“Complying with the rituals of not singing secular but devotional things”. Scenography and Music during the celebration of the Burial of Christ at the Real Colegio-Seminario de Corpus Christi in Valencia (1692)

Abstract

The Real Colegio-Seminario de Corpus Christi in Valencia was founded by the Archbishop Juan de Ribera (1532-1611) with his own fortune, combining the search for a new religious and cultural paradigm –characteristic of the Council of Trent– with a desire to set up a college of clerics. Ribera became the patron of the different artists who exquisitely produced spaces conceived to perform carefully designed ceremonies; these would give life to the Holy Scriptures used at the will of Ribera himself, prohibiting or ignoring certain celebrations. This is the case with the Burial of Christ, which did not begin until 1692 with help from an unknown person. This article provides the details of this celebration and presents the unpublished motets of Máximo Ríos, with texts from the Gospel of John and the Book of Isaiah, a choice in accordance with the office of the Holy Triduum and argued in the documentation of the period to avoid the singing of the psalms Miserere and In exitu Israel and of the hymn Vexilla Regis.