ABSTRACT
In 1501 Ottaviano Petrucci published the fi rst book of polyphonic music printed with movable type. Over the next twenty years he published all the available genres of composed polyphony: chansons, frottole, laude, lute intabulations, Masses, other liturgical music, and motets.1 Petrucci must have been aware of a demand for secular music, and his fi rst book, the Odhecaton, was a collection of almost one hundred chansons. Masses by famous composers would have been another obvious choice for publication. But less clear are Petrucci’s reasons for publishing motet anthologies: collections of polyphonic settings of sacred Latin texts. What was the market for Petrucci’s motet prints? Did that market constitute a public, or publics? Did the existence of these new kinds of objects-printed motet anthologies-play a role in the formation of new publics?
