Within only eleven years, between 1611 and 1622, Ippolito Scarsella called Scarsellino (ca. 1560–1620) and Carlo Bononi (ca. 1575–1632) painted in Ferrara six large-scale compositions of banquet ...scenes which include musicians. Scarsellino produced two versions of theMarriage at Cana(1611, Ferrara, Pinacoteca Nazionale; ca. 1615, Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen) and theSupper in the House of Simon(ca. 1617, Jerusalem, The Israel Museum); Bononi produced theBanquet of Estherfor San Domenico church in Ravenna (1610s), and again two versions of theMarriage at Canafor the Basilica of Santa Maria in Vado in Ferrara (ca. 1622, Ferrara, Pinacoteca Nazionale) and for the monastery of San Cristoforo alla Certosa in Ferrara (1622). All these compositions represent biblical celebrations, and each of them includes a prominently represented ensemble of musicians.
The first to introduce musicians in the banqueting scene was the Ferrarese painter Benvenuto Tisi, known as “Il Garofalo” (1481–1559), who drew very clearly on accounts of the banquets held since the late fifteenth century by the Dukes d'Este, who had refined the ritual of banqueting to a fine art. However, the greatest influence on the theme of the banquet was Veronese'sMarriage at Cana, painted in 1562–63 for the refectory of the Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.
Bononi's scenes have a theatrical feel. He repeated the same position of his musicians in all three paintings as if the musicians, which are situated in the center of the banquet scene, occupied a definite place in the dining hall. Such position of musicians was possibly parallel to the position they occupied in the new Teatro Farnese in Parma, built by Giovan Battista Aleotti (1545–1636) of Ferrara and inaugurated in 1628. Musicians were placed there at the foot of the proscenium, what was an innovative position at the time. Two flights of stairs led from the stage down into what is now referred to as theparterre. On the right side was built a balustrade for the musicians, and this position made it easy to coordinate the performance and ensured that the instrumental accompaniment could be clearly heard both by the singers and the audience.
