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| Alessandro Algardi Two putti supporting the arms of Cardinal Camillo Pamphili (design for a carved relief) before 1654 drawing British Museum |
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| Lazzaro Baldi St Luke the Evangelist writing his Gospel (print study celebrating the Accademia di San Luca, Rome) ca. 1679 drawing British Museum |
"The earliest known written example of Funerary Violin music is a short suite by Friedrich Heidebrecht dated 1670. Heidebrecht was a German-trained Funerary Violinist working for the court of Louis XIV, and it is thought that he was inspired to fix his compositions (rather than freely improvise) by his knowledge of the success, amongst lutenists at court, of the form of the Tombeau, a commemorative piece dedicated to a specific deceased person. These Tombeaux were a courtly adaptation of the music Funerary Violinists such as Heidebrecht had been playing, and he clearly saw the advantages to be gained by authorship at first hand."
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| Giovanni Angelo Canini St Benedict Kneeling before Crucifix ca. 1633-66 drawing British Museum |
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| Simone Cantarini Two male figure studies before 1648 drawing Prado, Madrid |
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| Annibale Carracci Study for Angel ca. 1600-1602 drawing on blue paper Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
"The forgetfulness of history is further exacerbated by the nature of the musical language, which for a long time remained an aural and semi-improvisational tradition. This forgetfulness is clearly illustrated by our cultural memory of the Funeral of Queen Mary II in 1695. Costing well over £50,000 it was undoubtedly one of the most extravagant and expensive funerals ever staged, and was much celebrated in poetry, music and pictures for years after the event. The many engravings of the funeral procession clearly show Jonathan Heddleston, Master of the King's Funerary Violinists, set fourth back from the hearse, and yet his musical contribution to the event has been entirely eclipsed by the music composed by the court musician Henry Purcell, which was performed at the culmination of the procession in Westminster Abbey. That Purcell's Funeral Music for Queen Mary is still regularly played today whilst even the name of Jonathan Heddleston has been long forgotten is a clear demonstration of the many prejudices suffered by Funerary Violinists over the years, and yet another example of history being written by the victors; in this case the classical music tradition, which is today presented as if it were the only music being composed and performed before the birth of jazz in the early twentieth century."
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| Salvatore Castiglione Supper at Emmaus ca. 1650-60 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Giacomo Cavedone Heads of women before 1660 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Cavaliere d’Arpino Equestrian study 1601 drawing Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf |
"It is society's eternal tragedy that those who aspire to greatness and reach their goal must necessarily be brought down by those they stand above. How many times have the grandest achievements of man been destroyed by a jealous and aggressive multitude? How many temples have been torn to the ground by hordes of unbelieving soldiers in search of plunder? How many visionaries were cast into the blackness of obscurity in the interest of politics and power? How many libraries were burned? How much has been lost, and lost again?"
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| Giovanni Coli Inspiration of St Mark ca. 1651-81 wash drawing British Museum |
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| Guglielmo Cortese Studies of two soldiers before 1679 drawing British Museum |
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| Aniello Falcone Deborah and Barak ca. 1640-42 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
"Today we are, as a society, convinced that modern medicine will prolong life to the point where it is no longer worth the effort. Of course, this point to a man or woman in their twenties looks very different from how it looks to a person of seventy-five, but the reassuring smile of medical science means that only the tragically unfortunate must ever contemplate the reality of death whilst in their prime. Once the body is near to breaking down for good, they are sent away to a nursing home that deals with everything at a distance. Most of us have never seen a dead body. If there is a death in the family, it is usually that of an elderly relative whom we last saw some time ago. The brief funeral is led by somebody who never met the deceased, and it is not uncommon for mistakes to be made in summarising the life. The body is safely packaged in a standard off-the-shelf coffin and, more often than not nowadays, this coffin puts in only a brief appearance before being mechanically retracted behind curtains. All this to the plaintive strains of a cassette player churning out commercially motivated music. Upon occasion, an electric organ is played (badly) by another stranger to the deceased. A week or so later the family are presented with an elegant wooden box, or urn, containing the unrecognisable ashes, which are usually sprinkled somewhere pretty."
– quoted passages are by Rohan Kriwaczek, from An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin (London: Duckworth, 2006)
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| Luca Giordano Two Apostles ca. 1680 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Giovanni Ghisolfi Saint heals sick woman before 1683 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Daniele Crespi St Cecilia at the organ 1620s drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |