Milán, Luis

Valencian vihuelist. Author of El Maestro, the oldest surviving vihuela book. In Valencian, his name is Lluis del Milà. He was active in the life of Valencian court in the 1530s and beyond. His activities at court appears included entertaining the ladies of the court with various pastimes including singing and playing the vihuela, and other party games. His book El cortesano, fashioned after Castiglione, is a sharp observation of court life in Valencia.

Milán appears to have been an intuitive musician, probably with little training in counterpoint or other aspects formal composition. Notwithstanding, his music shows him to have had an innate gift with which he created extraordinary compositions (his fantasias and tientos) in a pseudo-contrapuntal style, songs and dance music.

There is still considerable uncertainty over his identity and exact family line. In part, this results from multiple people at the Valencian court named Luis Milán, probably his father and a cousin. The following list is the known information about the vihuelist.

• 1519.03.22. — Codicil dictated by the vihuelist’s father don Lluis del Milà, senyor de Massalavés, husband of Violant Eixarch, leaving his estate in equal parts to Pere Milà (eventual inheritor of the title), and Joan Milà who, in his first will of 1506 received the entire estate. It is thus possible that Luis was born after 1506.
• 1535 – publication of Libro de motes
• 1535-6 – publication of El Maestro
• 1538.01.03 – will of his mother, doña Violant, in which she leaves him money so that he can contemplate marriage, but also live from the income of investments. This was a later source of tension between the vihuelist and his brother
• 1542 – Processos de la Reial Audiència, mention “nobilis et reverendis Ludovici del Milà, clerici”. This suggests that Luis Milán was a clergyman although he only took minor orders, later marrying Anna Mercader. This should be of little surprise given the links between the Milà and the Borja families.
• 1542 – From this date forward there are numerous pleitos and procesos that attest to Milán’s presence in Valencian society.
• 1542 [?] – Rector in the town of Onda (Tortosa): “reverent e noble don Luís del Milà, rector de la rectoria parrochial de la iglèsia de la vila de Onda, diòcesi de Tortosa” (p. 44)
• 1542-1552 – ten years of law suits (pleitos) between Luis Milán and his brother Pedro. They were mainly fruitless and a waste of time.
• 1543 – cited in a legal document as a “cambrer de sa sanctedat” i.e. camarero of His Holiness, but without further explanation of who this senior cleric might have been.
• 1548 – the vihuelist’s father dies, don Luís del Milà.
• 1555 – Luis Milán’s will printed in a book
• The date of Milán’s marriage to Anna Mercader is unknown. She is unlikely to be the woman of the same name who appears in El Cortesano married to Miquel Ferrandis d’Herèdia, brother of Milán’s poetic rival.
• Milán and Anna Mercader had a daughter named Violant Anna.
• 1559.08 Milán dies in Alzira [=Alcira] where he had taken refuge to escape the plague that attacked Valencia the preious year.
• 1564 Gaspar Gil Polo mentions Milán in Primera parte de Diana enamorada. Cinco libros que prosiguen los siete de la Diana de Jorge de Montemayor (Valencia, 1564). The new edition of El Cortesano by Escartí and Tordera (escarti2001) presents an important new biographical study, on the basis of new documents on pp. 39-97 of the new edition.
— Milán wished to be buried in the monastery of Santa María de la Murta
— the authors speculate: Given the influence of music from northern Italy, Milán may perhaps have spent some time in that area if not in Rome itself. It would also be the possible period of a supposed sojourn in Portugal, a claim made by Ruiz de Lihory (p. 334) in 1903 and that remains unproven.

MILAN FAMILY TREE
The family tree I have constructed for Luis Milán is derived principally from Manuel Oliver, D. Rodrigo de Borja (Alejandro VI). Sus hijos y descendientes. 1886. (accessed through Biblioteca VIrtual Cervantes, 11 January 2008), with further info from: Heraldaria.com and other sources that can be found easily enough through Google.
• According to Arriaga2007 there are many doubts. Arriaga 2007, p. 12: “En resumen: Luis Milán, noble valenciano, tenía dos hermanos, Juan y Pedro, y era hijo de Dª Violante Eixarch y de D. Luis del Milán, hijo este a su vez de Juan Milán de Aduche e Isabel Lucrecia Lanzol y Borja, sobrina del papa Alejandro VI; nuestro vihuelista sería, por lo tanto, sobrino bisnieto de Rodrigo Borja, el segundo papa Borgia. Según Ruiz de Lihory, a causa de un duelo Milán se refugió en Portugal, en donde el rey Juan III lo nombró su gentilhombre y le asignó siete mil cruzados de renta; esto explicaría la dedicatoria de El maestro a ese monarca.”
According to the new documents published by Escartí, Arriaga states (p. 13): “Luis Milán debió de nacer poco después de 1506, quizás en 1507, de noble familia y en el Reino de Valencia; siguió la carrera eclesiástica y recibió las órdenes menores, sin haber llegado a la ordenación sacerdotal; quizás viajó por Italia y tal vez vivió en Roma algunos años; probablemente viajó también a Portugal; pleitó con su familia por cuestiones de herencia, se casó, tuvo una hija y murió en 1559, después de haber dejado corregido y listo para la imprenta su último libro El Cortesano, que saldría a la luz pública dos años más tarde.”
There are two men named Luis Milán at the Valencian court, and there is a Pedro Milán, cousin of the vihuelista, in the service of the queen.

Pepe Rey recommends to consult another book cited by Escarti (escarti2001, p. 42, n. 49): Miguel Batllori, La familia Borja (Valencia, Eliseo Climent, 1994). Batllori, has published a great deal on the Borjas, and has another book on them with the same tie=tle published in 1999 by the Academia de la Historia.

Pepe Rey (email of 23/1/2008) observes from studying the poems of Fernández de Heredia that there were clearly two "señores" with similar if not the same name. The vihuelista and poet is almost always given as "Luis Milán", whereas the other is usually called "Luis del Milá". Barbieri had oicked this up and noted in his papers: "Parece que además del conocido maestro de vihuela y poeta, autor del Cortesano, había otro en su tiempo del mismo nombre y apellido." Perhaps they could be uncle and nephew.
Barbieri (casares1986, 521) reports a copy of el Maestro in possession of don Sebastián de Soto in Labra (Asturias) in May 1868.

Juan Fernández de Heredia	was his	colleague
Francisco Fenollet	was his	colleague
Francisco Díaz Romano	was his	printer