Francesco Vallotti

Francesco Antonio Vallotti was an Italian music theorist, composer and pedagogue, one of the most respected intellectual figures of 18th-century sacred music. Born in Vercelli on 11 June 1697, he joined the Franciscan order in 1716 and was ordained in 1720. Before his formal studies in Padua under Antonio Callegari, he studied with G. A. Bissone at the church of St. Eusebius and was noticed by Padre Beccaria, who arranged for him to complete his novitiate in Chambéry around 1715. He also pursued studies in philosophy in Cuneo and theology in Padua.

In 1722 he became organist at the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua, and in 1728 he was appointed kapellmeister, a post he held for the rest of his long life, shaping the musical life of the city and training numerous students. During this period he worked closely with the theorist and composer Giuseppe Tartini. Vallotti was widely known as a composer of sacred music: Mass sections, hymns, psalm settings and Vespers, and many of his works remained unpublished and survived only in manuscript form.

His surviving output consists exclusively of sacred compositions, including introits, Kyries, Glorias, Credos, psalm settings, Dies Irae settings, vespers, and responsories for various vocal and instrumental forces. He also orchestrated forty-three sacred works by his former master Callegari and an Introit in five voices by Porta.

Vallotti’s greatest legacy lies in his theoretical writings. His multi-volume treatise On the Scientific Theory and Practice of Modern Music (completed in 1779 and fully published in 1950) introduced an original system of unequal temperament: six tempered fifths each reduced by one-sixth of the Pythagorean comma and six pure fifths. This Vallotti temperament, closely related to a system later described by Johann Heinrich Jung, is now widely used in historically informed performances of Baroque music. His detailed exploration of the relationship between meantone, Pythagorean and intermediate tunings reflected the prevailing intonational ideals of the 18th century.

Among Vallotti’s notable pupils were Abbé Vogler and L. A. Sabbatini, who helped transmit his ideas to the next generation. Vallotti died in Padua on 10 January 1780.

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