Benedetto Gareth

Benedetto Gareth, known as Il Chariteo, was born in Barcelona around 1450 and died in Naples in 1514. A figure of the Aragonese court in Naples, he belonged to that circle of poets who joined the word to song, and his name is linked to the transmission of vernacular poetry in Italy during the early Renaissance.

Much of his career unfolded in Naples under Aragonese rule. He served as secretary to Ferdinand I and afterwards worked as secretary of state to Ferdinand II, for whom he would often sing the verses of Virgil. According to the testimony of Cortese, as recorded by Pirrotta, the Spaniards sang in a mournful manner and adorned Virgilian verses with a simple variety of the Lydian mode that produced a rather languid modulation. At Ferdinand's wedding in 1496, he performed "mille sue frottole", composed in honour of "La Luna", the poetic name of the beloved woman. His amorous lyrics, gathered in the Endimione, reflect the influence of Petrarch.

He was also one of the most distinguished members of the Accademia Pontaniana, where he received the nickname "Chariteus", an allusion to the Graces. Serafino Aquilano met him during his stay in Naples (1478–1480) and, as the story goes, was inspired by the performances Andrea Coscia gave of his poems at the court of the Sforza in Milan.

His musical legacy is above all indirect. One of his thirty-two strambotti, "Amando e desiando", is attributed to him in Petrucci's edition of the Frottole, book nine, and also in a version for voice and lute in Bossinensis's Intabulati of 1511. Others of his compositions circulated in Mantuan collections, and the opening lines of his strambotti, such as "Tu dormi e amor veglia", were frequently quoted in various forms of popular poetry. The six Neapolitan canzoni of a burlesque character attributed to "Don Caritheo" cannot, it seems, be his.