Pietro Antonio Bianco’s Missa Percussit Saul mille: A Precursor of the Habsburg Imperial musica politica of the Seventeenth Century

The article establishes the most appropriate context for understanding Pietro Antonio Bianco’s Missa Percussit Saul mille. In 1601 the Inner-Austrian Archduke Ferdinand II appears to have commissioned a Mass based on Giovanni Croce’s militaristic motet Percussit Saul mille for a solemn Mass celebrated before his departure for the battle of Kanisza. Its composition was entrusted to Ferdinand’s kapellmeister, Bianco. The latter’s Mass seems to be a musical statement of political ideas and demonstrates the function, convention and ideology of ceremonial sacred music at the Graz court around the turn of the sixteenth century. It reflects a political-musical culture that flourished even more greatly after Ferdinand became Emperor.