Le Istitutioni Harmoniche nelle quali; oltra le materie appartenenti alla Musica

Illustrated with woodcut printer's device on title page; numerous historiated initials; numerous woodcut diagrams (some full-page) and illustrations in text, including a large woodcut of a harpsichord; extensive type-set musical examples in text. Folio. Contemporary limp vellum; manuscript title to spine; endpapers replaced at a later date. Printed by Francesco Senese, Venice 1562. Second Edition, Second Issue. (Adams Z77; New Grove 20, p.646; BM STC Italian, p. 742; RISM B/VI, 908; Damschroder & Williams, Music Theory from Zarlino to Schenker, p.392; cf. PMM 81; Printing and the Mind of Man #216).

Gioseffo Zarlino, an Italian Renaissance music theorist and composer, was possibly the most important music theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning. His first treatise, Le istitutioni harmoniche, is "a crucial work in the transformation of music which took place in the seventeenth century. Ancient and medieval musical theory and (at least until the invention of counterpoint) practice had been base on the Pythagorean mathematical proportion of the tetrachord. Zarlino uncompromisingly rejected the mathematical analogy, and claimed that the now universally used diatonic scale was the only form that could reasonably be sung. On this theory all subsequent music theory has been based, and even the mechanically tuned, keyed, and fretted instruments have been adjusted to the octave of twelve semitones which Zarlino first put forward." Printing and the Mind of Man. #216.
Vellum binding rubbed and slightly stained; spine somewhat worn, with a few small holes; title page slightly damp-stained, with 2 small marginal holes and partially erased ink-stamp to bottom margin; light water-staining to top margin of a few opening leaves; last 3 leaves with some marginal worming (text not affected); o/w a bright, wide-margined example with musical examples in text.