ABSTRACT
In sixteenth-century Rome great importance was given to practical devotions, especially in the time of Lent and in Holy Week. The task of organizing the processions fell to the city's numerous confraternities – associations of lay people for spiritual and charitable purposes. The confraternities celebrated many acts of religious fellowship, and on Maundy Thursday evening, to worship the Most Holy Sacrament and to view the 'Veronica', they filed in procession, dressed in cloth, 'white, red, blue, green, or black; most of them have their faces covered'. Trinita, the company on whose behalf Messer Luca Marenzio's professional collaboration had been requested, that was in a position of pre-eminence among the confraternities, supported as it was by prelates and Roman noblemen. As the cardinal's letter to Monsignor Dandino shows, Marenzio was free to attend the confraternities and artistic gatherings that best remunerated him. However, this freedom concerned his activities as a singer more than as a composer.
