Prosdocimo de' Beldomandi's Musica Plana and Musica Speculativa (Studies His MusicTheory and Lit)

"Prosdocimo de' Beldomandi, professor of arts and medicine at Padua in the early fifteenth century, brought to his eight treatises on music an originality, a scientific rigor, and an aesthetic sensitivity that made him one of the preeminent music theorists of his time. Both treatises presented here respond to Marchetto of Padua's famous Lucidarium. Though Prosdocimo disdained works that confused "the theoretical part with the practical part of ... plainchant"--With the Lucidarium evidently in mind -, he recognized Marchetto's authority in plainchant practice and borrowed extensively from the Lucidarium in his Tractatus plane musice of 1412. As to Marchetto's radical theories of tuning, Prosdocimo hoped that his Tractatus musice speculative (1425) would help "Italy be purged of such errors."" "Critical editions and translations of both treatises are long overdue. The Tractatus plane musice has never before been published, and the Tractatus musice speculative is available only in a scarce and inadequate early edition of 1913. Based on a collation of the three sources of the Tractatus plane musice and both sources of the Tractatus musice speculative, the present edition includes an annotated translation on pages facing the Latin text; a critical introduction placing Prosdocimo and the treatises in their historical context; and indices of terms, names, and subjects."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.