Towards a Census of Surviving Copies of Vicentino’s «L’antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica» (Rome 1555 and 1557)

The first step towards an extensive bibliographical survey of Nicola Vicentino’s L’antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (Rome 1555 and 1557) is the census of the today preserved copies of the print. This investigation yielded several interesting surprises.An important starting point for music bibliographical research is provided by RISM. Published writings on music theory are collected in the B/VI series, edited in two volumes in 1971 by François Lesure. In 1979 Lesure published some addenda and corrigenda, but this did not concern the item regarding the treatise by Vicentino. RISM B/VI (vol. 2, p. 861) mentions 52 copies of the 1555 edition and 4 copies of the 1557 edition. Before Lesure, Robert Eitner listed 13 copies of the 1555 edition and 2 copies of the 1557 edition (Biographisch-Bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon, vol. 10, 1904, pp. 76-77).In her study about the editorial production of Antonio Barré (PhD 1996), Maureen E. Buja offered a comprehensive survey of the data provided…