A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Vicentino, Nicola

by Reginald Lane-Poole

VICENTINO, Nicola, was born at Vicenza in 1511 or 1512.^[1] If we are to believe the title he gives himself in his first publication, as 'unico discepolo' to Adrian Willaert,^[2] he had his musical education at Venice; but as the 'unico' is plainly false, we may perhaps question the 'discepolo.' He became ordained, entered the service of Ipolito of Este, cardinal of Ferrara, and accompanied him to Rome, where he lived, it seems, for many years. In 1546 he published a volume of madrigals, with explanatory directions, written with the design of restoring the old scales of the Greeks. He then invented a peculiar instrument, the 'archicembalo,' with several keyboards, in order to illustrate his system, and employed a private choir to practise it. He published also a theoretical work entitled 'L'antica Musica ridotta alla moderna prattica' (Rome 1555). His efforts were however rewarded with scant success, and he experienced much opposition. One contest into which he was led in defence of his theory, and in which he was defeated—that, namely, with Lusitano—is famous. The cardinal, his patron, is said to have looked on Vicentino's discomfiture as a personal affront; he took him back to Ferrara, and appointed him chapel-master in his court. This post he appears to have held until his death. If we may judge by a medal struck in his honour, which describes him as 'perfectæ musicæ divisionisque inventor,' he must have enjoyed a certain amount of fame; but there is a story that the medal was his own device. His real eminence was that of a performer on the clavichord, and it is difficult to quarrel with the criticism of J. B. Doni and Apostolo Zeno, who ridiculed him for pretending to be anything more than a performer. At best his theories belong only to a passing phase in the history of music.^[3]

[ R. L. P. ]

1. The place has been incorrectly given as Rome, and the date as 1513; but the latter is fixed to a year or two earlier by the notice in his 'Antica Musica,' 1555, that he was then in his 44th year.
2. Caffi has singularly inverted the relation, making Vicentino Willaert's master: Storia della Musica sacra nella gia Cappella ducale di san Marco in Venezia, i. 83, 135; Venice, 1854.
3. A manuscript notice furnished in 1826 by Abbate Todeschini of Vicenza to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, and now preserved in the library of that society, adds nothing to our knowledge of Vicentino's biography.