oa ‘Audire missam non est verba missae intelligere…’: The Low Mass and the Motetti missales in Sforza Milan

In order to provide a new theoretical basis for reassessing the late fifteenth-century motetti missales and their interaction with liturgy in Sforza Milan, this paper starts not with the missales specifically, but rather with the broader issue of ‘hearing the mass’. This precept was central to the life of early modern Christians, but in how many ways could the faithful fulfil it? How many forms of attention and participation were deemed acceptable? What role did sonic elements play in it? And conversely, how did these conceptions influence musical choices? Through the study of treatises, methods, and other documents, the first sections of the paper explore the theory and practice of attending mass and examine problems such as the synchronization between ritual actions, individual devotion, and collective experiences. Focusing back on the motetti missales in light of the background thus delineated, I argue that the motetti missales were performed during votive low masses. In the conclusions, I put this practice in the perspective of the early modern era and suggest that the low mass may have been an important venue for the performance of motets throughout the period.