Renaissance Christmas Carol

I spent a lot of time this year learning about the Renaissance and Renaissance gardens. For background I watched movies that depicted Renaissance gardens, read The Prince by Machiavelli, and watched the Showtime series, “The Borgias” (with eyes half-closed or covered during the gruesome scenes)! So I thought it would be interesting to learn about the kind of Christmas carol that might have been popular during the Italian Renaissance. One thing I realized is that the Italian city states had not yet been unified during the Italian Renaissance, so many languages and dialects were spoken. Consequently, there is no one representative Christmas carol sung by all.

However, I did learn about a Neapolitan carol called “Quanno nascette Ninno” (“When the child was born”). The melody and original lyrics were written by Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696 – 1787), a Neapolitan priest who founded the Redemptorist missionary order, ministered to the poor, and was later canonized. In 1744 he created a version of the Christmas hymn in Neapolitan, while staying in the city of Deliceto in the province of Foggia in southeastern Italy.

The lyrics were later translated into Italian, by Pope Pius IX (1792 - 1878) as "Tu scendi dalle stelle" ("From Starry Skies Thou Comest"). The translated version is a well-loved Christmas carol throughout Italy. Check YouTube for beautiful renditions of "Quanno nascette Ninno" and "From Starry Skies Thou Comest".

 

Merry Christmas to all!