Early life Gesualdo's family had acquired the principality of
Venosa, in what is now the
Province of Potenza, Southern Italy, in 1560. He was probably born on 30 March 1566, three years after his older brother, Luigi, though some sources have stated that he was born on 8 March. Older sources give the year of birth as 1560 or 1561, but this is no longer accepted. A letter from Gesualdo's mother, Geronima Borromeo, indicates that the year is most likely 1566. Gesualdo's uncle was
Carlo Borromeo, later Saint Charles Borromeo. His mother was the niece of
Pope Pius IV. Carlo was most likely born at Venosa, then part of the
Kingdom of Naples, but little else is known about his early life. "His mother died when he was only seven, and at the request of his uncle Carlo Borromeo, for whom he was named, he was sent to Rome to be set on the path of an ecclesiastical career. There he was placed under the protection of his uncle Alfonso (d. 1603), then dean of the
College of Cardinals, later unsuccessful pretender to the papacy, and ultimately Archbishop of
Naples." His brother Luigi was to become the next Prince of Venosa, but after his untimely death in 1584, Carlo became the designated successor. Abandoning the prospect of an ecclesiastical career,, he married, in 1586, his first cousin, Donna Maria d'Avalos, the daughter of Carlo d'Avalos, prince of
Montesarchio and Sveva Gesualdo. They had one child, a son,
Don Emmanuele. Gesualdo had a musical relationship with
Pomponio Nenna, though whether it was student-to-teacher, or colleague-to-colleague, is uncertain. Regardless of this, however, he had a single-minded devotion to music from an early age, and is said to have shown little interest in anything else. In addition to the
lute, he played the
harpsichord, and
guitar. In addition to Nenna, Gesualdo's
accademia included the composers
Giovanni de Macque,
Scipione Dentice,
Scipione Stella,
Scipione Lacorcia,
Ascanio Mayone, and the nobleman lutenist
Ettorre de la Marra.
Homicide Some years into her marriage with Gesualdo, Donna Maria began an affair with Fabrizio
Carafa, third Duke of
Andria and seventh Count of
Ruvo. On the night of 16 October 1590, at the
Palazzo San Severo in Naples, the two lovers were caught
in flagrante by Gesualdo, who killed them both on the spot. The day after the killing, a delegation of Neapolitan officials inspected the room in Gesualdo's apartment where the killings had taken place, and interrogated witnesses. The delegation's report did not lack in gruesome details, including the mutilation of the corpses and, according to the witnesses, Gesualdo going into the bedroom a second time "because he wasn't certain yet they were dead". The Gran Corte della Vicaria found Gesualdo had not committed a crime.
Successor About a year after the gruesome end of his first marriage, Gesualdo's father died and he thus became the third Prince of Venosa and eighth Count of Conza.
Ferrara years By 1594, Gesualdo had arranged for another marriage, this time to
Leonora d'Este, the niece of Duke
Alfonso II. That year, Gesualdo ventured to
Ferrara, the home of the d'Este court in 1611. The most notoriously
chromatic and difficult portions of it were all written during his period of self-isolation. The relationship between Gesualdo and his new wife was not good; she accused him of abuse, and the Este family attempted to obtain a divorce. She spent more and more time away from the isolated estate. Gesualdo wrote many angry letters to
Modena where she often went to stay with her brother. According to
Cecil Gray and
Peter Warlock, "She seems to have been a very virtuous lady ... for there is no record of his having killed her." In 1600, Gesualdo's son by his second marriage died. It has been postulated that after this Gesualdo had a
large painting commissioned for the church of the
Capuchins at Gesualdo, showing Gesualdo, his uncle Carlo Borromeo, his second wife Leonora, and his son, underneath a group of angelic figures; however, some sources suspect the painting was commissioned earlier, as the identity of the child is unclear. Late in life he suffered from
depression. According to
Campanella, writing in
Lyon in 1635, Gesualdo had himself
beaten daily by his servants, keeping a special servant whose duty it was to beat him "at stool", and he engaged in a relentless, and fruitless, correspondence with Cardinal
Federico Borromeo to obtain
relics, i.e., skeletal remains, of recently canonized uncle Carlo Borromeo, with which he hoped to obtain healing for his mental disorder and possibly absolution for his crimes. Gesualdo's late setting of
Psalm 51, the
Miserere, is distinguished by its insistent and imploring musical repetitions, alternating lines of
monophonic chant with pungently chromatic
polyphony in a low vocal
tessitura. Gesualdo died in isolation, at his castle Gesualdo in
Avellino, The sepulchre was destroyed in the
earthquake of 1688. When the church was rebuilt, the tomb was covered over, and now lies beneath it. The burial plaque, however, remains visible. == Compositions and style ==