G. Zarlino. Dimostrationi harmoniche...nelle quali realmente si trattano le cose della Musica, Venice, 1571

ZARLINO, GIOSEFFO

Dimostrationi harmoniche...nelle quali realmente si trattano le cose della Musica, Venice: Francesco de i Franceschi Senese, 1571

FIRST EDITION, [8], 312 & [12] pages, folio (28.5 x 19.5cm), woodcut device, capitals, diagrams and illustrations of monochords, type-set & woodcut tables, italic text, Register at end, old vellum, manuscript title to spine, lengthy ownership inscription by the composer Caspar Ruetz (Lübeck, 20 January 1743) on pastedown, some tears, repairs and stains to preliminaries, small worm-hole through cover and first 20 leaves, small hole in last 2 leaves, bookplate of E.C. Stahl obscuring inscription, binding warped and repaired but sound

Zarlino (1517-1590) was the most influential theorist of Renaissance and Baroque music. In Dimostrationi harmoniche he established the primacy of the major mode over the other church modes (Aeolian, Dorian, Lydian and Phrygian), reordering them accordingly. 

LITERATURE:

Edit 16 CNCE 28123; Gregory & Bartlett, i, p.296; Hirsch, i 624; RISM Écrits, p.907

PROVENANCE:

Caspar Ruetz (1708-1755), Kantor of the Katharineum Lateinschule in Lübeck. Ruetz wrote an important treatise Widerlegte Vorurtheile vom Ursprung der Kirchenmusic (1750).