ABSTRACT
The manuscript collection entitled Libro di Fra Gioseffo da Ravenna. Opere di diversi Autori, di Girolamo Frescobaldi, d'Ercol Pasquino, Cesare Argentini, Incert Autore is one of the largest early anthologies of seventeenth-century Italian keyboard music. Preserved at the Biblioteca Classense in Ravenna, it has been mentioned by Willi Apel, Fredrick Hammond, Alan Curtis, among others, and described in detail by Alexander Silbiger, who edited the manuscript facsimile edition. The centre of the musical life in Ravenna in the first half of the seventeenth century was the chapel of the Cathedral, with the Seminary as its authority. The hypothesis of a connection with the Augustinian priest Stefano Filippini from Rimini, also known as 'l'Argentina', chapel master in the Ravenna Cathedral and in S. Agostino, has long been considered probable. The Aria di Fiorenza also called Ballo Del Granduca is built upon a repeated bass pattern that follows a traditional harmonic scheme, similar to Romanesca, Pass'e mezzo, Ruggero, Follia, and others.
