Surname
Sirede
Given Name
Benoit
Role
Composer
Master of choirboys
Master of Music
Musician
Singer
Active period
1436 - 1455
Workplace
Sens
Biography
NG2: Benoit [Benedictus Sirede, Benoctus de Francia, Benenoit, Benedette di Giov. dito Benoit, Benotto di Giovanni, Benottus de Ferraria] (fl 1436--55). French singer and composer. He was probably from the archdiocese of Sens in Haute-Bourgogne. His works appear in 15th-century musical sources under the name Benoit, but an authoritative papal document identifies him as Benedictus Sirede. He is first documented in 1436--7, as a singer for the confraternity of Orsanmichele in Florence. In 1438 he was recruited in Ferrara by Lorenzo de' Medici for the cathedral and baptistry choir of Florence, becoming choirmaster in 1439. He resigned from this position on 23 January 1448. From 1448 to 1450 he served in the chapel of Leonello d'Este in Ferrara; he was also a member of the papal chapel from December 1447 to February 1448, and again from January 1451 to October 1455.
Six works by Benoit survive, probably composed in the 1430s and 40s. All are in manuscripts copied in northern Italy during this period: I-Bc Q15, MOe a.X.1.11, Vnm 7554 (olim 145) and GB-Ob Can. misc.213. The isorhythmic motet Gaude tu baptista Christi and the antiphon Puer qui natus est nobis are in honour of St John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence, and may have been composed there. The hymns and antiphons closely resemble those by Du Fay from the same period. The chanson has been attributed by some scholars, on slender grounds, to a Guillaume Benoit who was choirmaster at Notre Dame in 1405 and possibly also a servant of the Duke of Suffolk between 1423 and 1427.
WORKS Edition: Early Fifteenth-Century Music, ed. G. Reaney, CMM, xi/3 (1966) [complete edn]
Gaude, tu baptista Christi, 4vv, motet; Puer qui natus est nobis, 3vv, ant; Virgo Maria, non est tibi similis, 3vv, ant; Lucis Creator optime, 3vv, hymn; Tibi Christe splendor Patris, 3vv, hymn; De cuer joyeux, 3vv, rondeau
BIBLIOGRAPHY Lockwood MRF. F. D'Accone: 'The Singers of San Giovanni in Florence during the 15th Century', JAMS, xiv (1961), 307--58. C. Hamm and A.B. Scott: 'A Study and Inventory of the Manuscript Modena Biblioteca Estense, a.X.1.11 (ModB)', MD, xxvi (1972), 101--43. P. Starr: 'The ''Ferrara Connection'': Musical Recruitment in the Renaissance', Studi musicali, xviii (1989), 3--17. B. Wilson: Music and Merchants: the Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence (Oxford, 1992)
PAMELA F. STARR
Six works by Benoit survive, probably composed in the 1430s and 40s. All are in manuscripts copied in northern Italy during this period: I-Bc Q15, MOe a.X.1.11, Vnm 7554 (olim 145) and GB-Ob Can. misc.213. The isorhythmic motet Gaude tu baptista Christi and the antiphon Puer qui natus est nobis are in honour of St John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence, and may have been composed there. The hymns and antiphons closely resemble those by Du Fay from the same period. The chanson has been attributed by some scholars, on slender grounds, to a Guillaume Benoit who was choirmaster at Notre Dame in 1405 and possibly also a servant of the Duke of Suffolk between 1423 and 1427.
WORKS Edition: Early Fifteenth-Century Music, ed. G. Reaney, CMM, xi/3 (1966) [complete edn]
Gaude, tu baptista Christi, 4vv, motet; Puer qui natus est nobis, 3vv, ant; Virgo Maria, non est tibi similis, 3vv, ant; Lucis Creator optime, 3vv, hymn; Tibi Christe splendor Patris, 3vv, hymn; De cuer joyeux, 3vv, rondeau
BIBLIOGRAPHY Lockwood MRF. F. D'Accone: 'The Singers of San Giovanni in Florence during the 15th Century', JAMS, xiv (1961), 307--58. C. Hamm and A.B. Scott: 'A Study and Inventory of the Manuscript Modena Biblioteca Estense, a.X.1.11 (ModB)', MD, xxvi (1972), 101--43. P. Starr: 'The ''Ferrara Connection'': Musical Recruitment in the Renaissance', Studi musicali, xviii (1989), 3--17. B. Wilson: Music and Merchants: the Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence (Oxford, 1992)
PAMELA F. STARR