| Summary: | The introduction of the celebration of the Immaculate Conception prompted a series of innovations in liturgical music that changed the foundations of music and developed the figurative theme of the Virgin Mary.One of the first official actions of Pope Sixtus IV was to commission a new Office from Leonardo Nogarolo (1477), the Officium Immaculatae Virginis Mariae, and later the Officium Conceptionis Virginis Mariae by Bernardino Busti (1492), which both reached us without notation. Music for the Proper of the mass and for the Office by L. Nogarolo and the Introit of the mass Egredimini et videte filie Sion was composed and published, separately, in two collections by Francesco de Brugis: Antiphonarium and Graduale secundum morem sancte Romanae ecclesie (Venice, Lucantonio Giunta, 1503 and 1500). During the papacy of Sixtus IV, chants were undoubtedly inspired by the Office by L. Nogarolo, but it is also possible that several musical traditions coexisted during the first years after the establishment of the celebration. Records confirm that Sixtus IV used to celebrate this occasion in St. Peter’s Basilica, reciting the Office followed by the mass in the morning and, in the afternoon, leading a procession to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, where he would recite a prayer, in all probability the Ave sanctissima Maria, which has been attributed of him. Inside Saint Peter’s Basilica, Sixtus IV commissioned the construction of a chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, equipped with a choir of ten singers to guarantee music in the service of the divine. The plan of the Franciscan pope was to ensure that the two most important musical institutions of the church were dedicated to the Marian cult: the Sistine Chapel (the pope’s private chapel) was consecrated to the Assumption of Mary, while the Saint Peter’s Chapel to the Immaculate Conception.The prayer Ave sanctissima Maria, dedicated to the worship of the image of the Virgin, was also used as an instrument to confirm the cult in the church. In fact, these images were a key part of the pope’s plan, initially introducing music with the evocation of the antiphon and prayer in the cartouches and the borders of paintings, later via the figure of King David (representative of the Mary’s lineage) and dancing angels, and finally in the adoption of several iconographic details of the Assumption. From the early 1500s, Marian iconography is enriched by the images of musical angels, certainly intended to evoke the idea of celestial harmony, but also testament to the link between the practice of music and the worship of Virgin. (English translation by Anna Forster)
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