Ottaviano Petrucci: Catalogue Raisonné (review)

Once every decade or so, musicology is blessed with a monumental study. For students of Renaissance music printing, sources, and bibliography, Stanley Boorman's Petrucci monograph arguably represents the tome of this decade. For the past thirty years his contribution has been outstanding; consolidating, expanding, and arguing with the findings of musicologists such as August Vernarecci, Claudio Sartori, Knud Jeppesen, Don Krummel, Helen Hewitt, Jeremy Noble, and, most recently, Franco Mariani, Paolo Peretti, Teresa Maria Gialdroni, and Agostino Ziino. The present study completely eclipses the former Petrucci catalogue by Sartori (1948), not only through its wealth of bibliographical detail but also by its content and commentary. Boorman's forte is his scientific approach, combined with a keen understanding of Petrucci's quality of content, financial considerations, and historical context. Moreover, he possesses a deep understanding of the scholarship of early printing and incorporates findings pertinent to sixteenth-century European printing. The name of Ottaviano Petrucci will be known to many scholars of bibliography through his renowned edition of Bishop Paulus of Middelburgh's Paulina de recta paschae (1513). While Boorman's study primarily concerns a music printer, it is also a fascinating and detailed investigation into the working practices of an early-sixteenth-century Venetian printer and his activities within the printing, religious, and political communities in Italy.

The book is in two sections — first a detailed examination of Petrucci's life, working methods, materials, paper, sources, and financial concerns, followed by a detailed bibliography that includes a comprehensive cross-referenced list of all Latin, Italian, French, Dutch, German, and Spanish texts found in Petrucci's publications. In addition, the bibliography provides details of instrumental and untexted works as well as transcriptions of all extant documents pertaining to Petrucci and early owners of his works. Concordant sources are listed with supporting bibliographical items; Boorman assimilates many useful updates on manuscript and printed sources published since the Census-Catalog of Charles Hamm and Herbert Kellman (1979–88) and other such printed catalogues and reference sources. He also provides details of several private and previously unknown sources of Petrucci's publications, particularly details of recent discoveries from the former Soviet Union.

Petrucci's 1498 printing application to the Venetian Signoria included a claim that he had devised a novel approach to music printing. This shrewd gesture set the foundations for a considerable reputation. The typesetting of music was far more complex than text since there were many typographical elements required on the page — clefs, staves, note values, capital letters, as well as foliation and text. Apart from the variety of sorts required for each page, music setting differed from text in that the horizontal position of each sort varied, depending on the required pitch. Early printers had previously carved music (essentially a graphical element) into woodblocks. The ingenuity of Petrucci's method revolved around printing these elements in stages on the same page using movable type; Boorman shows that his first publications involved three impressions but that he had reduced these to a more manageable two by 1503. Accurate double impression printing was certainly not a novel idea in Renaissance Venetian printing houses, but Petrucci's success lay in his immaculate presentation and new font design, setting the benchmark for successive sixteenth-century musical publications.

Of particular interest is Boorman's challenge to Petrucci's esteem. Musicologists have long considered Petrucci's name as consistently representing the best of music printing and publishing during the early sixteenth century. Boorman addresses several issues, for example the widely accepted tenet that Petrucci's influence on musical dissemination was considerable. He also suggests that Petrucci's influence was more important in German-speaking areas and that Italian source readings do not support the notion that his publications were always important exemplars.

Arguably the most valuable part of Boorman's introduction concerns Petrucci's financial and commercial decisions. Scholars have long suspected that Petrucci must have been successful as a businessman; Boorman provides evidence and analysis to support this. Among the...