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

Therefore, to express more fully the character of Enharmonic Harmony, I would say
tat it can be compared to the sort of wines which have a flavour which is both sweet
and spicy, and that this does not correspond badly to those properties attributed to it
by Aristides, namely to be [epion], namely, soft and sweet, as well as [egertikon],
namely energetic and effective in moving the emotions and awakening the
imagination, just as one of these two flavours pleases and melts the palate, and the
other one titillates, so to speak, the sense of taste, pleasingly twice in the process.
Hence, it is clear that the Diatonic shall be like those wines that have only something
of the brusque and the pleasant, while the Chromatic is judged universally as
resembling sweet and suave wine. One might also say that the metaphor according to
which some wines are called generous and grand, [--] such as the Greek wine
which I believe was called Aminaeus by the ancients, corresponds equally to the
Enharmonic Genus, to which that [semnon], or grand and magnificent manner, is
ascribed. But, since the word austerus, in this particular matter of the wines, does not
mean, according to the Greek Physicians and other good authors, that unripe and
rustic flavour which can be tasted in certain small and new, as it is mostly believed,
but rather, what it in Latin is called dry and appears to denote only a lack of sweetness
and tenderness, I would say that, in this sense, it is better suited perhaps to the simple
Enharmonic, while the sweet and spicy suits the mixture of the Diatonic and
Chromatic, since a certain dryness, severe simplicity and a certain majestic grace as
well is really suited to the Enharmonic, as it is the one that can see, moving from one
comparison to the other, in the ancient paintings (as long as by good Masters) which
have lost, because of time, that brightness of colours, hence we can also say that in
painting as well the Diatonic resembles that colour which we say has something of the
crude, while the Chromatic resembles the paintings made with florid colours or
percolori floridi, as Pliny call them and the Greeks before him called [antherous].
Those are understood to be the ones which are more brilliant and delightful such as
the ultramarine among the blues and the Cinnabar called Dragon’s Blood among the
reds, which, according to Pliny, were provided by those who commissioned the work
at their expense, as it is the case still nowadays, and not by the Painter. The paintings
that have beautiful colours are like the Chromatic melodies, while the ones which are
composed of austere colours will resemble the Enharmonic ones, since austere were
called the colours what are the opposite of the florid ones, which are not very brilliant
and render the painting more mature and ancient, as in the case of .
[--] Also, since Architecture has some affinity with painting and with
Harmonics, we can also consider its five styles, which, in my opinion, are more
similar to the Genera than to the Modes. They are the Tuscan, the Dorian, the Ionian,
the Corinthian and the Roman or Composite. The Tuscan, the simplest of all, which
was very unsophisticated and with few Canons, was compared very aptly to the
common genus which produces the melody which is exactly the most simple. The
Dorian matches the Enharmonic melody, since it has a certain simple gracefulness as
that one. The Chromatic matches the Corinthian, which is more ornate than all the
other simple genera and it has many different intervals just as that style has different
Canons. However, it seems to me that the Diatonic resembles more closely the Ionic
style, since it more suited better than the other ones to sad and cheerful moods and
other contrary qualities, just as the relaxed order seems to be that it would be more
suited than the others with its simple details and its added ornaments. Finally, the
order which is called composite and Italic, which is better named Roman, since it was
applied by the Romans, as the Tuscan in particular was no less Italic than that one,