Foreign Musicians at the Transylvanian Court of Sigismund Báthory

Abstract

Sigismund Báthory (1572–1613), Prince of Transylvania, to whom five Venetian music editions were dedicated between 1590 and 1599, had several foreign musicians in his service: mainly Italians, but also some Germans and Poles. The names of more than a dozen Italians are currently known, among them those of the composer and publisher Giovanni Battista Mosto of Udine, and the Venetian organist and composer Antonio Romanini. The employment of foreign musicians shares several features of the musical life of seventeenth-century Transylvanian courts, and that of Hungarian aristocratic families.

Keywords

• sigismund báthory
• transylvania
• maria christierna von habsburg
• dedications
• italian musicians
• giovanni battista mosto
• antonio romanini