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The Frontispiece of Gafori's Practica Musicae (1496)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

James Haar
James Haar*
Affiliation:
New York University
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Extract

The depiction of celestial harmony (fig. 1) used as title page for the first edition of the Practica Musicae has been a great favorite among art historians of iconographic bent; Warburg, Panofsky, Seznec, and Wind have all reproduced and commented on this woodcut at some length. The frontispiece has nothing really to do with the contents of the Practica—no more, say, than the Boethian frontispiece of the thirteenth-century Pluteus manuscript has to do with Notre Dame polyphony. But the illustration was surely Gafori's idea rather than that of his printer, Le Signerre. Gafori as a devout Boethian was enamored of myths about cosmic harmony; he expounded Boethius’ doctrine of musica mundana in the first edition of the Theorica Musicae in 1480, expanded upon this treatment in the second edition of that work (1492), and returned to the subject armed with much newly acquired humanistic lore in the De Harmonia Musicorum Instrumentorum Opus, published in 1518 though certainly written some years earlier.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , Spring 1974 , pp. 7 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1974

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References

1 Warburg, Aby, ‘I Costumi teatrali per gli intermezzi del 1589,’ Gesammelte Schriften, I (Leipzig, 1932)Google Scholar, 271, 412-414; Panofsky, Erwin, ‘Titian's Allegory of Prudence: A Postscript,’ Meaning in the Visual Arts (Garden City, N.Y., 1957), pp. 151–158 Google Scholar; Seznec, Jean, La Survivance des dieux antiques (London, 1940)Google Scholar, Engl. tr. by Barbara F. Sessions (New York, 1953), pp. 140-142; Wind, Edgar, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New Haven, 1958)Google Scholar, pp. 46-47, 50,112-113. The woodcut is reproduced in two English translations of the Practica, that of Clement A. Miller (American Institute of Musicology, 1968) and that of Irwin Young (Madison, Wise, 1969); it is briefly described on p. xxix of the latter. The Practica Musicae, first printed in Milan in 1496, has been reprinted in facsimile (Farnborough: Gregg International Publishers, Ltd., 1967).

2 On the illuminations of the MS. Florence, Bibl. Mediceo-Laurenziana, Pluteus 29, 1, see Baltzer, Rebecca A., ‘Thirteenth-Century Illuminated Miniatures and the Date of the Florence Manuscript,’ Journal of the American Muskological Society, 25 (1972), 1–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 For Guilielmus Signer or Le Signerre, see Sartori, Claudio, Dizionario degli editori musicali italiani (Florence, 1958)Google Scholar, p. 144; Dona, Mariangela, La stampa musicale a Milano fino all'anno 1700 (Florence, 1961)Google Scholar, pp. 72-73; Proctor, Robert, An Index to the Early Printed Books in the British Museum, 1 (London, 1898)Google Scholar, 403. For an assessment of Le Signerre's woodcuts see Lippmann, Friedrich, The Art of Wood-Engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1888; repr. Amsterdam, 1969)Google Scholar, pp. 142f.

4 There is a discussion of the relevant passages, and their sources, in the two editions of the Theorica Musicae in my ‘Musica Mundana. Variations on a Pythagorean Theme,' unpub. diss., Harvard University, 1960, pp. 362-372. Gafori had a trilogy of theoretical works in mind at an early date, and probably wrote versions of all three of his major treatises well before publishing them. On this see Clement Miller, A., ‘Gaffurius's Practica Musicae: Origin and Contents,’ Musica Disciplina, 22 (1968)Google Scholar, 105-109. A manuscript copy of the De Harmonia dated 1500 is in the Bibl. Laudense in Lodi (cod. min. xxviii.a.9); see Sartori, Claudio, ‘GafFurius,’ Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, IV (Kassel, 1955)Google Scholar, col. 1240.

For information on another manuscript copy of the De Harmonia, one intended for the dedicatee of the printed volume, Jean Grolier, see Franz Unterkirchner, ‘Eine Handschrift aus dem Besitze Jean Groliers in der osterreichischen Nationalbibliothek,’ Libri. International Library Review, 1 (1950-51), 51-57. A colored drawing made after the woodcut under discussion here was included in this manuscript; it is reproduced by Unterkirchner, p. 55. Professor Claude Palisca, who is preparing a study of musical humanism that will include much material on Gafori, very kindly called the existence of this manuscript copy to my attention.

5 Even in the 1480 edition of his Theorica Gafori speaks of projected ‘alia volumina' (v, 8). The idea of a trilogy may have been suggested to him by the three Dialoghi (1434) of Giorgio Anselmi of Parma, which he cites abundantly in the second edition of the Theorica as well as in his later works. See Hansdchin, Jacques, ‘Anselmi's Treatise on Music Annotated by Gafori,’ Musica Disciplina, 2 (1948), 123–140 Google Scholar; Parmensis, Georgii Anselmi, De Musica, ed. Giuseppe Massera (Florence, 1961)Google Scholar, pp. 29ff. et passim. The frontispiece of the De Harmonia, with its inscription ‘Fran. Gafuri. Laudensis. Tria de Musicis Volumina. Theoricam. ac Practicam. et Harmoniam Instrumentorum. Accuratissime conscripsit.', had already been used in the Angelicum ac divinum opus musice, an Italian condensation of the Practica published in 1508 (printed, like the De Harmonia, by Gottardo da Ponte in Milan).

6 See Gafori's statement to this effect in the dedicatory letter of the De Harmonia, fol. i. On the translations commissioned by Gafori, and the scholars who did them, see Gallo, Alberto, ‘Le traduzioni dal Greco per Franchino Gaffurio,’ Acta Musicologica, 35 (1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 172-174.

7 De Harm., IV, 5, fol. lxxxvi: ‘Sunt et qui coelestis harmoniae modos ipsos participes sentiunt: namque solis astrum dorium regere credunt, Marti vero Phrygium ascripsere. Iovi lydium, ac Mixolydium Saturno.'

8 Cicero's order is an undefined tonal descent from the firmament to the moon, the stationary earth being silent though its inhabitants imitate celestial music with voice and instruments; see Somnium Scipionis, v, 1. Among all the ancient commentators on this passage Boethius was the most explicit, spelling out a planetary scale identical with that used by Gafori (De Institutione Musica Libri Quinque, 1, xxvii; p. 219 in the edition of G. Friedlein [Leipzig, 1867]).

9 Excluding Hypermixolydian, the added eighth mode taken by Boethius (IV, xvii) from the Harmonics of Ptolemy, and discussed by Gafori in the Theorica (1492 ed., v, 8).

10 ‘In medio residens complectitur omnia phoebus.’ This line is taken from a poem attributed to the fourth-century Roman poet Ausonius, a little piece in which the Muses and their functions are named. The line preceding that just quoted is ‘Mentis Apollineae vis has movet undique Musas,’ used as the motto for Gafori's woodcut. For the poem of pseudo-Ausonius see Peiper, R., ed., Ausonii Opuscula (Leipzig, 1886), p. 412 Google Scholar.

11 De Harm., IV, 9, fol. Lxxxviiiv: ‘Mixolydius igitur (quis & caeteris quos praediximus acutior sit; & meroris imperium tenere existimetur) Saturno ascriptus est. Atque iccirco Dorius soli comparator quis inter septem ipsos priores modos medius positus singulis proprium saltern tetrachordum communicet, namque & solis astrum medium inter septem planetas continens locum; caeteris vel lucem vel calorem propriis radiis conferre asseverant. Hinc Poeta cecinit In medio residens complectitur omnia phoebus. Hypermixolydium autem omnium acutissimum firmamento attribuunt: quasi illius sublimis ac divinae harmoniae participem: & a corruptibilibus (quas caeteris modulis convenire putant) proprietatibus solutum.'

12 Glareanus, was probably the first to criticize Gafori's understanding of modal theory; see the Dodecachordon (Basel, 1547)Google Scholar, 1, xxi. Girolamo Mei, the first Renaissance scholar who properly understood the difference between ancient and ecclesiastical modes, also criticized Gafori for not studying thoroughly the ancient sources at his disposal. See Claude V. Palisca, Girolamo Mei (isig-1584). Letters on Ancient and Modern Music (American Institute of Musicology, i960), pp. 55-56.

In fairness to Gafori it should be pointed out that in the Practica Musicae (1, 7; pp. 48- 49 in Miller's translation) he speaks of the octave-species, next of the classical modes, then only of the ecclesiastical modes, which are arranged ‘so as not to displease the order of ancient authority.'

13 Pliny (Naturalis Historia, n, xx, 84) and Martianus Capella (De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, n, 199) link Saturn with Dorian, Jupiter with Phrygian; Joahnnes Lydus adds Lydian-Mars (De Mensibus, p. 20 in the ed. of R. Wuensch [Leipzig, 1898]).

14 Greek names were not consistently applied to the ecclesiastical modes until the Renaissance. Their use caused a number of problems then; for an account of some of these difficulties see D. P. Walker, ‘Musical Humanism in the 16th and Early 17th Centuries,’ The Music Review, n and m (1941-42).

15 See Practica, 1, 7 (p. 47 in Miller), where Hypermixolydian is described as identical in structure to the mode an octave below (Hypodorian). As for the church mode Hypomixolydian, it is said to be named in imitation of the ancient hypo- modes, since there was none by that name in antiquity.

16 For information on Curti, a rather bizarre figure who imitated the ancients in dress as well as in literary genres, see M. Pesenti Villa, ‘I letterati e i poeti,’ in F. Valeri, Malaguzzi, La corte di Lodovico il Moro, IV (Milan, 1923)Google Scholar, 154-56. Curti is the author of a long poem, full of praise for Gafori, printed at the end of the 1492 edition of the Theorica, and may also be responsible for the verses quoted in De Harmonia, IV, 12.

17 This composition was noticed by the greatest student of the modes in the sixteenth century, Glareanus, who mentions it in the Dodecachordon, II, xxxix.

18 See Ovid, Metamorphoses, v; Diodorus, ed. C. H. Oldfather et al. (Cambridge, Mass., 1946- ), II, 360-365; Varro, De Lingua Latina, vn, 20 and 26; Hesiod, opening of the Theogony; Fulgentius, Mitologiarum, I, xv; Callimachus, fragments of Aetia; the titles (each a Muse) of the nine books of Herodotus’ History; Aristides, II, p. 304 in R. Schafke's ed. (Berlin, 1937).

19 De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, I, 27-29; pp. 19-20 in the ed. of A. Dick (Leipzig, 1925): ‘Superi autem globi orbesque septemplices suavius cuiusdam melodiae harmonicis tinnitibus concinebant ac sono ultra solitum dulciore, quippe Musas adventare praesenserant, quae quidem singillatim circulis quibusque metatis, ubi suae pulsum modulationis agnoverant, constituerunt, nam Uranie stellantis mundi sphaeram extimam concinit, quae acuto raptabatur sonora tinnitu. Polymnia Saturnism circulum tenuit, Euterpe Iovialem, Erato ingressa Martium modulatur. Melpomene mediam, ubi Sol flammanti mundum lumine convenustat. Terpsichore Venerio sociatur auro, Calliope orbem complexa Cyllenium, Clio citimum circulum, hoc est in Luna collocavit hospitium, quae quidem gravis pulsus modis raucioribus personabat. Sola vero, quod vector eius cycnus impatiens oneris atque subvolandi alumna stagna petierat. Thalia derelicta in ipso florentis campi ubere residebat. Interea tractus aerios iam Phoebus exierat, cum subito ei vitta crinalis immutatur in radios, laurusque, quam dextera retinebat, in lampadam mundani splendoris accenditur, fiuntque volucres, qui currum Delium subvehebant, anheli flammantis [lucis] alipedes.'

20 Homer: Odyssey, xxiv, 60; Hesiod: see the opening pages of the Theogony.

21 See Plutarch, Symposiacs, rx, 14, a quite full account of the Muses. For Varro see the citation in Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, II, 17 (Migne, Pat. hat., 34, col. 49). Varro's description is of three statues of Muses in a temple of Apollo (at Delphi?).

22 Gesammelte Schriften, 1, 413. Warburg assembles the verses, which are scattered over chapter 12 of the fourth book of De Harmonia. He points out that they may be found, doubtless taken from Gafori, in Cornelius Agrippa's Occulta Philosophia of 1531 (II, 26).

23 I, xvii, xx.

24 I, xvii, p. 89 in the ed. of F. Eyssenhardt (Leipzig, 1868): ‘Apollinis simulacra manu dextera Gratias gestant, arcum cum sagittis sinistra… .’ The bow and arrow are not at Apollo's left in the illustration; however, in the medallion of the sun in figure 1 is another Apollo with an arrow.

Wind, Pagan Mysteries, chs. 2-3, has a good deal of material on the ways in which the Graces were depicted. His fig. 18, from the “Mantegna” Tarocchi (ca. 1460) is quite close to the appearance of the Graces in Gafori's woodcut. Wind's explanation (p. 46») of the vase of flowers in the illustration as representing Macrobius’ crater through which the divine spirit descends to earth seems overelaborate. The flowers might simply represent the laurel which is one of Apollo's regular appurtenances.

25 Saturnalia, I, xx (p. 115 in Eyssenhardt). For a discussion of how the Serapian monster described by Macrobius was changed into a serpent identified with Apollo (this version made famous in Petrarch's Africa), see Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, pp. 153-158; Seznec, The Survival ofthe Pagan Gods, pp. 170-179. On the presence of the four elements clustered about the heads of the serpent, see Meyer-Baer, Kathi, Music of the Spheres and the Dance of Death (Princeton, 1970), p. 191 Google Scholar.

26 (Oppenheim, 1617). Fludd's illustration may be seen reproduced in W. Pauli, ‘The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler,’ in Jung and Pauli, , The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche (London, 1955)Google Scholar, pi. v and p. 193. Despite Pauli's remark that Fludd's work is ‘in agreement with old Pythagorean ideas’ the monochord is full of musical and cosmological oddities: see Haar, ‘Musica mundana,’ pp. 489-495. Mersenne, who strongly disapproved of Fludd, nevertheless borrowed this illustration— without acknowledgment—for his Harmonie universelle (Paris, 1636), vni, 49. Several of Fludd's diagrams are reproduced and commented upon in Meyer-Baer, Music of the Spheres, pp. 193-202.

27 For a quite different set of Muse-medallions see Wind, Pagan Mysteries, fig. 70, taken from the Melopoiae of Tritonius (1507).

28 Cf. Seznec, p. 70.

29 This connection of planets and lyre-strings with the zodiac was probably adapted by Gafori from Ptolemy (Harmonics, III, 8).

30 Theogony, 1, 66.

31 See the contemporary Parnassus of Raphael, in which Apollo, surrounded by the nine Muses, is shown bowing a lira da braccio. The lira could be plucked as well as bowed, however.

32 See Reese, Gustave, Music in the Renaissance (New York, 1954)Google Scholar, pp. 586f.

33 The prologue of the Musica Practica (Bologna, 1482; facs. ed. Giuseppe Vecchi [Bologna, 1969]; modern ed. by Johannes Wolf in Publikationen der internationalen Musikgesellschaft, Beihefte n [Leipzig, 1901]) begins with a compliment to Boethius. Ramis at one point (1, 2, vi [pp. 42-43 in Wolf]) remarks that during his student days at Salamanca he wrote a treatise in the vernacular to confound one ‘magister Osmensis’ who confused the three Greek genera with the three hexachords. Osmensis on seeing the treatise admitted, ‘Non sum ego adeo Boetio familiaris sicut iste.’ To this Gafori adds the marginal comment (for Gafori and the treatise of Ramis see below) ‘Here the author is boasting’ (Hie se multum iactat auctor).

34 1, 3, iii (pp. 56-60 in Wolf).

35 I, 2, vii (pp. 45-46 in Wolf). An illustration of this revised Guidonian hand is given on p. 47 in Wolf.

36 I, 3, ii (pp. 56-57 in Wolf).

37 Compare the following passage as written by Boethius and as quoted by Ramis: Boethius, I, i (pp. 185-186 in Friedlein): Ramis, I, 3, iii (p. 56 in Wolf): '… ut Pythagorici, cum diuturnas in ‘Erant autem pythagoricis in morem, ut somno resolverent curas, quibusdam can- cum diuturnas in somno curas resolverent, tilenis uterentur, ut eis lenis et quietus hypodorio uterentur, ut eis lenis et quietus sopor inreperet. Itaque experrecti aliis qui- somnus irreperet. Experrecti vero dorio busdam modis stuporem somni confusio- stuporem somni confusionemque purganemque purgabant, id nimirum scientes bant scientes nimirum, ut ait Boetius, quod quod tota nostrae animae corporisque tota nostrae animae corporisque compago compago musica coaptatione coniuncta musica coaptatione coniuncta est.' sit.'

38 From , a fountain on Parnassus sacred to Apollo and the Muses. Reading this may have given Gafori the idea for his woodcut.

39 I, 3, iii (pp. 58-59 in Wolf): ‘Si igitur Luna proslambanomenos, Sol vero lichanos hypaton, liquet istos duos planetas in diatessaron specie cantus collocandos atque ideo Lunam hypodorium, Solem vero dorium modum tenere. Ex eo liquido constat Lunam flegmatica et humida homini adaugere, Solem vero ipsa humida et flegmatica desiccare. Inde ergo isti duo planetae, quia principalia et luminaria sunt, pritnum modum regunt cum secundo… . Nam dorius primus autenticorum recte Soli comparatur, quia principatum tenet inter omnes modus sicut Sol inter omnes planetas. Nam omnes exhalationes terrestres et vapores marini solaribus radiis elevantur, ex quibus impressiones meteoricae creantur. Convenientia igitur inter Solem et Lunam clara est. Ista lucet nocte, ille noctem fuget; hypodorius somnum duck, dorius vero expellit. Concordant ergo et loco et conformitate in diatessaron consonantia.

'Mercurius vero hypophrygium reget. Nam iste modus adulatorum est, qui viciosos et sapientes probosque aequo modo collautum … qualis est natura Mercurii…. Mars vero phrygium tenet, qui torus colericus est et iracundus; nam omnia mundi bona iracundia sua conatur destruere. functus ergo Mercurius cum eo aut in aspectu quodam ita malus est sicut ipse Mars. Nam ille ense vulnerat, iste vero linqua.

'Hypolydius vero ipsi Veneri est attributus, quae fortuna est, feminea tamen, quia provocat ad lacrimas pias quandoque. Lydius vero Iovi, fortunae majori, quo homines sanguineos et benevolos creat mitesque atque iocundos, recte comparatur, cum semper gaudium notet. Convenentia cum Venere in diatessaron atque in bonitatis fortuna concordant nee differunt nisi vocum differentia. Inferior enim vox non ita dulcis est sicut acuta neque suavis.

'Mixolydius vero attribuitur Saturno, quoniam circa melancholiam versatur. Hypermixolydius vero totaliter ponitur castalinus, quoniam coelo attribuitur stellato sive firmamento. Nam hie modus super omnes alios habet quandam insitam dulcedinem cum venustate… .'

The portion of this passage dealing with Hypolydian and Lydian is cited by Lowinsky, Edward, ‘The Goddess Fortuna in Music,’ The Musical Quarterly, 29 (1943), 72 Google Scholar.

40 Ramis does not follow Macrobius (Comm. in Somn. Scrip., n, iii [pp. 581-582 in Eyssenhardt]), who makes Calliope the leader of all the Muses. His ordering is taken from Martianus, the passage cited in n. 19 above.

41 Figure 2 is reproduced from Wolf's edition of the Musica Practica. In the Bolognese print of 1482 the diagram was printed without text; the copy reprinted in facsimile (see n. 33 above) shows, without editorial comment, this textless form. Another copy, in Bologna, Museo Civico Bibliografico Musicale, shelfmark A 80, has the diagram filled in by hand, with an explanatory rubric describing the lunar-Hypodorian octave on the model of which the other interlocking octave circles are made. The notes of the scale are in the center column, with intervals of tone or semitone marked. The lines describing Muses and planets and modes are not in Ramis’ text, though their contents are paraphrased there (1, 3, iii).

On the question as to whether there were one or two editions of Ramis’ work printed in Bologna in 1482, see the introduction to the facsimile edition cited in n. 33 above, pp. [iv-v].

42 I, 3, iii (pp. 59-6o inWolf):'Cumigituraprimaidestasilentioadultimamcirculum facimus et ad secundam totum concentum remittentes recurrimus, hypodorium procreamus. Quemadmodum igitur de istis fecimus, de reliquis faciendum esse arbitramur, ita quod spiras facere non cessemus, donee ad ultimam musam perveniamus, a qua superflua, si fiat, erit intentio, quoniam replicatio prioris est, ut Rogerius Caperon asserebat esse crisim vocem illam supra neten hyperboleon additam et coruph, quae sub proslambanomeno. … Nos vero caveamus ab antiquitate auctore aliquid transvertere. Erit igitur prior vox proslambanomenos, ultima vero nete hyperboleon.' On Roger Caperon and his terminology, which Ramis uses in his illustration but strongly disapproves of, see my ‘Roger Caperon and Ramis de Pareia,’ Acta Musicologica, 41 (1969), 26-36.

43 For Gafori's having borrowed a copy of Ramis’ work, see Wolf's edition of the Musica Practica, p. x; cf. Massera, Georgii Anselmi Parmensis. De Musica, p. 28, and the plate following p. 32, a page from the Musica Practica with annotations in Gafori's hand. The controversy is briefly summarized in Reese, Music in the Renaissance, pp. 586-587; some interesting details are given in Sorbelli, A., ‘Le due edizione della Musica practica di Bartolome Ramis de Pareia,’ Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 5, (1930) 105–114 Google Scholar.

44 See Book IV of Zarlino's Le istitutioni harmoniche (Venice, 1558).

45 ‘The Concept of Physical and Musical Space in the Renaissance,’ Papers of the American Musicological Society, 1941 (1946), 57-84.

46 An example may be found in Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, MS.lat.7203, an early twelfth-century Boethian gloss. See Handschin, Jacques, ‘Ein mittelalterlicher Beitrag zur Lehre von der Spharenharmonie,’ Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft, 9 (1927)Google Scholar, 193-208. In this representation a two-octave scale like that in Ramis’ diagram is equated with the planets topped by seven of the angelic hierarchies.

47 The emblem is contained in the Hieroglyphica of Horus Apollo, known in Florence as early as 1419, first printed in 1505. Boas, See G., The Hieroglyphics ofHorapollo (New York, 1950)Google Scholar, p. 29.

Guy le Fèvre de la Boderie's La Galliade (Paris, 1578) opens with an image in which the firmament is explicitly likened to a serpent devouring its own tail. On this poem see Walker, D. P., Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Catnpanella (London, 1958)Google Scholar, pp. 122-124.

48 Cf. Vitruvius, De Architectura, v, iii, 6-7. A passage in Eicino's commentary on the Titnaeus of Plato (Opera [Basel, 1576], p. 1456) describes sound as a series of spiralling ovals, very suggestive of Ramis’ diagram.