Musical Instructions, elementari and diverse: Notes on Music and Musical Theory in Vittone’s Treatises

Abstract

For a long time, Bernardo Antonio Vittone has been relegated by a hasty critical analysis to a marginal position within the century in which he lived. His intellectual geographies have been considered to be confined within the Piedmontese borders, far from more “modern” tendencies of his time, thus binding the architect to a subordinate, “melancholic” role, also because of his professed religious faith. According to Wittkower (1949), Vittone’s terms of reference in dealing with musical theory were those of Renaissance theory: not a flattering judgement for an eighteenth-century author. More recent studies have instead highlighted Vittone’s undisputed European orientation and, at the same time, his more articulate beliefs, marked by personal trajectories whose roots appear to be complex and elusive still today. This essay considers Vittone’s approach – a fundamentally technical one – to musical theory, its transmission through his treatises, and the epistemological change implied by his work, as it developed in the footsteps of the authors who, from Vitruvius onwards, had dealt with this theme.