Nicholas Erneston Music Library

I. Overview

Sanseverino's books are noteworthy for being among the few early guitar tablatures that are fully notated, with rhythm and meter signs, as well as barlines. The second edition of this book, Sanseverino 1622, is more well known than this one; there are some minor differences between the two books and one piece that is not reprinted in the later

Title: Intavolatura facile . . . Opera terza. (Milan: Filippo Lomazzo, 1620)

Description:
80 pp. in movable type
91 pieces
Foliation: [ABCDE, 8 ff. each?]
Page Size -- GB-Lbl: 18.4 cm. (width) X 18.5 cm.

II. Prefatory Material

f. 1r -- INTAVOLATURA FACILE DELLI PASSACALLI, CIACCONE, SARAVANDE, SPAGNOLETTE, FULIE, Pavaniglie, Pass' e mezzi, Correnti, & altre varie suonate composte, & accommodate per la Chitarra alla Spagnuola. Da BENEDETTO SANSEVERINO. Musico nella Chiesa di Santo Ambrosio Maggiore di Milano. NUOVAMENTE DATE IN LUCE. OPERA TERZA. IN MILANO, Appresso Filippo Lomazzo. M.DCXX."

f. 1v -- blank

f. 2r -- [dedication signed:] ". . . Di Milano il dì 13. Giugno 1620."

f. 2v -- "A VIRTUOSI SPIRITI . . ." [explanation of tablature]

f. 3r -- [explanation, cont.]

f. 3v -- "ESSEMPIO PER CONOSCER La Minima, Semiminima, Croma . . ." [half, quarter, eighth notes and tuning: GG C F A d in bass clef]

f. 4r -- "Modo d'accordare la Chitarra alla Spagnuola" [tuning]

f. 4v -- "ALFABETTO. Dal qual s'imparano á conoscere tutte le consonanze della Chitarra alla Spagnola, necessario da pratticarli da quelli che vogliono imparare á suonare detto instromento"

[alfabeto]:

 

 

[The following chords are not used: g, l, and m.]

III. Notation

Tablature: Alfabeto, stroke, rhythm and meter signs are used, as well as barlines.

Instrument(s): 5-course guitar

IV. Indices

Title information in brackets [ ] is editorial; information in parentheses

Index of Pieces (solo guitar):

Notes:

1. Apparently through a printer's error, the passacagli on C# are repeated. Return to text

Index of Genres:

The following chart summarizes the contents of the book by genre. Major genres are given by the form used in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., with the forms actually used in the book in parentheses. Lesser known titles are grouped under "miscellaneous dances" and "songs." Rhythmic variations and rotte are considered part of the main work.

Index of Keys Used:

Keys used in the book; an * indicates that the key is only used in a passacaglia. Note that the pitch is relative and that since the guitarist was using tablature, there was no need to think in terms of traditional key signatures.

 

Index of Names:

CALCAGNO, Paulo
Ballo alla Romana Al virtuoso Signor. Paulo Calcogno / p. 53

CANTU, Carlo
Aria sopra Vezzosetta Al Signor Carlo Cantù Gentilissimo Soprano, Nel Duomo di Milano / p. 33

CASTELLAZZO, Ieronimo Trotto
Balletto Al. Signor, Ieronimo Trotto Castellazzo. / p. 35

LOMAZZO, Filippo [printer]
IN MILANO, Appresso Filippo Lomazzo. M.DC.XX. / f. 1r [t.p.]

Poi che vol amor. Aria. Al Signor Francesco Lomazzo / p. 58

PELLICIONE, Nicolo
Balletto al S.Nicolo Pellicione musico della Reg. Ducal Corte di Milano / p. 52

ROTELA, Pomponio
Sessa felice al. Signor Pomponio Rotela / p. 51

SANSEVERINO, Benedetto [composer]
INTAVOLATURA FACILE . . . Da BENEDETTO SANSEVERINO. Musico nella Chiesa di Santo Ambrosio Maggiore di Milano . . . OPERA TERZA . . ./ f. 1r [t.p.]

. . . Di Milano il dì 13. Giugno 1620. Di V.S. Molto Magnifica. Affettionatiss. Servitore Benedetto Sanseverino. / f. 2r [dedication]

SENAGO, Cleophas [dedicatee]
Al Molto Mag. Sig. mio osservandiss. IL SIG. CLEOPHAS SENAGO / f. 2r [dedication to]

V. Bibliography

Boye, Gary R. "Giovanni Battista Granata and the Development of Printed Guitar Music in Seventeenth-Century Italy" (diss., Duke Univeristy, 1995).

Boye, Gary R. "Performing Seventeenth-Century Italian Guitar Music: the Question of an Appropriate Stringing" in Performance on Lute, Guitar and Vihuela: Historical Practice and Modern Interpretation, ed. V.A. Coelho (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

BUC (The British Union Catalog), Edith B. Schnapper. The British Union-Catalogue of Early Music Printed before the Year 1801: A Record of the Holdings of Over One Hundred Libraries throughout the British Isles. London: Butterworths, 1957.

Hall, Monica. "Was Foscarini also Weird? Baroque Guitar Tablature for the Perplexed." Lute Society Journal (UK) XLIX (2009): 49-69.

________. "Sanseverino's Alfabeto Songbook." Lute Society of America Quarterly XLVI:1 (Spring 2011): 19-23.

Hudson, Richard. "Chordal Aspects of the Italian Dance Style." Journal of the Lute Society of America III (1970): 35-52.

Hudson, Richard. Passacaglio and Ciaccona: From Guitar Music to Italian Keyboard Variations in the 17th Century (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1981).

Répertoire international des sources musicales: Einzeldrucke vor 1800. RISM A/I [S 886

Tyler, James, and Paul Sparks. The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002): 58-59, 86, 103, 139, 169, 186.

Weidlich, Joseph. "Battuto Performance Practice in Early Italian Guitar Music." Journal of the Lute Society of America 11 (1978): 63-86.

VI. Exemplars

GB-Lbl = Great Britain: London, The British Library (visited in 1992)

Condition: clean, white pages; some bleeding but very legible -- some (original) ink smudges

Binding: [in blue box] dark white paper; very worn and stained [original]; note in box: "Photographed Nov 87 Dry cleaned cover repaired with Japanese paper and wheat starch paste. Section folds repaired. Parchment tackets supported with collagen. 1st section sewing repaired. Box made, acid free interior."

Manuscript additions:
Cover: "Ai [?] [xx?] io. [?] d Inraghi [?]" [very faded old ink; presentation??]
Inside Cover: "Hirsch III 496" [pencil]

f. 1r -- [illegible, smudged black stamp]
f. 1v -- "HIRSCH LIBRARY BM" [Red Stamp]
f. 4v -- N chord: 1 on 3rd added by hand [brown ink]; n chord: 0 on 1st > 6 on 1st [ink]; O chord: 0 on 4th ++ [ink]; 0 on 3rd ++ [ink]
f. 4r or p. (1) -- "HIRSCH LIBRARY BM" [Red Stamp]

p. 2 -- l.2: down down up down strokes blotted out for down up down strokes four times
p. 27 -- l.5 m.3: B O O marked out for B O [ink]; m.4: down down up strokes added over O [ink]
p. 33 -- l.2 m.2: E E > E O E [? unclear in notes]

p. 80 of '20 -- "HIRSCH LIBRARY BM" [Red Stamp]
Inside back cover: "M.H.E. Rm.RRS I/32" [pencil]