BERARDI, Angelo.
Documenti armonici …
Bologna, Giacomo Monti, 1687.
4to, pp. 178 [i.e. 180]; woodcut arms to title-page, woodcut initials and head- and tail-pieces, woodcut diagram to P1v, type-set musical examples throughout, woodcut device to final page; large stain to title-page, some scattered foxing, else a good copy in nineteenth-century quarter calf and marbled boards; stamp to title-page of the Archivio musicale nel Liceo di Bologna (listed as a duplicate in 1883 and probably sold as such before 1901 – communication from present librarian).
First edition, an exhaustive study of counterpoint by the composer and music theorist Angelo Berardi (c. 1636–1694), a pupil of Marco Scacchi and at this time canon at the college of S. Angelo, Viterbo.
Berardi’s ‘extensive knowledge of earlier theorists allowed his writings to provide both a comprehensive view of 17th-century music and the most complete summary of the theory and pedagogy of species counterpoint prior to Fux … Documenti armonici and Miscellanea musicale provide a complete description of counterpoint as practised in the 17th century’ (Grove online). Book one is devoted to different types of counterpoint and fugues, book two to canons, book three to ‘legature nelle cantilene’. Bach is known to have had a manuscript copy of the work.
Very scarce: Library Hub and OCLC show copies at BL and Bodley only in the UK, and no copies in North America.
RISM B VI, 137; Gaetano Gaspari, Catalogo della biblioteca del liceo musicale di Bologna, I, p. 306.
