Giovanni Artusi

Giovanni Maria Artusi was an Italian music theorist and composer of the late Renaissance. He is known for his staunchly conservative views on polyphonic practice and for his outspoken critique of the emerging early Baroque style. His contributions to music theory — particularly on counterpoint and the use of dissonance in relation to text expression — were influential in his time. As a composer, he wrote in an older style, including a book of canzonettas for four voices and a cantata for eight voices.

Artusi was deeply devoted to his teacher Gioseffo Zarlino and defended him in the heated polemic with Vincenzo Galilei. He shared Zarlino’s theoretical principles on counterpoint, although he rejected Ptolemy’s syntonic diatonic system, arguing instead for Aristoxenus’s principle of equal tones and semitones to meet the needs of modern instrumental music. His writings show a meticulous interest in the treatment of dissonance, which he viewed as a powerful expressive device, even allowing the resolution of a fourth into a tritone or a minor second into a unison in specific contexts.

His major works include the multi-part L’arte del contraponto (1586, 1589, 1598) and his famous two-volume treatise L’Artusi, overo Delle imperfettioni della moderna musica (1600, 1603), in which he sharply criticized what he perceived as the excessive chromaticism, unprepared dissonances, and improper modal combinations of a contemporary composer later revealed as Claudio Monteverdi. This controversy, which continued through responses by both Claudio and Giulio Cesare Monteverdi, became central to defining the distinction between prima pratica and seconda pratica, concepts Artusi helped bring into discourse, though he himself insisted that rhythm — not text — should dominate vocal polyphony.

Artusi spent much of his life as a scholar and cleric associated with the Congregation of Santissimo Salvatore in Bologna. Only two musical works of his survive: the First Book of Canzonettas for four voices (1599) and the eight-voice setting of the psalm Cantate Domino (1599). His theoretical legacy continued to shape discussions of Renaissance and early Baroque aesthetics, and later scholarship has explored the broader cultural and intellectual implications of his dispute with Monteverdi.

Connections

This figure has 1 connection in the art history graph.