Author: Doni, Giovanni Battista - manuscripts of italian music theory ...

further on. I leave aside the Prisma, stenoprisma and ectome, which are even smaller
intervals introduced by Mondoreo, a most erudite philosopher and great imitator [-
-] of the ancients, because I do not know what use one might derive of it. [[But]]
I cannot pass under silence the mistake that Glareanus, a man very erudite for his
time, committed when he wanted that one should count two Diaschisma in the
[[Tetrachord]] Enharmonic genus, rather than two Dieses. However one should
forgive him because, having [[little familiarity with the ancient Greek musicians]]
known almost only Boethius among the ancient musical writers, he understood as
diesis, as the Pythagoreans [, especially the most ancient,] [Chalcidius in the
Commentary on Plato's Timaeus in marg.] did, the smaller Semitone and more readily
the limma [(as it was called theoretically) in marg.] which, together with two larger
tones, constitutes the Diatessaron. I am much more surprised about Salinas [second
book, chapter 13 in marg.], who is much more speculative than Glareanus, since he
dared to reprehend Ptolemy, as if he believed that the comma was indistinguishable,
when he says that it mattered little (talking about the practice of the instrumental
ensembles of his time, rather than of Theory) to put two larger Tones or a larger and a
smaller one. In fact, Ptolemy was not so dim [[that not]] that he considered the
comma as an indistinguishable interval, but only wanted that whether the citharoedes
tune the tetrachord in the Syntonic species [[or]] which [[can]] [contains corr. supra
lin.] two larger tones, one larger and one smaller and a larger semitone, and in the
diatonic species two larger tones and a limma, makes little difference in practice. [-
-] It does not seem right to me that Zarlino should reprehend Aristotle because
he said that the Diesis is a common measure of the interval or consonances, as if he
intended instead that the consonances derive from the union of small intervals, rather
than these are derived from the subdivision of those, as Zarlino maintains with reason,
since one thing is to say that the Diesis is a common measure of the intervals, and
something else that they are composed by it, in the same way that it would not follow
that the palm is composed of the measures of a finger from saying that the finger or
ounce is the common measure of the palm, the foot and the step, since it is possible
that the measure of the palm is older than the one of the finger. [Nevertheless add.
supra lin.], nothing, which is older is composed [composing ante corr. ]or is born
[being born ante corr.] from a more recent one. It is also not credible that Aristotle
learned this doctrine and Axiom from Aristoxenus who was a pupil of his (as
[[maintains the same]] it seems to Zarlino himself), but, rather, that he learned this
from older theorists. However, do let us see how they understood this participation [or
conjunction add. supra lin.] of the Diesis in all the Intervals. Premised that they did
not ignore that property of the proportions and consonances not to be able to be
divided by the repeated octaves [--] into equal parts, I say nevertheless that they
introduced with reason this common measurement [[firstly]] because they could see
easily a line proportionately as a string of a lute is divided into six Tones, twelve
semitones and twenty-four diesis, which, if they were equal as to the sound, and not to
the string, as Valgulio thought too naively, the consonances are so little changed from
their being that one can hardly noticed, but, with the help of the Canon the frets are
located in the true and proper places which create unequal intervals and the right
proportions, they vary in position so little that [[also diffic]] not for this one has to
deem useless this common measurement, since it can be useful in many things, and,
among others, to [[thus]] refine, so to speak, the tuning allowing the good ear of the
musician to provide them with that completeness which they receive, as we see in the
viol, whose strings, like those of the lute, are mostly in fourths, like those of the lute.
These are normally tuned perfectly, so that the fourths which are side by side are