Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, is remembered for two things that are hard to put in the same sentence. He killed his wife and her lover and faced no consequences, and he wrote some of the most unsettling music of the late Renaissance.
The Horror
Gesualdo was born in 1566, probably on March 30. His uncle was Carlo Borromeo, later canonised as Saint Charles Borromeo. He was sent to Rome for a career in the Church, but his brother Luigi’s death in 1584 made him heir to the principality. In 1586 he married his first cousin Maria d’Avalos, and they had one son.
On October 16, 1590, at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples, Gesualdo found Maria with her lover Fabrizio Carafa, Duke of Andria, and killed them both. The Gran Corte della Vicaria ruled that he had committed no crime. A prince of his rank was not expected to answer for it.
Retellings add detail that is not established here. Popular accounts describe how the bodies were left, the lover’s clothing, and a return to the room to check that Maria was dead. Those details are unconfirmed. The same goes for the story that he killed an infant by swinging it in a cradle, which is described as apocryphal. The account of his being flogged by servants comes from Campanella in 1635 and is reported, not verified.
His second marriage, in 1594, was to Leonora d’Este, a niece of Duke Alfonso II. It was strained. Leonora spent much of her time in Modena and accused him of abuse. His son by that marriage died in 1600. A painting, Il Perdono di Gesualdo, may have been commissioned afterwards for a Capuchin church at Gesualdo, though the date is uncertain. Gesualdo died in 1613 at his castle, about three weeks after the death of his son Emanuele. The cause of his death is unclear.
The Modern Relic
The music is the main surviving evidence of the man. He published six books of madrigals between 1594 and 1611, and the Tenebrae Responsoria, settings of Passion texts. His writing is marked by extreme chromaticism, and some phrases use all twelve notes. In 1960 Igor Stravinsky wrote Monumentum pro Gesualdo, which includes an arrangement of the madrigal “Beltà, poi che t’assenti”.
The castle at Gesualdo, in the province of Avellino, was severely damaged by the 1980 Irpinia earthquake. It is reported to have been partially open to the public since 2015 while restoration continues. He was buried in the Gesù Nuovo church in Naples. The 1688 earthquake destroyed his sepulchre, and the tomb is now covered, though his burial plaque is reported to be visible.
