Everything about Marchetto Da Padova totally explained
Marchetto da Padova (
Marchettus of Padua; b.
1274?; fl.
1305 –
1319) was an
Italian music theorist and composer of the late
medieval era. His innovations in notation of time-values were fundamental to the music of the Italian
ars nova, as was his work on defining the
modes and refining
tuning. In addition, he was the first music theorist to discuss
chromaticism.
Life
Most likely he was born in
Padua. Little is known about his life, but he's recorded as being music teacher for the choirboys at the cathedral in
Padua in
1305 and
1306, and he left Padua in
1308 to work in other cities in the
Veneto and the
Romagna. His two major treatises seem to have been written between
1317 and
1319, shortly before
Philippe de Vitry produced his
Ars nova (c.
1322), which gave its name to the music of the age. Marchetto indicated in the treatises themselves that he wrote them at
Cesena and
Verona. There are no other reliable records of his life, although his fame was evidently widespread, and his work became hugely influential later in the
14th century.
Music
Only three
motets have been reliably attributed to Marchetto, one of them due to his name appearing as an
acrostic in the text for one of the parts (
Ave regina celorum/Mater innocencie). Based on another acrostic in the same motet, it seems it was composed for the dedication of the
Scrovegni Chapel (also known as the Arena Chapel) in Padua on
March 25,
1305.
Writings and influence
Marchetto published two major treatises, the
Lucidarium in arte musice plane (probably in
1317–
1318), and the
Pomerium in arte musice mensurate (probably 1318). He also published an abridged version of the
Pomerium as the
Brevis compilatio, though the date of this isn't known. He stated in the
Pomerium that he wrote it while staying at the house of
Raynaldus de Cintis in
Cesena, who was lord of the city from
1321 to
1326, however most scholars believe that the Pomerium was written in
1318.
Precise dating of his work has been important to
musicology because of the controversy over whether he was influenced by the innovations of the French
ars nova, as written by
Philippe de Vitry and
Jehan de Muris in the 1320s, or whether the influence went the other way. Most likely Marchetto's work was first, although he was well aware of the French practice – which, like most innovations in music before the 20th century, was only discussed in writing years after the actual musical innovation took place. All of the treatises except for the abridged version are in a heavily
scholastic framework, and were almost certainly collections of oral teachings.
Marchetto's innovations are in three areas: tuning, chromaticism, and notation of time-values. He was the first to propose division of the whole tone into five equal parts, a tiny interval known as the
diesis. A
semitone could consist of one, two, three, or four of these small intervals, depending on whether it was a diesis, an
enharmonic semitone, a
diatonic semitone, or a
chromatic semitone.
In the area of time values, Marchetto improved on the old
Franconian system of notation;
music notation was by this time evolving into the method known today where an individual symbol represented a specific time-value, and Marchetto contributed to this trend by developing a method of compound time division, and by assigning specific note shapes to specific time values.
Additionally, Marchetto discussed the
rhythmic modes, an old rhythmic notation method from the
13th-century ars antiqua, and added four "imperfect" modes to the existing five "perfect" modes, thus allowing for the contemporary Italian practice of mixed, flexible and expressive rhythmic performance.
The
Lucidarium also included one of the earliest texts addressing the relationship between
composer – Marchetto used the word
musician, borrowing from
Boethius's definition in
De institutione musica libri quinque – and
performer. He set a distinct hierarchy, defining the "musician" or composer as the artist making judgements in accordance with his learned knowledge, while describing the singer as the instrument on which the musician performs, and likening their relationship to that of the judge and the crier.
Marchetto's treatises were hugely influential in the 14th and early 15th centuries, and were widely copied and disseminated. The
Rossi Codex, which is the earliest surviving source of secular Italian polyphony and which contains music written between 1325 and 1355, shows obvious influence of Marchetto, especially in its use of his notational improvements.
Without the innovations of Marchetto, the
music of the Italian Trecento – for example the secular music of
Landini – wouldn't have been possible.
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