Marchetto da Padova (Marchettus of Padua; fl. 1305 – 1319) was an Italian

music theorist Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the " rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (k ...

and composer of the late

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

era. His innovations in notation of time-values were fundamental to the music of the Italian ars nova, as was his work on defining the modes and refining tuning. In addition, he was the first music theorist to discuss

chromaticism Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses only seven different notes, rather than the ...

Life

Most likely he was born in

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of t ...

. Little is known about his life, but he is recorded as being music teacher for the choirboys at the cathedral in

in 1305 and 1306, and he left Padua in 1308 to work in other cities in the

Veneto it, Veneto (man) it, Veneta (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = ...

and the

Romagna Romagna ( rgn, Rumâgna) is an Italian historical region that approximately corresponds to the south-eastern portion of present-day Emilia-Romagna, North Italy. Traditionally, it is limited by the Apennines to the south-west, the Adriatic to ...

. His two major treatises seem to have been written between 1317 and 1319, shortly before

Philippe de Vitry Philippe de Vitry (31 October 1291 – 9 June 1361) was a French composer-poet, bishop and music theorist in the style of late medieval music. An accomplished, innovative, and influential composer, he was widely acknowledged as a leading mu ...

produced his '' Ars nova'' (c. 1322), which gave its name to the music of the age. Marchetto indicated in the treatises themselves that he wrote them at

Cesena Cesena (; rgn, Cisêna) is a city and '' comune'' in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, served by Autostrada A14, and located near the Apennine Mountains, about from the Adriatic Sea. The total population is 97,137. History Cesena was ...

and

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...

. There are no other reliable records of his life, although his fame was evidently widespread, and his work became hugely influential later in the 14th century.

Music

Only three

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Marga ...

s have been reliably attributed to Marchetto, one of them due to his name appearing as an

acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fr ...

in the text for one of the parts (''/''). Based on another acrostic in the same motet, it seems it was composed for the dedication of the

Scrovegni Chapel The Scrovegni Chapel ( it, Cappella degli Scrovegni ), also known as the Arena Chapel, is a small church, adjacent to the Augustinian monastery, the ''Monastero degli Eremitani'' in Padua, region of Veneto, Italy. The chapel and monastery ar ...

(also known as the Arena Chapel) in Padua on March 25, 1305.

Writings and influence

Marchetto published two major treatises, the (probably in 1317–1318), and the (probably 1318). He also published an abridged version of the as the , though the date of this is not known. He stated in the that he wrote it while staying at the house of

Raynaldus de Cintis Odorico Raynaldi or Rinaldi (1595 – 22 January 1671) was an Italian historian and Oratorian. He is also known as Odericus Raynaldus, or just Raynald. Biography Raynaldi was born at Treviso of a patrician family. He studied at Parma and Pa ...

, who was lord of the city from 1321 to 1326, however most scholars believe that the was written in 1318. The meanings of the two titles are: , an encyclopaedic clarification and ''

pomerium The ''pomerium'' or ''pomoerium'' was a religious boundary around the city of Rome and cities controlled by Rome. In legal terms, Rome existed only within its ''pomerium''; everything beyond it was simply territory ('' ager'') belonging to Rome ...

'', the verge or enclosure around the orchard of Rome. Precise dating of his work has been important to musicology because of the controversy over whether he was influenced by the innovations of the French ''ars nova'', as written by

and Jean de Muris in the 1320s, or whether the influence went the other way. Most likely Marchetto's work was first, although he was well aware of the French practice – which, like most innovations in music before the 20th century, was only discussed in writing years after the actual musical innovation took place. All of the treatises except for the abridged version are in a heavily

scholastic Scholastic may refer to: * a philosopher or theologian in the tradition of scholasticism * ''Scholastic'' (Notre Dame publication) * Scholastic Corporation, an American publishing company of educational materials * Scholastic Building, in New Y ...

framework, and were almost certainly collections of oral teachings. Marchetto's innovations are in three areas: tuning, chromaticism, and notation of time-values. He was the first medieval writer to propose dividing the whole tone into more than two parts. A

semitone A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...

could consist of one, two, three, or four of these parts, depending on whether it was, respectively, a

diesis In classical music from Western culture, a diesis ( , plural dieses ( , "difference"; Greek: δίεσις "leak" or "escape"Benson, Dave (2006). ''Music: A Mathematical Offering'', p.171. . Based on the technique of playing the aulos, where ...

, an

enharmonic In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. The enharmonic spelling of a written ...

semitone, a

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a p ...

semitone, or a

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a ...

semitone. Marchetto preferred to widen major intervals and narrow minor ones for melodic effect, the opposite of what the later

meantone temperament Meantone temperament is a musical temperament, that is a tuning system, obtained by narrowing the fifths so that their ratio is slightly less than 3:2 (making them ''narrower'' than a perfect fifth), in order to push the thirds closer to pure. Me ...

does. The exact size of the major sixth he described is the subject of some disagreement, but was considered by

George Secor George Secor (November 8, 1943 – March 2, 2020) was an American musician, composer and music-theorist from Chicago. He was the discoverer of miracle temperament and eponym of the secor. As an inventor, Secor and Hermann Pedtke's ''Motorola Sca ...

to be 12:7 (933 cents). In the area of time values, Marchetto improved on the old Franconian system of notation;

music notation Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspec ...

was by this time evolving into the method known today where an individual symbol represented a specific time-value, and Marchetto contributed to this trend by developing a method of compound time division, and by assigning specific note shapes to specific time values. Additionally, Marchetto discussed the

rhythmic mode In medieval music, the rhythmic modes were set patterns of long and short durations (or rhythms). The value of each note is not determined by the form of the written note (as is the case with more recent European musical notation), but rather by ...

s, an old rhythmic notation method from the 13th-century ''

ars antiqua ''Ars antiqua'', also called ''ars veterum'' or ''ars vetus'', is a term used by modern scholars to refer to the Medieval music of Europe during the High Middle Ages, between approximately 1170 and 1310. This covers the period of the Notre-Da ...

'', and added four "imperfect" modes to the existing five "perfect" modes, thus allowing for the contemporary Italian practice of mixed, flexible and expressive rhythmic performance. The also included one of the earliest texts addressing the relationship between composer – Marchetto used the word ''musician'', borrowing from

Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480 – 524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, '' magister officiorum'', historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the t ...

's definition in – and

performer The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...

. He set a distinct hierarchy, defining the "musician" or composer as the artist making judgements in accordance with his learned knowledge, while describing the singer as the instrument on which the musician performs, and likening their relationship to that of the judge and the crier. Marchetto's treatises were hugely influential in the 14th and early 15th centuries, and were widely copied and disseminated. The Rossi Codex, which is the earliest surviving source of secular Italian polyphony and which contains music written between 1325 and 1355, shows obvious influence of Marchetto, especially in its use of his notational improvements. Without the innovations of Marchetto, the music of the Italian Trecento – for example the secular music of Landini – would not have been possible.

Footnotes

References and further reading

*''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. *Richard H. Hoppin, ''Medieval Music''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. *Jan Herlinger: "Marchetto da Padova", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed February 28, 2005)
(subscription access)
*Jay Rahn: ''Practical Aspects of Marchetto's Tuning.'' Music Theory Online: The Online Journal of the Society for Music Theory. vol. 4, no. 6, 1998.

*Margo Schulter: "Xenharmonic Excursion to Padua, 1318:Marchettus, the cadential diesis, and neo-Gothic tuning

*Joseph L.monzo: "Speculations on Marchetto of Padua's fifth-Tone

*Karol Berger: "Musica Ficta. Theories of accidental inflexions in vocal polyphony from Marchetto da Padova to Gioseffo Zarlino", Cambridge University Press, 1987, especially pp. 22–9, 86-87, 141-3. {{DEFAULTSORT:Padova, Marchetto da Italian male classical composers Italian music theorists Trecento composers Musicians from Padua 13th-century births 14th-century deaths Medieval male composers

Life

Music

Writings and influence

See also

Footnotes

References and further reading