Author: Farfaro, Nicolò  [Mazzaferro, Giorgio]

 Title: A discourse on  ancient and modern music
Original title: Discorso sopra la Musica Antica, e Moderna

 Source: Rome,  Biblioteca dell’ Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana, MS 36 E 30, f. Ir-62v

[-f.Ir-] A discourse on ancient and modern music

[-f.IIr-] To Signor Nicolò Farfaro

Having come to Rome in this Holy Week for personal devotion, and, having heard that some extraordinary compositions written artfully in the style of the ancients were to be sung in the Oratorio di San Marcello, albeit I am not particularly curious by nature, but considering that anyone who loves the truth should overlook such an occasion, I went there [-f.IIv-] with great anticipation.

I saw that the size of the audience was extraordinary, and I also heard some talking about the performance, but in different ways, according to their taste and opinions. Therefore, as I was emboldened to express my opinion on music, whichever this opinion may be and however little refined, I saw it fit to convey it to Your Lordship through the present discourse without a specific plan, thanks to that confidence that characterised our relationship when we studied philosophy together. I do this, [-f.IIIr>-] not because I pride myself to know more than others, but for my personal satisfaction and in order to learn, since, as Socrates maintained, truth is found by debating against the opinions of others. However, whenever I may make a mistake, I shall be obliged as much as I possibly can to those who would have put me right, while I shall be pleased to have offered the chance to beautiful minds to show their value, and thus, I kiss your hands. In Naples, 20 June 1640. Your Lordship's Servant, Giorgio Mazzaferro.

[-f.1r-] Chapter one. Music is extremely difficult and it can be barely understood by the most learned.

Since music is very difficult, it is also very difficult to discuss it, as, therefore, this can be done only by the most learned, as we read in Diogenes Laertius' fourth book on Epicurus: “Only the learned can discuss correctly of poetics and music.” Such difficulty was recognised also by Vitruvius, book five, chapter four, where he says: “Harmonics is a kind of musical grammar, obscure and difficult, particularly for those who do not know Greek, as some of its elements have no correspondent in Latin.” Macrobius, in the Somnium Scipionis, book two, chapter one, while considering the minutiae [-f.1v-] of this discipline that tire the mind in vain, as it is impossible to apply the in practice, left them aside and said: “The interval of the Diatessaron consists of two tones and a semitone, but we shall neglect the small particles that remain in addition in order to avoid any difficulty.” Moreover, he continues at chapter four: “It is the mark of a show-off, rather than of a teacher, to pursue Netes, Hypates and the names of the other strings, as well as the minute particles of tones and limmas, and to declare which part of the sound has to be taken as a letter, as a syllable and as a whole name, Nor, merely because Cicero mentions music in this passage, on this occasion

one has to survey the entirety of the treatises that there may be about music, which are an infinite number, as far as I believe, but one has to pursue only what those notions through which the words that one has been entrusted to explain may be made clear, since, in a subject that is naturally obscure, who exceeds in providing more information than it is necessary adds to the confusion and does not remove the complexity of the subject matter. [-f.2r-] Plato, speaking as Socrates in conversation with Protarchus in the Philebus, illustrates this difficulty. Socrates: “If one could separate from every art the skill of counting, measuring and weighing, only something unimportant would remain of each of them.” Protarchus: “Unimportant, indeed.” Socrates: “The remainder, therefore, could be acquired through a certain imagination and sensory experience, through practice and conjecture, and most say that such skills achieve all of their power through application and work.” Protachus: “You draw a necessary conclusion.” Socrates. “Isn't music full of these? First, it is not the the measure that combines the strands of musical performance, but skilful conjecture, while the ability to play pursues the measure [-2v-] of any struck note through conjecture, since it is imbued with great obscurity and the greatest stability.” Protarchus. “This is completely true.” In the seventh book of the Republic, Plato derides those who lose their mind pursuing such subtleties and minutiae without any apparent gain: “Do you not know that they do the same with regard of Harmonics? In fact, while they measure with their ears the sounds and notes that they hear, and spend time and effort to compare them in vain, they waste their time as astronomers do. By God, how ridiculously do they handle and double the number of the thickly populated series of their notes, they hold their ear close to a string as if were about to hunt the note itself more precisely from a closer position! Some of them say that they can hear an intermediate sound between two and that is the smallest interval, others remain unconvinced, as if [-3r-] they hear the same sound, while both placing their ears before their understanding.” “ Do you, in fact,” I said “call useless those musicians who constantly torture the strings, examine them, and turn them with their pegs, now intensifying, now reducing their vibrations?” Daniel Barbaro, in his treatise on Vitruvius, book five, chapter four, hinted that music is much harder than people think: “The task of the musical discourse is to speculate and investigate the relationship between numbers with the addition of sound. For this reason, we divide music into two main parts, one of which is subject entirely to the power of rational thinking, of which Aristoxenus hardly speaks, as it is the part that considers the value, the nature, the variety and propriety of ratios, and considers the combinations of sounds and define what cannot be perceived by the ear because of its inherent subtlety.” [-f.3v-] Mercurius Trismegistus in the Asclepius appear to want to scare those who have musical pretensions. “To be knowledgeable in music consists in nothing but knowing the order of the universe and everything that the divine reason has organised. In fact, the order of individual things brought together in unity by the reason of the creator of everything will produce a kind of divine, sweet-sounding and inherently true blending of harmonious sounds. Therefore, well aware of the weakness of my mind and of how dishonourable it is to err in what one professes, as Cicero wrote in the second book of the Tusculanae: “In fact, just as, if someone who professes to be a grammarian talked without respect for the rules of the language, or, if someone who purports to be a musician, were to sing abysmally, this is all the more reprehensible, because he errs in the precise field in which he declares to be an expert.” Worse, who behaves in this way suffers being accused of being mad, as Cicero himself said in the third book of the De Oratore: [-f.4r-] “Who can pracise geometry, if he did not learn it? Who can practise music, if he has not learned it? It will have to be quiet, or he will not even appear of sound mind.” Hence, I shall not dare to speak at my own whim, but on the basis of the reasoning, authority and science of very learned people, by quoting their own words, which, in my opinion, cannot be contradicted.

Chapter two. Ancient music had its own laws, which nobody was allowed to transgress, in order to preserve its decorum and and of good traditions.

Since the ancient Greeks professed their love of wisdom and knew how great the value of music, when practised properly, from what Mercury, Orpheus, Amphion and others had done in the service of [-f.4v-] human life, held it in the greatest veneration. Since they knew that music was naturally pleasing and human nature more prone to evil than to good, and thus music could be subject to abused by them, as they took more note of the senses than of virtue, they decided to reduce and restrict it within precise limits, that were called Nomoi and Laws, so that they would be observed inviolably, as they did not want anybody to add to it or alter it in the slightest, for whatever reason, and taking away from musicians the judgement and capacity to do so by determining punishments for the transgressors. [-f.5r-] Aristotle, in his Problems, section nineteen, researched why many melodies are called laws, but, to end in a song, I shall repeat what Plutarch wrote in his treatise On Music: “It is true that in ancient times nobody was allowed, as they are now, to sing to a string instrument, as one likes, nor could they alter melodies and rhythms, since the specific harmonies were prescribed in the laws themselves. This is why the name of laws, as they are called, was assigned to them, since it was forbidden by law, and almost by song, that anyone should transgress the single species and form of harmony that characterised each one.” Also, Athenaeus, book fourteen, chapter thirteen says: “In ancient time musical decorum was observed and every proper and most apt adornment to it was achieved according to the rules. For this reason, there were particular flutes suited to individual modes, and individual pipes on each flutes, which, especially prepared to perform [-f.5v-] individual styles of music, performed in musical contests.” Musicians had to follow such laws inviolably for a long time, and, if one dared to introduce something new and to add to the music more than what the laws permitted, was severely punished by a magistrate. Plutarch writes that the inhabitants of Argos ensured meticulously that no innovations were introduced by prescribing a punishment for who contravened this rule: “It is recounted that the inhabitants of Argos even imposed a fine on those who violated musical rules, and that they exacted it from the first person who dared to use more than the seven flutes traditionally used by them and to allude to the Mixolydian mode.” Also, Herodotus says that, at the time of Polycrates, the inhabitants of Argos [- f.6r-] excelled at music: “At the time the inhabitants of Argos were said to be superior to the rest of the Greeks in the field of music.” It is certain that great care was taken to prevent music from being corrupted, as the same author writes: “Among the Spartans the ephor Eumerpes cut with a hatchet two of the nine strings of the musician Phrynis, saying that he wouldn't be allowed to pollute Music.” In the life of Agis, of the same author, we read: “When he was an ephor he cut nine two of the nine strings that the musician Phrynis with an axe.” In his pamphlet On moral progress, he says: “When the Ephors learned that a certain Phrynis, a well known musician, was adding two strings to the complete number of the seven strings of the cithara, they asked the magistrate whether he preferred that the lowest or the highest were cut from the series of the others.” [-f.6v-] Pausanias, in his third book, reports that the Spartans took away Timotheus' cithara and hanged it up, after punishing him: “The Spartans hang up Timotheus' cithara, as they punished him because he added four additional strings to the seven in the top register of the old cithara.” Dio Chrysostomus says of the aforesaid Timotheus in his thirty-second discourse: “I want to tell you a story about the Spartans, namely, how they behaved towards a citharode then famous among the Greeks. Because his playing seemed to them too sweet, not only the did not confer honours to him, but they took away his cithara, cut its strings and banished them from their city. They regarded his music with such suspicion and protected their ears so that their hearing would not be corrupted and they would not become more enervated than necessary.” [-f.7r-] He adds in his thirty-third discourse: “Moreover, the ancient Greeks believed that it was intolerable to alter their music, and they all rumoured against those who would introduce a new consonance or made their melodies more varied, as if Greece would be corrupted by these in their theatres. They protected their ears with such determination and thought their hearing of such importance that, were musical laws to be relaxed even a little, they would become effeminate and their modesty would be negatively affected. For this reason, it is said that the Spartans, when Timotheus, who was already a famous and powerful musician, visited them, they took away his cithara and cut off the strings that he had added to it.” I know that one reads in Athenaeus, at chapter fourteen of book fourteen, that this Timotheus defended himself from this accusation: “Artemon, in his first book, On Dyonisiac system, [-f.7v-] says that Timotheus was seen on a funeral relief playing an instrument with many strings, called Magadis, and that he was berated by the Spartans, because he had corrupted the ancient music. When someone wanted to cut off the strings that exceeded the traditional number, he is said to have produced a small statue of Apollo that held a lyre of the same shape and with the same number of strings as his.” Nevertheless, this poor musician suffered an unfortunate end, as, while he was singing one day with the mouth open too widely, one of the listeners threw a fig into it and he died suffocated.

Chapter Three. That music has the power to alter the spirit and provoke the emotions. If it is good inspires the soul to the good, if it is bad to the bad.

[-f.8r-] The ancients were totally correct in applying so much diligence in preserving musical decorum, as they knew its power and what influence it has over the human spirit. Cicero, in the second book of the Laws, could not but agree with Plato: “I agree with Plato that the easiest way to influence tender and delicate souls is by singing various melodies. It is near impossible to say how powerful these are in both directions. In fact, music infuses languishing and calms those who are overexcited. It relaxes or stimulate the spirit. Many of the old Greek cities strived to preserve the ancient way of singing. Once their morals descended into dissoluteness, they did so just as their singing style changed, either because they were corrupted by the sweetness of that kind of singing, as some think, or because, as the severity of their demeanour decayed because of other vices, [-f.8v-] similarly the way was prepared for such change in their aural taste, once their attitude had altered. For this reason, that most wise and by a long way most learned man among all of the Greeks feared the spread of such decay. In fact, he believed that musical laws could not be changed without affecting public laws.” In the third book of the Laws, Cicero adds: “It is really true what our Plato believed, namely, that, once the musical style has changed, the condition of cities also changes.” Saint Augustine, in his essay Against Julian, in the first book, repeated this assertion, and said: “The soul is excited and relaxed by music.” Macrobius demonstrated this at length and with many reasons in his commentary to the Dream of Scipio, book two, chapter three. Aristotle, in his Politics, chapter three, said about Olympus' music: “This music, in fact, extracts the soul and, so to speak, it kidnaps it.” A little later, he adds: “There are similarities in rhythms and melodies, [-f.9r-] especially with regard to the true nature of ire, calm, strength, temperance and of their opposites and of everything that pertains moral attitudes. It is clear from the resulting emotional state that we change our mood when we listen to such music.” A little later, he also adds: “The melodies themselves mirror human emotional state, and this is the proof: the nature of the modes is distinct, so that they each inspire different emotions, as the listener does not react in the same way to each of them, but more languidly and more collectedly, such as, for instance, to the mode called Myxolydian. The listener reacts in a more languorous way, according to his state of mind, to the modes that are more relaxed, but in a more moderate and very composed manner to others, as one can see in the case [-f.9v-] the Dorian, alone among the modes, while the Phrygian abducts and enraptures the soul and almost places it outside itself.” It cannot be denied that music has the power to incite and placate the soul, but, what Aristotle says, namely, that it abducts and enraptures the soul and almost places it outside itself, this is not true, as wine, more than music, shall be better able to do this. One should not trust what one reads of Timotheus, or Antigenides, namely, that while he played the Orthian nomos of Pallas in the presence of Alexander the Great, he inflamed him so much that he stood up and he ran to find his weapons in order to fight whomever he came across, as Plutarch reports in his essay On fortune and virtue of Alexander the Great: “In fact, Alexander himself once, [-f.10r-] while the flautist Antigenides was playing the Harmatian nomos, was so transported and overexcited by his performance that, impatient to strike in his the clattering armour, he he began to attack those around him.” However, listen to the Cassius Dio's opinion in his first speech 'On the kingdom': “They say that when a certain famous flautist called Timotheus presented a sample of his art for the first time in front of king Alexander, he performed very competently and musically, as he was used to do, a melody that was not enervated or loose, or one that could inspire indifference and laziness, but the melody itself that was called Minerva's Nomos. They say that, on that occasion, Alexander stood up abruptly as if possessed by a spirit prompting him to don his arms, so strongly was he aroused by the singing of the musician [-f.10v-] and by the melody of the flute. However, the true reason of this can be found not in the power of music, but in the king's excitable and raging character. In fact, if not only Timotheus or another one of the later performers, but not even Marsias or Olympus himself could persuade Sardanapalus to rise from his bed and from his women, it seems also plausible to me that Alexander would not have embraced his arms even if Minerva herself were to play that very melody, were it possible, but he would have risen to dance or to run away much in advance.” Cassius Dio was completely right, as Alexander was of an extremely beastly and uncontrollable nature, and also always drunk, he was so raging because of the excessive intake of wine, that his closest friends could not [-f.11r-] and dare not contain him from committing acts of outrageous excess. All this was said to represent those very human habits according to the doctrine derived from Aristotle, a false philosopher and Alexander's teacher, as anyone, who puts down thick lenses that enlarge ants to the size of elephants, will be able to see. I would rate much more highly Antigenides' or Timotheus', whoever he may be, had they been able to pacify Alexander with their art.

Chapter Four. How these laws of music were broken and spoiled, and how musicians acquired the freedom to compose as they pleased.

[-f.11v-] Although magistrates applied every rigour and diligence to preserve such laws, it proved nevertheless impossible to preserve them untouched and to prevent them from being violated, since human malice, namely, the musicians themselves for their own gain and the power of the multitude devoted to sensual pleasures at last destroyed such laws. Thus, as the prerogative to judge was taken away from learned and moral persons and fell pray of the populace and of the ignorant multitude, musicians began to compose according to the taste of the latter, who not only became so bold as to praise or criticise particular compositions, but embarked on dictating musicians how to compose. [-f.12r-] Valerius Maxiums relates, in the seventh chapter of the third book, that, when the people of Athens asked Euripides to remove a certain sentence from one of his works, he appeared on the stage and clarified his thoughts by saying that “he wrote his theatrical works to teach the audience, and not to learn from it”. One also reads in the fourth chapter of Athenaeus' ninth book that Alexandrides, an learned and moral man, was opposed to allow his works to be altered according to the taste of the listeners, as others used to do, but he preferred them to abide to parameters of artistic integrity and for them to be poorly received, rather than write badly and in a popular vein. In fact, enraged [-f.12v-] by the ignorance of the populace, he used to throw his works at them so that they may be sold to spice merchants, disregarding the fact that they would perish. “Every time he did not win a theatrical contest, he eagerly put them on the market to be sold as incense, nor did he correct them, as others did. Thus, he lost many plays that were really well written, because of his rage against the public.”

How musicians acted in their own particular interest, so that the judgement on musical compositions was taken away from learned and moral persons and ascribed to the people, is explained by Plato in the third book of the Laws through the words of an Athenian, who [-f.13r-] tells the Spartan Magillus the reason why musical laws are not observed in the city of Athens.

Athenian: “My friend, in our city, the people was not sovereign as a redult of the ancient laws of a particular king, but, to an extent, it obeyed the laws of its own accord.”

Megillus: “What laws?”

Athenian: “The laws that had been put in place with regard to music, to recollect how such freedom gradually grew in time. In those days, music comprised different species and forms. One of them consisted of the songs called hymns whose function is to placated the gods; another one, opposite to this one, may be mostly called plaintive songs; [-f.13v-] another species is the Paean, another one is Dionysus' invention called dithyramb, and, finally, one other species that established the laws of the Citharoedi. Specific laws were established for each species and the abuse of applying the laws of a musical genre to another was not allowed. However, the authority to judge these matters and to condemn who contravened the laws was not entrusted to whistles and to the noises of an ignorant crowd, or the licence to signal approval to a clapping and noisy mob, which is what occurs nowadays, but it was deferred to eminent experts in that art. Then, with the passing of time, the poets themselves became responsible for a deviation that was alien to music, as, [-f.14r-] despite being artful, they did not follow sufficiently what was right and lawful in music, while they lost their mind and indulged in pleasure more than would have been legitimate and right.

Such poets mixed funereal chants with hymns and paeans and dythirambs, while they imitated the sounds of the flute and the kithara, mixing the rules. Moreover, as a result of their ignorance and beyond established knowledge, they lied against Music, by stating that it had no intrinsic rule as what is right or wrong, but whether a musician was honest and able would be judged most correctly by the pleasure derived by the listener. Moreover, as they composed poems and had them performed in public, they rendered the populace so mistaken and daring with regard to Music, that anyone felt entitled to express an opinion about it. This caused performances to be punctuated frequently by shouts, while in earlier times it had been traditional to watch and listen in silence, as if the audience understood what is beautiful in art and what is not. The whole matter then decayed from the authority of the aristocracy to the evil power of the theatrical mob.

Athenaeus, book fourteen, chapter thirteen, talks about the sobriety observed by the Spartans in music, and continues by saying that Music decayed and became confused and unruly because its rules were no longer observed. He says: “In those days, choregoi, were not, as Demetrius of Byzantium tells us in his fourth book on poetry, those who, as it occurs nowadays, hire a choruses for money, but those who actually lead the chorus, as the etymology of the word indicates. Thus, the Spartans devoted themselves to the [-f.15r-] right sort of music and did not forget its ancient laws. As it happens, the Greeks studied music from the earliest times, but when confusion arose subsequently, and almost all of the ancient laws were regarded as obsolete, such strict adherence to musical laws also decayed, and incongruous musical styles emerged. Because of these, individual practitioners began to exchange effeminacy for artistry and a dissolute style for a modest one, which led to moral corruption. Such decay will deepen greatly and persist, unless and until someone will lead music itself to its original and purest splendour.” Alas, Athenaeus spoke the truth, but there never was anybody who took care [-f.15v-] to rescue music from such decay and from such disrepute, into which it has fallen. In fact, from being the most excellent and noble faculty in the world, it is now regarded as the most abject and lowly, while its practitioners are covered in shame and abuse, as it shall be shown at the appropriate point.

Chapter Five. How learned and reputable persons deplored the miserable state of music and berated the musicians of their times, damning their corrupt compositions.

Since music began to be ruined, spoiled and transformed from its true and honourable nature, [-f.16r-] it continued to get worse and it reached such a pitiful state that it became impossible for it to recover. Hence, since the situation became irredeemable, many felt pained and sorry about it, and began to blame and reprehend musicians because of the damage that was inflicted on music. Plutarch, in his essay On music, quotes the lament composed by the comic dramatist Pherecrates, in which Music appears on stage as a woman. He says: “At that time, the severe and serious character of music was rejected, and, instead of a virile, strong and lofty style approved by the immortal Gods, they introduced into the theatre a sort of enervated, adulterous and unnaturally laden with ornaments. [-f.16v-] [signum] Such a great decline befell music, that the comic dramatist Pherecrates introduced her on stage as a woman covered in cuts and bruises, followed by Justice, who asked Music the reason of her battered state. Then, Music uttered these words: “I will tell you willingly, whenever the strength of the ire will make it pleasant for me to speak and for you to listen. Menalippides was the first damage was caused by Menalippides, who made me weak with twelve strings. The execrable Attic Cinesias ruined me by inserting six-harmony unmusical turns to my strophes. In fact, he laid out the double dithyramb and so deceived my feeble mind with the double use of shields, that I could not tell left from right. [-f.17r-] But this was not the end of my misery, as Phrynis, who introduced a sort of pine-cone never known before, adopted restless recurrent melodic turns, and forced twelve harmonies into five strings, completely destroyed me. Nor did he regret his crime so much, that he dud not corrected it voluntarily, were he found guilty. But, my dearest, it was Timotheus who transfixed me and caused such extreme wounds. Who is this Timotheus? A Milesian man, a certain Pirrhias, inflicted infinite blows on me. He surpassed anyone whom I mentioned earlier in damaging me. He did so, I tell you, by introducing enervated and seedy modes. He met me while I was walking alone, he flattened me, he dismembered me and divided me across twelve strings, [-f.17v-] he twisted me like a cabbage and stuffed me with Hyperbolean, Hexarmonian and profane melodies, and filled me with the most empty touching of strings and notes.” These are Music's words. Aristophanes, the comic poet, mentioned Philoxenus, and said of him that he introduced lyric verses among the cyclic choruses. Other comic poets also condemned the absurdity and indecency of those who had violated the integrity of music.” Dio Chrysostomus, in his thirty-second discourse, reprehended the musicians of his time with resentment and in the clearest of terms, namely: “Drunkenness leads some men to sing and to jump around, but in our times it is different, as singing produces drunkenness and stupor. [signum] But, among the Greeks, only you enter this mood through ears and voice, [-f.18r-] and, moreover, you act more foolishly than them, are more corrupted and bear greater similarity to drunken men. And yet, the gifts of Apollo and of the Muses are sweet and meek. Apollo, in fact, is known as 'The Healer' and as Aleaxiacon, or Protector from evil, as he provides physical and mental sanity, rather than illness and madness. The Muses are known as exceedingly modest and chaste maidens. [signum] In fact, none of these is Amphion or Orpheus, since the latter was the son of one of the Muses, while these are born of Amusia, namely, of the very inability to sing, since they subvert and destroy the solemnity of singing and mutilating the ancient art of music in any way.

For among these performers here there is no Amphion and no Orpheus either; for Orpheus was the son of a Muse,62 but these are unmusical offspring of Disharmony herself, having perverted and shattered the majesty of song and in every way outraged the grand old art of the Muses. In fact, who of these can sing a complete and dignified composition? None. On the contrary, they [-f.18v-] know how to produce effeminate insults, dance tunes, the drunken flavour of licentious songs, and, just as bad and experimental cooks, excite vulgar and greedy listeners with a melange of incoherent melodies. [signum] Thus, while Amphion founded and fortified his city with towers with the aid of his singing, such characters, on the contrary, subvert it and destroy it. While Orpheus tamed wild beasts and made them musical through his singing, conversely, such musicians turned you from humans into savage animals and barbarians, but you have been enslaved by such lowly pleasures to such an extent that it can be barely described. Maximus of Tyre, in the fourth Dissertation, illustrates how profoundly the listener allows himself to be deceived by music badly composed and deployed: “One can detect fraudsters in every human field, and in the arts themselves [-f.19r-]: they appear very similar to genuine practitioners, but they operate very differently. In fact, even lesser music attracts the listener surreptitiously. When the Dorians, for the love of dances and of the dirge of the flutes, abandoned their traditional alpine music among their cattle and herds of sheep, they tainted destroyed their own virtue.” In the twenty-first Dissertation, after praising true music, he adds: “Do not bother to understand the sort of music that is produced by flutes, melodies, choruses, and dances, and penetrates the soul irrationally, being highly regarded for no other reason than because of its pleasing the ear. In fact, the human soul responds to this music because of the lack of intrinsic virtue, it pursues it [-f.19v-] because it is attracted by its apparent cheerfulness, but, captivated by its excessive emotional transport, it deprives real music of its perfect state. For this reason, as it occurs nowadays, music becomes physically depleted and, in time, it loses its beauty and its ancient healthiness. We, on our part, like a dove at times deceived by an artificial dyed colour perceived as a natural and an original one, we engage with a false image of music, and we are tricked to believe that it is the semblance of that Heliconian Muse who was very close to Homer, Hesiod's teacher, and Orpheus' mother, despite us not possessing any knowledge of it itself or even of its appearance. Thus, calamitous consequences are produced for us as a consequence of this transgression, which endangers the soul both privately and publicly. [- f.20r-] In fact, once the Dorians who lived in Sicily abandoned at home the alpine and simple music that they practised among their cattle and herds, they started to be attracted by the Sybaritic practice of the flutes and devoted themselves to dances inspired by the Ionian flutes. That music, to speak of it in the most positive terms, resolved into fatuous levity; to speak most sincerely, it resulted in despicable outcomes. Quintilian, in the sixteenth chapter of the first book of the Institutio Oratoria, states: “Nevertheless, although I believe that the examples that I presented already clarify already what music I like and to what extent I do so, I deem it necessary to specify, however, that the music that I teach is not the effeminate and enervated in lascivious ways that we see on our stages, which, by and large, extinguished what little manly strength we had left, [-f.20v-] but the one that accompanied the praises of courageous men and was sung by those valiant men themselves.

Chapter Six. The sort of music employed by the ancients.

The Greeks, who were very interested in music and noted that singing was practised throughout Greece and that it varied according to different populations and local traditions, restricted music to just three tones, namely, Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian, as Plutarch stated: “According to Sacada and Polymnestus, the tones are three, namely, Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian.” [-f.21r-] These tones had a number of species depending on them. Thus, the Dorian had the Hypodorian; the Phrygian the Hypophrygian; the Lydian the Hypolydian; the Mixolydian the Hypermixolydian, albeit the latter is not universally accepted. I do not know where these dependent species came from, what was their nature and in what they differed from the tones from which they originated, but I am inclined to believe that they differed in various measures and according to the way in which they mixed with the other tones. The Dorian took his name from the populations of the Peloponnese who employed it. As their traditions were more restrained than those of other peoples, [-f.21v-] their music was also more graver and more severe. Pliny the Elder, in the fifty-six chapter of his eighth book, names

Thamyris of Thrace as its inventor. Plato forsook the Phrygian and the Lydian, and judged this tone to be appropriate to virtuous and moral persons. Plutarch confirmed this and concorded: “It is necessary that young people, whom you would like to educate in the liberal arts, should be interdicted from both the Lydian and the Phrygian mode, since the former depresses and saddens the soul with its lamenting and morbid nature, while the latter excites it to licentiousness and debauchery, and sends it mad.” It appears, however, that these tones were largely disregarded in subsequent times, as musicians subdivided music into three parts or tones, [-f.22r-] namely, Enharmonic, Chromatic and Diatonic, as Plutarch wrote: “Thus, there are three parts into which all music is divided by general classification, namely, the Diatonic, the Chromatic and the Enharmonic.” Macrobius, in his commentary on the Somnium Scipionis, book two, chapter four, states: “In music, there are three types of melody, namely, the Enharmonic, the Diatonic and the Chromatic.” Vitruvius, book five, chapter four, says: “There are three categories of melodies, according to the Greeks. They call the first one Enharmonic, the second one Chromatic and the third one Diatonic. The Enharmonic genus was abandoned and superseded by the ancients, as it was exceedingly hard, as the aforesaid Macrobius states, namely, that “it was withdrawn from use because of its difficulty”. Caelius Rhodiginus, book nine, chapter three, says that “it died off because of its excessively esoteric and remote difficulty.” [- f.22v-] Plutarch condemned the negligence and ignorance of the ancients, as they held the best and most beautiful of the musical genera in such little regard: “Nevertheless, the musicians time completely repudiated the most beautiful and most decorous of the genera, which the ancients revered because of its gravity and majesty. Consequently, whatever grasp and understanding of the enharmonic intervals among most, they became so idle and disinterested that they didn't include the enharmonic diesis among the types of intervals that can be perceived, but they banished it from their melodies and songs, while they are not ashamed to say that those who had regard for the enharmonic genus and employed it had been wasting their time. [-f.23r-] They believe that the indisputable proof that their opinion is correct is the bemusement of their senses, as if whatever escapes their notice could not rationally be conceived or prove of any use.” They maintain that this genus was discovered by Olympus, a follower of Marsyas, who also uncovered the chromatic genus, as he was the first one to compose Nomoi, or the laws of flute-playing, one of which was called Crumata. From this genus chromatic music took its name. [-f.23v-] As this genus is effeminate, enervated and lascivious, it was considered undignified and infamous, as Macrobius states in the aforementioned passage: “The third genus is infamous for its enervated nature.” Caelius Rhodiginus, book nine, chapter three, states that “the chromatic genus attracted disapproval because of its enervated nature.” Plutarch mentions that many did not want to employ it: “The same can be said of Tirtaeus from Mantinea, of Thasillus Philasius, of Andreas of Corinthus, and of many others whom we know to have disliked the chromatic.” Nevertheless, despite being of poor quality, it was very artificial and difficult. Vitruvius, in the aforementioned fifth book, chapter four, states: “Because of the subtle artifice and closeness of its components, the chromatic produces a sweeter pleasure.” Daniele Barbaro adds: “The chromatic genus is more artificial than the diatonic, [-f.24r-] but it is practised only by expert musicians. Therefore, most ancient musicians employed it, as they set out to move the soul and convey different emotions.” For this reason, Agathon, despite being criticised for it, introduced it into the tragedy, as Plutarch recounts in his Problems, in the third tenth, first problem: “At first, they criticised the superb Agathon, who was the first to introduce and blend and the coloured or chromatic genus of music into the tragedy.” It was called chromatic from the Greek word meaning colour, as Daniele Barbaro himself states: “Chromatic means roughly coloured, as chroma means colour. Also, since this genus changes like a colour from its first modulation, hence [-f.24v-] it is called colour.” The diatonic is the easiest of all, since it is natural, given that those who are not trained singers burst into song by themselves in this genus. Daniele Barbaro says: “Of these three genera, the diatonic is the closest to nature, as it occurs naturally to anyone who attempts to sing.

Chapter Seven. On the fact that modern music has a greater number of imperfections than the ancient one, and that they are much graver.

Music moved from Greeks to Italy and to the Romans in the state and condition described. The Romans employed in the same ways and forms solely as an entertainment for the listeners and with no concerns regarding morality and virtue. [-f.25r-] Nevertheless, we read that the Romans of the most ancient times used to sing the praises of the ancient heroes at the table, in imitation of the Greeks, as Cicero writes in the first book of the Tusculanae: “In his Origines, Cato states that the partakers to a banquet used to sing at the table the praises of famous men to the accompaniment of a flautist.” In the fourth book, Cicero says that “Cato, the most serious author, said in his Origines that in ancient times it was traditional that those who reclined at a banquet would later sing the praises and virtues of famous men to the accompaniment of the flute.” Also, in his Brutus or On the famous orators, Cicero states: “Oh we still had the songs that, as Cato left written in his Origines, were sung by the individual guests of a banquet on the praises of famous men!” [-f.25v-] This tradition either lasted a very short time or that kind of singing was no longer popular. Read Macrobius, third book of the Saturnalia, chapter fourteen: “Now, to start from that time characterised by excellent morals, the period between the two punic wars, when noble (should I say noble?) sons of Senators participated in dances and learned to do so carrying and shaking the crotala. That the sons and also virgin daughters of the nobility, which is indecent to say, numbered among the disciplines that they studied the practice of dance, it is vouchsafed by Scipio Africanus Aemilianus, who, in his speech against the Tiberius Graccus' justice law said this: “They are taught immodest tricks in the company of sodomites accompanied by the harp and the psalter. They participate in theatrical performance, they learn to sing, [-f.26r-] practices that more learned minds than ours considered immoral. I tell you, noble children and virgins take part in dances alongside degenerate characters. When someone told me about this, I could not bring myself to believe that noble men would teach their children such things, but when I was taken to a dance performance, I saw more than five hundred noble children and virgins in that performance.” It is, therefore, plausible, or, rather, very likely, that musical practice continued along these lines until Italy was conquered by the Longobards. Then, as it was ruled by a barbaric and savage people, the Latin language was lost, and the arts and sciences with it. Once such turbulent times were over, [-f.26v-] the most generous souls applied themselves to rediscover the liberal arts and the sciences, but, if it took so many beautiful minds such great study and effort to achieve the result of barely being able to revive the Latin language, which could not be forgotten, since it was preserved in so many books, how much harder was it for past ages to rediscover ancient music, of which no extant example survives? In fact, following the road that some ancient writers, like Aristoxenos, Ptolomy, Boethius and others have traced in their writings is comparable to feeling one's way ahead in the dark, since -f.27r-] we may well be able to understand the numbers and the harmonic consonances, but the compositional method is not as easy as many believe. In fect, a composer is not merely someone who can combine the consonances in a way that may be pleasing the listeners and produce the greatest delight, but it is necessary to be able to compose according to musical propriety, wherein music is defined, as Augustine did in the first book On Music, as the science of composing well. A little further on, he added: “Let us discuss first what is good composition, as the adjective 'good' is not redundant to the definition.” He adds: “One thing is to compose, quite another is to compose well. In fact, [-f.27v-] composing refers to any singer who does not make mistakes in the outline of intervals and sounds, but composing well pertains to the liberal discipline that is music.” The first and greatest imperfection of our modern music consists in the fact that it is sung with inarticulate voice resembling that of a wild animal, rather than of a reasonable one, as it is well known that the human voices differs from beastly cries because it is articulate. It is defined in this way by Diogenes Laertius in the seventh book: “The voice of an animal consists of air hit by force, while the human voice is articulate, as it starts in the mind.” [-f.28r-] In the third book, he states: “There are two sorts of voice, the animate ones and the inanimate one. The animate one pertains animate beings, the inanimate one consists of sounds and noises. The animate voice is further distinguished into word-based and non-word-based. The former pertains to humans, the latter to animals.” Therefore, it follows that, as man is an animal endowed with reason, if he is free of any natural impediment, he must not produce an inarticulate and non-word-based voice, as an animal would do, but he must speak in words and articulately, uttering words articulately whether he reasons, recites or sing. Moreover, since words consists of syllables that are either long or short, in order to pronounce them articulately, [-f.28v-] it is necessary to pronounce them according to their nature without altering their timing at all, otherwise such alteration would cause the voice to be inarticulate, while the person uttering the words would be forced, by a natural impediment, to pronounce the words with a stutter. In the Bible, when the prophet Jeremiah wanted to show that he could not utter the words articulately, as his tongue was impeded, he produced these sounds “A, a, a, My Lord, Lo! I cannot speak”. In the Exodus, Moses says to God, who had impeded his tongue, hence he could not pronounce the words as he should have: “[-f.29r-] I beseech you, Lord, I cannot speak since yesterday and it is the third day since you spoke to your servant. My speech is slower and my tongue is tied.”

Chapter eight. Continuation of the same topic.

Therefore, it is necessary to conclude that who does not want or cannot enunciate articulately is a statterer, a mutterer and a mumbler. We have two styles of singing, one called called chant and another one called figured melody. The sort of singing that requires the singer to divide a syllable across the mouth with many melodic turns upwards and downwards for a considerable time

[-f.29v-] is something so monstrous that it does not resemble human singing, but animal screeching.

It seems to me that Dio Chrysostom's words in the thirty-fourth homily would be well suited to such sort of singing: “Moreover, it would be terrible if men sometimes imitated the sound of sheep, of cows, of horses or dogs. [signum] Such an unusual event would not be as monstrous and despicable as when someone who is a man and displays the character of a man, being incapable to erase a man's voice and the natural features of his nature, is discovered producing a voice that is not of a man, of a woman or of any other living being.” Such disorder occurred because who composed that melody did not know, as Saint Augustine said, “how to compose well”, with due attention to the words, and not concentrating singly to join together [-f.30r-] endless chains of notes dreamed-up according to his whim, with the intention of submitting the words to the melody, which would snake around and be distorted according to the pitches and the note values employed. He did not know that Plato, in the third book of his Res Publica, disapproved of this way of composing and taught that music fit in with the words, rather than the words with the music: “Melody and rhythm must follow the words.” He repeats the concept a little further on: “In fact, rhythm and melody, as I stated a little earlier, follow the words instead of the words themselves following rhythms and melody.” Plutarch expressed this idea very well: “It is always essential for three basic elements to hit [-f.30v-]the ear, namely, pitch, rhythm and word or syllable. In this way, the correct modulation of the voice will be made clear by its progress, the rhythm by the duration of the notes, and the meaning of what is sung by the syllable and the letters.” This does not occur in our way of singing, as, since so much time passes from one syllable to the next, it becomes very difficult to grasp the words. Almost the same thing occurs in the other sort of singing, which is inaccurately called figured singing, as it was shown above in the discussion on the chromatic genus. Thus, one can see clearly that this kind of figured singing was invented to resemble instrumental music, in such a way that several voices singing together reproduce the effect of the strings of an instrument, since some sound more slowly, and others more rapidly. [-f.31r-] Therefore, one of the singers has to sustain the voice for several beats, while another one has to move forward briskly without paying any attention to the syllables and to the words, thus producing an exceedingly great whispering and confusion. In fact, if one sings a piece of prose, it is left mangled and crippled, while, if one sings a passage in verse, it ceases to be a poem, as its prosody is entirely destroyed. But, not only composers maintain that the murdering of the poem that the commit is acceptable, but they boast of having endowed it with a most noble air. At other times, when they are not capable to attach to the poem those notes of theirs, they blame the poets treating them as ignorants. As proof of this, [-f.31v-] I shall put forward the example of a composer who, amongst others, believed himself to be a great learned so-and-so, namely Stefano Landi, who, in a letter published in his second book of airs and signed Angelo Ferrotti, he wrote these words, as if he were the head communication officer of Parnassus: “I do not want to omit to mention a curious fact on this matter, namely, that there is no good poet or, if he is, he does not want to be, whose stanzas can be sung on the air of the first stanza, the reason being that, where in the first stanza they wrote short syllables at the beginning of the verse or in the middle of it, in the same place of the second stanza [-f.32r-] they have written long syllables, and vice versa. Such verses seem to me to be measured with a thread, rather than according to the quantity of the syllables. I strongly believe that poets should scan the verses that they write to be set as ariette in the same way as when the write Latin verse, as they would succeed without fail. It has happened to me, on occasion, to sing words written by most excellent poets to be set as ariette, and to have to do one of two things, namely, either mangle cruelly the melody, or, mangle the air insultingly.” Such shower of words wide of the mark does not correspond to the facts. In the first Aria, [-f.32v-] the first verse has eight syllables. It is not measured with a thread, but it is entirely perfect, thus: Ò di glorie chiara prole. However, I don't know the musical rule on the basis of which, despite the fact that the verse has eight tempi or percussions, as one may wish to say, he lengthens it to the number of twenty-two, as he has it sung in this way: O o o o o di glo o o o rie chia a a a ra a a a prole. Who will ever be able to recognise in this melody any semblance of verse? How did it happen that this famous composer, who commands the poets to scan the verses in such a way that they may be measured so as to avoid to mangle both melody and poetry, [-f.33r-] how did it happen that he crippled so cruelly the air of this verse and mangled so injuriously its poetry? Giovita Rapicius, in his De numero oratorio, laughed madly at such kind of compositions and airs with good reason, and said, in the first book: “However, some of the prosody experts, who are commonly called composers and singers, neglect the quantity of the syllables and their feet, because, when they sing, they produce long syllables instead of short ones and vice versa. They limit themselves to observing the sequence of the length of the notes, so to speak, and their proportional values, and, whichever way the structure of the melody requires it, they anticipate or lengthen, calling this metric that they created an air.” In the second book, he states: [- f.33v-] Words will not do that, as they cannot be enlarged or reduced, nor can they be lengthened or shortened against the practice of the poets, as nowadays is common occurrence at the hands of composers.”

Chapter nine. The same topic continues.

There is no doubt at all that a verse does not lose its prosody, and, consequently, its being a verse must be set by the composer according to its nature, otherwise he makes makes an aesthetic mistake and offends the ears of the listeners, since it is entirely true what Cicero writes in the Orator, namely, that, even if one is not a poet [-f.34r-] and cannot compose in verse, nevertheless one can judge very accurately if a verse is badly written with a greater or smaller number of syllables than it should have: “If a syllable in a verse is longer or shorter than it should be, the audience clamours, not because they know about feet and prosody, or because they understand what offends their ears, but because nature itself in our ears placed the ability to judge length and shortness of sounds and the pitch of the notes.” In the third book of the De oratore, Cicero says: “Everyone is moved not only by words artfully laid out, but also by prosody and pitch. How many [-f.34v-] master the art of prosody? But, if there is something a little wrong in this, or if something is made shorter by contraction or longer by extension, the audience clamours en masse.” He states a little further on: “If there is a mistake in a verse, the populace notices it.” Saint Augustine demonstrated this in the first book of his music treatise: “Thus, in a verse that delights you when you hear it, if in a part of it the syllables are lengthened or shortened where the organisation of the verse itself does not require it, will you not derive the pleasure from that section? Student: More than that. I shall not be able to hear it without feeling affronted.” Here, he produces the example of Virgil's verse Arma uirumque cano Troiae, qui primus ab oris. Student: “I cannot but admit that I am offended by an indescribable [-f.35r-] kind of ugliness of sound. Teacher: It is not an outright offence. In fact, albeit there's no trace of barbarism, a defect has been introduced that both grammar and music condemn: grammar, because the words whose last syllable has to be lengthened, it has been placed in a position where such a place where it had to be shortened; music also, because any note was extended where it should have been shortened, and the appropriate length was not supplied where prosody required it.” Nobody should be surprised that grammar is absolutely essential to the composer, to such an extent that nothing good can be achieved without it. Quintilian, in the first book of his Institutio Oratoria, chapter sixteen, says: “Grammar [-f.35v-] and music were once connected, since Architas and Aristoxenus even thought that grammar was subordinate to music. Not only Sophron (a certain writer of mimes, but one that Plato admired to such an extent that it is believed to have had his books under his head on his deathbed) showed us that both were teachers of both subjects, but also Eupolis, in a work of whom Prodamus teaches both music and literature, and Maricas, who is Hyperbolus, states that he knows anything about music but the letters. Even Aristophanes shows in several of his works that children were educated in this way in ancient times.” Moreover, according to Gellius, book seven, chapter two, [-f.36r-] On the consonance of letters, states: “A vowel placed at the end of a verse that matches the first one in the following verse gradually produces a pleasant and musical hiatus.” He then quotes that verse by Catullus, Ebriosa acina, ebriosiores, and says that “he wrote ebriosa because of the pleasant sound produced with the following letter”, as if to say that certain encounters of vowels were avoided because they were not euphonious. Athaenaeus, book two, chapter four, states: “The Dorians pronounced san instead of s, as musicians, such as Aristoxenus, avoided the repetition of the letter s, because its pronunciation is harsh in their music and it does not go well with the sound of the flute, but they used the letter r more liberally when singing, because of the ease of its pronunciation. [-f.36v-] Nor let it be said that such fashion of singing Italian verses in our age, since they do not consist of metric feet, unlike Latin verses, does not offend the listeners, but, on the contrary, it pleases them greatly, and that this befalls learned and ignorant listeners alike, because they do not take notice of it and pay little attention to the verses, as they concentrate on the music and pay attention to it, namely, to the consonances, to a good voice and to its appropriate lay-out. This, however, does not excuse the composer, who is obliged to compose with due respect to the rules of his art. Saint Augustine compares to beasts both the singers, [-f.37r-] who, without consideration for the words, aim only to please with their voice, and the listeners, who delight only in the sound of the voice, disregarding the words that are sung. In the first book of his treatise on music, he states: “Tell me, please, do all of these not resemble, in your opinion, those nightingales, as they sing while being led by their senses, and they do so melodiously and sweetly, but, if they are asked about the rhythms and the intervals of higher and lower notes themselves, they cannot answer? Teacher: Do you not think that those who listen to them with pleasure without such knowledge, just as we see that elephants, bears and animals of several other species [-f.37v-] are drawn to singing, while birds themselves enjoy their own voices, as they would not do so disinterestedly without a certain pleasure, since they seem to derive from it no other advantage, do you not think that they should be compared to sheep? Student: I think so.”

Chapter ten. On accents.

The observance of accents is absolutely necessary in music. The composers of our time, however, take no notice of them at all, because, as it was said, they demand the words to be the servant of their notes. Whether they are sung well or badly, they do not care, hence, one cannot hear in their compositions [-f. 38r-] anything but a mangling of syllables that turns the long ones into short ones and vice versa. Who could withstand pronunciations such as saeculà, glorià, dominò, principiò, and, conversely, saecùla, glorìa, domìno, principìo, and so on? As Donatus writes in the second book, the word accent derives from the Latin verb accinere, because it is “a sort of singing of each syllable”. It is also called, in particular, soul of the voice, since it moderates both the voice and the pronunciation. The ancients called them with different names, such as toni and tenores. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, book one, chapter nine, states: “It is even harder to keep a close eye on the mistakes of the tenores [-f.38v-] (which, as I discovered, were called tonores by the ancients, evidently, from the Greek word tonos) and of the accents, called prosody by the Greeks, which occur when the acute and grave accent are confused erroneously.” The voice is regulated by accents, and it is sweetened in its projection, as nature placed them in the voice, as Cicero says in the Orator: “The voice has a certain wonderful nature, since such great and sweet variety is accomplished by just three accents, the acute, the grave and the circumflex.” Moreover, what perfect variety can be heard in vocal compositions [-f.39r-] that do not observe at all the correct placement of accents? Also, albeit the verse begotten together with music itself, nevertheless, as the singing of prose was introduced in church, one must not ill-treat the practice of singing, particularly when the honour of God is at stake, by composing in a way that is not only suitable to the dignity of the Church and of the divine service, but, as we shall say at the appropriate point, by taking care not to muddle up the words by linking them and messing them up together, as in this example: Patrem omnipoten, tem facto, rem cae, li et [-f.39v-] ter. rae uisibi, lium om, and so on. Such a method would be bearable, as it respects the metric feet, in the case of Latin verses, but it is totally intolerable in the case of prose. Musicians lauded Palestrina as a most excellent composer. One thing is to consider a composer's ability to combine the consonances, but to assess whether a composition is well-made or otherwise according the the axis of music, is quite another. In fact, as we have seen that Saint Augustine says that one thing is to compose, quite another is to compose well, and as we shall see with regard of the singing that must be employed in church, one must not compose badly, and, if one does not know how to compose well, one must [-f.40r-] learn how to do it. David, the saint and prophet, by saying “sing skilfully”, invited everyone to sing the Lord's praises, but in the appropriate manner Cassiodorus commented on those words in this way: “We must sing praises not only with our voices, but with our minds, as nobody can do anything wisely and artfully, if one does not understand it.”

Chapter eleven. On the recitative style.

I have no idea why our composers call their way of writing recitative style when they take some verses and dress them up with those notes of theirs, without any consideration to [-f.40v-] their character, as per their usual practice, but raising and lowering the voice at a whim without knowing why they do so. The recitative style occurs when poet reads his own poem, as an epic poet does, who tells as story with his verses. As they are written with harmonic measure, they are naturally imbued with harmony, and the poet who recites them declaims them with arsis and thesis, so that it is said that the reciting poet sings. For this reason all the epic poets, who write either in Latin and in Italian, state that they sing, and, albeit this is not a fully fledged form of singing, [-f.41r-] nevertheless, such prosodic and harmonious recitation is a third way between ordinary speech and singing with intervals and inflections of the voice. Varro, in his sixth book, maintains that the verse called carmen by the Romans derives etymologically from the verb cano. Thus, Virgil, in the sixth book of the Aeneis, portrays Aeneas asking the Sybilla, who gave her responses in verses, not to just write them down on leaves, but to sing them to him herself: “Do not entrust your predictions to the leaves, so that they may not fly away disbanded at the mercy of fast blowing winds. Pray, sing them yourself.” Daniele Barbaro, in his commentary to Vitruvius, book five, chapter four, [-f.41v-] on the subject of the continuous voice, states: “Then the voice moves in such a way as to appear distinct and proceeding from one degree of pitch to another with separate and determinate steps. In this case, it is named distinct, from the effect that it produces, and melody, from its application, as it is employed by those who sing or recite poems. In fact, when we sing or recite, we offer the opportunity to our senses to discriminate between the notes by raising and lowering the voice, and by completing sentences clearly and starting over again.” One must be warned, nevertheless, that reciting verses and singing verses are quite different things. Thus, we read that Augustus Caesar said to someone: “ If you are reading, you are singing , but if you sing, you sing badly.” [-f.42r-] Caelius Rhodiginus, book nine, chapter five, wrote this as a commentary on that saying: “Now, since we clarified a little earlier an obscure passage in Quintilian's work, and the conversation is on the subject of music, do let us hurry on to explain another passage, a little more obscure, of that same author. These are Quintilian's words, taken from the first book. Let the reading voice be manly and authoritative, but with a certain sweetness, not close to prose, as it is a poem, but not dissolved into a sing-song. We have learned that Caius Caesar, when he was still a boy, said with utterly good reason: “If you are singing, you sing badly. If you are reading, you are singing.” If one does not consider these words more profoundly, and if one does not weigh them up more exactly, one will certainly [-f.42v-] not be able to penetrate the meaning of this most noble of authors and will be left with the desire that they should be explained, as one says, with greater clarity. Thus, as we have done in the case of other authors, and we shall do again, from now on we shall add here what our silent teachers suggested to us. Thus, we read that every utterance is either continuous or interspersed with a pause. It is continuous when, while reading a piece of prose or a speech, we pronounce the words in a percussive way, so that the voice then proceeds at pace and hurries, without lingering over high or lower sounds, but connects everything quickly, as the application of the voice works by explaining the meanings and expressing the words. The sustained voice that we employ while singing is defined as diastematic or interspersed with pauses. In this case, [-f.43r-] we do not concentrate on the single words, but on groups of words. What happens is that the voice moves more slowly and, by modulating different sounds, it produces a kind of pause, which is not silence, but, rather, the consequence of a sustained and slower melody. To these two varieties, as Albinus believes and Boethius also confirms, a third variety is added, which may include utterances half way between the other two. This occurs, for instance, when we read heroic poetry, namely, not as a continuous reading in the style of prose, nor in the manner of a sustained and slower voice, as in the case of a song.

Chapter twelve. On the musical air.

Our composers are also mistaken in the compositions that they call airs, as they believe that their tasks consists in matching [-f.43v-] the notes with the words in the way in which their fancy dictates to them whispering them in a mumbled way. Thus, they are far removed from knowing the music within the verses themselves, as if, as the element of the musical air is pliable and soft, equally, the musical quality of the verses were similar to wax, which may be moulded to their preferred shape. Hence, they are gravely mistaken, because each verse carries within itself its own air, according to the prosody and form chosen by the poet, so that we can see that the air of an hexameter is different from the one of a iambic verse, just as that of a sonnet, of a [- f.44r-] madrigal, of an ottava, and so on, are all different from each other. Such variety is of the sort that we found in the works of Horace, which contain many sorts of verses and many different airs. Therefore, the musical airs that are not are the service of the verse are no airs at all, but mad muddle of notes. I believe that Virgil, when he has Lycidas say “I remember the meter, if only I remembered the words!” in the ninth Ecloga, he meant nothing else that Lycidas did not remember the verses, but only their air. Ludovico Zuccolo, in his Discourse on the reasons of the meter in the Italian verse, chapter sixteen, said that the verse must carry the meter, which is its own air, by itself, [-f.44v-] and must not expect it to be supplied by the melody, and, although some verses are written specifically to be sung, nevertheless they themselves must carry their meter. [signum] A verse that has no meter of its own, but derives it from the music, must be correctly defined as a verse, whether it is recited or sung.

Chapter thirteen. On beating time.

The silly and ill-concerted malpractice of singing by disfiguring the syllables with notes of so many and so different durations has produced a nonsense of such kind that, [-f.45r-] were the ancient able to witness it, they would be roaring with laughter. This consists in the practice of beating time for singers by lifting and lowering the hand, which is called beating time. Many musicians of our time have philosophised on the matter, writing books and arguing as the beat starts when the hand is up or down, namely, when it is lifted or it is lowered. Such practise was unknown to the ancients, whose melodies were regulated by the length of the syllables and of the metric feet. Nor did they have choir directors who altered the length of the syllables, the prosody, or the meter of the feet according to their whim. Thus, the rhythm could be heard clearly. [-f.45v-] Because of the continued practice of prosody and measured verse, it occurred that voices and instrumental players were so skilled that they did not require to measure and beat time. This is what Hesiodus meant in the first book of the Works and Days, On choral dances: “The ears and the hands are used to measure this movement”. Horace, in his Ars Poetica, states: “We understand artfully regulated sounds through our fingers and voice.” This means that they were so familiar with singing and playing, that they had the hand ready to play, and the voice ready to sing. Tibullus, book three, elegy four, says: “He produced a cheerful song from his resounding lips, while he played with an ivory [-f.46r-] plectrum. But after fingers and voice had spoken at the same time […].” This passage proves clearly that, in ancient times, the syllable, the percussion of the accompanying sound and the voice of the singer occurred all together at the same time. But, since someone may think that the ancients used the beating of time in their vocal compositions, on the basis of Livy's words, first deca, book seven, where, talking about Livius Andronicus, he states: “From that time, it became usual for the canticum to be sung by someone else nearby for the actors, while only the dialogues were left to be sung by the actors' voices.” In order to understand this passage, it is necessary [-f.46v-] to consider the passage immediately preceding, recounting that Livius Andronicus, who used to recite himself his works, lost his voice by an unlucky accident, and, after apologising to the audience, had a servant sing what he should have himself sung. Thus, as he was free from the task of singing, he was able to act out what was being sung: “After he positioned a servant in front of the flautist to do the singing, he performed the [-f.47r-] canticum with more vigorous actions, because the act of singing itself did not impede him.” These words make clear that he was able to perform his verses with greater ease, since he was not preoccupied with his own singing. This is more readily explained by what Valerius Maximus wrote in his second book: “He placed a slave singer in front of the flutes and performed the actions silently.”

Chapter fourteen. On the tones and on what they are.

I believe that the ancients had three tones, which were, [-f.47v-] as Plutarch writes in his treatise on music: “[...] since three are the tones in music, Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian.” A number of other dependent tones derived from these, as it was said in chapter six. I do not think that any trace of them has survived to our times, since the ancients had no equivalent to what we call tones nowadays. Nor can I imagine why one would say that the first tone starts on d sol re and is called Dorian, the second one on a re, and is called Hypodorian, the third one on e la mi, and is called Phyrigian, the fourth on [sbq] mi, and is called Hypophrygian, the fifth one on F fa ut, and is called Lydian, the sixth one on c fa ut, and is called [-f.48r-] Hypolydian, the seventh on g sol re ut, and is called Mixolydian, and the eighth one on d sol re, and is called Hypermixolydian. Since the ancients never knew what ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la are, nor modern musicians know what the Dorian, Lydian and Phrygian modes are, I believe that it is necessary, in order for someone declare oneself knowledgeable in this matter, that one should acquire such knowledge by considering its causes. Glareanus, commenting on these words from the sevenths Ode from Horace's third book: “You, lyre, capable to speak with your seven strings”, after a series of preliminary observations, says: “I believe that those seven strings, or flutes, or different notes, are none other than the famous seven species of the Diapason, [-f.48v-] which the ancients called modes or tropes. Our contemporaries, quite incorrectly, refer to them as toni. Such species occur in Mercury's trichord, in Orpheus' tetrachord, as well as in some later string instruments, as well as in the kithara of twenty-four strings, which sustain the whole of the melody, in the same way that prosody supports the verse. Such modes start with the Proslambanomene and end on the Paranete. Ptolomy added an eighth mode from the Mese to the Nete Hyperboleone, which was, in fact, the same as the first one, which ran from the Proslambanomene to the Mese, in order to complete the Disdiapason system from the Proslambanomene to the Nete Hyperboleon. However, in order to ascribe some merit to our age, the modes are seven, and run from the low A to the high g, [-f.49r-] while, obviously, the seven species of the Diapason run from the seven lower letters, namely, A,B,C, D, E, F, G, to the seven more acute ones. a, b, c, d, e, f, g. Moreover, there is no melody capable to be played on the cithara or other instruments, that does not fall under one of these seven modes. Although such explanation is clear, and even too long-winded, for those who are knowledgeable in these matters, nevertheless they jingle in vain to the ears of those who are inexperienced in this art. However, were I to try to every silly detail, I would need to fill with them a whole separate book. Boethius, in the fourth book of his Music, chapter four, discusses the modes in learned fashion: “In fact, I do not see why those that are called the eight tones in our time are called thus, since the recent eighth one is of the fourth species of the Diapason, but divided arithmetically, rather than harmonically. However, were one permitted to number [-f.49v-] the modes in that way, they will be, as we said, no fewer than twelve, and will be even fourteen, if the second and sixth species of the Diapason were allowed to be divided both harmonically and arithmetically.”” The same author said this on Horace's words in the ninth Epode: “while the lyre and the flutes sing their melodies, the former in the Dorian mode, the others in a foreign style.” He states: “Everyone, who knows that the tropes or modes are seven, also knows that the diapason are seven, and range from the seven largest letters to the seven smaller ones. In our age, they are called the seven essential letters. Moreover, there are three modes, the Dorian, the Phrygian and the Lydian, which have as subordinate three other ones, namely, the Hypodorian, the Hypophrygian, and the Hypolydian, which share the constitution of their diapente.”

[-f.50r-] Nevertheless, I cannot see how those that are called modes in our age have any correspondence with the ones of the ancients, nor do I see any composition that is built on the tones of the ancients.

Chapter fifteen. Whether it is easy to reform the style of singing in our days and to imitate the one of the ancients.

Ancient musicians had much greater opportunity to innovate and introduce new ways in music, compared with musicians of our age. Verses, in fact, consists of feet, and thus, by inventing new feet, new verses were created, and, consequently, new rhythms. [-f.50v-] Ibycus invented the verses called Ibyci after him, Sappho invented the Sapphic verse, Hipponax the Scazon, Praxillas the Praxillian, Alcman the lyric verses, Arion the dithyramb. Anacreon a sort of barbyton, different from the earlier one that only had three strings, and he added more strings to the magadis, bringing them to a total of twenty-one. He played on it in the Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian harmony, but only separately and on seven of aforementioned strings. Iasus followed Olympus' system, added many new notes and divided the tone into smaller particles. Menalippides exceeded the boundaries of Terpander's music, [-f.51r-] and introduced innovations, particularly in the dithyrambs. Cynesias and Timotheus were also innovators, and the latter added a tenth and eleventh string to the lyre. Archebolus invented a kind of verse named Archebolaeus after him. Amphion was a student of Tantalus, king of the Lydians, and he added three more strings to the four of the lyre. The second Linus invented the threni. Midas, king of Phrygia, student of Orpheus, composed a lament for the death of his mother, which he called elegos, which produced the elegy. Philammon invented the Nomoi, or Laws of the cithara, albeit some ascribe this to Terpander, and invented the instrument called chorus. Olympus, a pupil of Marsias, [-f.51v-] composed Nomoi, or Laws of the flute. Kepion created a king of lyre called Asian lyre. Archilocus invented the pentameter and the foot called the paeon. Polymnestus composed two Nomoi for the flute, one called Polymnestus, after him, and the other called, similarly, Polymnesta. It is said that he composed the Orthius Nomos, different from Terpander's, and sung on the cithara. Sacadas composed the tripartite Nomos, which consisted of three sections, a Dorian strophe, a Phrygian antistrophe, and a Lydian epodos. Mercury invented the lyre, Apollo the cithara, Tyrrenus the tuba, or trumpet, Ardals the flute, although others ascribe it to Pallades. Boethius says that they invented a small kithara. Plutarch wrote thus [-f.52r-] about those innovators: “It appears that Olympus contributed to the progress of music by introducing something that had been unheard of until that day and was unknown to those who came before him. He was also a leading master composer of that most renown Greek musical tradition. There is also a theory of rhythm, which is well defined. In fact, not only a variety of unaccompanied rhythms was invented, but also new forms of artful rhythms underpinning melodic sounds. The innovation introduced by Terpander introduced something elegant in music, which later Polymnestus also did, while adhering to a similarly noble and elegant form. Equally, Thaletas and Sacadas were considered excellent and near perfect creators of rhythms, while they did not renounce to that elegant [-f.52v-] and noble stylisation. Other innovations introduced by Alcman and Stesichorus did not vary from a noble, decent and restrained style. However, Crexus, Timotheus and Philoxenos, and the poets of that period, who were rather morose, overbearing and thirsty of revolutionising music, pursued the kind of and form of music that is called nowadays philanthropic and thematic.” Plutarch, wanting to show that the compositions of the ancients were characterised in noble, virile and appropriate ways, continues: “In fact, if one were to consider ancient and contemporary music, one would find that variety was employed even in those times, since the ancients [-f.53r-] employed a a vast array of rhythms, a sort of variety that is even greater than ours and that was highly regarded.” There is a wonderful sentence in the prologue of Terence's Formio, which says: “Everyone who practices music is free to compete to achieve the highest accolade.” Nobody should despair to achieve it, but, those who pledge to make progress in music, should start to reflect on the Horace's teaching in his Ars Poetica: “Choose a subject, you who write, that is compatible with your abilities, and consider long and hard about what your shoulders would be strong enough to carry, and what they would decline to do.” Maximus of Tyre, in his fifteenth dissertation, illustrates [-f.53v-] how those who want to progress in musical composition, and to achieve praise by introducing innovations, they easily deceive themselves, as they let themselves be distracted from the virility and decorum of true music by the pursuit of pleasure. He says: “If someone happens to encounter an intemperate speech, whose deceit one does not grasp, while being delighted by its pleasantness, and one is distracted gradually by the constant familiarity with such delight, such person resembles those sailors, who, not propelled by any wind from behind, and made to deviate from their course while gliding on a quiet sea, they are diverted to the most desert shores and hit the most difficult rocks. Similarly, [-f.54r-] it occurs that those who once entrust themselves to such dishonesty, firstly they incur insidious ignorance, then, in their search for pleasure, they are carried to places more desolate than any shore and harder than perilous straits, while they embrace their own deceit and rejoice in the blandishment of their soul. In this matter, they are very similar to those afflicted by a fever, who indulge in food and drink against the law of medicine. Thus, they invite evil after evil and they make their illness worse, while they prefer to contract an illness by pandering to themselves, rather than recover their health by means of a strict regime.” He concludes: “Albeit it is necessary[-f.54v-] to add a little pleasure to entice the listener, thus I would myself allow it, as long as within the limits of the music of the trumpets that incite the regiments to battle. If it is of this kind, it will excite the spirit. We need, in fact, the sort of pleasure that, while maintaining its power, it does not carry with itself anything shameful. I require the sort of pleasure to which virtue would not bow, but lead it as an assistant.”

Chapter sixteen. The same subject continues.

Plutarch gave sound advice to musicians, when he said: “Who wants to practice music correctly and judiciously, [-f.55r-] one must follow the ways of the ancients. However, from time to time one also must perfect it with the aid of other disciplines, and must appoint philosophy as its pedagogue. Philosophy, in fact, is able to establish what is suitable in music.” Nevertheless, it is doubtless that, it was very hard for Plutarch's contemporaries to imitate the music of the ancients, so much so that the comic poet Eupolis introduced Anaxilas deriding those who dared to write in a new style. Caelius Rhodiginus, book nine, chapter one, says: “There is a famous statement by the composer and poet Eupolis regarding the declamation of music, in which he declares this task as deep and winding. In fact, [-f.55v-] in his Hyacinthus, Anaxilas states; “By God, music produces a new monstrous beast every year, just as Libia does.” This being so, how could be even imagine to be able to imitate the compositions written by the ancients in the Dorian, Phrigian or Lydian mode, if, to tell the truth, we do not know what they were, but for kind of misty relationship? Moreover, if we want to talk about of the Enharmonic, Chromatic and Diatonic genus, who will be able to write a composition in the Enharmonic genus, since it decayed and was overlooked by the ancients, who were much more knowledgeable than we are in music? [-f.56r-] Who shall want to drown in the Chromatic, which was also relinquished by the ancients and of which we know little or nothing? It is also necessary to admit that, if we do not yet understand this Diatonic genus, which is so natural and extremely easy compared to the others, on which foundation shall we dare to try out these other tones, as we do not have the knowledge necessary to compose in them? It may be the case, that, as I am not very familiar with them, I am bound to encounter such great difficulty, but I would like to see some compositions by some good composers, so that I may learn what I do not know. [-f.56v-]

Macrobius, in his commentary to the Somnium Scipionis, book two, chapter one, writes that, of all the numbers, only six find application in music: “Of all the immense variety of numbers, however, only a small and limited number have been found to be useful in music practice. In fact, they are six in all, namely, 1 and 1/3, 1 and ½, double, treble, quadruple and 9/8.” Five consonances originate in these ratios, respectively, Diatessaron, Diapente, Diapason, Diapason and Diapente, and Disdiapason, which produce the melodies in every tone or genus, albeit in different ways and manners, and it accounts for their [-f.57r-] variety and difference.

Chapter seventeen. That it is very difficult to have precise knowledge of musical matters and to pass judgement on them.

If music is an extremely difficult discipline, judging it is equally difficult. Plutarch states: “Moreover, one must consider that those who are knowledgeable in music do not have sufficient competence to judge it. In fact, it appears to be impossible that there should be an expert musician, and one who had the ability to judge music, may arise from all the branches [-f.57v-] of music, namely, from vocal and instrumental competence and, also, from aural practice, which relates to the understanding of timbre, voices and combining of rhythms, and, moreover, from the harmonic and rhythmic mastery itself, and from the discernment and quick-thinking that apply to beats and diction, and from whichever other parts of music remain. We shall try to illustrate the reasons why we cannot be deemed to be able to judge on the basis of the knowledge and understanding of all those parts of music.” Thus, Plutarch continues [-f.58r- by listing the reasons, as he believes very difficult that one may achieve the ability to pass judgement on music: “Therefore, if a music expert masters the faculty of judging, there is no doubt that he shall be versed in music. In fact, if one knows the Dorian mood, without the ability to judge what is appropriate for it and what suits it, certainly will not know what one does, and shall not be able to maintain the character and nature of the mode. In fact, the Dorians themselves are divided as to whether those who are competent in Enharmonic compositions are capable do judge Dorian compositions accurately or otherwise, as some believe.” He then continues: “First of all, one has to understand that the the whole discipline of those elements that constitute music, are a kind of a habit, that has not yet grasped the reason why certain matters that are taught to the learner have to be learned. Then, one must consider why the numbering of modes is not yet applied to such instruction and learning, which is that most learners are taught what pleases both the teacher and the learner, albeit this is not what wise men do, as they despise and resent such temerity.” Gellius, in the sixteenth book, chapter eighteen, says: “There is also another species of canonics that is called metrics, through which the relationship and organisation of long, short and medium syllables is examined and measured by the ear in accordance with the principles of geometry, but, according to Marcus Varro, either we do not learn such a subject, or we give up before we understand why we need to learn it.” Therefore, if very learned persons, who understood such genera very well, consider such matters very difficult to understand and practice, I do not know how nowadays they would turn out to be easy to understand, practice, and evaluate.

Chapter eighteen. That modern music is too effeminate, enervated and lascivious.

[-f.59v-] It was said earlier that modern music labours under many imperfections, of which some, of no little importance, have been already indicated. There remains a very considerable imperfection to consider, which is that contemporary music is enervated and lascivious more than ever before. This was also noted by others. Onofrio Zerabino, in the second book On Nobility, chapter nine, forbids the teaching of such music to noble children, saying: “Is it not that sort of music that is practised by mercenary and lowly individuals in the most abject way, to base aims and for vile financial gain, which must be avoided by all children of noble birth [-f.60r-] as disreputable, and it must be despised profoundly, as unworthy of their status, their profession and their own aims?” Also, Ludovico Zuccolo, in his Discourse on the theory of the Italian verse, refers to it in this way: “On the contrary, we could perhaps say with a degree of certainty that our century has capitulated, in good part, to a excess of frivolity and lasciviousness, because it is inebriated excessively with music.” He adds, a little further on: “I would not dare to say whether enervated and lascivious music is corrupting good morals itself, or, rather, if nowadays moral corruption [-f.60v-] produces similarly degenerate music. What is certain is that, if lascivious and effeminate music does not corrupt harmonious social living, nevertheless they foment effeminacy and lasciviousness.” He said, a little earlier: “Moreover, the fault of the variety of short Italian verses, (already employed by ancient poems and disregarded by Petrarch and by the other writers of perfect judgement as untruthful and unable to convey continuous concepts) becoming fashionable again in droves must be ascribed entirely to the change in musical style, which is more enervated, delicate and lascivious than it used to be amongst us, [-f.61r-] and which spread years ago from France to Italy. Moreover, our poets, not content with the madrigal, which is now much cornier and more enervated than the ancient one, have produced the many forms of tender and effeminate canzonette that we read nowadays, in order to please the composers. Thus, music is not modelled on the verses, but the verses are accommodated to the music contrary to the way it should be, while poetry loses every modesty and decorum, and it transformed, so to speak, from a modest damsel into a lascivious whore. Thus, the Muses, who portrayed traditionally as inhabiting the mountains and the woods, sanctuary of Diana, can only be spotted [-f.61v-] in lascivious Venus' back alleys.” I am very sorry that the ancient gentiles abhorred the sort of music that is embraced by us Christians with great dishonour to ourselves. Plutarch writes that the ancients did not want to practise that sort of music, not because they were unable to compose it, but because they knew that it was unworthy and corrosive of respectable mores: “I believe that it has been proven, thus far, that the ancients abstained from enervated, tender and languid musical styles not because of ignorance or incompetence, but deliberately. What is so strange in this, when we see that many institutions have died out in the space of a human live, when the have become obsolete and they have been rejected not because of ignorance, but deliberately [-f.62r-] and advisedly, once it had become understood and proven that they contradicted their purpose and the sense of decency in some measure.