Giovanni Maria Artusi was a devoted pupil of Gioseffo Zarlino, the leading Italian music theorist of the late sixteenth century. Artusi studied under Zarlino in Venice and remained loyal to him throughout his life, fully embracing and defending his teacher’s theoretical views on counterpoint and tuning. When Vincenzo Galilei attacked Zarlino in 1581, Artusi publicly supported his teacher and upheld the traditional contrapuntal ideals Zarlino represented.
Artusi’s writings consistently reflect Zarlino’s influence, including his adherence to Zarlino’s principles of prepared dissonance, polyphonic balance, and traditional diatonic structures. His theoretical positions, especially in matters of counterpoint and tuning, were shaped directly by Zarlino’s teachings, and he explicitly described Zarlino as his master in his own works.
