872 jonathan glixon
particular detail the documents regarding instrumentalists (including
some of the earliest players of the violin) at the scuole grandi.
the situation outside of the confraternities is still not understood in
detail. Andrea chegai has examined musical activities at the cathedral
of Venice, san pietro di castello (san Marco was not made the cathe-
dral until the 19th century), and Jane Berdes looked at the beginnings of
the musical traditions of the Venetian orphanages, the ospedali, which
would become so famous in the 17th and, especially, 18th centuries. in
the context of a study relating to early music printing in Venice, Bonnie
Blackburn uncovered significant information regarding polyphonic musi-
cal performance at the Dominican convent of ss. giovanni e paolo. one of
the most important studies in this area is Oltre San Marco by elena Quar-
anta. Quaranta conducted a broad and comprehensive study of the musi-
cal activities of all Venetian religious institutions for brief periods of the
renaissance. For the most part, her focus was on types of documentation
that could include a large number of institutions in a standard format,
such as tax declarations for churches and monastic establishments, and
charters of confraternities. in these documents, the institutions declared
their standard procedures and expenditures, including music. this has
made possible the establishment of a baseline of sorts for sacred musi-
cal activities in Venice, and as such is invaluable. At the same time, by
discounting the constant variations in actual practice, brought about by
changing financial and political situations and by the variable interests
of the leaders of the varying institutions, as documented in the records
of the events as they happened from year to year, the picture offered by
Quaranta is somewhat misleading; as shown in my book on the confra-
ternities, these institutions only rarely did exactly as indicated in their
charters, more often either expanding or reducing the musical aspects of
their observances.
one particularly interesting aspect of the Venetian sacred music world
is the way the musical establishments of san Marco and the other churches
and confraternities interacted. As Arnold and i showed, the scuole grandi
(and piccole) often hired singers, organists, and instrumentalists whose
regular jobs were at the ducal basilica. in fact, the procurators, the govern-
ment officials in charge of the cappella, took advantage of this practice to
save money on salaries, and the singers even formed a company to control
this external employment, resulting in a complex legal situation. ongaro
showed how these relationships, and also those of the instrumentalists,
developed into the 17th century, and how some musicians also enhanced
their income through teaching.