This book examines the predominantly oral practice of singing lyric poetry among members of the
Neapolitan aristocracy in southern Italy during the late-fifteenth century. The tradition of
singing Neapolitan lyric developed and gradually gained ascendancy in the Kingdom of Naples
over the nearly sixty years of the Aragonese dynasty (1442-1501)-both in the capital city of
Naples and at feudal courts throughout the Kingdom's rural provinces. The surviving song
repertory and its preservation in late-fifteenth-century musical and literary sources bear
witness not only to these varied performance contexts but also to the inherently communal
aspect of the tradition as a whole. Combining musicological ethnomusicological and literary
theoretical approaches it interrogates the fixity and purpose of this written repertory in
preserving a fluid and dynamic oral practice that flourished as the artistic expression of a
subjugated class-Neapolitan nobles and intellectuals living under Aragonese rule. The
manuscript collections historical descriptions theoretical and literary works that preserve
and transmit the records of this oral practice demonstrate how writing was used to record
recollect recreate and ultimately memorialize a communal practice of song-making-lending
value and legitimacy to the Kingdom's local aristocracy-during a tumultuous time in the history
of southern Italy. Some copies perhaps preserved on less durable media have likely been lost
while others preserve traces of orality with varying levels of fixity and transformation. How
and why these records were created and preserved is the central question that this study seeks
to answer.
