humanism in italian renaissance

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Claude V Palisca

HUMANISM

ITALIAN

REN ISS NCE

MUSIC LTHOUGHT

uman ism in Italian Renaissance

Musical hought

I'ublishcd wilh .1SsUtanCr from the Louis 51t' , Memori;al Fund.

Copyright 4 1985 by Yale UniversilY. All righls reserved. This bookmay 1101 br reproduced. in whole or in pUI. ill ;any form (beyolldIh;al copy llS permilled by Sections 7 ;and \08 of ht' U. S. CopyrighlL.tw .and c cepl by rc:viewers for II\ : public prcss). wilhout wrinc:npermission Irom the publishers.

DcsigllC. d by N.ancy Ovedovill l l l l i 5C: in Ilembo typc: by RainsfordType. I)rilllell in the United 51311:5 of America by Edwards Brothers.Inc • Ann Arhor. Michigan.

Library of Congrcss Cataloging ill I)ublicatioll Dala

l alisC:I. Claude V.Humanism in h.alian Rm.:aissance musical thOllghlBibliognphy: p.Includc. S index.I. Music-haly-15th century-History ;and criticism. 2. Music

h.:aly-16th cmlury-History .and crilicism. 3. nen;aissance-haly. 4.Humanism. I Tide.ML2 JeI.2.1)34 1985781.745 as-8ICJOISDN 0-300-03302-8

The paprr in Ihis book meets thr guidelincs for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevily of Ihe Council on Libnry Resources.

10 I 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I

To tile memory o my motllerGisella Fleisch lacker Palisca (1895-1944)

Contents

Preface

Introduction: An Italian Renaissance in Music?

The Rediscovery of the Ancient Sources

The Earliest Musical Humanists: Pietro d Abano

The Earliest Musical Humanists: Giorgio Valla

FIVEThe Earliest Musical Humanists: Carlo Valgulio

The Pro em to Plm:lrch s e tllllsica

A Reply to an Opponent of MusicThe Translation of the e IHilsica of Plutarch

The Early Translators: Burana, Lconiceno, AugioGiovanni Fr:mcesco BuranaNicolo LeonicenoGiovanni Battista Augio

Antonio Goga vaPtolemy s Harmotlics

Pseudo-Aristotlc s e alldibiliblls

Aristoxcnus Harmonic Elements

Bomigari s Corrections

viii ontents

EIGHTHarmonics and Disharmonies of the Spheres

Ugolino of OrvietoGiorgio AnselmiFranchino GaffurioGioseffo ZarlinoJohannes TinctorisFrancisco de SalinasGiovanni Battista BenedettiCelestial Harmony as Myth and Metaphor

GatTurio as a Humanist

The Ancient usica Speclliativa andRenaissance Musical Science

Franchino GaffurioHamos de ParejaGiovanni SpataroLodovico FoglianoGioscffo ZarlinoFrancisco de SalinasGirolamo FracastoroGiov mni Battista BenedettiGirolamo Mei and Vincenzo Galilci

ELEVENGreek Tonality and Western Modality

Johannes GallicusErasmus of Horitz

Giorgio VallaNicolo LeonicenoFranchino GaffurioGioseffo Zar linoFrancisco de SalinasGirolamo MeiVincenzo GalileiThe Tonoi and the Waning of ModalityGiovanni BardiGiovanni Battista Doni

ontents

TWELVE

A Natural New Alliance of the ArtsGrammarMei on tonic accentPietro Bembo

THIRTEEN

The Poetics of MusicMusic as PoetryVincenzo GalilciThe Poetics of ImitationThe Case against Mimesis Francesco PatriziExpressing the Affections

FOURTEEN

Theory of Dramatic MusicFrancesco PatriziGirolamo MeiJacopo Peri

Works Cited

Preface

Music historians have long been aware of a link between the revival ofancient learning and the changes in musical style and theory that occurredduring the Renaissance. But the ties to antiquity have been hard to pindown. because ancient music could not be recreated as could ancient literature and architecture. Instead. the objects of revival were ancient attitudesand thoughts about music. The route by which these reached Renaissancemusicians and critics has not been studied with any precision or thorough

ness. Indeed. the men most rt. sponsible for the transmission of Greek thoughtabout music have been practically ignored. Their names. some of whichhead chapters or sections in this book Pietro d·Abano. Giorgio Valla.Carlo Valgulio. Antonio Gogava. Francesco Burana. Nicolo Leoniceno-are missing from even the most comprehensive accounts of the musicalculture of the Renaissance.

This book aims to document the debt that Renaissance musical thoughtowes to ancient. particularly Greek. musical thought and to trace its pathof transmission in Italy. I have had to rely almost entirely on primarysources. Because of this necessity. the previous literature on musical hu-manism and on music in the Renaissance has been given less attention thanit truly deserves. Therefore I want to express here my debt to those whoearlier explored musical humanism and lighted my way particularly Edward E. Lowinsky. PaulO. Kristeller. Nino Pirrot ta Leo Schrade D. P.Walker. and Edith Weber for I have learned enormously from them.

In general the field has been dominated by the hunt for parallels betweenmusical manifestations and those in other ans and humanities that show astrong reliance on ancient models. But even where parallels have been found.there has been little direct evidence of relationships among the composers.writers. philosophers. architects. and artists whose work is involved. Icannot claim to have discovered many such associations either so the searchmust continue for where no direct connections can be shown. the con-

xii Preface

current trends. like parallel lines. never meet. and we can learn little fromsimply contemplating the striking analogil S. I have avoided draw ing suchparallels. limiting myself to those connections between music and ancientthought that w know existed in the minds of Renaissance men becausethey are recorded in writing. These considerations. too. explain why I havenot allocated much space to past literature on musical humanism. As aconsequence of this approach and the interdisciplinary scope of my study.

the secondary literature referred to in the footnotes is restricted to thoseworks that were specifically utilized for the material in the text. and thebibliography lists only these.

Some chapters may strike the reader as almost anthologies of extractsfrom Renaissance writings on music and related subjects. Since so many ofthe works quoted are unpublished or extremely rare. this was the only wayI could let my authors speak for themselves. And since none of them wrotein English. I wanted to let the reader experience the power of their ownwords. with the aid of parallel translations. Whenever possible the materialin the two columns corresponds line for line. consequences of which are acertain literalness and a ragged format. The translations are my own exceptwhere I have indicated otherwise.

Many organizations and individuals have generously supported my research over the years. t was begun in Florence on a Guggenheim Fellowshipand completed on a second one twenty years later. In between. a SeniorFellowship of he National Endowment for the Humanities permitted a yearin Paris at the remarkable collection of Renaissance books of the Bibliotheque Nationale. The Whitney Griswold Fund of Yale University aidedthe preparation of the manuscript. And. of course. the Yale libraries. p ~ r -

ticularly the Music Library and the Beinecke: Rare Book and ManuscnptLibrary. provided a solid home base for my investigations.

Several of my students at Yale have helped me during various stages.joseph DiGiovanni. of the Renaissance Studies Program. transcribed partsof Leoniceno s translation ofPtolemy s Harmonics. Deborah Narani. of theMedieval Studies Program. checked my translations of Pietro d Abano scommentary on the pseudo-Aristotle Problems. Otto Stein mayer. of theClassics Depanment. reviewed most of my translations from Latin andmade many essential improvements in them.

O f the many colleagues to whom I feel indebted. I should name s e v e ~ a l

jon Solomon. of he University of Arizona. kindly made available his translation ofCleonides Harmonic introduction. Frank d Accone, of he Universityof California, Los Angeles, and james Haar. of the University of NorthCarolina, contributed to my thinking with their learned commentaries onmy first chapter when it was delivered as a lecture in hono r of A TillmanMerritt s retirement from Harvard. Thomas J Mathiesen, of Brigham Young

Preface xiii

University. enriched and enhanced this book in many ways. by lending memicrofilms of Greek manuscripts that once belonged to Giorgio Valla. byletting me use some of the information in the catalog of Greek manuscriptsof music theory he is preparing for the RepertOire imernationale des sourcesmusicales by reviewing my translations of the Latin versions of Greek treatises by Burana. Leoniceno. Gogava. and Augio and offering many provident corrections and excellent suggestions. and. finally. by reading andcommenting on the entire manuscript. To these scholars I and the readertoo. owe sincere thanks.

Among others who have stood behind this work. I give special thanksto Edward Tripp. Editor-in-Chief of the Yale University Press. for hisencouragemen t and interest. t o jean van Altena for her very attentive readingand sympathetic editing. to Michael Pepper and jay Williams for theirresourceful recoding and production of the manuscript from its electronicstate. to my daughter Madeline for her punctilious drafting of the index.and to my wife. Jane. for advice on many matters. bi g and small. and forher confidence and unfailing support.

Branford October 1984

Introduction: An Italian Renaissance in Music?

istorians generally view the Renaissance as a movementthat began in Italy and spread northward. Music historians. however. have habitually begun the study of musicin the Renaissance with composers associated wi th FranceJnd the Low Count ries. Gustave Reese organized his booklHIIsi( i" th,' R lldiSSI1I1((' on the premise that a central mus-

ical language arose in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in France. theLow Countries. and Italy. and spread to Spain. Portugal. Germany. Eng

land. and eastt:rn Europe. In the first part of he book he defines this languagein terms of the music of Dufay. Busnois. and Ockeghem. who were activeprincipally in the north. 1

Similarly Howard Mayer Brown takes the view that music in the: Renaissance is a northern art. or at least an art by northerners. All of the greatcomposers of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were born in whatis today northern France. Belgium. and Holland.":

Thus. while the impetus for the Renaissance in the visual arts. literature.and philosophy is generally recognized to have come from Italy and movedacross the Alps, we are confronted in music history with the thesis thatmusic. of all artistic expressions. moved in the opposite direction. Nowcontrary motion may be a praiseworthy polyphonic practice. but it is disconcerting when applied to cultural historiography. If history in generalhas a proverbial problem of the Renaissance." how much more acute it isin music history

Heinrich Besseler. reflecting on his own work in Renaissance studies since

I Gustave: R.e:rse. MIlS;( ; IlIr RtI,a;ssalltt (New York. 1954 . Pt. I

2. Howard Mayer Brown. ''''lIs;( ; tI,r R.. a;ssallcr (Englewood Cliffs. 1976). p. 4. LeoSchrade:. in "Renaissance: the Historical Conception of an Epoch." K ' ~ ~ T f s s · B ( ' r ; ( tdrT IIII(r.IIa/;ollalt Gtstllscl aft fiir Mllsikll·;swrstl ,,,,fi. Utrtc/It 1951 (Amsterdam. 1953 . pp. 19-32. tooka similar view: "In contrast to the bonae lillerae and to the visual arts as well. the rebirth ofmusic came to pass as an achievement of northern composers " (p. 3U •

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