Ottaviano Petrucci was an Italian printer in the 15th century who invented a method for printing music using movable type. This allowed music to be printed and distributed more widely for the first time. Previously, all music had to be hand-copied in manuscripts. Petrucci published the first book of printed sheet music, the Odhecaton, in 1501 using a technique that required three impressions. Later, Pierre Attaignant developed a single-impression method in 1528 that made printing music much more efficient and helped music publishing achieve mass production for the first time. Petrucci's invention transformed how music was produced and distributed.

1. FROM
MANUSCRIPTS
TO PRINTED MUSIC
Ottaviano Petrucci and his invention
Lecture by Andrea Angelini - Italy

2. Printing?
When we think to the word “printing” or “print” in
general, what comes in mind? How important is
printing in our life? Does it effect practically
everything that we do on a day to day basis?
I believe that it does, regardless of our profession in
life! Weather we are reading notes on a piece of
music from Vivaldi’s Gloria or reading at the menu
at the restaurant!

3. The History of Printing Music
However, in this lecture I am not going to
talk about the history of printing verbal
text, but instead the
HISTORY OF PRINTING MUSIC

4. Difference in printing
There is a difference between the two
types of verbal text printing and music
printing. In a verbal text, the letters on the
page, which form words, represent a
concept to be conveyed by the eye to the
brain. In music, the notes on the page are
primarily an instruction to bring into
action lungs or fingers.

6. The Manuscripts
efore the advent of Gutenberg
and his printing press, all music
was copied out by hand, an
expensive and time-consuming
process. Consequently, little music
prior to the 16th century remains;
the majority that is extant is
sacred music of the Catholic
church. The priests and monks of
the church spent large amounts
of time painstakingly copying the
chants for every day of the
church year.

7. The Manuscripts (secular music)
We have very little secular music prior to
1500. The collections we do have were
owned by wealthy noblemen, such as the
Squarcialupi Codex, of Italian Trecento
music, or the Chantilly Codex of French
Ars subtilior music. (the manneristic compositional
school centered around Avignon at the end of 1400)

8. The Manuscripts (secular music)
Squarcialupi Codex Chantilly Codex

9. What are illuminated
manuscripts?
"Illustrated manuscripts" or "illuminated
books," refers to books produced in the
Medieval era that were filled with
illustrations and texts. In order to produce
a manuscript, medieval artisans first had to
acquire animal skins. Vellum (calfskin) and
Parchment (lambskin) were widely used
in the Medieval era. These skins were
cleaned, stretched, and cut to the desired
measurements. The final stage of the
process included lining the page, enabling
the writer to produce orderly text. Empty
space for illustrations were also set
aside, as well as preliminary drawings.
Pages were later attached to a cover
(usually a leather binding) and closed with
a buckle or rope.

10. Technique
The artists themselves used
several tools during the
process of illumination,
including: compasses, a stylus,
knives (used for scratching out
mistakes and smoothing down
animal skin), graphite (used for
preliminary drawings), and
various brushes for applying
colored inks or paints. The ink
or paint was sometimes stored
in horns on the artist’s table,
enabling him easy access and
storage of materials.

11. This manuscript is one of the most beautiful and elaborately illuminated chant
manuscripts of the Capella Sistina collection. It was written for the great patron of the
arts, Pope Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici) (1513-21)
The final result

12. Johannes Gutenberg
Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398 -
February 3, 1468) was a German
goldsmith and printer who
introduced modern book printing.
His invention of mechanical
movable type printing started the
Printing Revolution and is widely
regarded the most important
event of the modern period. It
played a key role in the
development of the Renaissance,
Reformation and the Scientific
Revolution and layed the material
basis for the modern knowledge-
based economy and the spread of
learning to the masses.

13. The two “facts” of Gutenberg

14. Manuscript and first printed
book
An example of Gothic textura script from a
15th-century manuscript. HRC manuscript
collections.
Large initial letter and rubrications,
Gutenberg Bible, vol I, fol. 311r.

16. The first printed music book
The first printed book
containing music was the
Mainz Psalter, produced by
Guttenberg's successors, Fust
and Schoeffer, which also has
the historical distinction of
being the first book to be
printed in color. Notice the
careful wording of the
previous sentence. The Mainz
Psalter did not actually print
the music. Rather, the music
was added by hand after the
pages were printed.

17. An early example of music notes printed without the lines is Franciscus Niger's
Grammatica of 1480
Different ways to print music books

18. The next steps
And so, early printers of music were able to avoid all
issues of music typography by simply creating
woodcuts of the music, as if the music were
freeform illustrations, and this was done quite
frequently. For example, Franciscus Niger's
Grammatica of 1480 (an example of typeset notes
without staff lines) was reprinted in 1485 using
woodcuts instead. In 1487, the first complete
polyphonic composition printed with staves was
created, the Musices Opusculum printed by Ugo
Ruggerio in Bologna.

19. rinting with woodcuts, however, had
many technical difficulties. First,
mistakes made in carving the wood
were difficult, if not impossible to
correct. Second, the frail nature of
wood (in comparison to metal) meant
that woodcuts could only be used for
a limited number of printings before
staff lines and note stems began to
break off. This was made even more
difficult by the nature of music
notation, which is primarily made up
of thin lines (unlike pictorial
illustration which is more flexible).
Finally, woodcuts were expensive to
produce and required skilled
craftsmen. For all these reasons,
woodcuts were most often limited to
small musical examples, such as might
be used for music theory textbooks.

20. Systems using multiple
impressions
Early examples of printing both staves and notes
with moveable type used multiple impressions to
print a single page. For example, a first impression
would be used for the words, a second for the staff
lines, and a third for the notes. This could be reduced
to two impressions: words and notes first and staff
lines last.

21. Ottaviano Petrucci, a true
printer
Ottaviano Petrucci (18 June
1466 – 7 May 1539) was an Italian
printer. Petrucci is credited with
producing, in 1501, the first book
of sheet music printed from
movable type: Odhecaton, a
collection of chansons. He also
published numerous works by the
most highly regarded composers
of the Renaissance, including
Josquin des Prez and Antoine
Brumel.

22. Petrucci method
Petrucci was the first printer to use movable type, the first to print in
quantity, and the first to print the polyphonic music which was the
predominant style at the time.
Petrucci's technique required three impressions; each sheet of music
would be run through the presses once for the staves, once for the
music, and once for the words. Petrucci was highly successful at this
enterprise; his publications are quite exact and beautifully executed.
However, other printers using this method sometimes offset their
prints slightly, which could result in notes being printed too high or
too low on the staff – and thus jarringly incorrect for performers.
Petrucci's method was soon superseded by the innovations attributed
to Pierre Attaignant, who developed and popularized the single-
impression method of printing in 1528.

23. The first edition of the Odhecaton (Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A) does not survive
complete, and the exact publication date is not known, but it includes a dedication dated
May 15, 1501.
Harmonice Musices Odhecaton

24. Odhecaton: Nenciozza mia
(Japart)

25. Dedication of the Odhecaton
"Printing has lately become an art in which many fine gentlemen have
been trying to outdo each other every day, but no one has ever been
able to find a way to print measured music. Yet we can neither praise
God nor celebrate weddings without such music, which is indeed
called for at every joyous occasion in life," Petrucci wrote in the
dedication of the Odhecaton, published in 1501. The word odhecaton is a
combination of two Greek words, ode, meaning "song" and
hecaton, meaning "one hundred." In fact, there are ninety-six three-, four-
, and five-part compositions in the collection.

26. Pierre Attaignant
Before 1527 Pierre Attaignant
(1492-1551) began using a newly
invented moveable music type, in
which a fragment of a musical
staff was combined with a note
on each piece of type. He used
the new type in a book of
chansons, Chansons Nouvelles
(1528). Because Attaignant's
single-impression method halved
the time and labour formerly
needed to print music, it was
quickly adopted throughout
Europe. Attaignant was the first
to use the printing press to
achieve mass production in music
publishing.