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Abstract
The late sixteenth century was a remarkable era for Western music history. Contentious arguments over the relative merits of sacred vocal and secular instrumental music, the interpretation of ancient Greek and Latin writings about music, and the rise of experimentation as an alternative to scholasticism fueled lively debates among music theorists and performers. The most noteworthy of these quarrels involved Gioseffo Zarlino (1517-1590), a Franciscan priest and chapel master of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, and Vincenzo Galilei (1520 -1591), a Florentine lutenist and father to the mathematician Galileo Galilei.
Many facets of the debate between Zarlino and Galilei remain unexplored. For example, each theorist wrote in distinct intellectual climates and catered to unique audiences: Zarlino collaborated with other intellects in the Accademia Venetiana della Fama and dedicated his treatises to powerful political figures. Galilei, on the other hand, sought patronage with noblemen in Florence, many of whom were anti-authoritarian and also interested in instrumental music and experimentation.
Galilei's Discorso intorno all'opere di Messer Gioseffo Zarlino (Florence, 1589) contains his most virulent and original attack on Zarlino's great synthesis of music theory, mathematics, Neoplatonic philosophy, and Aristotelian metaphysics. This dissertation includes the first English translation of the Discorso, complete with annotations and corrections of the original printed text.
