Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] 83

Fortunatus, Venantius

(b nr Treviso, 530–40; d Poitiers, c600). Poet and churchman. He was educated at Ravenna, at that time under the rule of Byzantium. In 565 he went to Gaul, a journey that he later described as a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Martin at Tours. The immediate reason for the visit was more likely the wedding at Metz in 566 of King Sigebert to the Visigothic princess Brunhild, after which he spent a year at Sigebert's court and a winter at the court of Sigebert's brother Charibert in Paris. After a pilgrimage to Tours, he settled at Poitiers, where he became a close friend of Radegund, the widow of Clotaire, king of the Franks, and Agnes, abbess of the convent that Radegund had founded before the death of her husband. Fortunatus became Bishop of Poitiers not long before his death and was venerated as a saint during the Middle Ages (but was never canonized).

Fortunatus's works include a verse life of St Martin, a biography of Radegund, and many occasional works addressed to notable personages. Three of his religious poems were adopted in the liturgy of Holy Week and Easter: Vexilla regis, as a hymn for Vespers in Passiontide; Pange lingua … proelium, to accompany the ceremony of the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday; and Salve festa dies, for the procession of the newly baptized at Easter. The latter work is an excerpt from Tempora florigero, a poem in elegiac couplets on the subject of Easter, addressed to Bishop Felix of Nantes. These poems were very popular: a number of imitations of Pange lingua and adaptations of Salve festa dies were composed, for use on various feasts.

Most of Fortunatus's works were originally composed to honour specific events. Vexilla regis and Pange lingua commemorate the installation in 569 of a fragment of the True Cross in Radegund's convent in Poitiers. Although Vexilla regis is in the distinctively Christian form of iambic dimeter and Ambrosian stanzas, it evokes the pagan rhetorical form of the basilikos logos, used in late antiquity for the panegyric to a ruler delivered during the imperial adventus ceremonies, and adapted by Christians to welcome a bishop or celebrate the entry of relics. Pange lingua is in trochaic tetrameter catalectic (the metre of the marching chants of the Roman armies) and its phraseology shows the influence of works by Prudentius.

In his use of classical metres and style, Fortunatus was one of the most important late Latin poets, and his works illuminate many aspects of Merovingian culture and society. His influence on the Middle Ages was very significant; his idealized descriptions of Radegund seem to foreshadow the poetry of courtly love; and his poems on the Cross are among the first, and the finest, in a long tradition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J. Szövérffy: Die Annalen der lateinischen Hymnendichtung, i (Berlin, 1964), 128–40

J. Szövérffy: ‘“Crux fidelis …”: Prolegomena to a History of the Holy Cross Hymns’, Traditio, xxii (1966), 1–41

J. Szövérffy: Weltliche Dichtungen des lateinischen Mittelalters, i (Berlin, 1970), 219–91

F. Brunhölzl: Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, i (Munich, 1975); (Fr. trans., rev., 1990–91, with updated bibliography) 117–26

B. Brennan: ‘The Career of Venantius Fortunatus’, Traditio, xli (1985), 59–78

D. Norberg: ‘Le “Pange lingua” de Fortunat pour la Croix’, La Maison-Dieu, no.173 (1988), 71–9

J. George: Venantius Fortunatus: a Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul (Oxford, 1992)

RUTH STEINER/SUSAN BOYNTON

Fortune, Nigel (Cameron)

(b Birmingham, 5 Dec 1924). English musicologist. He read music and Italian at Birmingham University (1947–50; BA 1950), and his research into the development of Italian monody at Cambridge (1950–54) was supervised by Thurston Dart (PhD 1954). From 1956 to 1959 he was music librarian of London University; in 1959 he was appointed lecturer in music at Birmingham University and in 1969 became reader in music; he retired in 1985. From 1957 to 1971 he was secretary of the Royal Musical Association, and he edited the fourth and fifth volumes of its Research Chronicle; in 1971 he was elected a vice-president. He was a member of the Purcell Society committee (1963–94), serving as honorary secretary, 1976–83. He sat on the editorial committee of Musica Britannica 1975–7. He was a senior member of the editorial comittee of the New Grove Dictionary (1980) and played a part in the editorial work on the New Oxford History of Music. In 1981 he became co-editor of Music and Letters. His own research, notable for its care and precision, has dealt with Italian and English vocal music of the 17th century; his wide range of sympathies is reflected in his editorial work and in his teaching.

WRITINGS

‘A Florentine Manuscript and its Place in Italian Song’, AcM, xxiii (1951), 124–36

‘Giustiniani on Instruments’, GSJ, v (1952), 48–54

‘Italian Secular Monody from 1600 to 1635: an Introductory Survey’, MQ, xxxix (1953), 171–95

Italian Secular Song from 1600 to 1635: the Origins and Development of Accompanied Monody (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1954)

‘Italian 17th-Century Singing’, ML, xxxv (1954), 206–19

‘Sigismondo d’India: an Introduction to his Life and Works’, PRMA, lxxxi (1954–5), 29–47

ed.: Purcell–Handel Festival (London, 1959) [incl. ‘Purcell’s Life and Background’, 5–7]

with F.B. Zimmerman: ‘Purcell’s Autographs’, Henry Purcell, 1659–1695: Essays on his Music, ed. I. Holst (London, 1959), 106–21

‘A Handlist of Printed Italian Secular Monody Books, 1602–1635’, RMARC, no.3 (1963), 27–50; no.4 (1964), 98 only

‘Philip Rosseter and his Songs’, LSJ, vii (1965), 7–14

ed., with D. Arnold: The Monteverdi Companion (London, 1968, 2/1985 as the New Monteverdi Companion) [incl. ‘Monteverdi and the second prattica’, 183–215]

‘Solo Song and Cantata’, The Age of Humanism, 1540–1630, NOHM, iv (1968), 125–217

ed., with D. Arnold: The Beethoven Companion (London, 1971; New York, 1971 as The Beethoven Reader) [incl. ‘The Chamber Music with Piano’, 197–240]

ed., with A. Lewis: Opera and Church Music 1630–1750, NOHM, v (1975, 2/1986)

ed., with F.W. Sternfeld and E. Olleson: Essays on Opera and English Music in Honour of Sir Jack Westrup (Oxford, 1975) [incl. ‘The Domestic Sacred Music [of Purcell]’, 62–78]

with I. Fenlon: ‘Music Manuscripts of John Browne (1608–91) and from Stanford Hall, Leicestershire’, Source Materials and the Interpretation of Music: a Memorial Volume to Thurston Dart, ed. I. Bent (London, 1981), 155–68

ed.: J.A. Westrup: Purcell (London, 8/1980)

‘The Rediscovery of Orfeo’, Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo, ed. J. Whenham (Cambridge, 1986), 78–118

ed.: Music and Theatre: Essays in Honour of Winton Dean (Cambridge, 1987)

editions

with T. Dart: John Dowland: Ayres for Four Voices, MB, vi (1953, 2/1963)

The Works of Henry Purcell, xvii (London, 2/1964)

with A. Lewis: The Works of Henry Purcell, xxviii (London, 1959, 2/1967); xxix (London, 1960, 2/1967); xxx (London, 1965, 2/1993); xxxii (London, 1962, 2/1967)

DAVID SCOTT/R