Prosdocimus de Beldemandis (or Prosdocimo de' Beldomandi) (died 1428) was an Italian mathematician, music theorist, and physician.
He studied at the University of Padua and the University of Bologna. The earliest works by him date from the early 15th century (dated 1408–9 in the manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 206). He took the doctorate in arts at Padua on 15 May 1409, and received a physician's license on 15 April 1411. In 1412 he stayed in Montagnana, where he wrote a number of treatises. From c. 1420/22 to 1428, the year of his death, Prosdocimus taught a wide variety of subjects at Padua. His was interested in, among other things, arithmetic, music, astronomy, and astrology; this range of interests, however, was common for a Paduan doctor of his day. He wrote the last significant treatise on the art of musical notation as practiced by the Italians. He was held in high regard long after his death: some of the non-musical treatises were reprinted in the 16th century, and Luca Pacioli ranked him alongside Euclid and Boethius.
He was among the last music theorists to advocate for the Italian system of rhythmic notation (in the Tractatus pratice cantus mensurabilis ad modum Ytalicorum of 1412) and argued against Johannes Ciconia's division of the tone into twelve equal parts.
Guido of Arezzo was an Italian music theorist and pedagogue of High medieval music. A Benedictine monk, he is regarded as the inventor—or by some, developer—of the modern staff notation that had a massive influence on the development of Western musical notation and practice. Perhaps the most significant European writer on music between Boethius and Johannes Tinctoris, after the former's De institutione musica, Guido's Micrologus was the most widely distributed medieval treatise on music.
In music notation, a ligature is a graphic symbol that tells a musician to perform two or more notes in a single gesture, and on a single syllable. It was primarily used from around 800 to 1650 AD. Ligatures are characteristic of neumatic (chant) and mensural notation. The notation and meaning of ligatures has changed significantly throughout Western music history, and their precise interpretation is a continuing subject of debate among musicologists.
Johannes Ciconia was an important Franco-Flemish composer and music theorist of trecento music during the late Medieval era. He was born in Liège, but worked most of his adult life in Italy, particularly in the service of the papal chapels in Rome and later and most importantly at Padua Cathedral.
Jehan le Taintenier or Jean Teinturier was a Renaissance music theorist and composer from the Low Countries. Up to his time, he is perhaps the most significant European writer on music since Guido of Arezzo.
Ars antiqua, also called ars veterum or ars vetus, is a term used by modern scholars to refer to the Medieval music of Europe during the High Middle Ages, between approximately 1170 and 1310. This covers the period of the Notre-Dame school of polyphony, and the subsequent years which saw the early development of the motet, a highly varied choral musical composition. Usually the term ars antiqua is restricted to sacred (church) or polyphonic music, excluding the secular (non-religious) monophonic songs of the troubadours, and trouvères. Although colloquially the term ars antiqua is used more loosely to mean all European music of the 13th century, and from slightly before.
Ars subtilior is a musical style characterized by rhythmic and notational complexity, centered on Paris, Avignon in southern France, and also in northern Spain at the end of the fourteenth century. The style also is found in the French Cypriot repertory. Often the term is used in contrast with ars nova, which applies to the musical style of the preceding period from about 1310 to about 1370; though some scholars prefer to consider ars subtilior a subcategory of the earlier style. Primary sources for ars subtilior are the Chantilly Codex, the Modena Codex, and the Turin Manuscript.
Franco of Cologne was a German music theorist and possibly a composer. He was one of the most influential theorists of the Late Middle Ages, and was the first to propose an idea which was to transform musical notation permanently: that the duration of any note should be determined by its appearance on the page, and not from context alone. The result was Franconian notation, described most famously in his Ars cantus mensurabilis.
Johannes de Garlandia was a French music theorist of the late ars antiqua period of medieval music. He is known for his work on the first treatise to explore the practice of musical notation of rhythm, De Mensurabili Musica.
Marchetto da Padova 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.
Petrus de Cruce was active as a cleric, composer and music theorist in the late part of the 13th century. His main contribution was to the notational system.
Paul of Venice was a Catholic philosopher, theologian, logician and metaphysician of the Order of Saint Augustine.
The Guidonian hand was a mnemonic device used to assist singers in learning to sight-sing. Some form of the device may have been used by Guido of Arezzo, a medieval music theorist who wrote a number of treatises, including one instructing singers in sightreading. The hand occurs in some manuscripts before Guido's time as a tool to find the semitone; it does not have the depicted form until the 12th century. Sigebertus Gemblacensis in c. 1105–1110 did describe Guido using the joints of the hand to aid in teaching his hexachord. The Guidonian hand is closely linked with Guido's new ideas about how to learn music, including the use of hexachords, and the first known Western use of solfège.
Johannes de Muris, or John of Murs, was a French mathematician, astronomer, and music theorist best known for treatises on the ars nova musical style, titled Ars nove musice.
Johannes de Grocheio was a Parisian musical theorist of the early 14th century. His French name was Jean de Grouchy, but he is best known by his Latinized name. He was the author of the treatise Ars musicae, which describes the functions of sacred and secular music in and around Paris during his lifetime.
In the musical system of ancient Greece, an octave species is a specific sequence of intervals within an octave. In Elementa harmonica, Aristoxenus classifies the species as three different genera, distinguished from each other by the largest intervals in each sequence: the diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic genera, whose largest intervals are, respectively, a whole tone, a minor third, and a ditone; quarter tones and semitones complete the tetrachords.
The decade of the 15th century in art involved some significant events.
Sebastian z Felsztyna was a Polish composer and music theorist, regarded as the greatest Polish composer of the early 16th century.
Ars cantus mensurabilis is a music theory treatise from the mid-13th century, c. 1250–1280 written by German music theorist Franco of Cologne. The treatise was written shortly after De Mensurabili Musica, a treatise by Johannes de Garlandia, which summarised a set of six rhythmic modes in use at the time. In music written in rhythmic modes, the duration of a note could be determined only in context. Ars cantus mensurabilis was the first treatise to suggest that individual notes could have their own durations independent of context. This new rhythmic system was the foundation for the mensural notation system and the ars nova style.
Jacopo Dondi dall'Orologio (1290–1359), also known as Jacopo de' Dondi, was a doctor, astronomer and clock-maker active in Padua, Italy. He is remembered today as a pioneer in the art of clock design and construction. He was the father of Giovanni Dondi dall'Orologio. Jacopo Dondi wrote on a number of subjects, including surgery, pharmacology, astrology and natural science.
The American Institute of Musicology (AIM) is a musicological organization that researches, promotes and produces publications on early music. Founded in 1944 by Armen Carapetyan, the AIM's chief objective is the publication of modern editions of medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque compositions and works of music theory. The breadth and quality of publications produced by the AIM constitutes a central contribution to the study, practice and performance of early music.