa of Poggio a Caiano, which was decorated like a paradise.52 On
47
These letters are published in Sherr, 1983; Shearman, 2003, 1:36466 (documents
1518/6162).
48
Sherr, 1983, 3132; Shearman, 2003, 1:36465 (document 1518/61) (Benedetto
Buondelmonti in Rome to Goro Gheri in Florence, 1 September 1518): Concerning the
painting, tomorrow morning it will be on the road and will arrive as quickly as possible,
although it will take no less than four days, but there was no other way [to transport it], as
Your Lordship will see when you see it in the flesh, as to send it by horse in the manner Your
Lordship specified was not possible.
49
Sherr, 1983, 31; Shearman, 2003, 1:366 (document 1518/62) (Buondelmonti to
Gheri, 2 September 1518): The carrier of the present [letter] will be Luigi, boy of Raffaello
di Vitale, by whom I send the painting wherein is portrayed Our Lordship. To this Luigi you
should ensure that twelve large gold ducats are given. . . . I have perhaps been too generous,
but . . . it didnt seem to me helpful to quibble over four ducats since it will be on time and
that is what is desired.
50
A detailed account of this festive episode in the life of Florence, on which my brief
synopsis is based, is given in Cummings, 1992, 99114.
51
Ibid., 10102.
52
Ibid., 102, n6, translating part of a report of these events written by the chronicler
Cerretani in MS Florence, BNC, II.IV. 19, fol. 50v: adornamente come dun paradiso. The
villa at Poggio a Caiano was the subject of a rebuilding campaign led by Alfonsina, begun in
1515/16. The project stalled in 1517, but was revived in 1518 with funds from the pope while
Lorenzo was in France, presumably with a view to preparing it for Madeleines arrival; it had
been suggested that Lorenzo give the villa to Madeleine as a present. See Reiss, 13537.
102
7 September she made her grand entrance into the city of Florence,
instigating five days of celebrations of which several records survive.53
One account of the events of 8 September, a letter written by Alfonsina
to Lorenzos chancellor Giovanni da Poppi, offers a rather striking detail:
And at sunset, they went inside [the Palazzo Medici] to rest a bit and at one
half-hour past sunset began the performance of a comedy. . . . The comedy
having been finished and they having rested a bit inside, all the young
women from this morning went to dinner and the duchess with them and
after dinner we didnt wish to dance. I have to tell you that the duke had the
portrait of his Holiness and the Most Reverend Monsignori de Medici and
Rossi placed above the middle of the table where the duchess and other
gentlemen and ladies were eating, and it truly brightened everything up.54
Given that, as we have seen, urgent arrangements were made for the
portraits transport seven days earlier by Lorenzos secretary (at a time when
Lorenzo himself was in Florence supervising preparations) and that Lorenzo
is himself credited with ordering the display of the portrait, it seems likely
that this was his intention from the outset.
A few months earlier, Lorenzo, Cardinal Giulio, and Leo X had put
considerable thought into the planning of the journey to France and their
contribution to celebrations there. It seems reasonable to assume that, over
the period 25 August to 4 September, Lorenzo, Alfonsina, and their
collaborators put similar thought into planning the entry into Florence as
a symbolic act.55 In the earlier phase, as one would expect, the mastermind
was apparently the pope, and it seems highly likely that he also had some
input into the design of the Tuscan festivities. The letters concerning the
transport of his portrait carry the implication that it was completed in
a hurry, and its genesis may date, like the preparations of Alfonsina and the
city government in Florence, from the news that Lorenzo and Madeleine
53
These records are synthesized in Cummings, 1992, 99114.

Ibid., 103; ibid., n10: Et alle XXIIII se ne entrorono nelle camere a riposarsi un poco, et
a una meza hora di nocte se comincio` la comedia . . . Finita la comedia et riposatesi alquanto in
camera andorono a tavola tucte le fanciulle di questa mactina, et la Duchessa con loro et dopo cena
non habbiamo voluto che si balli. . . . Hovvi a dire che la Picture di N. S. et Monsignor
reverendissimo de Medici, et Rossi, el Duca la fece mectere sopra la tavola, dove mangiava la
Duchessa et li altri signori, in mezo, che veramente rallegrava ogni cosa. For another sixteenth-century example of a portrait exhibited at a festival, see L. Campbell, 183. For several further
Renaissance examples of portraits standing in for their sitters, including at dinner, see ibid., 22025.
55
Reiss, 137, very plausibly suggests that Alfonsina was involved in the commissioning
of the portrait.
54
103
were in Lombardy. Perhaps the use to which it was eventually put was in the
popes mind from the outset, and in displaying it at dinner Lorenzo was
merely following his instructions. As Richard Sherr has suggested, knowing
that he would not be present in person, Leo X may have wished instead to
populate the event with his symbolic presence.56 Certainly the arrangement
would have served to prompt and perhaps even oppress the revellers with
the knowledge that Leo X was the architect of their happiness and success.
Though the letters concerning the portraits transport appear to imply
that it had been only just finished, it is not generally accepted that the
painting was begun specifically for the feast.57 However, it has been suggested
that the portraits of the two cardinals, which lack underdrawing, were added
to the portrait as an afterthought.58 In light of the implication of the letters
that the painting was only just finished on 1 September 1518, Nelson
Minnich proposes a two-stage solution: a portrait of Leo X made some
months earlier, directly equivalent to Raphaels earlier Julius II and
Sebastiano del Piombos later Clement VII, was altered in the last weeks of
August to include the two cardinals, and then immediately sent to Florence.59
In other words, the addition of the cardinals was designed specifically to
prepare the painting for its function at the feast.
While it is known that Leo X and Cardinal Giulio were absent from the
Florentine festivities, Cardinal Luigi de Rossi was present. Luigi left Rome
for Florence only on 4 September, but the impending arrival of Lorenzo and
Madeleine was known in Florence by 18 August, and the post between
Florence and Rome was very quick; Luigis role in the festivities was very
likely planned in advance. News could easily have reached the papal court
56
Sherr, 1983, 32. See the famous assertion by Alberti, 61, that through portraiture the
absent [are made] present; and, anticipating the argument that is to follow, Angelo
Decembrio describing a portrait of a beautiful maiden in Baxandall, 32526: nothing, it
seems, is lacking in it but her voice.
57
For example, Woods-Marsden, 132, argues that it was painted in winter 151718
because Leo Xs clothing is appropriate to winter. This point is also made in Minnich, 1014,
with further bibliography.
58
Opinion on the representation of the cardinals, resulting from a recent technical
examination of the painting, is summarized by Minnich, 1014, 1014n30, with further
references. Ibid., 101112, also mentions the possibility that the monumental architectural
backdrop that frames the two cardinals was added only when they were. The interpretation
of the technical examination is contentious: Woods-Marsden, 132, rejects the idea that the
portrait was planned without the cardinals on the grounds that there is too much space in the
picture without them.
59
Minnich, 102930.
104
in time to make the changes to the painting before sending it north.60 During
Madeleines entrata on 7 September, she was flanked in procession by
Cardinal Luigi and Cardinal Innocenzo Cibo, Leo Xs nephew, an
arrangement that seems loosely to mirror that of the portrait.61 Alfonsinas
letter carries the implication that at the feast Leo X was displayed directly
above Madeleine; thus, if the arrangement for the procession was preserved at
the feast, Cardinal Luigis real and symbolic presences would have been
brought into alignment. This concordance was perhaps intended to invoke
a continuum between the Medici group portrait of Madeleine, Lorenzo,
Luigi, and Innocenzo, visible in the procession and at the feast, and that
of Leo X, Giulio, and Luigi, visible in the painting, thereby effecting a
theatrical blurring of presence and absence to afford the present, flesh-andblood Medici symbolic power and the absent, painted Medici totemic reality.62
Raphaels portrait shares much with the Medici Codex both in character
and in detail, in particular with respect to the symbolic relationship it
unfolds with its subject, Leo X, and his dynasty. It has been observed by
Lowinsky and subsequent writers on the Codex that the choice of motets
therein closely matches Leo Xs own, relatively well-documented, musical
taste.63 The Codex has several motets in common with manuscripts prepared
at the Cappella Sistina and the Cappella Giulia during Leo Xs reign, and
also with the first two motet books printed by Andrea Antico, who certainly
worked under some form of papal patronage.64 Five of the composers
60
The images of the two cardinals are far simpler in design than those of Leo X and his
attributes. By way of comparison, we hear on 22 January that Lorenzo has ordered his
sumptuous portrait from Raphael Shearman, 2003, 1:31617 (document 1518/2) the
news was probably just a few days old; we are informed that it was certainly finished by
3 February: ibid., 1:31920 (document 1518/5). Ibid., 1:317, suggests that Gianfrancesco
Penni executed Lorenzos portrait to Raphaels design; the efficient workshop practices
established by Raphael to help him keep on top of his many commissions are frequently
noted: see, in brief, Hall, 4, 89; Talvacchia, 2005.
61
On Luigis departure from Rome and role in the procession, see Cummings, 1992,
10102, and n5.
62
This interpretation was suggested to me by Anthony Cummings, to whom thanks are
due for permission to use and develop it.
63
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:33; Perkins, 1969b, 263; Sparks, 1972, 327; Lockwood, 1979,
24344; Staehelin, 57879; Sherr, 1985, 633.
64
The manuscripts Cappella Sistina 26, Cappella Sistina 46, and Cappella Giulia XII/2
have in total seven concordances with the Medici Codex. On them, see Dean, 1984. Anticos
Motetti libro primo (Rome, 15 May 1518) and Motetti novi libro secondo (Venice, 30
November 1520) share between them thirteen concordances with the Medici Codex. On
these publications, see Picker, 1977 and 1987. It should also be noted that the hands of the
scribes that copied the Codex have been identified in manuscripts copied for the Cappella
Sistina: see Rifkin, 1973, 30609; Dean, 1984, 11051.
105
represented worked at some point directly for Leo X, and several others
probably came into contact with him.65 For these reasons, it might be useful
to configure the Codex as another portrait of Leo X.
Further similarities inhabit the marginal details. The real and painted
Medici group portraits brought into surprising coordination at that feast of
8 September find an interesting counterpart in the group of hierarchized
heraldic escutcheons shown at the foot of the first opening of music in the
Codex, representing Leo X, Cardinal Giulio, Duke Lorenzo, and MadeleineLorenzo. This communal, or perhaps rather dynastic, aspect of the painted
portrait is even partly reflected in the contents of the Codex, which shares
several motets with a set of manuscript partbooks prepared for Cardinal Giulio
around the same time.66 Medici devices are also shared between the decoration
of the opening motet and the bell on the table before the pope in his painted
portrait; the Bible from which Leo X has been reading has his coat of arms in
a decorative panel at the lower border, like the first motet in the Codex.
The most potent connection, however, is veiled by the Codexs final
arrangement. The first motet in the manuscript appears in its own singlesheet gathering, the musical staves of which have been specially ruled to
allow space for extra-large initials at the beginning of the work. These
initials were supplied by an artist, probably Attavante degli Attavanti, who
was not otherwise involved in the manuscripts production.67 However, the
second motet of the collection, which appears at the beginning of a foursheet gathering, also has space left at the beginning for extra-large initials,
which has been filled by one of the main scribes of the manuscript with
mismatched and ungainly ink letters (fig. 7). Sherr has suggested very
plausibly that this second motet was once meant to begin the Codex.68 It has
65
The composers who worked for Leo X are Andreas de Silva (Lowinsky, 1968, 3:39,
53, 61, 6566, 76, 7980, 10406, 11415, 123, 14142, 167, 17071, 17576, 20513,
21719, 232; Sherr, 1987), Bruhier (Lockwood, 1979), Jacotin (Nugent), Costanzo Festa
(Lowinsky, 1968, 3:28, 39, 4143, 46, 5254, 59, 6163, 66, 78, 80, 11415, 118, 120,
123, 13541, 167, 22829, 23132; Crawford; Lowinsky, 1977), La Fage (Lockwood,
1979, esp. 22224), and possibly Lheritier (Perkins, 1969a). Composers who might have
come into contact with Leo X are Willaert and Mouton, for whom see Lockwood, 1979; and
Johannes Brunet, for whom see Dean, 1993.
66
On the music manuscript for Cardinal Giulio, Rome, Pal. Lat. 198081, see
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:6165; Cummings, 1991, 7579. On the basis of the lists of concordant
sources in Lowinsky, 1968, 3:123236, five motets are held in common between the Medici
Codex and Pal. Lat. 198081; by way of comparison, eight motets are held in common
between the Codex and contemporary Sistine sources, CS 16, 26, 42, 46: on these, see Dean,
1984.
67
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:1516.
68
Sherr, 1985, 63233.
106
FIGURE 7. Medici Codex. Boyleau, In principio erat Verbum, first opening.

Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ms. Acq. e Doni 666, fols. 4v5r.
Photo: GAP s.r.l., Rome.
a characteristic that would have made it an obvious choice for that position: it
sets the first sixteen verses of the Gospel of John, beginning with In principio
erat verbum and reflecting the (suggested) position of the work at the
beginning of the collection.69 In the painted portrait, Leo X has been reading
from a Bible open at precisely this text, the prelude to Johns Gospel.
In this passage, written by one Saint John, mention is made of the birth
and prophecy of another, Saint John the Baptist. Scholars have noted the
symbolic power of an association with these two important saints for Leo X,
whose birth name was Giovanni, and for Florence, whose patron saint
was John the Baptist.70 Minnich lists evidence for a particular connection of
Leo X with John the Baptist even before he became pope, and mentions that
the prologue to Johns Gospel was a part of the liturgy for Christmas Day
as practiced at the papal court in the early sixteenth century, during which
69
A work setting this text is also used to begin the nearly contemporary manuscript
London RC2037.
70
Davidson, 1213; Sherr, 1985, 63233; Cummings, 1992, 67; Shearman, 1992,
12829; Del Serra et al., 199; di Teodoro, 64; Nesselrath, 442; Minnich, 1008, 102226;
Tacconi, 349, 351.
107
it was sung by the pope himself.71 Contemporary accounts of Leo Xs

Florentine entrata of 1515 show the earlier festive use of these connections:
on Leo Xs route, at the junction of Via Tornabuoni and Via Porta Rossa,
a temporary stucture (one of many) claimed in an inscription that Florence
lay under the protection of two Lions the marzocco and Leo X and two
Johns John the Baptist and Giovanni de Medici.72 The text was selected
for the beginning of the Medici Codex and for Raphaels portrait because
of its associations with the name and the voice of Leo X, and serves, along
with other cues, to identify both as portraits of the pope.
While unfamiliar, the idea of a manuscript of motets as a portrait does not
require us to step far outside the conventions of contemporary portraiture.
The sitter would most often be depicted with an attribute illustrative of their
profession, position, or interests: a soldier with armor, a scholar with a book,
a musician with notated music. In some cases the material existence of a ruler
could be subsumed entirely within the personality of a symbolic avatar
Ercole I dEste as Hercules, for example. In the case of the Codex we have only
to admit that, to some extent, the attribute has come to stand in for the person.
There can be little doubt that contemporary and later observers numbered
music among Leo Xs defining attributes indeed, sometimes to his cost, as
evidence of his inappropriate taste for luxury.73 For instance, in a striking
metamorphosis, a later sixteenth-century copy of Raphaels portrait took the
revealing step of replacing Leo Xs Bible with a music manuscript.74 Leo X
even had a history of encoding political and dynastic messages into a musical
context, as with the lavish decorations of the chant manuscripts of the Duomo
of Florence, examined recently by Marica Tacconi in terms of the Medici
identities constructed around the familys return from exile in 1512.75
The comparison with the portrait idiom offers some important clues as
to how to read the relationship between the Codex and its donor. One thing
portraits never aim at, or at least never achieve, is objective reproduction.
In the course of an inspired reframing of the Renaissance portrait, Patricia
Simons makes the point with particular clarity: Portraiture is a fictive,
rhetorical device. Characters display themselves in theatrical masks, or don
disguises.76 The portrait is thus revealed as a tool in the now-familiar business
71
Minnich, 102426.
Shearman, 1975, 140.
73
Dean, 1997, 62324.
74
The copy was made in 1584 by Lodovico Buti: see Beck, 12930.
75
Tacconi.
76
Simons, 268. Though her study is primarily concerned with portraits of women, her
introduction, ibid., 26377, offers a valuable up-to-date discussion of portraits more generally.
72
108
of self-fashioning, the more-or-less-strategic construction and presentation of

identities within an explicitly or implicitly public arena.77 The Frenchness of
Raphaels portrait of Lorenzo was not out of character for the Medici during Leo
Xs pontificate, but given the circumstances of its production it can hardly be
doubted that it accomplished diplomatic aims: it constructed Lorenzo in a way
that presented him most favorably to his French bride and her family. Similarly,
it is well established that Leo X had a taste for French music, but it is only as
a deliberate strategy of self-presentation that we can fully explain the presence in
the Codex of a large number of composers perhaps ten who can be
associated, either directly or indirectly, with the French royal chapels.78
How might a portrait make a gift? The answer, from the perspective of
gift theory, is very well indeed. The nature of a gift, according to the
traditional formulation, is that it is inalienable, that is, it exists in
a continuity of essence with its donor, and derives its significance from its
irrevocable and continuing connection with that donor.79 A portrait is a kind
of ultimate inalienable possession: a portrait as a gift is a thing that turns its
explicit inalienability into the object of the donation. In effect it is a gift of
the constructed self, which in our cases painted and musical adds up to
the gift of strategic and visible-audible legitimation.
With Alfonsinas account of the performative donation of the painted
portrait in mind, we can attempt a similar theory and understanding of the
musical portraits donation. The eventual opening work is a prayer to Saint
Margaret, patron saint of pregnancy. Presuming that Madeleines pregnancy
followed an average term, a calculation from the date of birth of Lorenzo and
Madeleines daughter Caterina, 14 April 1519, suggests that Madeleine
became pregnant in mid-July 1518, before the couple had left France.80 Had
that been the case, and even allowing a margin of error to account for the
77
On portraiture and self-fashioning, see ibid., 26777, which gives a brief bibliography
of self-fashioning at n2: the locus classicus is, of course, Greenblatt.
78
The biographies of most of the composers in the Codex are partly or substantially
incomplete. Given the mechanics of Renaissance patronage, it is also sometimes difficult to
establish the nature and strength of a musicians relationship with a musical center. On the
specific composers involved, see n10 above.
79
For example, see Firth, 372: The basic element of a gift is an outgoing from the self ;
see also ibid., 37475, 37778. Cf. Mauss, 1316. For a critique of Mausss (and subsequent
Maussian) conceptions of alienability and inalienability, see Bestor, 1024.
80
Sherr, 1985, n49, hypothesizes a connection between Madeleines pregnancy and the
new opening motet if knowledge of Madeleines pregnancy circulated in Rome as early as
June of 1518. Nine months before Caterinas birth is 14 July 1518, and it may not have
been noticed immediately. Although it is possible that Madeleine had a long pregnancy, it
seems unlikely that news was in Rome in June; however, I do not see this as a problem in
establishing a connection.
109
uncertainty surrounding the date of conception, it seems possible that she

became aware of her pregnancy as they traveled slowly through Italy. Given the
considerable symbolic, personal, and practical importance of this early success,
it seems likely that it was communicated to Florence and Rome as soon as it
was known. Here is an event of sufficient moment for Leo X and the Medici to
take priority over pious self-aggrandizement, and it seems reasonable to
identify this news as the prompt for the change of opening motet. In this
scenario, the Medici Codex could not have been completed until August
1518, by which time the couple were well on their way home. The implication
is logical enough: the Codex, like Raphaels portrait, was given to the couple
upon their return to Florence. Perhaps, like the Raphael, it served a purpose
during the Florentine festivities, or was intended to divulge its symbolic and
musical messages specifically at the banquet on 8 September.
This latter suggestion, while impossible to prove, is at least entirely plausible. Leo X and other contemporary rulers are known to have had motets and
other music performed frequently during or after dinner. Several instances involving Leo X have been described in print, and his example (rather than
Lorenzos) is clearly the most relevant one in postulating the use of this gift at the
point of its donation.81 Evidence for Lorenzos musical resources is limited and
in some respects misleading, but he seems to have had three singers on his
permanent staff in the years immediately before his marriage, and very likely had
access to musicians employed by the civic authorities of Florence, the Duomo,
and the Baptistery.82 As mentioned above, the celebrations begun on 7 September
were organized in collaboration with the civic government, and it is on precisely
this kind of occasion that musical resources would have been shared.83
It is therefore not out of the question, and perhaps even likely, that
musical entertainments were staged at, or immediately after, the banquet
on 8 September. Given the considerable attention apparently devoted by
81
The list of documented examples is long, and includes Lockwood, 1985, 100;
Shearman, 2003, 1:24750 (document 1516/14); Cummings, 1981, 4546n6; Lockwood,
1976, 121n57; Blackburn, 1992, 56. See also Tomasello, 45357, 46869; Cummings,
1981, 4546, with copious documentation, given largely in his n5. Paolo Cortese discusses
music specifically as an after-dinner activity in his De cardinalatu: see the facsimile and
translation of the relevant passage given in Pirrotta, 14755. Music was a pervasive part of
Medici festivities more generally, on which see Cummings, 1992. Finally, on two anonymous
chansons that seem to mark the wedding of Lorenzo and Madeleine and may have been
composed to be sung in similar circumstances during the celebrations in France, see Seay.
82
Sherr, 1985.
83
By way of comparison, the payments to singers who participated in Leo Xs 1515
entrata were recorded in an account book of the Otto di Pratica, and the instrumentalists
involved on this occasion were probably those of the Signoria: see Cummings, 1992, 70.
110
Lorenzo and his collaborators to the symbolic and political weight of the
occasion, it is reasonable to suppose that such entertainments would have
been carefully designed, and it is possible that Leo X could have envisaged
the motets in the Codex being used in this way, even if in the end they were
not. In any case, the Florentine festivities to mark Lorenzo and Madeleines
return lasted for several days, and several further opportunities for their
performance must have presented themselves.
It is certainly attractive to suppose that the motets, several of which seem
to have been carefully chosen for their close resonances with the occasion,
were intended partly as an immediate gift of music, rather than saving their
pertinence for the future, that is, that the manuscript was truly occasional, an
eloquent object. Such a donation would have been strongly consonant with
the manuscripts gift-aspect. As I have already described, it is the giving of
a gift as much as its material reality that carries its power; to fail to make the
most of the moment of its donation would be to completely misunderstand
its nature, as well as to go against contemporary practice.84 It would also
entail an inexplicable veiling of the compound nature of the gift.
5. T H E C O D E X A D D R E S S I N G
ITS
AUDIENCE
The gift of the Codex was not simply the gift of an object, but the gift of
its contents as well. The donation was therefore incomplete without a
performance, and at least the initial performance of the motets, in whatever
context, would certainly have been undertaken under the auspices of the
Codexs gift-aspect. I have noted above that it is in their severance from
liturgical function, and, further, in the appropriation of sacred music as
a secular gift, that the motets semiotic potential or, rather, their potential
to suggest allegorical associations with the Codexs attendant circumstances
is especially enhanced. Raymond Firth has argued that the symbolic power
of a gift extends beyond the mechanics of status discussed by Mauss,
embracing fully the particular contingencies of a particular donation.85
Although (probably) all the works in the Codex were written with no
notion of their use in this particular manuscript collection, through the
discriminating act of selection the motets and their texts are admirably
84
As well as the circumstances surrounding the donation of Raphaels portrait, it is
worth bearing in mind that the presents sent to the French court were not sent to their
individual recipients directly, but were sent to an agent, himself a man of considerable status
and importance, who could arrange appropriately ceremonial presentations to each of the
relevant recipients. For an anthropological consideration of the integrity of the moment of
presentation to the gift-concept, see Firth, 37581.
85
Ibid., 368402, esp. 386.
111
adapted to convey such messages, many of which depart from the obvious
and overarching theme of conventional piety.
I have already explained the contextual significance of the original first
motet, Boyleaus In principio erat verbum (no. 2), setting a text also
associated with Leo X in his painted portrait.86 Like the Raphael at the feast,
the presence of saintly Giovannis in the Codex, identifying it as a figurative
portrait of Leo X, was presumably a mark of the popes role in negotiating
and supervising the wedding and its preparations, representing and furthering
his dynastic pretentions. The original second motet of the collection, Maistre
Jhans (ca. 14851538) Lauda, Jerusalem, Dominum (no. 3 [Psalm 147]),
must also have been an obvious choice. Within its first few lines it covers
several aspects of the situation of Lorenzo, including the new security of his
possession of Urbino, his marriage and the good foreign relations it secured,
and the resulting celebrations:
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem:
praise thy God, O Sion.
Because He hath strengthened the bolts of thy gates:
He hath blessed thy children within thee.
Who hath placed peace at thy borders:
87
and filled thee with the fat of corn.
Maiste Jhans motet also makes a particularly successful pair with In

principio, as it goes on to describe the power of the word of God.
The extremely pertinent theme of peace is taken up again later in the
Codex in a short motet by Jean Mouton (ca. 14591522) (no. 38): Yours is
the power, Yours the kingdom, Lord. You are above all nations. Give peace
in our time, O Lord.88 And perhaps also in Erasmuss polytextual setting
combining (and editing) phrases from the liturgy of the Octave Day of
Saints Peter and Paul (no. 50):
The glorious princes of the earth, as they loved each other in life, thus also in
death they are not separated.
86
Throughout this section I rely on the translations and identifications of the texts of the
Medici Codex motets given in Lowinsky, 1968, 3:123236. He considers each motet in
order, and here I give the numbers by which he lists and identifies them.
87
Ibid., 3:126: Lauda, Jerusalem, Dominum / lauda Deum tuum, Sion; / quoniam
confortavit seras portarum tuarum; / benedixit filiis tuis in te. / Qui posuit fines tuos pacem /
et adipe frumenti satiat te. It is worth noting, in light of my interpretation of its
significance, that this motet supplies the L of Laurentius in the acrostic.
88
Ibid., 3:186: Tua es potentia, tuum regnum, Domine. Tu es super omnes gentes. Da
pacem, Domine, in diebus nostris.
112
Peter the Apostle and Paul the Doctor of the people, they taught us Your
89
Law, O Lord. Thus also in death they are not separated.
Here it is very tempting to read the glorious princes of the earth as

a reference to Francis I and Leo X. Among all the motets of the Codex, this
one can most clearly be seen as a musical reflection of Leo Xs attempt to
implicate himself in the history and myth of the French monarchy, a quest
exemplified in the depiction of the Coronation of Charlemagne in the papal
apartments, completed in 1517 by Raphael and assistants, which Vasari
identifies as Leo X consecrating Francis I with portraits from the life.90
Perhaps it constitutes a further attempt to address Leo Xs paranoia about
status, asserting equivalence between the Medici and royal families through
the proxy apotheosis of the papacy.
Leo X might also have interpreted Erasmuss motet in another way. Its
two texts sung simultaneously one by three voices and the other by two,
making a five-voice texture; one celebrating peace among secular rulers and
the other peace among sacred leaders might well have stood as symbols
for Francis I and Leo X, respectively, whose new (symbolic) inseparability is
amply conveyed through the contrapuntal interlocking of their respective
voices. Saints Peter and Paul had always played an important role in the
configuration of the papacy, and Leo Xs papacy was no exception: in the
years leading up to 1518, tapestries recording the saints deeds were in
preparation for the Sistine Chapel, the designs commissioned by Leo X from
Raphael. Such a view would explain the coming together of the voices at the
end in the phrase thus also in death they are not separated, which
89
Ibid., 3:229: Gloriosi principes terrae, quomodo in vita sua dilexerunt se, ita et in
morte non sunt separati. Petrus Apostolus, et Paulus Doctor gentium, ipsi nos docuerunt
legem tuam Domine. Ita et in morte non sunt separati. The Erasmus in question is not the
famous humanist, but a little-known composer called Erasmus Lapicida, who worked in the
chapel of the Viennese court, dying there in 1547. On his identity and uvre see Lowinsky,
1968, 3:230; Weiss, with updated bibliography.
90
Vasari, 4:36061: There are in the others two scenes: when Pope Leo X consecrates
the Most Christian King Francis I of France. . . . In the other scene is made the coronation of
the said king, in which is the pope and also Francis portrayed from the life, the one in armour
and the other in pontifical robes. On this fresco, see, recently, Oberhuber, 1999, 14567,
esp. 14849 (with image); Rowland, esp. 11718; Talvacchia, 2007, 80103, esp. 103.
Oberhuber, 1999, 14849, suggests that the scene should be understood as an allusion to the
meeting of Francis I and Leo X in Bologna in 1515. The decoration of the chant manuscripts
of the Florentine Duomo find Leo X once again attempting to implicate himself into
historical personas and events, including the Florentine archbishop Saint Zenobius and the
Dedication of the Church: see Tacconi, esp. 34043.
113
Lowinsky considers to have been in contravention of the liturgical text and

of plain sense.91
Besides In principio, the Codex contains several motets making
reference to one or another Saint John, or setting texts from Johns Gospel,
in which the supervision and power of the pope might also have been felt.
Josquin des Prezs (ca. 1450/551521) motet in five parts, O admirabile
commercium (no. 4), concludes with the antiphon: Behold, Mary has
given birth to our Savior! When John saw Him, he exclaimed, Behold the
Lamb of God; behold Him who takes away the sins of the world, alleluia.92
Costanzo Festas (ca. 1485/901545) Angelus ad pastores ait (no. 8) freely
combines Gospel elements, returning to the theme of the word:
The angel said to the shepherds: I bring you glad tidings: unto us is born the
Savior of the world, alleluia.
The shepherds said one to another: Let us go to Bethlehem and see this
thing which the angel has made known to us.
And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the newborn
Child. And they worshipped him, saying:
The Word was made flesh
of the Virgin Mary.
Unto us a child is born
of the Virgin Mary.
In this time of year,
Life is given to the people,
Born in a manger
of the Virgin Mary.
93
Alleluia.
91
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:229; ibid., 230, instead connects the motet loosely with the deaths
of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany. Erasmus Lapicida worked ca. 151020 for the
Prince-Elector of the Kurpfalz, who was not directly involved in the events that gave rise
to the Medici Codex: see Weiss. However, and confusingly, the motet appears in no other
sources before 1534; of Erasmuss very few other surviving motets, one appears unicum in the
manuscript Florence BN II.I.232, which Cummings, 1983, 26793, connects conclusively
with Medici patronage at the same period.
92
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:12930: Ecce Maria genuit nobis Salvatorem, quem Joannes
videns exclamavit, dicens: Ecce Agnus Dei, ece qui tollit peccata mundi, alleluia.
93
Ibid., 3:139: Angelus ad pastores ait: Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: quia natus
est nobis Salvator mundi, alleluia. Pastores loquebantur ad invicem: Transeamus usque in
Bethlehem et videamus hoc verbum, quod annuntiatum fuit nobis angelo. Et venerunt
festinantes et invenerunt Mariam et Joseph et infantem natum. Et adoraverunt eum dicentes:
Verbum caro factum est / de Virgine Maria. / Puer natus est nobis / de Virgine Maria. / In
hoc anni circulo, / Vita datur populo, / Natus in praesepio / de Virgine Maria. / Alleluia.
114
A free combination of elements from the liturgy for the Feast of Saint John
the Baptist produces a text in praise of the saint set by La Fage (no. 13):
Elizabeth, the wife of Zachary, gave birth to a great man, John the Baptist,
the precursor of the Lord. There was a man, one sent by God, whose name was
John, to bear witness concerning the light. Saint John, pray for us.
Among those born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist
who prepared a way for the Lord in the desert. John is his name. He shall drink no
wine or strong drink, and many will rejoice at his birth. Saint John, pray for us.94
Among the various elements of this text is a sentence based on a famous

passage, John 1:67: There was a man sent from God, whose name was
John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men
through him might believe. This passage was subject in 1489 to a rather
startling paraphrase that marked the appointment of Giovanni de Medici
as cardinal. In the dedication of Ficinos translation of Iamblichuss De
Mysteriis appears the eulogy: There is a man of Florence sent by God whose
name is John, born of the heroic stock of the Medici. This man has come for
testimony that he might bear witness about the greatest authority among us
of his father, the magnanimous Lorenzo.95
La Fages motet finds an almost exact parallel in a text that draws on the
liturgy of the Feast of Saint John the Evangelist to constitute a brief
biography of the other Saint John, set by Willaert (no. 24):
Blessed John, Apostle and Evangelist, was called from the wedding and he,
a virgin, was selected by the Lord and loved more than the others. Very highly
we must venerate him; for during the Last Supper he reclined on the breast of
the Lord.
He it is who having drunk in the streams of the Gospel from their very source, the
Lords sacred breast, like unto one of the paradisiac streams, he diffused the grace of
96
the divine word over all the world. Saint John, pray the Lord for us. Amen.
94
Ibid., 3:147: Elisabeth Zachariae magnum virum genuit, Joannes Baptistam,

praecursorem Domini. Fuit homo missus a Deo, cui nomen erat Joannes, ut testimonium
perhiberet de lumine. Sancte Joannes, ora pro nobis. Inter natos mulierum non surrexit
maior Joanne Baptista, qui viam Domino praeparavit in eremo. Joannes est nomen eius:
vinum et siceram non bibet, et in nativitate eius multi gaudebunt. Sancte Joannes, ora pro
nobis.
95
Minnich, 102425.
96
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:163: Beatus Joannes, Apostolus et Evangelista, de nuptiis vocatus,
et virgo electus a Domino, atque inter ceretos magis dilectus. Valde honorandus est, qui
supra pectus Domini in coena recubuit. Ipse est, qui Evangelii fluenta de ipso sacro
Dominici pectoris fonte cum potasset, quasi unus de paradisi fluminibus verbi Dei gratiam
in toto terrarum orbe diffudit. Sancte Joannes, ora pro nobis Dominum. Amen.
115
Here we encounter highly fortuitous references to a wedding and a banquet,

as well as others to drinking that provide a convenient reflection of references
in the La Fage. Finally, Saint Johns intercession is called for in passing in an
anonymous setting based on the Litanies for Rogation Days, Virgo, Dei
Genetrix (no. 31).97
The motets symbolic potential is further increased by the contemporary
circumstances of musical circulation. Rob Wegman has recently
demonstrated that Renaissance musical works made their way around
Europe within a gift economy that exhibited basically Maussian
characteristics.98 Ownership of a work could only be achieved through
the sufferance of a previous owner, be it musician, agent, or patron,
whose gift was motivated by the hope of reciprocal gain: status, favor,
trust, influence, or a return gift.99 Thus, while the manuscript was itself
a gift from one patron to another, its existence relied on a complex
history of gifts: each motet in the Codex entered papal music circles
because a previous owner thought it might benefit them to place it there.
Some may even have arrived there with a view to their inclusion in the
Codex, the larger gift becoming the motivator of the smaller gift. The
identity of the Codexs motets in Medici circles was thus tied (at least
potentially) to the circumstances of their gift, circumstances that
required notice and reciprocation at some level of the establishment,
whether in money, employment, favor, or the more subtle ends of
diplomacy.
Included in the Codex is a large number of works by Jean Mouton, the
leading composer at the French court. Also present are several motets
tangibly celebratory of the French monarchy: Moutons Domine, salvum
fac regem (no. 20), a prayer for a king certainly the King of France;
Pierre Moulus Fiere attropos (no. 43), which mourns a French queen,
most likely Anne of Brittany; Costanzo Festas Super flumina Babylonis
(no. 49), which Lowinsky connects with the death of Louis XII; and
Moulus Mater floreat (no. 17), in which musicians, many of whom were
associated with the French and papal courts, are exhorted to join in praise of
97
Ibid., 3:27, for similar comments on the symbolic potential of a few further works in
the Codex, including two on amorous texts from the Song of Songs and one recounting the
story of the Wedding at Cana.
98
See Wegman, whose analysis is concerned almost entirely with gifts made by
musicians to patrons, thus making it difficult to relate his conclusions directly to the gift
of the Codex as a whole.
99
Ibid., 433: Who owned the music? Everybody did at least, everybody who was
willing to make copies for others.
116
the French king and queen.100 Most striking in its privileging of the praise of
France above papal dignity is the motet written by Mouton in celebration
of the French victory at Marignano, Exalta regina Galliae (no. 18).101 It is
quite plausible that some or all of the French occasional motets all of
which appear in few or no other sources came into Roman hands during
the peace summit between Leo X and Francis I in Bologna in 1515. Both
parties had their choirs in attendance, and the gathering of repertoire for
Italian patrons at the occasion is specifically documented (though the
patrons in question were Ferrarese).102 Leo X rewarded three French singers
with ecclesiastical preferments at the meeting, and one might imagine that
he received gifts of music in return.103
Though I presume Lorenzo to be the primary recipient of the Codex, it
seems unlikely that these messages, emphasizing peace, equality of status
between France and Rome, and political and cultural Francophilia, should
have been directed primarily at him. We have here what amounts to a map of
Leo Xs strategy of self-presentation, but for whose benefit? Alfonsina
thought it important to note Madeleines spatial relationship with Raphaels
Leo X, with its careful construction of the popes identity. Similarly, the
strategic Francophilia of Raphaels Lorenzo was aimed at her. I suggest that,
notwithstanding the acrostic and many other allusions to Lorenzo, much of
the symbolic message of the Codex was also aimed at her, whether it was first
aired in performance during the festivities or on some subsequent occasion.
No doubt it was expected that she, and members of her household, would
report to the French court on the quality and kind of her reception in
Italy.104 Through this mechanism, though the Codex was given to the couple
in Florence, the motets can be seen to work alongside the paintings ordered
by Leo X from Raphael and sent directly to France: they were further
recompense for the gift of Madeleine, this time refracted through the bride
herself.105
100
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:6875, discusses these occasional motets.

Ibid., 3:7273.
102
An extensive discussion of the meeting and its musical implications is in Lockwood,
1979, 191217, 23446.
103
Cummings, 1983, 281. Richafort was granted a benefice, and Longueval and
Mouton were named protonotaries Apostolic. Ibid., 276, suggests that Moutons motet Per
lignum salvi was also acquired by the pope at that time.
104
Madeleines French entourage consisted of six maids of honor and a few gentlemen:
Cummings, 1992, 102.
105
On the role of women as ritual vehicles for the exchange of wedding gifts, see
Klapisch-Zuber, esp. 23141.
101
117
Perhaps it was hoped that Madeleine and her entourage would recognize
some of the several motets in the Codex by Mouton. Certainly they would
appreciate the texts celebrating recent events from a French perspective.
Probably they would understand the gift exchanges that had brought some
of the music in the Codex to Leo Xs court. Madeleine would no doubt also
have been touched by various references of personal significance: I have
already noted the connection between Madeleines pregnancy and the (new)
opening motet in praise of Saint Margaret; a further work (no. 25) sings the
praise of Saint Barbara, whose characteristic symbol was, conveniently,
a tower (de la Tour dAuvergne); and with parents named Jean and Jeanne
she could have taken the multiple mentions of Saint John as a double
reference to Leo X and to her own dynasty.106 A motet by Pierrequin de
Therache (no. 12) setting words from the Sequence for Epiphany may also
have resonated with her situation, declaring that she, the welcomed, /
Rendered fruitful, soon concieved . . . Whose newborn child / The magi
praise with gifts.107 Finally, the last motet of the collection (no. 53) may
have been chosen for that position because of its brief but eloquent
invocation of the tower: Be unto us, Lord, a tower of strength in the face
of the enemy.108
6. F A S H I O N I N G L O R E N Z O
Between the giving of a musical portrait of Leo X to his nephew Lorenzo,
and the direction of its symbolic messages toward Madeleine, there lies a gap
that requires explanation. Similarly, the mechanics of the gift who was
giving what, in return for what, or returned by what still lack final clarity.
Here we can turn one last time to the Codexs gift-context for help.
Though some roughly contemporary papal portraits were meant for
sacred settings, Vasari reports that Raphaels Leo X with Cardinals was
eventually hung above a door in the Palazzo Medici in Florence.109
106
My thanks are due to RQ s anonymous reader, who brought several of these
connections to my attention.
107
[S]alutata / Mox concepit foecundata . . . Cujus Magi tribus donis. The Medici
cultivated an association with the magi, and held the feast of the Epiphany in particular
regard: Tacconi, 352.
108
Esto nobis, Domine, turris fortudinis a facie inimici. Lowinsky, 1968, 3:235, also
associates this motet with Madeleine.
109
Minnich, 1026; Vasari, 4:353: and this picture is still to be found in Florence in the
guardaroba of the duke; ibid., 5:41: Federico II, Duke of Mantua . . . saw above a door in
the house of the Medici that portrait of pope Leo in the middle with cardinal Giulio de
Medici and cardinal de Rossi, that the most excellent Raphael of Urbino had made.
118
Following the departure of Lorenzo for Lombardy to fight the French in the
summer of 1515, Alfonsina Orsini de Medici, widow of Piero di Lorenzo
de Medici and mother of Lorenzo, acted for some four years as the de facto
ruler of Florence.110 Minnich notes that at the time of the 1518 celebrations
Alfonsina enjoyed the full libera administrazione (free administration) of
Palazzo Medici, granted to her by the senior living member of the Medici
family, Pope Leo X.111
By this time, the Palazzo Medici had effectively overtaken the Palazzo
Vecchio, seat of the civic authorities, as the locus of power and government in the city. A clear picture of the daily operation of this power is
offered by a letter of Filippo Strozzi, Alfonsinas son-in-law, to Duke
Lorenzo in Lombardy, written in August 1515: Madonna Alfonsina is
always busy writing to Rome [presumably to Leo X or Giulio] or to [you]
over there [in Lombardy], or giving an audience; consequently the house
is always full; and such numbers of visitors have brought the regime
respect, encouraged friends, and made enemies afraid.112 The papal
portrait would thus have found a large audience in the regular flow of
Florentines through the palace.113 Perhaps it was intended by Leo X to
remind both leading citizens and Alfonsina that she held the Palazzo
Medici and Florence in Leo Xs name. As such, it could have been
designed to help combat Florentine unrest at the idea of pseudo-despotic
rule by a foreigner who was from the Neapolitan Orsini and a woman,
made very plain in a satirical poster campaign mounted to coincide with
Leo Xs triumphal entry into Florence in November 1515: Liberty is lost
after this Florence; a woman of the Orsini blood is your sole ruler!114 In
effect, the portrait added Leo Xs self-presentation to Alfonsinas identity
as a ruler: it offered to the Florentines a strategically revised image of their
leader. As Patricia Simons notes, Portraits themselves performatively
shape their world.115
The Codex aims at something similar. A clue is found in the dedicatory
poem found facing the acrostic-style table of contents:
110
For a discussion of her rule, see Tomas. Though Lorenzo was to be Duke of Urbino,
as the senior secular member of the Medici family he acted as ruler of Florence, treating the
city as his home.
111
Minnich, 1026.
112
Tomas, 78, which gives no transcription, but cites one from Tommasini, 2:2.977n1.
113
The assumption of Minnich, 1042, that the portraits display in the Palazzo Medici
removed it from public view, is clearly mistaken.
114
Tomas, 8182. For an account of the entrata, see Cummings, 1992, 6782.
115
Simons, 265.
119
Go, my book, hurry faster than the fastest wind.

Under a lucky star speed to the lucky prince:
He will receive you with happy hands and gracious eye,
He will be glad to enjoy your gift.
While he regards you with joy and speaks with you,
Be, I command, ever mindful of your lord.116
The penultimate line envisions Duke Lorenzo enjoying the manuscripts

material beauty and, unexpectedly, entertaining a dialogue with it. The
implication may be that he was literally to sing from it; certainly, at least, that
he would engage meaningfully with its contents. The instruction seems
paradoxical. Of the little that is known about Lorenzos cultural interests,
nothing would indicate that he was a keen amateur musician. A few years
earlier, in fact, Lorenzo had received a stern reprimand from Cardinal Giulio
for his slight concern for musical matters, an attitude that (in Giulios view)
did not befit a Medici: The day before yesterday I wrote to Your
Magnificence, and this evening I have two of yours of the eighteenth, and I
have understood your desire to have the pifferi and tromboni of Cesena, to
which we will apply ourselves with diligence; and because I do not believe
them to be a very impressive thing, I judge that there [in Florence] they call
good music that which costs little, and it seems to me that Your Magnificence
does not delight in it as does the pope.117 Perhaps Leo X intended the
dedication and, indeed, the manuscript as a whole as a prompt to his
nephew at the time of his important diplomatic marriage, reasserting his duty
as a Medici and a duke to deploy the arts in demonstration of the familys
courtly refinement and magnificence.118
116
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:3; ibid: Perge liber, propera, ventoque citatior omni. / Ad
faustum fausto sidere tende Ducem: / Excipiet manibus laetis: vultuque sereno /
Gaudebitque tuo munere posse frui / Quum te respiciet letus, tecumque loquetur, / Tum
iubeo, ut domini sis memor ipse tui. Abbreviations have been spelled out.
117
Sherr, 1985, 634n11 (Giulio in Rome to Lorenzo in Florence, 20 February 1514):
Avanti hieri scripsi a la M. V., et questa sera ho due sue de 18, et ho inteso el desiderio che
quella ha di havere e pifferi et tromboni di Cesena di che se ne usera` la diligentia; e perche
non credo vi sia cosa excellente, judico che cost` si chiami buona musica quella che costa
poco, et parmi che la M. V. non se ne dilecti come fa el papa. Pifferi were wind (usually
shawm) players; tromboni played various designs of large trumpets and trombones. A
different translation appears in Lowinsky, 3:33. On Cardinal Giulio as a singer, see
Cummings, 1992, 75.
118
I am grateful to Anthony Cummings for suggesting this interpretation of the poem.
A similar theory (not connected to the poem) has been put forward briefly by Sherr, 1985,
633, who speculates that the Codex might have been given as the starting point of a new,
more suitably ducal chapel choir.
120
In fact, the relationship of Leo X and Lorenzo more generally had not
been untroubled. In the early years of the Medici restoration, Lorenzo placed
himself frequently in competition with Giuliano, who was until his death
the preferred secular face of Leo Xs ambitions. In 1515 Lorenzo had himself
elected Captain of Florence against the wishes of both Giuliano and the
pope.119 He even confounded his uncle during the negotiations following
the Battle of Marignano: the pope sought to delay news that he had, in fact,
signed the treaty in the hope of wresting a few last concessions from the
French negotiators, but Lorenzo leaked the secret to Francis I.120 Lorenzos
behavior at leisure equally failed to endear him, winning him the reputation
of a mere pleasure-seeker.121 Lorenzo owed his place in Leo Xs plans largely
to the maneuverings of his powerful mother, as well as other allies, including
Luigi de Rossi.122
In the interests of the diplomatic success of the match, Lorenzo would
have to submit and play the pious, cultured, Francophile, politically
astute but Medici duke, operating at a level of nobility within reach
of royalty.123 In the Codex, that is, in the image of Leo X, could be found the
reflection of everything (within reason) Duke Lorenzo ought to be, to do,
and to represent. His portrait gift set Leo X up as Lorenzos model. Precisely
this mimetic mode of self-fashioning was advocated a few years earlier by the
Florentine merchant Giovanni Morelli. He had advised his sons to choose
as their model an exemplary elder, and to watch his modes in words, in
counsel, in the ordering of his family and his things, with the aim of
resembling him. Mirror yourself in him, Morelli recommended, so that
you will always be comforted by his image.124
We only have to look to the last line of the dedicatory poem to find an
acknowledgement of the popes intention to mediate Lorenzos identity:
While he regards you with joy and speaks with you / Be, I command, ever
mindful of your lord. Who is the lord in question? It could be Lorenzo, the
119
Stephens, 9899.
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:29.
121
Minnich, 1015, 1016n37.
122
On Alfonsina, see Reiss, 127, 13538; on Luigi, see Minnich, 101516, 1016n37.
From an early stage, Luigi was strongly in favor of an alliance with France, a factor that might
well be connected with his appearance in Raphaels painting: ibid., 1015, 1015n36. Giulio
de Medici also enjoyed close associations with France: ibid., 1018.
123
Lorenzo was, of course, the dedicatee of Machiavellis Prince. For a historical
discussion of his gradual and purposeful embodiment of the attributes of a prince, see
Stephens, 95123, 15463.
124
Morellis advice is quoted in Simons, 271; for further, similar examples, see ibid.,
27072.
120
121
recipient; it could be God, the subject of the motets; or, most likely, it could
be Leo X, the giver of the gift, whose musical portrait it is. Through this
formulation we learn that the pope understood that the power of his gift to
performatively shape to borrow Simonss phrase its recipient lay
in its inalienability from his own person; that through donation it remained
the agent of the donor.
And who was the audience for the performance of Lorenzos newly
refashioned identity? It was Madeleine, and through her the French
monarchy. Here we find our circles satisfactorily closed: the gift to
Lorenzo was one of identity, of dukedom and decorous nobility;
Madeleine was to encounter the Codexs messages as aspects of her new
husbands self-presentation. But Leo X expected no return on his gift,
because veiled behind the gift to his nephew was another, more important
one. Through the Codex he hoped to honor a weighty prior obligation: in
return for the gift of Madeleine, he intended to give the French monarchy
a duke worthy of their princess.
UNIVERSITY
OF
NOTTINGHAM
122
A pp e n d ix : The M o t et s of t he Me d ic i Co de x
The information presented here is derived both from the manuscript itself and from
Lowinsky, 1968, 3:123236. I have supplied annotations only for motets discussed
in the present study, and the list should be used only as a reference tool while
reading the main text: for a detailed and comprehensive inventory, see ibid.
1. Adrian Willaert, Virgo gloriosa Christi, Margareta to Saint Margaret
2. Boyleau, In principio erat Verbum prologue to Saint Johns Gospel
(originally first)
3. Maistre Jhan, Lauda, Jerusalem, Dominum references to security,
peace, pregnancy
4. Josquin des Prez, O admirabile commercium ends with Johns
identification of Christ
5. Adrian Willaert, Saluto te, sancta Virgo Maria
6. Costanzo Festa, Deduc me, Domine
7. Antoine Brumel, Sicut lilium amorous text from the Song of Songs
8. Costanzo Festa, Angelus ad pastores ait nods to Johns Gospel with the
word made flesh
9. Andreas de Silva, Tota pulchra es amorous text from the Song of
Songs
10. Jean Lheritier, Te Matrem Dei laudamus Marian parody of the Te
Deum
11. Jean de La Fage, Videns dominus civitatem desolatam a call for
peace (?)
12. Pierrequin de Therache, Verbum bonum et suave Epiphany and the
Magi
13. Jean La Fage, Elisabeth Zachariae magnum virum genuit minibiography of Saint John the Baptist
14. Jean Richafort, Emendemus in melius composer given benefice by
Leo X at 1515 meeting
15. Adrian Willaert, Regina caeli
16. Antoine Bruhier, Ecce panis angelorum
17. Pierre Moulu, Mater floreat florescat French musicians are to praise
French king and queen
18. Jean Mouton, Exalta regina Galliae celebration of French victory at
Marignano
19. Jean Mouton, Corde et animo composer made protonotary apostolic
at 1515 meeting
20. Jean Mouton, Domine, salvum fac regem God save the King (of
France)
21. Adrian Willaert, Christi Virgo
22. Adrian Willaert, Veni, Sancte Spiritus
23. Jacotin, Rogamus te, Virgo Maria
123
24. Adrian Willaert, Beatus Johannes Apostolus mini-biography of John

the Evangelist
25. Adrian Willaert, Intercessio, quaesumus, Domine to Saint Barbara
(tower/Tour)
26. Elimot, Nuptiae factae sunt the wedding at Cana
27. Johannes Brunet, Ite in orbem universum
28. Jean Mouton, In omni tribulatione
29. Andreas de Silva, Intonuit de caelo
30. Jean Mouton, Nesciens Mater Virgo virum
31. Anonymous, Virgo, Dei Genitrix Saint Johns intercession requested
32. Andreas de Silva, In illo tempore loquente Jesu
33. Anonymous, Confundatur superbi
34. Jean Mouton, Salva nos, Domine
35. Josquin des Prez, Inviolata, integra, et casta es
36. Jean Mouton, Peccata mea, Domine
37. Jean Mouton, Per lignum salvi facti sumus
38. Jean Mouton, Tua est potentia a prayer for peace
39. Antonius Divitis, Per lignum salvi facti sumus
40. Le Santier, Alma Redemptoris Mater
41. Josquin des Prez, Miserere mei, Deus
42. Josquin des Prez, Virgo salutiferi genetrix intacta
43. Pierre Moulu, Fiere attropos mauldicte mourning death of Queen
Anne
44. Pierre Moulu, Vulnerasti cor meum amorous text from Song of Songs
45. Andreas de Silva, Omnis pulchritudo Domini
46. Josquin des Prez, Nymphes des bois French text mourning the
composer Ockeghem
47. Andreas de Silva, Puer natus est nobis
48. Jean Mouton, Missus est angelus Gabriel
49. Costanzo Festa, Super flumina Babylonis mourning a French queen (?)
50. Erasmus Lapicida, Gloriosi principes / Petrus Apostolus secular and
sacred princes in harmony
51. Costanzo Festa, Regina caeli
52. Jean Richafort, Veni, Sponsa Christi
53. Lupus, Esto nobis, Domine, turris fortitudinis a tower (Tour) of
strength
124
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Constructing Identities in a Music Manuscript:

The Medici Codex as a Gift*

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

serve to define a range of important identities in relation to one another:

The election of Cardinal Giovanni de Medici as Pope Leo X on 9 March 1513

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

FIGURE 1. Medici Codex. Dedication, canon, and tavola. Florence, Biblioteca

FIGURE 2. Medici Codex. Willaert, Virgo gloriosa Christi, Margareta, first

The predominance of French music, taken by Lowinsky as the primary

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

in a mode of exchange in which no reciprocation is specified, although all

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

a structure of exchanges founded on gift and countergift.19 Most

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

Duke [Lorenzo], linked by John Shearman with the conference of Leo X,

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

and found it necessary to exercise his ennobling liberalitas as much as

would not explain the manuscripts significance as a personal gift.38 It

On Medici influence at the Duomo and Baptistry of Florence, as well as specific

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

instance, included is a setting of the preface of the Gospel of John by Boyleau

The Codex offered by Leo X to Lorenzo is easily configured in terms of

donor, Leo X; and in contextualizing the moment of donation, itself an

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

of a portrait of Leo X presumably that by Raphael to Florence; he

These records are synthesized in Cummings, 1992, 99114.

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

FIGURE 7. Medici Codex. Boyleau, In principio erat Verbum, first opening.

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

it was sung by the pope himself.71 Contemporary accounts of Leo Xs

of self-fashioning, the more-or-less-strategic construction and presentation of

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

uncertainty surrounding the date of conception, it seems possible that she

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

Maiste Jhans motet also makes a particularly successful pair with In

Here it is very tempting to read the glorious princes of the earth as

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

Lowinsky considers to have been in contravention of the liturgical text and

Among the various elements of this text is a sentence based on a famous

Ibid., 3:147: Elisabeth Zachariae magnum virum genuit, Joannes Baptistam,

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

Here we encounter highly fortuitous references to a wedding and a banquet,

Lowinsky, 1968, 3:6875, discusses these occasional motets.

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

Go, my book, hurry faster than the fastest wind.

The penultimate line envisions Duke Lorenzo enjoying the manuscripts

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

24. Adrian Willaert, Beatus Johannes Apostolus mini-biography of John

Musicological Society 48 (1995):

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

Dean, Jeffrey. The Scribes of the Sistine

Musicological Society 30 (1977): 106

Claire Brook, 21138. New York,

THE MEDICI CODEX AS A GIFT

. Raphael in Early Modern Sources:

Companion to Raphael (2005),

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