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Al-Farabi’s Great Book of Music at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana IMS 2017 [1]

Late one night in the 1620’s, Federico Borromeo drifted off into a fanciful dream [2]:

Finding himself a “Persian Muslim,” Borromeo was visited upon by a “Christian King” named

Shaphur. Their identities, of course, were, in reality, reversed: Shapur II was an ancient Persian

king who had warded off the spread of Christianity to his kingdom, and Federico Borromeo was

the Archbishop of Milan, who was trying to advance Christianity into the Ottoman Empire. But

in Borromeo’s dream, the two would each be playing devil’s advocate in a “dialogue on the true

faith between a Christian and a Muslim.” The interlocutors were to reach a consensus before the

break of dawn or, as Borromeo titled the dialogue, “La luce mattutina.” The dialogue was

straightforward [3]: Borromeo the Muslim first posits that there is no difference between the two

religions, as they are in substance the same thing, even if they worship two different prophets;

Islam and Christianity may co-exist. But Shaphur the Christian rejects this and maintains that

the two religions are absolutely contrary to one another; only one is true. As dawn approaches,

Borromeo the Muslim begins to give way [4], and ultimately acquiesces as Shaphur recites the

Nicene Creed. “Maestro mio! what new things I’ve been led to,” Borromeo exclaims, as he

capitulates and converts to Shaphur’s Christian faith as the sun begins to shine.

Things didn’t go so easily for Borromeo in his waking hours. As founder of Milan’s

ecclesiastical library, the venerable Biblioteca Ambrosiana, and its collegio, he had devoted

himself to striking up a dialogue with Muslims so that they would “see the light” and convert to

Christianity. To do so [5], Borromeo amassed via his dispatches to the Middle East a wealth of

Islamic literature comparable and complementary to the Vatican and the Medici (who sponsored

an Oriental Press). Among the Korans, Marionite translations, medical treatises, and so forth

that Borromeo set before his professors of Oriental languages was one sole musical source [6]:
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Kitabu al-Musiqi al-kabiri or the Great Book of Music written by Al-Farabi in the Islamic

Golden Age (9th century). It is a pristine manuscript and the microfilm leaves much to the

imagination: All of the diagrams are in gold and the text has reddened letters marking the frets

on the oud (the basis of Arabic music theory). [7] Borromeo’s is one of three copies of this

monumental treatise known to have been in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

The others are in Madrid (from Cordoba in Islamic Andalusia) and Leiden (also a center of

Arabic studies in Borromeo’s time). How was this manuscript incorporated into Borromeo’s

broader dialogue between Christianity and Islam? Just what was al-Farabi’s place within early

seventeenth-century Milanese academic and musical culture? [8] Milan, after all, had its own

distinct musical heritage, which would uniquely influence the study and application of Al-

Farabi’s Great Book of Music. Milan’s patron saint, Ambrose, was a hymnist and his disciple,

St. Augustine, had penned a music treatise. Milan’s Ambrosian chant was distinct from that of

Gregorian Rome. Through the hands of St. Carlo Borromeo and his maestro di cappella,

Vincenzo Ruffo, Milan modelled post-Tridentine reforms on music. Milan was also home to

music theorists including Gaffurius, Vicentino, and Puteanus, whose successors would, one

thinks, be anxious to peer into Greek musical antiquity via the Arabs/Persians. This paper begins

to locate Al-Farabi’s place in this picture. The archival digging is on-going, but there are a

number of leads to follow and dead-end signs to post.

Al-Farabi’s presence in 17th century printed musical literature in Italy is, as we might

predict, scant. [9] One still finds Al-Farabi in reprints of medieval scholastic works that cited

his definition of music in the “Division of the Sciences,” chiefly in the works of Roger Bacon

and Vincent Beauvais. More provocatively [10], Al-Farabi makes a brief appearance in

Giovanni Battista Magone’s “Ghirlanda Mosicale,” a still rather obscure 1615 treatise that is
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most notable for trying to find a middle-ground between Monteverdi and Artusi. But Magone

cites Al-Farabi’s geometry and not his music. The only indication in print I have found that Al-

Farabi’s Great Book of Music was studied in Renaissance Europe is in the [11] first history of

the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, written by the librarian Pietro Paulo Boscho in the late seventeenth-

century. There Boscho recounts that Federico Borromeo gave an Arabic codex of Al-Farabi

“concerning the laws and elements of music” to Giacopo Filippo Butio to translate to Latin.

Boscho continues that this “auspicious study most pleased” Borromeo, and that Butio

collaborated with Giovanni Donato Ferraro, a professor of Greek. The prospects of this are

staggering, for there is no indication that any of Al-Farabi’s Great Book of Music was ever

translated in medieval and renaissance Europe. Rather [12], as is well known from the work of

Farmer and Randel, Al-Farabi’s so-called Arabic-Latin writings on music were taken exclusively

from his epistemological writings. Indeed, the musicological picture is so bleak that, as Charles

Burnett put it [13], “Not only did the Latins not translate Arabic works dedicated to music, but

also they left out portions of Arabic works which dealt with music.” Giacomo Filippo Butio

would seem to be the first and as yet only exception to that rule.

Of Butio, very little is known, as Franco Buzzi, current prefect of the Biblioteca

Ambrosiana (and editor of Borromeo’s “La luce mattutina”), has informed me. But as a

professor of Arabic language in the Collegio Ambrosiano, Butio was the successor to his teacher,

the preeminent Arabist, Antonio Giggi [14], whose Thesaurus of Arabic was among the first of

its kind, published in the early 1630’s under the auspices of Borromeo. This thesaurus provides

the foundation for studying the reception of Middle Eastern music at the Ambrosiana and,

although the lexicon for poetry figures more prominently than music in it, there are nonetheless a

few telling entries. They are exemplary of Arabists not versed in music. Let us take a word [15]
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from the thesaurus that is very familiar to those versed in Arabic music and its possible influence

on medieval European music: Al-iqa’u, given by Giggi in the nominative definite state of

Koranic Arabic. Without case marking, it is iqa’ in the singular and iqa’at in the plural. The

latter has led proponents of the “Arabic Influence” theory to posit this word as the root of the

European medieval hocket. In a word [16], Iqa’ means “rhythm” and is the very first definition

given by George Sawa in his new translation of Al-Farabi’s writings on rhythm. But Giggi

defines it as [17] “with singing the tone is lowered and it stays stable. The tone of the melody is

low and clear.” I am not yet sure where Giggi got this definition from, but it certainly was not

Al-Farabi’s Great Book of Music, which, in Sawa’s words, defines Iqa’ as “Motion through the

notes in durations that are delimited in amounts and proportions (=rhythm) (influenced by

Aristoxenus and Quintilians”).” Giggi evidently never consulted Al-Farabi for the musical

lexicon.

Obviously Arabic music needed work at the Ambrosiana and Butio was charged with it.

[19] This is not his translation of the Great Book of Music (and turned up where I expected the

Great Book would be), but this manuscript is certainly a part of the agenda for Al-Farabi. What

we see here is [20] Butio’s translation of the bishop of Alexandria St. Athanasius’ Commentary

on the Psalms from Arabic to Latin. It is a surprising document, inasmuch as St. Athanasius’

commentary was originally written in Greek and then translated to other languages, Arabic and

Latin among many. [21] St. Athanasius’ commentary is musical and played a prominent role in

the widespread sixteenth-century movement to sing the psalms metrically and melodically; the

commentary went through several editions with added musical notation. Butio’s translation,

three volumes in this format, is obviously a final accomplishment, with the Arabic written mostly

un-vocalized. Even though it is not an Arabic musical source, it is still a musical source in
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Arabic, and one finds in it the basic challenges in translation Butio faced and the choices he

made. For an introductory example [22], witness how Butio handled the quintessential structure

of the Arabic language, the “construct” or idaafa, in a music historical sentence with some

cognate words. It simply names four musicians David selected among many to play musical

instruments. In the sentence yatb’u haula’k al-arb’ha yazmoru barag’ni al-musiqi, we find the

construct on the (in red) barag’ni al-musiqi, the arag’n are organs in the indefinite state and they

are followed by the noun music in the definite state. Literally it is “with organs of music,” but

Latin doesn’t have the construct, and Buzzi favored rendering arag’ni al-musiqi as a noun-

adjective pair in the ablative “organis musicalibus” (and not a genitive construction). The tenses

too are different as the Arabic past tense yazmoru is rendered as a present participle psallentes.

Elsewhere, to provide a glance of the most musical chapter of the manuscript, Butio translates St.

Athanasius’ remarks that the psalms were sung in church with [23] “diversis organis” (bara’nin

muhtalifin), [24] “modulationes” (al-lahan), and [25] “metrum variorum modulationum cantum

accomodant” (yalhanu b’ada al-lahana muktalifa).

This source would seem to implicate that the Collegio Ambrosiana was working on

establishing the Arabic lexicon for the psalms and working towards singing and teaching the

psalms in Arabic—with Arabic musical modes, melodic and rhythmic/metric. Enter Al-Farabi,

whose Great Book of Music would provide all of those. But of Buzzi’s translation of Al-Farabi,

all I have yet found are marginalia in the original Arabic codex [26]—some of them are

noteworthy, like the rendering of mudahl (entrance) as Isagogem (introduction) at the conclusion

of the first part of the Great Book.

One may draw parallels between this work at the Collegio Ambrosiano and that

undertaken at the Collegio Romano [27], as Athanasius Kircher set out to do much the same
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thing in his Musurgia universalis. It is a neglected subsection of the tome, but one worth a look

in light of Milan’s endeavors. Dedicating the chapter on Arabic music to the Jesuit missionaries

in the Middle East, Kircher sought to demonstrate how one could set to music Christian phrases

translated from Latin to Arabic. To do so, he begins with an overview of Arabic metrics,

explaining in his typically dense, erudite writing what would be best explained diagrammatically.

[28] The structure of a classical Arabic poem is encompassed within what the early theorists

called the “house of poetry” (baytu al-sha’ari), using a vivid metaphor taken from the Bedouins.

The metric feet are made up of combinations of letters that are designated by parts of the tent.

As seen in the bottom left, the chorda (sabab) that ties the tent to the pegs in the ground refers to

groups of two consonants (represented by C). If both are vocalized (represented by v for vowel),

the chorda is said to be gravis (taqiyl), if only the first, levis (hafiyf). On the bottom right, the

palus seu paxillus (watid) are the pegs (and in the original Arabic conception, the hammering of

them into the ground), which refer to groups of three consonants, although Kircher does not

further subdivide them into their vocalizations. Kircher concludes his overview by claiming the

Jesuit fathers may compose verses by alternating the chords and the pegs (“Atque ex his

alternatim sibi succedentibus chordis & paxillis patres componuntur”). Would that it were that

simple. Indeed, if one were to follow the blueprints in the Musurgia, the roof of the house of

poetry would collapse, as Kircher left out (among many other structures) the fasila, which refers

to the pole in the center of the tent (ie. “separating” ceiling from floor), and encompasses words

of four or five syllables. At worst, Kircher might lead the presentd-day reader to believe he

mistook the Arabic fasila for the Latin paxillus (false friends). In the end, Kircher provides the

Jesuit missionaries with one sample Arabic composition [29], the rhythms of which, at a glance

(read from right to left) would seem to have very Italian accentuations on penultimate syllables
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of each phrase. It simply sets Latin phrases such as Deus misericors to Arabic (Allah al-

rahmani) in the Dorian mode.

Strikingly, Kircher did not cite Al-Farabi or Butio, indicating that the translation did not

go beyond the confines of the Ambrosiana, and that the Jesuits and Ambrosians were not in

contact for this particular musical endeavor. The Vatican had only acquired a number of Sufi

manuscripts on spiritual listening, but no practical sources that would have enabled Kircher to set

more Arabic sounds than these to Christian texts. In many ways, Butio’s and Kircher’s work,

though they may have never made it past the hypothetical stage, prefigures the more well-known

[30] Turkish translation of the Geneva Psalter by Wojciech Bobowski (Ali Ufki), a Polish

captive in the Ottoman Empire and convert to Islam.

So, then, the book of Psalms aside, [31] was there ever a dialogue between Ancient

Arabic and Modern Italian music? Judging from Marco Bizzarini’s otherwise thorough account

of Federico Borromeo e la Musica [32], it is doubtful the study of the Great Book of Music ever

went that far (Borromeo himself only wrote one sentence on music using Arabic terminology,

sabaha for praise). Seeking out Al-Farabi’s presence in the writings of other members of the

Collegio Ambrosiano, one scrutinizes in particular the writings [33] of the one music theorist

who was a founding member of the collegio, Teodato Osio. This rather prolific, if at times

esoteric Pythagorean theorist, was fluent enough in Greek music to make sense of the Arabic

musical system with an Arabist at hand. Oddly, however, the only reference to Arabic he makes

is a very obvious point in a treatise titled Cadmeia seges, a naturalist inquiry into the human

voice: That Arabic doesn’t have vowels (written). Not even Monteverdi was able to strike up a

real dialogue with Giovanni Battista Doni [34]. Knowing the Doni’s interests in organology and

lutherie, Monteverdi wrote in a letter that he had seen a Turkish musician play a “cittern” of his
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own making and gave some precise details of the make of the instrument, concluding that he had

“heard nothing more novel [to his] liking.” But Doni remained stubborn in denial of the worth of

Arabic music and, in his only printed reference to Arabic sources, dismissed them as “inept.”

One could ask if renaissance music theorists worked from Arabic sources without

actually reading the Arabic, in other words, working from the diagrams alone. Here, a most

promising lead would seem to be one of [35] Zarlino and Vincenzo Galilei’s discoveries of how

to fret the lute in equal-temperament (the lute was able to be fretted approximately in equal

temperament owing to the practical equivalence of the 17/18 semitone and the equal-tempered

semitone). Being an elephantine foldout in Zarlino’s Sopplimenti, the diagram for this method is

hard to miss. If one looks closely at the fretting procedure with Arabic music in mind, the

diagram seems to exhibit an Arabic influence. [37] Essentially what Zarlino and Galilei do is to

divide the lowest whole-tone on the neck into its Pythagorean constituents: Two small semitones

and a comma (the small semi-tone is abbreviated L for the Greek Leimma); then one

subsequently chips away at that comma with each placement of the subsequent frets. In Europe

the ordering of these intervals within the whole-tone was, as a standard, another way around,

LCL, as two L’s in a row were disagreeable sounding. But the LLC ordering is first recorded in

Al-Farabi’s Great Book of Music [37] on a long-neck fretted tunbur from Khorasan (present day

western Afghanistan/northeastern Iran) and subsequently became the backbone of Safi Al-Din’s

paradigm-setting generation of the modes in the thirteenth century; it does not appear in written

European fretting schemes until this diagram. The correspondence is evident when juxtaposing

Zarlino’s diagram to Al-Farabi’s, as presented in d’Erlanger’s translation. Unfortunately,

however, the correspondence dissipates if one puts Zarlino’s diagram alongside the original

diagram in al-Farabi [38], as the tunbur’s neck is not diagrammed with geometrical proportions
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(the L larger than the C). Instead, it is abstract [39]; all of the rungs of the diagram are equally

spaced, and one must read from the text the actual intervals between them (very difficult and

hard to keep in mind, hence d’Erlanger re-diagrammed them). Of course, the Europeans and

Persians had vastly different intents for this division of the whole-tone: the latter used it

musically, the former just as a means to another musical end. But the correspondence raises the

question: Did Zarlino and Galilei learn this from a Middle Eastern musician? Did they work

from a simpler Arabic manuscript source? Or, had they arrived at it independently and taken a Commented [SW1]: What do you mean by musically?

Persian path on their quest for equal temperament? Any would seem to be possible.

[4]0 The search for Al-Farabi’s presence inside and outside the Biblioteca Ambrosiana

continues. As always with this kind of work, there are some promising finds and some

disappointing misses. But, on this perennially elusive topic, we have to work with what we have

and, in fact, that, among other things, is a rather remarkable and surprising document: Perhaps

the first large-scale translation of a musical source from Arabic to Latin, even if the Book of

Psalms is not an inherently Arabic musical source like the Great Book of Music. Federico

Borromeo never saw the light at the end of the tunnel across the Mediterranean, but he gives

hope to Western musicologists dreaming of Al-Farabi’s Arabic-Latin writings on music.

Commented [SW2]: Ramos on just intonation.

Instruments in 14th c. Berkeley array? Gundassilinus?
Copy of Farabi in Spain? Hebrew translation?
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