CANONISING SAN CARLO: SERMONISING, THE SOUNDING WORD, AND IMAGE CONSTRUCTION IN THE MUSIC FOR CARLO BORROMEO

Abstract This essay examines the role of the hymns, the sacred polyphony by Vincenzo Pellegrini and Andrea Cima, and the spiritual madrigals of Giovanni Battista Porta in promoting the officially sanctioned image of Carlo Borromeo after his elevation to the status of ‘beato’ and following his canonisation. It further considers how the musical structures that characterised these works may have derived from other modes of textual presentation, in particular the sermons used to deliver the message in comparable settings. Finally, it explores how various styles of performance may have subliminally underscored certain constructed images of the archbishop and his city that developed in the years leading to the canonisation. San Carlo’s continued currency depended upon redefining his image according to changing social constructs. With the plague of 1630, Michel’angelo Grancini’s O sol & salus Carole returns to the event with which Borromeo’s sanctity was most closely identified, namely the penitential processions of 1576.