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This article investigates three voci pari settings by Gioseffo Zarlino, the lectiones pro mortuis that appeared in the Motetta D. Cipriani de Rore et aliorum auctorum (Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1563). Although this collection contains motets, we argue that Zarlino's lectiones were intended as liturgical items for an Office for the Dead, celebrated as part of exequial rites. As such, they represent the first printed liturgical settings for the Office for the Dead in the Italian-speaking area. By analyzing liturgical sources as well as chronicles, we show that there was no tradition of setting the lessons pro mortuis in Italy, and that Zarlino's lectiones must have been a somewhat isolated musical experiment. We contextualize the settings within Zarlino's oeuvre, while also highlighting their relation to the contemporary repertoire of polyphonic lessons for penitential liturgies, most importantly lamentations—a genre that was published widely in the 1560s. In an attempt to reconstruct the social and institutional networks that might constitute the background to Zarlino's lectiones, we urge considering their author not only as a theorist and composer, but also as a polymath, a priest, and, ultimately, a devout Christian.

Through Patrick Macey’s extensive research on Josquin des Prez’s Miserere mei Deus, the historical context of this monumental motet, especially its connection with the Savonarolan reform movement and its repercussions at the Este court of Ferrara, has received major attention. Above all, Macey has shown how this piece generated a whole cluster of compositions throughout the sixteenth century that bear musical, structural and/or textual references to Josquin’s work. One of the main elements of this intertextual web includes the use of Josquin’s soggetto ostinato – either literally or with slight variations – by composers such as Adrian Willaert, Cipriano de Rore and Nicola Vicentino, who were all connected with the Este court at a certain point in their careers. Macey’s discoveries have brought to light a highly intriguing reception history, to which other scholars have also contributed. In the present essay, I wish to add yet another piece of evidence to the afterlife of this Miserere tradition. I will focus on two lesser-known motets by Gioseffo Zarlino, Miserere mei Deus and Misereris omnium, both of which were published in his collection Modulationes sex vocum (Venice, 1566) (see Figure 1). Not only did they inscribe themselves in the intertextual network that was initiated by Josquin, but also they can be linked to the Ferrarese court in general and to Duke Alfonso II in particular.

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