Biography
Vincenzo Galilei, father of Galileo Galilei and of the lutenist Michelangelo, himself excelled on the lute. That skill drew him into the circle of his patron Bardi, who arranged lessons in theory with Zarlino. Additional support came from Corsi, from Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria, and from Zefirini. As a theorist Galilei became the first to prove that the tuning ratios advocated by the ancients, including Pythagoras, held true only under identical conditions; length, tension, and the volume of surrounding air each altered the result. His earliest treatise, Fronimo, condemned singers who chased mere novelty, argued that the lute supplied more expressive accompaniment than the organ, explained correct intabulation, and offered transcriptions to illustrate the point. He further championed homophonic songs supported by lute and maintained that only well-tempered instruments, especially strings, could resolve the intonation difficulties of the era. To press the argument he wrote a cycle of pieces that traversed all twenty-four keys. In the later Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna he advanced fresh ideas on tuning and the modes, condemned the prevailing contrapuntal style by invoking the continuous monody of ancient Greek practice, and asserted that a singer’s register must match the humor the music intended to portray. Two subsequent volumes on polyphony contended that consonance and dissonance had been misunderstood and required different application; counterpoint and imitation must never overshadow the text, and dissonances remained permissible provided they left the voice and words clear. The musical line itself was to proceed without interruption or roughness.