AMS Philadelphia 2009 Abstracts - American Musicological Society

Abstracts saturday afternoon 153
vi) The volume contains thirty-one works by Dunstaple (eleven unica), dwarfed only by the
extraordinary number of forty-eight by Dufay (eleven unica). We are persuaded by various
pieces of evidence, such as inclusion of Dufay’s isorhythmic motets dating from the 1430s and
composition of one such motet by Benoit (not in Mod B) from the same period, that Dufay
and Benoit must have been acquainted with each other and that the English music in Mod B
may have been sent to Dufay and shared with Benoit. vii) Mod B once in Ferrara remained
there; gaps in the manuscript were filled in by other hands at various points up to the 1470s,
and the book was used as a source for at least one other manuscript of the period.
UGOLINO OF ORVIETO AND HIS FIFTEENTH-CENTURY READERS
Evan MacCarthy
Harvard University
In a passage of his italia illustrata (c. 1453) extolling the great men of Forlì, the fifteenthcentury
humanist and historian Biondo Flavio praises Ugolino of Orvieto as surpassing all the
musicians of his time. He claims that Ugolino’s book on music “will eclipse the labors of all
who have written before him, just as the works of [Guido] Bonatti have caused the writings
of ancient astronomers to fall into neglect.” This statement commending Ugolino’s encyclopedic
declaratio musicae disciplinae and its place in the history of music is written by a native
of Forlì and fellow apostolic secretary who not only knew Ugolino personally but likewise
his writings. Given Ugolino’s presence at many important centers and events in the early fifteenth
century including the Councils of Constance and Ferrara/Florence, the light in which
Ugolino was seen by his contemporaries is a topic worthy of closer study.
The early development of Ugolino’s musical style must have been shaped by his time in the
chapel of Gregory XII and as a biscantore at Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Lacking precise
evidence for his intellectual training, we must instead turn to his correspondence, his proximity
to some of Europe’s leading humanists at the Este court, his collection of books, and
his understanding of or reference to the writings of Marchetto da Padua, Johannes de Muris,
Prosdocimo de Beldemandis, and Boethius, among others. His declaratio in its scholastic
approach to music, both theoretical and practical, stands out as a milestone in the writing
of music theory, belonging to the generation preceding that of Johannes Tinctoris and its
topic-specific theoretical works concerning counterpoint, mensuration, mode, notation and
so forth. Closely considering the intellectual setting for the writing of Ugolino’s declaratio,
I will propose a new context in which to understand surviving early sources of the text. The
complete and near-complete copies of the declaratio, most recently examined thoroughly by
Albert Seay fifty years ago, deserve renewed attention in light of more recent work by historians
of manuscript illumination and archival work on the Ferrarese court and cathedral: Lewis
Lockwood, Enrico Peverada, and Adriano Franceschini.
The practice of glossing and copying derivative treatises in the fifteenth century shall also be
discussed, with special emphasis on the theoretical writings found in the mid-fifteenth-century
Ferrarese manuscript Porto, Biblioteca Pública Municipal, MS 714, a source of particular
significance given its combination of music theory and sophisticated polyphony, including
several unique chansons of Guillaume Du Fay. The relationship of Porto 714 to other contemporary
glosses of music theory will shed light on this scholarly practice and provide us with
new perspectives on the very early readers of Ugolino’s writings.