Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1480–1525 469
Chapter 12
ductory studies (see Table 12.1).4 Since most general studies on Spanish music
theory consider these treatises in the context of the writings of other European
theorists (Stevenson 1960: 50–101; León Tello 1991; Escudero García 1984: 33–43;
Vega 1998 [1498]; Blackburn 2001; Schubert 2002: 503–33; Otaola González
2008; Gómez Muntané 2012c; Mazuela-Anguita 2014), it is not necessary to pro-
vide a resumé of each treatise here;5 rather, this chapter focuses on the
theoretical basis underlying musical practice in Spain between 1480 and 1525.
A central problem facing a study centred on theoretical musical concepts in
the early modern Iberian Peninsula is the lack of a lexicon of musical terms. An
added difficulty is the frequency of polysemy both in Latin and Spanish; for
example, the Spanish word to mean line (‘regla’), is also used for ‘rule’.6 ‘Voz’,
like Latin ‘vox’, signifies the voice or the syllabic name of a note, while ‘species’
could refer to a type of scale (seven types), a kind of interval (three types: per-
fect and imperfect consonances, and dissonances) or types of counterpoint.
‘Composed’ could qualify both a written polyphonic passage or work, and an
interval beyond the octave. The word ‘diferencias’ could have three different
meanings: a) the melodic transitions between the recitation formula for the
psalm verse and the antiphon (Latin: differentiae); b) diminutions; and c) vari-
ations. Moreover, musical terms could also have non-musical uses: for example,
‘diferencia’ could simply mean ‘difference’, and ‘mutança’ could refer to musi-
cal mutation, of whatever kind, as well as, in versification, a part of the strophe.
On occasion, the musical lexicon assumed general terms of the period without
risk of misinterpretation: for example, ‘linaje’ (lineage, ancestry) is one possi-
edu/tml/start.html>. The manuscript copies of Ars Mensurabilis and Fernand Estevan’s trea-
tise, commissioned by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri in the nineteenth century, are available as
part of the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica <http://www.bne.es/es/Catalogos/BibliotecaDigital
Hispanica/Inicio/>.
4 For an edition of the anonymous Ars Mensurabilis et inmensurabilis cantus, see Villalba Muñoz
1906; Latin editions of Ramos de Pareja 1482 (Wolf 1901) are available at Biblioteca Digital
Hispánica (see previous note); for a Spanish translation, see Moralejo 1977; for a facsimile
edition, and an edition in Latin with Spanish translation, see Terni 1983; for an English transla-
tion, see Fose 1992; and for an Italian translation, see Torselli 1992. An edition of Durán’s
Súmula de canto llano intitulado Lux Bella is included in Vega 1998, and a study of Del Puerto’s
Portus Musice is found in Rey Marcos 1978b. The instructions on musical notation in Podio’s
In enchiridion de principiis musice discipline are edited in Anglés 1947; see also Gümpel 1973
for a complete edition.
5 The contribution of Spanish treatises to theoretical writing on compositional techniques and
problems of musica ficta is discussed in Schubert 2002 and Berger 1987.
6 The Latin word ‘regula’ was used to mean staff by Gil de Zamora, in his Ars musice, Chapter
VI; see Gerbert 1784, 2: 378; Estevan 1410: fol. 16r.