PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 107
LORENZ WELKER
OTTAVIANO PETRUCCI AND THE POLITICAL-CULTURAL ELITE OF HIS TIME: THE 1513 PRINT OF PAUL OF MIDDELBURG’S SUMMA PAULINA DE RECTA PASCHAE CELEBRATIONE
My contribution deals with the so-called non-musical prints prepared by Ottaviano Petrucci, which from the music-historian’s point of view may appear to be negligible Nebenwerke, when compared with the epoch-making output of musical works from the printer’s press. The aim of my considerations is to show that, in contrast to a widely accepted opinion, at least one of these ‘non-musical’ prints could have acted as a catalyst within a paradigm change taking place in the history of ideas and which was of even more consequence than the beginning of commercial music printing 500 years ago. Moreover, my paper intends to convey an impression of the role that Petrucci played within a network of European intellectuals who with the active help of their noble patrons, were about to turn the hitherto well-established view of the world upside down, in the years around 1500.
The preface to one of the most influential works in the history of science, whose revolutionary content is already apparent in its title, De Revolutionibus, was written by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and printed in Nuremberg by Johannes Petreius in 1543. This preface, dedicated to Pope Paul III, ends with the following lines:1
Mathemata mathematicis scribuntur, quibus et hi nostri labores, si me non fallit opinio, videbuntur etiam reipublicae ecclesiasticae conducere aliquid, cuius principatum tua
I wish to thank Angela Tagini and Harry White for polishing and revising my English version of this contribution. 1 See the edition by Heribert Maria Nobis and Bernhard Stricker, NICOLAUS COPERNICUS, De revolutionibus libri sex (Hildesheim, 1984), 3-5, especially 5. My thanks to David A. Di Liscia, Copernicus-Forschungsstelle at the Institut für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften of the University of Munich, for his advice on Copernicus’ scholarship and editions. It should be mentioned in passing, that the 1543 De revolutionibus print may also be considered simply one of the ‘non-musical prints’ from Petreius’ press; on the music prints see MARIKO TERAMOTO and ARMIN BRINZING, Katalog der Musikdrucke des Johannes Petrejus in Nürnberg (Kassel, 1993), xv. On Petreius as a printer of scientific works see JOSEPH C. SHIPMAN, ‘Johannes Petreius, Nuremberg Publisher of Scientific Works, 1524-1550’, in: HELLMUT LEHMANN-HAUPT, Hommage to a Bookman. Essays on Manuscripts, Books and Printing Written for Hans P. Kraus on his 60th Birthday (Berlin, 1967), 154-162.
- 107 - PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 108
LORENZ WELKER
Sanctitas nunc tenet. Nam non ita multo ante sub Leone X cum in Concilio Lateranensi vertebatur quaestio de emendando kalendario ecclesiastico, quae tum indecisa hanc solummodo ob causam mansit, quod annorum et mensium magnitudines, atque Solis et Lunae motus nondum satis dimensi haberentur. Ex quo equidem tempore, his accuratius observandis, animum intendi, admonitus a praeclarissimo viro Domino Paulo episcopo Semproniensi, qui tum isti negotio praeerat. Quid autem praestiterim ea in re, tuae Sanctitatis praecipue, atque omnium aliorum doctorum mathematicorum iudicio relinquo, et ne plura de utilitate operis promittere tuae Sanctitati videar, quam praestare possim, nunc ad institutum transeo.2
The praeclarissimus vir Dominus Paulus episcopus Semproniensis is of course known to all Petrucci scholars as Paulus de Middelburgo or Paul of Middelburg, the author of two non-musical books from Petrucci’s press, namely the voluminous Summa Paulina de recta Paschae celebratione of 1513 and the more restricted Parabola of 1516. Who was this author, who seemed well known to Nicolaus Copernicus and who was able to convince Ottaviano Petrucci to suspend music printing for a while and turn to completely different matters? Paul of Middelburg was born in Middelburg in Zeeland in 1445, he studied the liberal arts, medicine and theology at Louvain and was subsequently invited by the Signoria of Venice to take a chair for astronomy and/or astrology (at the time, considered to be more or less equivalent). In 1481, he was appointed court physician to Duke Federico da Montefeltro, by arrangement with the astrologer Jacobus Spirensis. He continued to enjoy the protection of the Urbino dukes well after Federico’s death on the 10 September 1482. Thus in 1488, the dukes of Urbino provided Paul with an endowment at the Benedictine abbey of San Cristoforo del Ponte at Castel Durante (since 1636 - Urbania). During the following years he may have befriended the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who was to become emperor. He certainly obtained the friendship of the great Florentine Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino. A letter Ficino wrote to Paul (here addressed as insignis Physicus & Astronomus) on 13 September 1491 became renowned, as Ficino praised his own century as a golden age, by virtue of the inventa of its time and the seven liberal disciplines ‘leading back to the light’ (‘liberales disciplinas ferme iam extinctas reduxit in lucem’) – though not the medieval artes liberales of the trivium and quadrivium: grammar, poetry, oratory, painting,
2 ‘Mathematical calculations and inquiries are written by and for mathematicians, by whom these our works Ð if I am correct Ð are considered useful for the Republic of the Church too, whose leadership is held by Your Holiness. For not so long ago, the question of the calendar reform was considered under the reign of Leo X in the Lateran Council. Yet there was no decision taken as there was no sufficiently precise measurement of the duration of years and months, and of the motions of the sun and moon. From those days onwards, I exerted my wits on more precise observations, admonished by the most celebrated man, Dominus Paulus, bishop of Fossombrone, who was then head of the committee. What I achieved in this subject I leave to the judgement of Your Holiness above all, and all other doctors in mathematics. And in order not to promise too much, I will now turn to the contents of the book’. The translation and the italics in the Latin text are mine.
- 108 - PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 109
OTTAVIANO PETRUCCI AND THE POLITICAL-CULTURAL ELITE OF HIS TIME
sculpture, music and the ancient singing of songs to the Orphic lyre (antiquus ad Orphicam Lyram carminum cantus). Interestingly, Ficino considers music and singing to the lyre to be separate disciplines, the latter obviously referring to Ficino’s practice of singing to the lira da braccio.3 It was possibly that Archduke Maximilian recommended Paul for the bishopric of Fossombrone; the see he held from 1494, until his death during a service in 1533, in Rome, where he was buried in S. Maria dell’Anima. Thus besides his position as a bishop within the church hierarchy, he was also a physician, astronomer and astrologist, as well as a mathematician of considerable renown, who had close contacts with scholars and men of power throughout the world.4 His role and importance in the fervent scientific discussions of his time becomes tangible in Pierre Gassendi’s commentary on a letter from Paul to Copernicus:5
Paulus Middelburgensis, Foro Sempronensis Episcopus, per litteras Copernicum consuluit, et, ut pro ea, qua erat peritia et industria, operam conferret, vehementer sollicitavit; additis etiam litteris amici collegaeque ipsius Bernardi Sculteti, eiusdem Warmiensis Ecclesiae Decani, Scribaeque a Concilio delecti.6
Paul of Middelburg had apparently already asked Julius II to take the calendar into consideration before the opening of the Lateran Council in 1512. After Julius’ death in 1512, Leo X placed the question of the calendar reform on the schedule for
3 The letter is printed in Ficini Opera Omnia, Basle, 1576 (reprinted as MARSILIO FICINO, Opera Omnia, con una lettera introduttiva di Paul Oskar Kristeller e una premessa di Mario Sancipriano, Torino 1959, [Monumenta politica et philosophica rariora, Series I, Numerus 8]), 944 (it concludes the eleventh book of Ficino’s letters). On this letter see most recently MICHAEL ALLEN, ‘Ocean Blue: Epistolae teutonicis complatonicis tribus,’ in Eckhard Kessler, Heinrich C. Kuhn (eds), Germania latina - Latinitas teutonica. Vita publica, scientiæ, studia humaniora a litteris renatis usque ad sæculum nostrum. Report of the conference Munich, 10 - 13 September 2001 (Munich and Paderborn, forthcoming). My thanks to Reinhard Strohm who brought Ficino’s letter to my attention. 4 On the life and works of Paul of Middleburg see the concise overview by MENSO FOLKERTS, P. v. Middelburg, (Lexikon des Mittelalters vol. 6; Munich and Zurich, 1993), column 1827. As classic studies on Paul of Middelburg remain DIRK J. STRUIK, ‘Paulus van Middelburg (1445-1533)’, in Mededeelingen van het Nederlandsch Historisch Instituut te Rome. Part 5 (The Hague, 1925), 79-118 (with a complete and annotated worklist), and idem, ‘Paolo di Middelburg e il suo posto nella storia delle scienze esatte’, in Periodico di matematiche. Storia - didattica - filosofia. Serie IV, vol. V (1925), 337-347 (with more details on Paul’s mathematical works). My thanks go to Menso Folkerts for his help with Paul’s biography. 5 In his biography of the famous astronomer. See Documenta Copernicana. Briefe - Texte und Übersetzungen. See Documenta Copernicana. Briefe - Texte und Übersetzungen. Bearbeitet von Andreas Kühne unter Mitarbeit von Friederike Boockmann und Stefan Kirschner und Verwendung der Vorarbeiten von Heribert Maria Nobis. (Berlin 1994), 10-11 (Nr. 5). 6 ‘Paul of Middelburg, bishop of Fossombrone, wrote a letter to Copernicus and asked him for urgent help - as much as he had the experience and industry. And a letter from Copernicus’ friend and colleague Bernardus Scultetus, the dean of the church of Warmland and scribe of the council was attached’. The Bernardus Sculteti mentioned here (probably Bernhard Schultze) is documented in Rome during the years 1513, 1514 and 1517 as a chaplain and valet de chambre to pope Leo X.
- 109 - PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 110
LORENZ WELKER
the session of 1 December 1514. At the same time, Leo X asked the Emperor Maximilian and several princes (amongst whom the King of Poland) to request statements in support of the reform from their scholars and universities. The Emperor entrusted the universities of Vienna, Tübingen and Louvain to formulate their expert opinions.7 However, the council encountered numerous obstacles in its attempt to clarify the complicated situation. The pope thus called Paul to chair a committee which formulated thirteen articles. Another session was planned and a date decided upon, but the session had to be postponed once again. In the end, the council was not able to reach a final decision regarding the calendar reform. These were the circumstances under which Petrucci’s 1513 print of the voluminous Paulina entered the scene. In 396 folios, Paul expressed his opinion on how to reform the calendar in detail, as well as providing a history of chronology from its very beginning, contemporary positions on the matter and above all his own suggestions. The main points can be outlined as follows: Paul argued against restoring the equinox to 21 March, and opposed the idea of abandoning the lunar cycle. Rather, he suggested establishing the equinox on 10 March, Easter would thus return to the beginning of March. He also suggested changing the numerus aureus, by reducing the seven embolismic months to five. The consequence would have been that the day of the new moon would be shifted back one day every 304 years.8 Expert opinions on Paul’s suggestions were given by the mathematicians and astronomers Tannstetter and Stiborius of Vienna and Stöffler of Tübingen. They all adopted some of Paul’s positions but did not follow him on all points.9 But although so many expert ideas came together Ð as Copernicus clearly points out Ð the evidence was too weak to achieve a successful reform. The task was left to Pope Gregory XIII, who on 24 February 1582, issued his bull Inter gravissimas,in order to introduce a new calendar. It was established that 4 October of that year should be immediately followed by the 15 October. The bull determined further that centennial years should be ‘common’, i.e. not be ‘leap years’, except those which are divisible by 400 (therefore, the year 2000 would be a ‘leap year’). Although Paul of Middelburg did not succeed in concluding the discussion of the calendar reform, in its time, his Paulina was of considerable influence. It is therefore no surprise that the book is Petrucci’s most widely distributed print, and that many libraries own more than one copy, as the following provisional list indicates:10
7 LEOPOLD PROWE, Nicolaus Coppernicus (Erster Band: Das Leben. II. Theil 1512-1543; Berlin 1883), 65-71. 8 FRIEDRICH K. GINZEL, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie. Das Zeitrechnungswesen der Völker, III (Band. Leipzig, 1914), 255. 9 PROWE, Coppernicus, 68. 10 The provisional list is prepared from data provided in STRUIK, Paulus van Middelburg, and STANLEY H. BOORMAN, Petrucci at Fossombrone. A Study of Early Music Printing with Special Reference to the Motetti de la Corona (1514 - 1519) (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1976), as well as from my own research at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and library catalogues. For a complete list see Stanley Boorman’s forthcoming Catalogue Raisonnée of all prints from Petrucci’s press which records more than fifty copies.
- 110 - PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 111
OTTAVIANO PETRUCCI AND THE POLITICAL-CULTURAL ELITE OF HIS TIME
TABLE I Present location of copies of Paul of Middelburg, Summa Paulina de recta Paschae celebratione, Fossombrone: Petrucci 1513
FOUR COPIES: Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II (4 copies, according to the Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale)
THREE COPIES: London, British Library: 696.1.15. 472.e.8. 216.d.15.
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: Res.2 Liturg. 327 P. lat. 1136 P. lat. 1136a11
TWO COPIES: Augsburg, Stadt- und Staatsbibliothek: 2 Chron 13 2 Chron 13a
Cambridge, University Library: G.2.16 F*.8.27(B) Norton.a.23
Cambridge (Mass.), Houghton Library: Typ.525.13.675F *fNC.P2863.513p12:
11 The places of origin of the copies in the Bayrische Staatsbibliothek are as follows: - Res.2 Liturg. 327 comes from St. Ulrich, Augsburg; - P. lat. 1136 is bound together with JOSEPH SCALIGER, Opus novum, Paris 1583, both volumes belonged to the library of Joh. Georgius à Werdenstein, from whence they came to the Electoral Library; and - P. lat. 1136a was owned by the Praemonstratensian Canons at Steingaden, before their library was transferred to the Royal Library in 1803. 12 See BOORMAN, Petrucci at Fossombrone, 299; the place of origin of *fNC.P2863.513p is given as ‘Bundesdenkmalamt Wien’, former owners were the ‘Capuci de S. Vittorio’, as an inscription and a stamp in the book indicate.
- 111 - PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 112
LORENZ WELKER
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale: Res. G 147 FB 8148
Rome, Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina: Y.q.4 A.d.56
ONE COPY (highly incomplete list): Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek: 4¡ Ds 6550
Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland: Pat. 18
London, University College Library: Ogden Fol. 508
Oxford, Bodleian Library: Rigaud C.14
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek: 74.N.10
The attention which Paul’s Paulina received can be seen from the reactions and responses, both favourable and unfavourable, to the ideas of the reform. The first reactions were those by Antonio Dulciati in 1514, and Basilio Lapi and Johann Maier in 1515 (Dulciati’s and Lapi’s comments can be found in manuscripts of the Medicea- Laurentiana and the Marciana respectively, Maier’s in his Augsburg print on the calendar).13 Erasmus of Rotterdam quoted Paul’s achievements in a letter.14 An early criticism was expressed by the Parisian doctor Cyprianus Benetus, whose two replies can be found in a MS of the Vatican Library (with the call number Vat. lat. 7046). An immediate reaction to the Paulina is the ‘Tractatus de non mutando Paschate etc. contra servile pecus Judeorum’ (dated 1515), a contribution to further discussions the ‘Ad secundum compendium et parabolam Christi de Calendario alia brevis et compendiosa responsio’. This second treatise by Cyprianus, refers to a series of printed commentaries which follows Paul’s main book, and which includes another Petrucci print:
13 STRUIK, ‘Paulus van Middelburg’, 82-83. 14 See Percy S. Allen (ed.), Opus epistolarum des. Erasmis Roterodami, vol. II (Oxford, 1910; reissued 1992), 55.
- 112 - PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 113
OTTAVIANO PETRUCCI AND THE POLITICAL-CULTURAL ELITE OF HIS TIME
1. Compendium correctionis calendarii pro recta pasche celebratione, 16 fols, no place, no date, but estimated by Marzi to be 1514; 2. Parabola Christi de correctione calendarii, 11 fols, [Fossombrone:] Petrucci, 20. Nov. 1516;15 3. Secundum compendium correctionis calendarii continens et exponens diuersos modos corrigendi calendarium, 26 fols, Rome: Marcellus Silber alias Franck, 1516.
By the year 1516 the collaboration of Paul of Middelburg with Petrucci had come to an end. Paul no longer continued to dedicate himself to questions related to the calendar reform, instead he returned to mathematics on the one hand, and on the other, to astrology. The mathematical problems are dealt with in a book on the number of atoms in the universe, which is in fact an application of various computational methods to the theological problem of usury: De Numero atomorum totius Universi contra Usurarios, printed in Rome, again by Marcellus Silber alias Franck, in 1518. His astrological skills are displayed in a small pamphlet of four folios, Prognosticum R.p.d. Pauli de Middelburgo Episcopi Forosemproniensis [...], printed in 1523, in several places and by different printers. The widely distributed treatise provides an astrological explanation as to why there was no need to fear a deluge in the following year, 1524. A copy of this pamphlet was edited in the same year, 1523, in Augsburg by Ottmar Nachtgall called Luscinius, who subsequently translated the booklet into German and published it on the 12th January 1524 as Ain fast nutzlich büchlin zu diser Zeit zu lesen, with a dedication to Anton Fugger: ‘Dem hochgeachten erenfesten Anthonien Fugger, seinem geliebten herren’ and mentions, that he had received the original from the dedicatee shortly before: ‘als ich vor etlichen tagen empfangen von euch hab das büchlin des erwürdigen in Got Pauli bischoffs [...] ain teutscher von middelburg geboren’. Ottmar Nachtgall (who is better known with his Latinised name Luscinius) has a place in music history as the author of the Musicae institutiones (Strasbourg 1515), which is basically a translation of Sebastian Virdung’s Musica getutscht, and a Musurgia, sive praxis musicae, which was completed in 1518, but only published in 1536. Beyond his knowledge of Paul’s writings, Luscinius may also have had direct access to Italian intellectual circles, as he had received a doctorate in decretis in 1519 at Padua.16 Although Paul’s Prognosticum of 1523 has been considered to be another
15 Four copies are extant in Roman libraries, one in the British Library; two manuscript copies exist in the Vatican library: Vat. lat. 7046, was initially bound with the printed copy of the Vatican Library, and is now bound with the replies by Cyprianus; and Vat. Ottob. lat 370, bound with a manuscript by P. Clavius, one of the scholars responsible for the Gregorian reform Ð the MS copy does not indicate the name of the printer of the copy. 16 On Luscinius’ career see most recently my ‘Musik am Freiburger Münster in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit’, in Christoph Schmider (ed.): Musik am Freiburger Münster (Freiburg, 2002), 49-59.
- 113 - PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 114
LORENZ WELKER
example of Petrucci’s non-musical prints, it is not very likely as Stanley Boorman concluded.17 There were at least four editions of the Prognosticum, the first of 1523, devoid of a printer’s name and printing place, then the already mentioned one published by Luscinius and printed in Augsburg (possibly by Ruff), and two others, possibly printed by Tacuino in Venice and Soncino in Rimini.18 The Prognosticum is in line with a whole series of small astrological treaties Paul of Middelburg had published before the turn of the century, starting with a Iudicium prognosticum pro anno Christi 1479 a domino Paulo de middelburgo zelandie artium doctore astronomiam ordinarie padue legente, 12 folios published in 1478, for which the printing place is not indicated. Much more widely distributed was the Prognostica ad viginti annos duratura of 1484, which was published in the same year in several places such as Bologna, Antwerp, Lübeck and Cologne, and which mentions the author in the title as a ‘bonarum artium et medicinae doctor’, a doctor in the liberal arts as well as in medicine and as the ‘Illustrissimi ducis Urbini Guidobaldi phisicum’, the court physician of Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino. Apparently, Petrucci’s print of 1513 was the first printed book published by Paul after his Prognosticon of 1484, and in any case the first book published after he had obtained the bishop’s seat of Fossombrone. The aim of the Paulina was anticipated in his manuscript Exhortatio of 1491, which was addressed to the pope, Julius II, and is preserved in the Vatican library, Vat. lat. 3684.19 Paul had obviously worked for a long time on the reform, and he was very ambitious in preparing an excellent format for his ideas. It is yet not completely clear why he chose Petrucci to achieve his publishing aims. Stanley Boorman has pointed out that ‘the author should have wanted his volume published in Fossombrone and by Petrucci, for the printer must have been well known outside as much as within the state of Urbino’.20 However, Petrucci was celebrated as a highly specialised printer of music. Paul could have approached other printers in Rome and Antwerp, or those he knew from his earlier prints in order to guarantee an excellent execution and wide distribution. It is possible that Petrucci was eager to diversify, realising that he was no longer alone on the market, and that the prestigious project of Paul of Middelburg could have served as the starting point for a different career, namely a career in printing widely used calendars. At first, the success of the Paulina seemed to justify the strategy. But Petrucci could not decide to move to Rome, where Paul was involved in the sessions of the Council. Instead, he stayed in Fossombrone and continued printing music. Perhaps he was aware that the attempt to reform the calendar would be difficult and would take far longer than originally planned. I believe that it cannot be excluded that he went to Rome to print the Parabola on 20 November 1516. In any
17 BOORMAN, Petrucci at Fossombrone, 43-44 and 367-369. 18 IBID., and STRUIK, ‘Paulus van Middelburg’, 117-118. 19 STRUIK, ‘Paulus van Middelburg’, 113. 20 BOORMAN, Petrucci at Fossombrone, 37.
- 114 - PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 115
OTTAVIANO PETRUCCI AND THE POLITICAL-CULTURAL ELITE OF HIS TIME
case, this was his last known print before he returned to music printing some years later, the Motetti de la corona in 1519. The year 1516 was a turning point for both, Petrucci and Paul of Middelburg. The calendar reform did not succeed, and the political situation proved to be difficult with regard to obtaining protection. The Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere was replaced by Lorenzino de Medici, and although Petrucci was sent to congratulate the new Duke on 7 September 1516, Fossombrone was sacked because the inhabitants resisted the troops of Cardinal Bibbiena. In December 1516 Petrucci’s privileges regarding the printing of books in folio and in organ tabulature were withdrawn by Pope Leo X and transferred to Antico. All these incidents could have bought about Petrucci’s financial ruin.21 Perhaps the print of Pisano’s Petrarch settings in 1520 was an attempt to find a new patron. Possibly, Petrucci was able to renew the old acquaintance with Pietro Bembo, who had been active at the court of Urbino until 1512 and who would serve as a secretary to Pope Leo X until 1521. However no other prints would follow the 1520 print of Petrarch settings. In the end Petrucci did indeed expand his business by beginning to operate a paper mill.
21 On the financial situation of Petrucci’s printing shop see most recently JOHN KMETZ, ‘Petrucci’s Alphabet Series: the A, B, Cs of Music, Memory and Marketing’, in Basler Jahrbuch für Historische Musikpraxis XXV (2001), 27-141. I am in many ways indebted to John Kmetz’ considerations on the importance of commercial planning in the music production and transmission in the 16th century.
- 115 - PETRUCCI B-02 WELKER 6-04-2005 11:14 Pagina 116