Little Masters, Real Masters, and Masterpieces

In the world of apprentices, journeymen, and masters, a masterpiece was a test piece completed as part of a claim to a master’s level of skill and status. In formal guilds there could be elaborate examinations, in which submitting a masterpiece was part of the process. In the Naples conservatories, advanced students could compose a large sacred work for chorus and instruments to demonstrate a professional level of skill. In between the masters who gave lessons to the conservatory children and the child apprentices who learned those lessons were a middle level of teaching assistants called “little masters” (mastricelli or maestrini). These were selected from advanced students who had passed qualifying examinations.