Silvestro Ganassi: Opera intitulata Fontegara : a systematic study of the treatise with commentaries on recorder technique and sixteenth century instrumental music

Author(s)

Giulia da Rocha Tettamanti

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Artes
• Defense date: 2010-08-31

Examining board members

Paulo Mugayar Kuhl; Luciano Migliaccio; Lucia Becker Carpena

• Advisor: Mônica Isabel Lucas; Paulo Mugayar Kuhl

Abstract

This work consists in a study and a translation of the treatise Opera Intitulata Fontegara, written by Silvestro Ganassi dal Fontego, player of the Most Illustrious Signoria of Venice. This treatise is the first complete and detailed work about recorder technique and the art of diminution. It was printed by the author himself in 1535 and dedicated to Andrea Gritti, doge of Venice at the time. For a comprehensive understanding of this subject, it was made necessary to gather data about the author's biography, still scarce and diffuse, for a better understanding of his contribution to the cultural environment in the first half of Venetian 16th century. To this respect, I found in my research an important contribution of Ganassi as both musician and painter auctoritas from the Venetian painting preceptive in the 16th century. Furthermore, the dedicatory to the Doge, as well as the speculative elements inside the treatise, associate Fontegara to the political and cultural program created by Gritti and designated to recover the Mith of Venice, after the wars of the League of Cambrai. After the translation, it was also made necessary to insert a chapter aimed at clarifying the various unreliable points in the original text, as well as providing the adequate repertory to understand the author's terminology and the elements from the 16th Century Musica Prattica inside the book (AU)