ABSTRACT
The author's essay is intended as little more than a footnote, or a series of footnotes, to Claude Palisca's exemplary account of the Artusi-Mon-teverdi controversy first published in 1968. In 1590 or 1591, Monteverdi moved to Mantua to join the musicians of the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga; he dedicated Il terzo libro de madrigali a cinque voci to the duke in 1592. The evident intensity of the Artusi-Monteverdi controversy is striking. The potential distinction of two musical practices, each equally justifiable on its own terms, was a cunning one that pulled the rug out from under the feet of Monteverdi's opponents. Artusi was not wrong to believe as he did—his mistake was simply to apply the standards of one practice to the music of another. Banchieri proposes a reconciliation between Artusi and Monteverdi, rescuing the Bolognese theorist from potential obsolescence by linking his position with incipient notions of genre-specific styles.
