THOUGHTS ON THE POPULARITY OF PRINTED MUSIC IN 16TH-CENTURY ITALY

Author(s): Stanley Boorman

Source: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 48, No. 2, Printing and Publishing Issue (April-June 2001),
pp. 129-144
Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres
(IAML)
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THOUGHTS THE
ON
POPULARITY OF PRINTED
MUSIC IN 16TH-CENTURY
ITALY

Stanley Boorman (New York University)

The celebrations accompanying the quincentenary of Petrucci's first edition,

the Odhecaton A of 1501, have rightly drawn attention to his significance in the
history of music publishing and dissemination. But they have also tended to
highlight the problems of what we do not know about 16th-century music
printing and publishing. It is relatively easy to concentrate on the technical is
sues of music printing—how many impressions Petrucci used, how Antico cor
rected his blocks, how Gardano employed patterns of layout to ease the
labour—and equally easy to spend time on the details of the music being
printed—how accurate it was, whether it relates to contemporary manuscripts,
what stylistic limits it may represent: and there is no doubt that these are all
important issues. Indeed, the anniversary is producing a number of new dis
coveries and revisions of contemporary views.
But it is clear that there are some central fields where Italian evidence is
less clear, less comprehensive, and generally less useful than that available for
the early music printers of the Low Countries or England. This might seem
surprising: during both the 16th and 17th centuries, Italian productivity (as
measured by numbers of titles) dwarfs that of the rest of Europe put together.
The two continuing companies producing the most titles were both Venetian—
the Gardano family, and Vincenti and Amadino (in partnership and sepa
rately).1 Beside them, there were three other companies which can be said to
have been continuously successful over decades: one, again, is Italian (the dy
nasty of the Scotto family), and the others are both north of the Alps, Phalèse
in Antwerp and Louvain, and the Le Roy and Ballard succession, in Paris and
productive throughout the 17th century.2 While these three firms each had an

1. For Gardano, the on-going work of Mary Lewis is central: see her catalogue, Antonio Gardano,
Venetian Music Printer
1538-1569: a Descriptive Bibliography and Historical Study (New York:
Garland, 1988—). For Vincenti and Amadino, we still await the completion of a study by Beth Miller.
2. For the principal music-publishing member of the Scotto, see Jane A. Bernstein, Music

Printing in Renaissance Venice: the Scotto Press (1539-1572) (New York; Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999). Henri Vanhulst has produced a Catalogue des éditions de musique publiées
à Louvain par Pierre Phalèse et ses fils, 1545-1578, Académie royale de Belgique: Mémoires de la
classe des beaux-arts, ser. 2, xvi (Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1990), as well as a series of im
portant articles on music publishing and selling in the Low Countries. François Lesure and
Geneviève Thibault compiled a catalogue of the sixteenth-century editions of Le Roy and Ballard:

Bibliographie des éditions d'Adrian Le Roy et Robert Ballard (1551-1598), Pubbeations de la

129

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130 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 48/2

enormous impact on the available music and its circulation, together they pro
duced only slightly more titles than either of the giants. Other significant com
panies scarcely approached even the Scottos' productivity: one might mention
the Monti or the group of companies centered on the Tini family; or (north of
the Alps) Berg and Neuber, and the Gerlachs.
This is not to say that these were less important, or that they made no mark:
indeed, some of the less productive companies are among the most important,
both for the history of music printing and publishing, and for the range of reper
toire that they brought to the market. First among these is Petrucci, of course:
but Antico and Dorico, Attaingnant and Moderne, Formschneider and Petreius
are each very important for the history of published music.3 Nonetheless, the
bulk of published music came from Venetian presses: and the point to be made
here is that it is astonishing how little we know about the impact of Italian mu
sic publishing on the dissemination of the repertoire during the first century of
music printing, considering how central the Italian trade was.
The problems stem from all corners of the trade: we have very few contracts,
limited evidence (probably to be viewed with scepticism) on the size of print-runs,
almost no evidence on methods of distribution, very little on the actual market
size, no more than hints as to whether particular titles were financially or musi
cally successful, and virtually nothing on how specific books came to be printed.
In a few of these areas we can make guesses: clearly Arcadelt's first book of
madrigals and Gero's of duos were successful, and each must have filled a quite
specific niche in the market in order for it to be reprinted over so many decades.4
Similarly, Palestrina's Masses continued to sell, although (given their intended

Société française de musicologie, ser. 2, ix (Paris: Société française de musicologie, 1955). See also
their "Bibliographie des éditions d'Adrian Le Roy et Robert Ballard (1551-1598): supplément",
Revue de musicologie 40 (1957): 166-72.
3. Each of these has been studied in varying degrees of detail: see (in order) Stanley
Boorman, Ottaviano Petrucci: Catalogue Raisonné (New York: Oxford University Press, forth
coming) and various articles; Catherine Weeks Chapman, Andrea Antico (Ph.D. dissertation,
Harvard University, 1964), with Francesco Luisi, II secondo libro di frottole di Andrea Antico,
Musica rinascimentale in Italia, iii (Rome: Pro musica Studium, 1976); Suzanne Cusick, Valerio
Dorico: Music Printer in Sixteenth-Century Rome (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981), with
Francesco Barberi, "I Dorico, tipografi a Roma nel Cinquecento", La Bibliofilia 67 (1965): 221-62;
reprinted in Tipografi romani del Cinquecento: Guillery, Ginnasio Mediceo, Calvo, Dorico,
Cartolari, Biblioteconomiae bibliografia: Saggi e studi, 17 (Florence; Olschki, 1983), 99-146;
Daniel Pierre Attaingnant, Royal Printer of Music: a Historical Study and Bibliographical
Heartz,
Catalogue (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); Samuel F. Pogue, Jacques Moderne:
Lyons Music Printer of the Sixteenth Century, Travaux d'humanisme et Renaissance, 101 (Geneva:
Droz, 1969); Royston Gustavson, Hans Ott, Hieronymus Formschneider, and the Novum et insigne
opus musicum (Nuremberg, 1536-1538) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Melbourne, 1998) ; and
Mariko Teramoto and Armin Brinzing, Katalog der Musikdrucke des Johannes Petreius in
Nürnberg, Catalogus musicus, 14 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1993).
4. On the first, see Thomas Bridges, The Publishing ofArcadelt's First Book of Madrigals (Ph.D.
dissertation, Harvard University, 1982), with some comments in my "Some non-conflicting
Attributions, and some newly-anonymous Compositions, from the Early Sixteenth Century", Early
Music History 6 (1986): 109-57; for the second, see the edition by Lawrence Bernstein and James
Haar, Ihan Gero: Il primo libro de madrigali italiani et canzoni francese a due voci, Masters and
Monuments of the Renaissance, 1 (New York: Broude, 1980).

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THOUGHTS ON THE POPULARITY OF PRINTED MUSIC 131

market) we cannot assume a like success, a similar distribution, or (as a result)

similar print-runs.5 As a further speculative assertion it seems reasonable to as
sume, when one of the famous publishers produced the work of an obscure
composer buried in a small provincial town, that some sort of financial incen
tive was offered to the publisher.6 These instances are the straightforward
ones, the cases where speculation, even if not provable, seems to be valid. But
for most of the many 16th-century editions we cannot even speculate.
This is a sorry state of affairs, given the present state of research into print
ing in general, and the widespread interest in the impact of printed matter on
culture and the transmission of ideas. We can hardly begin to say anything
about the general acceptance of music, beyond the assumption that printed
editions reached many more readers than did manuscripts. As so often, the few
things that we might be able to say can be discovered mostly by indirection, by
analysing apparently unrelated evidence.
To begin with, it is clear that a line, marking a clear change in the evidence
as well as the conclusions, has to be drawn somewhere soon after 1538, with
another somewhere around 1580. The first is evident: once both Gardano and
Scotto were printing actively in Venice, we have to assume that they were
catering to an active purchasing public. Indeed, this viable public must have ex
isted even before Gardano started publishing, for otherwise he would not have
entered the field. Thus the editions which Antico prepared and Scotto pub
lished during the mid-1530s represent a significant beginning, of the certainty
that music publishing could be a profitable venture, one which a second pub
lisher felt justified in exploring.7 Certainly Gardano was immediately success
ful in establishing himself: his first four books of 1538 were followed by nine
(perhaps ten) titles in the following year, and he produced books regularly
thereafter, despite occasional thin years. Scotto also continued to produce mu
sic books in similar numbers (if we assume, as the evidence argues, that a
group of unsigned books from the 1540s was indeed his work).8 Apparently,
therefore, we would be justified in asserting the existence of a relatively large
group of active purchasers of music, looking for new titles, buying from
Gardano or Scotto indiscriminately, and even expanding in numbers through
the middle of the century.
This picture might seem to be supported by the many second, third, and
later editions of popular titles: yet it is not very satisfactory, for a number of
reasons. The most important is the apparent lack of successful competitors as

5. A comparison of a number of editions of Palestrina's first book of Masses can be found in

Missarum Liber primus, 1554, Edizione Anastatica delle fonti Palestriniane, series 1/1 (Palestrina:
Fondazione Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, 1975).
6. Indeed, many of these cases have dedicatory epistles that seem to imply as much.
7. I shall return to this point later, in discussing the early years of the century. For now, it is
enough to say that the other attempts at breaking into music publishing during the 1520s and
1530s seem largely to have been abortive. The single exception was probably the career of Dorico,
who had in any case an important non-musical publishing business, and whose career was inter
rupted by the Sack of Rome in 1527.
8. See Jane A Bernstein, The Burning Salamander: assigning a Printer to some Sixteenth
Century Music Prints", Notes 42 (1985-86): 483-501.

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132 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 48/2

music printers and publishers. Certainly, people tried the field: for the Italian
sixteenth century alone, I count about 75 establishments printing or publish
ing some music, with almost 50 more appearing before 1640. (Some of these
passed from one name to another, of course, during their active life.) But very
few were successful: 32 of them gave up after only one volume, as far as we can
tell, and another 36 published six or fewer books of music.9 Indeed, not many
can be said to have made money from music. The various members of the Tini
dynasty must have done so, and so will have Vincenti and Amadino. Both these
presses began work after 1580, when (I argue) there was a significant change,
both in the state of the trade and in the size and patterns of the buying public.
But between the mid 1530s and the early 1580s we have no evidence of a press
attempting to break into the field and achieving any continuing success.
Indeed, the picture looks rather as if very few made any serious attempt at pub
lishing music, and none of them succeeded in expanding beyond a very nar
rowly defined market.
We can probably go further, and suggest that, for most of them, financial
gain was not the primary motive. Some were stimulated by a local patron or
special relationship of some sort. This relationship may now be impossible to
uncover, but it is notable that the few musical books published by the likes of
Francesco Marcolini in Venice, Francesco de'Rossi in Verona, or Antonio
Antoniano and Pacifico Pontio in Milan were aimed almost entirely at the local
market: and that each of these publishers avoided the more general reper
toires being published by Gardano and Scotto.10 Others, also publishing very
little, seem to have employed some established printer to put out the occa
sional book, for which they were themselves probably commissioned: this
must be true for a number of the "vanity press" editions, and for "Opus 1"
titles from composers who never re-surface. These cases are perhaps not very
relevant to my argument, for the local composer had other motives than a large
and profitable sale, and similar examples would surely have appeared whether
or not the trade was flourishing. But it is notable that these publishers do not
seem to have made any serious attempt to break into sales of music through
out the peninsula, much less north of the Alps.

9. Sincesome of these books must have been printed on borrowed musical type, owned by
someone more experienced in the craft, I may have slightly over-estimated the figures: but the fact
remains that so many people were willing to sign at least one book of music, and therefore make
some claim on the field. Further details of this, and the general point, will appear in my forthcom
ing "Bibliographical Evidence for the Business End of Music Printing and Publishing during the
16th Century", in a volume of essays edited by John Kmetz.
10. For Marcolini, see S. Casali, della tipograficia veneziana di Francesco Marcolini
Gli annali
da Forli (Forli: Casali, 1861-65), with an introduction by L. Servolini (Bologna:
reprinted Gerace,
1953), and a more recent study by the distinguished Amadeo Quondam in "Nel giardino di
Marcolini: un editore veneziano tra Aretino e Doni", Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 157
(1980): 75-116. Milanese music
printing in general has been surveyed by Mariangela Donà: see
her La stampa musicale a
Milano fino all'anno 1700, Biblioteca di bibliografia italiana, 39
(Florence: Olschki, 1961). Francesco de'Rossi seems to have printed two books of music (by
Contino and Luzzaschi) in 1571, while his heirs printed one (by Agostino) in 1582. This picture of
local interest can be supported by many other examples, coincidentally including Giovanni Rossi
and his heirs in Bologna, the later Andrea Rossi in Verona, and Giovanni Battista de'Rossi in Pavia.

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THOUGHTS ON THE POPULARITY OF PRINTED MUSIC 133

More relevant are those publishers who do seem to have set out to make a
financial success of music publishing, but who abandoned the field rather
quickly. Most of these must have needed to make money from their first few
volumes, and so can be tentatively identified by the books with which they be
gan work: and here Arcadelt's famous first book of madrigals assumes a par
ticular significance. We have always assumed that this collection remained a
cornerstone of the secular market, if only because of the many editions that
survive. However, it is also notable that a number of publishers made it one of
the firstmusic books to appear from their houses. Examples include Pietrasanta
(1557), Angelieri (1572), Guglielmo (1575) and Rampazetto's heirs (1579) in
Venice; Giovanni de'Franceschi (1592) in Palermo; Marescotti (1585) in Rome;
and even Andrea Fei (1620) and Paolo Masotti (1627), also in Rome.
Significantly, almost all of these publishers appear towards or after the end of
a period that I have defined as reaching from the mid 1530s to the early 1580s.
Each of them, in including the Arcadelt book in their first titles, seems to have
been making a bid to enter the larger market for printed music, and to chal
lenge the domination of the two Venetian firms of the day, Gardano, and Scotto
or Vincenti. They apparently felt that there was still a market for the book, and
in this they were evidently correct. Members of the Gardano family published
editions in 1559,1581 and again in 1603; Scotto's heirs put the book out in 1561,
1568,1570 (both perhaps in response to editions from Rampazetto), 1587 and
1606. Similarly, the highly successful partnership of Vincenti and Amadino pro
duced editions in 1585 and 1586, with later editions from the now-separated
companies in 1597, 1601 and 1608. None of these publishers "needed" the
Arcadelt: all were publishing numbers of other editions, and were in contact
with a range of musicians and musical centres, both for acquiring new mater
ial and for ensuring sales. Perhaps all were responding to the evidence of suc
cessful editions from Angelieri, Guglielmo and the heirs of Rampazetto: per
haps these three, all Venetian and probably able to disseminate their books
widely through the far-flung contacts of Venetian publishers, had encouraged
the growth in the market that I see as occurring after 1580, or had at least en
couraged Vincenti and Amadino to enter the field. But the minor printers had
evidently hoped to see a satisfactory return on their Arcadelt editions, estab
lishing their names and paving the way for future editions, perhaps of less fa
mous or newer music. None of them seems to have succeeded: Angelieri pro
duced fewer than ten surviving books over five years; Guglielmo perhaps five
in two years; and the heirs of Rampazetto seven in a similar period.
One or two printers or publishers do seem to have achieved some tempo
rary success: Rampazetto himself was among them, with over thirty editions in
under a decade.11 He might be counted as one of the few successful rivals of
Gardano and Scotto, and perhaps the best evidence that they did not try to
drive potential rivals out of business. But his enterprise, however well financed

11. A discussion and listing of Rampazetto's editions can be found in Clare Iannotta Nielsen,
Francesco Rampazetto, Venetian Printer: and a Catalogue of his Music Editions (MA thesis, Tufts
University, 1987).

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134 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 48/2

in the beginning, seems to have run out of steam before the end. In 1567 he
could produce only one volume, and one of the two in 1568 was again of
Arcadelt. Apparently the market could not sustain three successful printers of
music.12

All this evidence argues for a smaller market than we would have assumed,
one that is relatively static, in its size at least, and perhaps also in its spread
across the peninsula. Had there been even a gradual increase in the music
buying public, we should have expected at least some of those publishers who
saw the potential of the field to have become successful rivals of Gardano and
Scotto. Instead, there is this pattern of tentative, and normally abortive, at
tempts, alongside a group of excursions into the very local or restricted market.
This is not a very attractive picture, for it implies some stagnation in the
growth of music-making, at least until the 1570s: given the fact that neither
Guglielmo nor Angelieri seems to have remained in the field, the stagnant
period probably extended well into that decade.13
Apparently running counter to such an argument is the evidence of num
bers of second and later editions, especially of leading composers—which
might suggest a steady increase in the number of buyers. Arcadelt's editions
are not the only, or even the most significant, examples. The multiple editions
of Verdelot's madrigals, of Rore's works, or of music by Ruffo, all suggest that
these books continued to reach an expanding market, one in which increasing
numbers of buyers were looking for those works which they had heard about
as being particularly splendid, or reputable, or useful. They also imply that the
later purchasers were competent at singing relatively difficult, if rather con
servative, music. Rore's first book of four-voiced madrigals is especially signif
icant here: it was first published in Ferrara by Buglhat and Hucher, in 1550.
Gardano put out the firstVenetian edition the following year, and at least 13 edi
tions were published by 1590. These include one by Rampazetto, which seems
to have stimulated Gardano to re-issue the book, and one by Angelieri, which,
perhaps, similarly provoked Angelo Gardano to another edition. More signifi
cantly, an edition of 1577 printed all the four-voiced madrigals in score. Rore's
book must have acquired an unusual status, as emblematic of four-voiced
works, or as a demonstration of some technical or musical devices. In this re
gard it was like the first book of Arcadelt's four-voiced madrigals, and should

12. I believe the same can be said for Merulo and for each of the later publishers whose edi
tions use the type-font he had used. Further publishers can be added to those mentioned in
Rebecca Edwards, Claudio Merulo:
Servant of the State and Musical
Entrepreneur in later

Sixteenth-Century Venice (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1990). The implication seems to
be that each of these publishers probably did not own the type, passing it from one to another, but
rather each employed a single printer, experienced in music and willing to undertake jobs on com
mission. There is some slight support for this position, in the similar retention of initial letters in
different publishers' titles. If true, this would strengthen an argument restricting the profitability
of the market for a third publishing house, for it would imply that the printer, although already
holding music-type, and experienced in printing music-books, did not see any benefit in publish
ing music for himself.
13. This can be coupled with the observation that Angelieri was one of the publishers whose
books show the typographical material also found in Merulo's books. As such, he would face none
of the start-up costs associated with a music-publishing venture.

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THOUGHTS ON THE POPULARITY OF PRINTED MUSIC 135

be taken as a measure of the turnover in the musical public—of new genera

tions coming to purchasing and performing—rather than of a significant
growth in numbers. Neither of these books, in their many editions spread over
many years, gives a true picture of the size of the market at a given moment:
each is therefore of limited help in the present discussion.
But Rore's third book à5 also went through a number of editions in close
succession. Both Scotto and Gardano put it out in 1548: by 1562 there had been
four further editions, and Rampazetto also published it in 1566. This implies at
least a steady sale, however large each edition might have been. Even more in
dicative, perhaps, are the editions of Ruffe's madrigals. While each of the five
voiced books went through at least three editions,14 and the four-voiced nota
nere madrigals survive in at least seven, they disappear from the lists of new
editions early in the 1560s. His sacred music continued to be published, but the
secular dropped out of favour rather rapidly.15
From this evidence we might argue that, during the 1550s, there was a fairly
large number of purchasers of madrigals, many of whom chose to buy copies
of Ruffe's madrigals, and also of, for example, Rore's third book. Their inter
ests changed during the 1560s, moving on to newer composers and more re
cent music. Here is further evidence of the distinction between five-voiced
madrigals and those scored for four singers. Not only did they present differ
ent stylistic features and performing problems: the four-voiced repertoire con
tinued to serve important functions during the second half of the century, ap
parently without being subject to vagaries of taste and style. The two
repertoires also need to be considered separately, therefore, when we try to as
sess the success of music publishing, or the size of the pool of purchasers.
Four-voiced anthologies, selling over long periods, merely indicate something
about their own popularity and usefulness to succeeding generations of per
formers. The relatively shorter period of sale for many editions of five-voiced
secular music, in arguing that each was seen as indicative of a feature of cur
rent taste, also argues that each more clearly defines the size of a specific seg
ment of the musical market: or could do so, if we knew the size of an edition,
the print-run.
We have tended to assume that the average size of a musical edition during
much of the 16th century was about 500 copies. This is based on very slight
evidence—of a few contracts that survive, and of similar information to be
found outside music. The main problems that I see here are three-fold. One is
that we have found so few contracts, and they survive for what look rather like
special reasons: that is an argument which needs developing at length, and will
be discussed elsewhere. But a second problem is that there will never have
been any need for contracts for a large number of musical editions, namely,

14. One edition of the third book came from the house of Bartolomeo Cesano in Pesaro—one
of only three musical volumes he is known to have published.
15. After 1560, there is a Gardano edition of the first book à5 (1562), and Rampazetto tried a
third edition of the fourth book in 1563. This may be another indication of an attempt on his part
to cash in on what he hoped had remained popular. As such it would appear to represent a mis
calculation, for no further editions survive.

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136 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 48/2

those where the publisher or printer decided what to print and how many
copies were needed, and was under no outside influence or patronage. These
will normally comprise all second and later editions,16 as well (no doubt) as a
number of anthologies put together by the publisher.17 In these cases we can
not expect any contract to have been drawn up, especially since these publish
ers often were their own printers, or worked regularly with the same printing
shop. Even if in other cases the publisher or the musician always wished for a
contract, these alone make a significant part of the output—and the one that
would most usefully have told us something about the success of particular
titles and the taste of the market. Sadly, these are the editions where we can
least surely make assumptions about edition size, for so doing produces a cir
cular argument. If we assume a small and relatively static market, as I do (on
other evidence), then these editions will themselves have been small, merely
"topping up" the stock as a new group of buyers emerged. If, on the other
hand, we assert a large and growing market, then the editions will have to be
seen as larger, and 500 copies per edition will seem quite reasonable, indeed
sometimes perhaps too small.
But, for the moment, let us work with the received opinion. If 500 copies is
taken as the reasonable figure, then the five editions of Rore's first book à4
that appeared between 1550 and 1557 apparently were aimed at some 2,500
purchasers: the editions were probably largely sold out (or at least in the hands
of distant booksellers) by 1564, when Gardano printed the first of two new edi
tions. (The existence of his second in the following year supports such a con
tention.) Similarly, between 1543 and 1546 the six editions of Arcadelt's first
book sold to some 3,000 buyers: and, between 1545 and 1556, about 2,500
people bought copies of Ruffo's first book of madrigals a note nere.
Recent estimates of the population of the Italian peninsula circa 1550 put it
at about 11.5 million:18 estimates of literacy in Florence and Venice have sug
gested a rate of about 33% for males and 13% for females.19 Of course, the lev
els of literacy outside the towns must have been lower: and the levels of musi
cal literacy much lower everywhere. Indeed, I suspect that there were many
towns, even of moderate size, where it would have been difficult to find more
than one group of four or five singers capable of mastering madrigals in the
latest styles. I recognise that more could have sung Verdelot and Arcadelt,
especially in the four-voiced styles. But the 3,000 purchasers of Arcadelt's
madrigals that are postulated on a basis of 500-copy editions implies the

16. I recognise that some later (primarily 17th-century) editions specifically state that the com
poser revised the work, or that some other person undertook the publication costs. In these cases,
presumably, there was some contractual agreement: but I do not think this can be said for all the
editions (beginning in the 1540s) which state on their title-pages that their content was "emended"
or "corrected".
17. Vincenti, in particular, seems to have prepared his own anthologies on several occasions.
18. Richard Bonney, The European Dynastic States, 1494-1600 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1991), 365.
19. See Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300-1600
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 46.

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THOUGHTS ON THE POPULARITY OF PRINTED MUSIC 137

presence of about 12,000 singers:20 that is, about one in every thousand of the
population capable of and interested in singing four-voiced madrigals from the
book.
This figure is not impossible, although it looks very high.21 In particular, the
presence of three editions of any title published within three or four years (as
happened quite often with Gardano and Scotto) implies that the 1,000 copies of
the first two editions could be disposed of fairly rapidly, to 4,000 or 5,000
singers. I would have thought that such a situation would have encouraged
more printers and publishers to try their hand at music: but there are two fur
ther reasons why they may not have seen the market in this light.
The first of these (and the third of my problems with drawing conclusions
from extant contracts) argues that 500 copies must often have been too high a
figure for a print-run. While it may have been viable for Arcadelt, for Lassus
and Rore—at least for some of their titles—I doubt that such a figure can be
applied to editions of minor composers, especially to their first printed books.
These editions made up a significant part of the whole, especially as the cen
tury progressed, and they seldom led to second editions, or to "Book Two"s.
The implication is that, whatever the edition size, neither the publisher nor the
composer (or a patron) saw any advantage in continuing the experiment. It
may be that, as Bernstein has suggested, such an edition was designed solely
for some specific financial or occupational benefit, to be received from a cur
rent or future patron:22 and it may be that this benefit was duly received. But
the fact remains that there was often no attempt to finance further editions.
In these cases, I find it hard to believe that the composer (again, or his pa
tron) was willing to invest in 500 copies: to whom could he give them? Few will
have had the contacts in several cities and dioceses, where they could expect
sympathetic responses—for rivals were in similar positions. Fewer still will
have had 2,000 (or 2,500) friends willing to sing the music, or even to own an
"autographed copy". Finally, few would have been able to persuade Gardano or
Scotto that they could sell the several hundred copies remaining after the com
poser's copies had been taken. I believe, therefore, that a large number of edi
tions from the mid-century must have been printed in considerably smaller
print-runs than 500. Although in these cases the publisher probably had his

20. Even though it is probable that some groups of singers overlapped in their memberships,
and that others included more than one person who bought copies, I doubt that this number
should be reduced by a significant amount.
21. These figures put musicality at a higher level than that suggested some 300 years later, in
the records of print-runs maintained by the house of Ricordi. The evidence recently presented by
Giulio Ongaro, in his "The Library of a Sixteenth-Century Music Teacher", Journal ofMusicology
12 (1994): 357-75, is not encouraging here either. This, and some other published inventories of
estates,suggests that few musicians had large collections of editions, and that they did not tend to
buy the latest material.
22. Jane A. Bernstein, "Printing and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Italy", Adas del XV
Congreso de la Sociedad Intemadonal de Musicologîa "Culturas Musicales del Mediterraneo y sus
Ramificaciones", Madrid, 3-10/IV/1992 (Madrid: Sociedad Internacional de Musicologîa, 1993):
2603-13.

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138 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 48/2

costs underwritten by the composer or patron,23 large print-runs, with the prob
ability of having a number of copies left to sell, will not have seemed a lucrative
prospect to either party.24
If this argument suggests that 500 should often be seen as too high a figure,
there is another argument which looks to suggest otherwise (while still not en
couraging any other publisher thinking of entering the field): that is, the evi
dent slow turnover of copies for many editions. There is much evidence show
ing that music-sellers and publishers had copies available for sale many years
after publication: the evidence can be found at both ends of the century, in the
records of Colon's purchases,25 and in the catalogue of editions offered for sale
by Angelo Gardano.26 It is true that this pattern also seems to apply for almost
all printed matter, regardless of its subject: and it is plausible to assume that it
tended to produce an industry in which a slower return on investment was part
of the basic philosophy. Evidence does exist to show that publishers sent ma
terial to booksellers and their agents almost immediately on publication,
thereby requiring the sellers to pay for the books, perhaps even before they
were sold.27 However, the publishers apparently did not receive prompt pay
ment, while at the same time they must have kept a number of copies on hand
for future demands at their own shop or from other sellers.
This does seem to mean that the taste in music also moved slowly, that there
were often purchasers willing to buy music that was "old", sometimes as much
as thirty years old, even while others were assiduously keeping up with new
trends. Indeed, the evidence that Angelo Gardano's catalogue seems to have
stimulated a number of new editions must counteract any suggestion that

23. This is directly confirmed in the few contracts that do survive.

24. As elsewhere, I except the local printer/publisher working outside Venice, and largely pro
ducing a local repertoire—music by composers working in the court or cathedral, and anthologies
of local taste. While they surely had short print-runs, aimed specifically at the local market, they
were also responsive to the local financial situation (and local opportunities for patronage) in ways
that the two big Venetian publishers could hardly manage to be.
25. Many examples can be found in Higinio Anglès, "La müsica conservada en la Biblioteca
Colombina y en la Catedral de Seville", Anuario musical 2 (1947): 3-39; and in Catherine Weeks
Chapman, "Printed Collections of Polyphonic Music owned by Ferdinand Columbus", Journal of
the American Musicological Society 21 (1968): 34-84. There is much similar evidence for books on
other subjects, most conveniently presented in the ongoing publication of Tornas Marin Martinez,
José Manuel Ruiz Asençio and Klaus Wagner, eds, Catâlogo Concordado de la Biblioteca de
Hernando Colon (Madrid: Fundaciôn MAPFRE América; Seville: Cabildo de la Catedral, 1993-);
and in Archer H. Huntington, ed., Catalogue of the Library of Ferdinand Columbus: Reproduced in
Facsimile from the Unique Manuscript in the Columbine Library of Seville (New York: Hispanic
Society of America, 1905).
26. Most recently presented and discussed in Richard Agee, The Gardano Music Printing
Firms, 1569-1611 (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1998): 361-405. See also Oscar
Mischiati, Indici, cataloghi e avvisi degli editori e librai musicali italiani dal 1591 al 1798
(Florence: Olschki, 1984), which cites the earlier literature.
27. This is the only plausible explanation for the need to print extra copies in the case of the
Libro primo de la Salamandra of 1526, the contract for which is discussed in Bonnie J. Blackburn,
"The Printing Contract for the Libro primo de musica de la salamandra (Rome, 1526)", Journal of
Musicology 12 (1994): 345-56.

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THOUGHTS ON THE POPULARITY OF PRINTED MUSIC 139

many books listed there were being "remaindered".28 Instead, the catalogue
evidently was meant to serve as a reminder of names that had begun to be
forgotten, and of styles and even genres that continued to give pleasure.
If a publisher could assume a long-term market for a title, and if he could
also bear the cost of a slow return on his investment in labour and materials,
then this pattern of sales could encourage him to prepare larger print-runs.
This would only apply, of course, to those publishers who had a solid financial
basis—to the Gardano family, to the Scottos, to the Tinis and some others.29
Those others who were not successful on a long-term basis may have had
some outside capital to draw on, allowing them to print bigger editions: this
could apply to Merulo, who was not only a salaried musician but also active in
other areas;30 and presumably no-one could plan a book that was not commis
sioned without some financial strength. But too many other publishers seem
not to have been able to stay in the field: as I say, they must have found it not
lucrative enough.
I draw a number of tentative conclusions from this series of conflicting ob
servations. The first is that any suggestion of an "average" size of an edition is
virtually meaningless. Editions must have varied radically in their size, from
very small (perhaps under 100 for some editions required by very minor and
inept composers) to well over 1,000 when a composer was well-known, his
work could be expected to sell, and the publisher could afford to wait for his
return. Against this background, the series of parallel editions by Gardano and
Scotto begins to make some sense. With the cost of materials higher than that
of labour, each could reasonably prepare a profitable edition.
A second conclusion is that minor publishers went for smaller print-runs. I
would expect this for any volume of purely local interest, where the majority of
intended purchasers would be members of a provincial court (at, say, Ferrara),
or members of the choirs within a diocese. But, I believe, small print-runs
would also be expected for editions of Arcadelt or some other "sure-fire" seller
put out by these minor or provincial publishers. The reason for printing these
titles seems to have been to give the company a solid financial basis for future
work: a large print-run, with the consequent tying-up of capital in unsold
copies, would defeat the purpose.
Thirdly, the print-run for large-scale sacred music could be more closely cal
culated than that for secular. The reason is clear enough: each publisher would
have a sure idea of how many institutions even had the singers qualified to sing
the music, and a relevant performing tradition. In addition, music for the Milan
diocese, music for seven or eight voices, or music for special offices would be
bought for use by even fewer choirs. Not only could the market be measured:
it would also be intrinsically smaller and more sectional. This all seems to

28. Richard Agee does not make such an argument: indeed, he also sees the list as some sort
of indicator of the slow manner in which the taste of most purchasers changed over the century,
alongside the smaller market for the then "avant-garde".
29. The fundamental source for all these publishers' catalogues remains Oscar Mischiati's
book: see footnote 26.
30. See the dissertation mentioned in footnote 12 above.

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140 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 48/2

argue that much sacred music was prepared in smaller print-runs: and the
presence of second and later editions even of volumes of Masses supports the
argument (since we can hardly expect the turnover of institutions that we ex
perience with the passing generations of individual musicians). Here, as else
where, the publisher erred on the safe side, preferring to move his stock
quickly, waiting to see how each book was received, while knowing that a sec
ond edition could always be prepared, with less difficulty than the first.
A fourth conclusion is that later editions are rarely a guide to the intrinsic
popularity of a book or its contents. They merely imply that almost all copies
of the earlier edition had left the printer's warehouse. The fact that they might
still be in booksellers' shops is not crucial here: but our lack of knowledge
about the size of a print-run is. An earlier edition apparently did not meet the
needs of the market, and explaining the nature of that lack depends critically
on the time-lag between editions. Editions close together in time merely affirm
that the earlier was too small: they do not tell us that the music was actually
popular, or that music in many editions was more popular than music in few.
Editions spread over years and decades indicate something more concrete:
that the music remained of interest for that length of time (though, again, they
do not tell us whether that interest was general, or widespread, or merely
enough to warrant a small new print-run).
Given this restriction, in which we can say nothing about the popularity of
any individual book at any moment in time, the tally of printed editions is most
useful in telling us something about long-term patterns of taste. I have already
mentioned that Ruffo's music seemed to go out of fashion in the 1560s. It is no
table that throughout the century there were similar titles that remained in
fashion for years, perhaps decades, before disappearing, sometimes quite
quickly. This should not surprise us: we have to believe that the taste for the
latest creations from Mantua or Ferrara or Florence was a minority one, held
by musicians familiar with, or understanding, the new styles and their pre
misses, or merely trying to be up-to-date. The rest of the market for printed
music will have been scattered across the peninsula,31 and will have remained
rather conservative, responding to new styles and challenges only rather
slowly.32

Why this changed in the 1580s, I do not know: but it is evident that the mar
ket as a whole began to expand, and that there was much more room for com
peting printers and publishers. As I have implied above, the size of their print
runs is again a factor in any conclusions we might be able to draw: if they
remained small, we might rather be seeing a change in the financial patterns
of publishing—one in which profits could be made by printing and selling
many fewer copies. But I tend to believe that we are instead seeing a real

31. While publishers were certainly aware that they could sell copies north of the Alps, and
even were commissioned to print volumes of music from the north, I doubt that they normally took
account of that market when considering whether to publish a new repertoire or edition. It will nor
mally have made up only a small part of the total sales.
32. The pattern of editions of Marenzio's madrigals, as opposed to those of his villanellas, is in
structive here.

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THOUGHTS ON THE POPULARITY OF PRINTED MUSIC 141

growth in the number of purchasers, one which leads to a new and much
higher plateau by the turn of the century. This is manifested by the range of
new publishers: not only Vincenti and Amadino (the former of whom was to be
come, with his son, the major Venetian printer of the seventeenth century), but
also successful publishers in other cities of the peninsula. Baldini started pub
lishing in Ferrara in 1582, Alessandro Gardano opened a separate house in
Rome in 1583, and the Tini and related companies began in Milan in 1584. By
the end of the century, Muti was publishing in Rome (beginning three years af
ter Alessandro Gardano had stopped work there in 1591), and Tradate was
working alongside the Tini in Milan. Indeed, the two most remarkable features
of this expansion are the increasing number of cities in which music publish
ers could work, and the number where more than one publishing house was
active at the same time. In Rome, lesser publishers alongside Alessandro
Gardano include Basa (1581-85, publishing choirbooks), Coattino (1589-94)
and Verovio (from 1589, with one book in 1586). None of these were major pub
lishers: but this is a situation that had not existed earlier in the century. Other
cities include Brescia (the Bozzola, and Marchetti), Florence (Marescotti, and
later publishers),33 Messina (Bufalini), Naples (with the Carlino and a number
of later rivals and partners), Parma (Viotti), Turin (Bevilaqua's heirs) and
Verona (the delle Donne).34
Not all of these were major printers, of course: but they signal a new situa
tion, one in which publishers all over the peninsula felt that they could succeed
with music. In some cases, such as Florence, they concentrated on local reper
toires. But this was by no means always true. At the same time as a number of
publishers were trying to break into the market across the peninsula, Vincenti
and Amadino ended their partnership (in 1586), so that there were four active
publishers of music in Venice. This picture must signal a new growth in the
numbers of purchasers, just as the ranges of repertoires now being published
points to new classes of purchasers, new uses for music, and even a new
interest in "the new" itself.
This contrasts strongly with the picture I propose for the middle of the cen
tury. It contrasts even more strongly with the first few decades. Then, there
was rarely more than one publisher at a time. Petrucci began in 1501, Antico
entered the lists in 1510, and he and Petrucci moved cautiously around each
other until 1522.In the 1520s, Antico quickly stopped publishing, and the only
successful company seems to have been that of Pasoti and Dorico, working in
Rome. In fact, the Roman picture is complicated by a number of unsigned edi
tions, showing a range of type-faces, content and format. Several have novel
mixes of repertoire, sacred alongside secular, with even a Mass in one book:
the implication is different from that of Antico's or Petrucci's books, each of

33. See Tim Carter, "Music-Printing in late Sixteenth- and early

Seventeenth-Century
Florence: Giorgio Marescotti, Cristofano Marescotti and Zanobi Early Music History 9
Pignoni",
(1990): 27-73; reprinted in Music, Patronage and Printing in Late Medieval Florence (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2000), chapter 11.
34. The only important city missing from this list is Bologna, which became an important
centre during the mid-17th century.

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142 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 48/2

which was focussed quite specifically on one repertoire, designed to appeal to

a specific group of purchasers. Apparently these Roman publishers were un
sure of the make-up of their market, and tried to catch everyone at once with
a cross-section of genres. Ulis seems not to have worked, for the publishers do
not seem to have continued working:35 and it was not a strategy adopted by
Dorico.
The evidence argues, therefore, that the first four decades of the century
could only support one music publisher at a time: Petrucci before 1510,
Petrucci and Antico (rarely publishing in the same years) before 1522, Pasoti
and Dorico during the 1520s and into the 1530s, and then Scotto's editions of
Antico from 1533. None of these was particularly active in music. Dorico and
Scotto both had lucrative businesses outside music;36 Petrucci may not have
needed the income;37 and Antico perhaps continued in his craft as scribe or il
luminator. Perhaps the market could not even support one publisher of music.
Whether this is precisely true or not, it tells us a great deal about how many
people were buying printed music, about the motivations for printing and pub
lishing individual volumes, and even about how far-flung the market might
have been. It rather looks as though Sambonettus' 1515 edition of a first book
of Canzone sonetti strambotti et frottole may not have been as unusual as we
would like. It contained local music as well as a few more widely-known works,
and was evidently the work of local craftsmen.38 Much the same conclusions
can be drawn about many of the Roman editions of the 1520s and 1530s.39
As we might expect, the few major publishers listed in the preceding para
graph present a different picture. They all printed a more international reper
toire (using the word "international" to include different parts of the Italian
peninsula, as well as trans-alpine centres): nonetheless, it looks increasingly as
if most of their editions were promoted to some extent—specifically proposed
or supplied by a patron or music-collector.40 The principal exception would be

35. I recognise that the Sack of Rome in 1527 may have prevented one or more of these men
from developing a successful career. But it is notable that Dorico (with the collaboration of Pasoti)
had already published a number of music books, each with a clearly defined repertoire.
36. See the book by Bernstein, and the article by Barberi, cited in footnotes 2 and 3

respectively.
37. I advance the argument that Petrucci was never a full-time printer in my forthcoming
study, cited in footnote 3.
38. The book is discussed in Frank D'Accone's The Civic Muse: Music and Musicians in Siena

during the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997).
39. The secular contents of these books are listed in Knud Jeppesen, La frottola, 1:

Bemerkungen zur Bibliographie der ältesten weltlichen Notendrucks in Italien, Acta Jutlandica, 40/2
(Copenhagen: Hansen, 1968), and in Iain Fenlon and James Haar, The Italian Madrigal in the early
Sixteenth Century: Sources and Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). To
my knowledge, there has not been a systematic study of the sacred music printed in these two
decades.
40. I propose this for Petrucci in my paper "Did Petrucci's Concern for Accuracy include any
Concern with Performance Issues?", to be published in the proceedings of the Basel conference
on Petrucci held in January 2001: and I expand the argument considerably in my forthcoming
book. Antico's Liber Quindecim Missarum was surely planned to take advantage of the presence of
many potential purchasers at the Lateran Council; and I suggest that one of his frottola volumes

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THOUGHTS ON THE POPULARITY OF PRINTED MUSIC 143

the series of new editions of Petrucci's titles put out by Pasoti and Dorico in
Rome in 1526 and 1527. Indeed, these are the first signs of a change in the busi
ness climate, to be followed some years later by Antico in Venice, and then by
the major shift that I have described earlier in this article.
Until then, however, printed music remained something of a curiosity, pro
moted by some patrons, explored by several printers and publishers, but not
yet lucrative. The repertoires were not always the most up-to-date,41 but re
flected the taste of a collector such as Castellanus (working with Petrucci) or
the Strozzi (sending madrigals to Venice). We cannot therefore speak of a mar
ket for printed music before the end of the 1530s: instead we need to see a se
ries of uses of the printed medium for reasons that had little to do with mass
sales, and much more to do with the wishes of an individual or with a tempo
rary opportunity. Certainly, Petrucci began the process 500 years ago, in 1501:
but the purpose of printing—to disseminate many copies to those who could
not afford manuscripts—seems only to have begun to be fulfilled nearly 40
years later.

Résumé
Les festivités autour du 500e anniversaire du premier imprimé musical de
Petrucci (l'Odhecaton de 1501) sont l'occasion d'examiner à nouveau certaines
questions générales relatives à la typographie musicale italienne du XVIe siècle
et, entre autre : les incidences de l'édition musicale italienne sur la propagation
du répertoire ; l'importance réelle du marché des imprimés musicaux à
l'époque ; ce qu'on peut conclure sur le goût musical à partir des oeuvres qui
ont été imprimées. Ce qui subsiste laisse à penser que le marché était petit, une
estimation de 500 exemplaires pour un tirage « moyen » paraissant, dans la plu
part des cas, bien trop élevée. En fait, parler d'un tirage moyen à l'époque n'a
pratiquement aucun sens. Une évolution s'est opérée dans les années 1580 avec
l'apparition de nouveaux éditeurs, suggérant que l'ensemble du marché de la
musique commençait alors à se développer. Avant cette date, on a la preuve qu'il
n'y avait de place sur le marché que pour très peu d'éditeurs : seulement
Petrucci avant 1510, Petrucci et Antico de 1510 à 1522, Pasoti et Dorico dans les
années 1520-1530 et Scotto à partir de 1533. Il n'existait pas réellement de
« marché » pour la musique imprimée avant la fin des années 1530. On observe
plutôt une variété d'usages du support imprimé, ayant peu en commun avec la

has a Medici connection in my "Early Music Printing: an Indirect Contact with the Raphael Circle",
Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, ed. Andrew Morrogh et al. (Florence: Barbèra,
1985), 533-50. Richard Agee has drawn attention to the possible contacts between the Strozzi and
Venetian publications of the 1530s in his "Filippo Strozzi and the Early Madrigal", Journal of the
American Musicological Society 38 (1985): 227-37. I suspect that the 1521 hook of Eustachio
Romano's Duos as well as the 1522 Missarum decern were also promoted, by Roman patrons eager
to adopt the mantle left by Petrucci's retirement and Antico's move to Venice.
41. This is obviously true for much of Petrucci's output. It is true also for Dorico's re-editions,
and also perhaps for Antico's editions of Verdelot in the 1530s.

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144 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 48/2

vente en gros mais reflétant plutôt les souhaits d'un protecteur désireux de fi
nancer un tirage ou les besoins ponctuels d'un marché local.
Dominique Hau&fater

Zusammenfassung
Die Feierlichkeiten zum fünfhundertsten Jahrestag von Petruccis erstem
Musikdruck (das Odhecaton von 1501) sehen die Möglichkeit vor, einige all
gemeine Probleme der italienischen Musikdrucke des 16. Jahrhunderts zu un
tersuchen. Diese schließen Fragen, wieviel Einfluß die italienische
Musikveröffentlichung auf die Verbreitung des Repertoires hatte, mit ein, wie
groß (oder wie klein) der Markt für Musikdrucke tatsächlich in dieser Zeit war
und welche Schlussfolgerungen man über den musikalischen Geschmack auf
der Basis solch gedruckter Werke ziehen könnte. Erhalten gebliebene Quellen
deuten auf einen kleinen Markt hin, bei dem fünfhundert Exemplare für eine
Durchschnittsauflage in den meisten Fällen viel zu viel sind: tatsächlich ist
jede Aussage über eine Durchschnittsauflage zu dieser Zeit praktisch sinnlos.
Eine Veränderung fand 1580 statt, als neue Verleger das Feld eroberten
und daraus zu schließen war, daß der Musikmarkt im ganzen ab dieser Zeit zu
expandieren begann. Quellen vor 1580 zeigen einen Markt, der nur wenige
Musikverleger unterhalten konnte: Petrucci selbst vor 1510, Petrucci und
Antico in der Zeit von 1510-22, Pasoti und Dorico in den zwanziger und
dreißiger Jahren des 16. Jahrhunderts und Scotto von 1533. Es gab keinen
wirklichen Markt für gedruckte Musik vor dem Ende der dreißiger Jahre: man
findet stattdessen eine Anzahl von Printmedien, die aber wenig mit
Massenverkauf zu tun hatten, jedoch den Wunsch des Kunden nach
Finanzierung eines Drucks oder zeitweiliger Anforderungen eines lokalen
Marktes widerspiegelten.
Wolfgang Krueger

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