PATRIZIO BARBIERI QUARRELS ON HARMONIC THEORIES IN THE VENETIAN ENLIGHTENMENT Lucca: LIM, 2020 pp. xiv + 372, isbn 978 8 855 43022 7

Abstract

Patrizio Barbieri is well known as a prolific researcher with a large number of publications on acoustics, organology and harmonic theories in seventeenthand eighteenth-century Italy, as well as on theatrical architecture. His five books and his articles – mostly in Italian – published during the last thirty years form a substantial and often pioneering contribution to these fields. One such domain – tuning and temperaments, and their role in shaping the reconceptualization of harmonic systems and organization of tonal space – still remains terra incognita for numerous scholars. Many significant theories and figures involved in this area have either been undervalued or overlooked altogether. In their time, the organization of pitch that eventually led to common-practice tonality occasioned tempestuous pan-European debates, owing particularly to these theories’ inevitable collision with the canonized theories of Jean-Philippe Rameau. Barbieri’s new monograph is a collection of chapters forming a coherent narrative of the theoretical issues underlying the harmonic theories generated and preached in the capital city and mainland of the Venetian republic. The intellectual-ideological climate in the Apennines during the eighteenth century was especially patchy and composed of various – sometimes opposing – vectors. Illuminismo catolico, a reform movement mediating between the new sciences and the religious dogma associated with the cultural hegemony of Roman Catholicism, achieved maximum support in the Holy See, Papal States and Naples. Concurrently, Newtonianism found resistance in regions and institutions that remained wedded to the Galileian experimental tradition, such as Pisa. Scientific discourse was influenced by local traditions and political differences and was closely interwoven with various theological doctrines ranging from that of the Society of Jesus, for whom Newtonianism became part of their scientific culture, to the Naturphilosophie preached by Franciscans. As Nicola Badaloni, Vincenzo Ferrone and Paolo Preto have shown, the Venetian Enlightenment developed new orientations. The models brought together were Libertinism, antagonism to the Roman Counter-Reformation, and the Galilean experimental tradition, with a reserved attitude to the underlying premises of Newton’s theories. The current volume presents Barbieri’s previously published texts in a revised and expanded form, in an English translation by Ken Hurry and Hugh Ward-Perkins. It is divided into two parts made up of six and five substantial chapters, and includes a Preface-Conspectus, bibliography, and name and thematic indices. Appendices that present mostly inaccessible sources are attached to the end of each chapter. The chapters are clearly organized and structured identically, each one being preceded by a brief synopsis and concluded by a recapitulation of the main points. All original quotations are given with meticulous parallel translation. This structural clarity and uniformity helps the reader to grasp the main ideas of what is demanding reading, in which discussion of mathematical calculations, geometrical manipulations and physical experiments forms a large part. Although the material of all but one chapter originally appeared in Barbieri’s first published monograph (Acustica, accordatura e temperamento nell’Illuminismo veneto (Rome: Torre d’Orfeo, \uf644\uf64c\uf64b\uf64a)) and in various other volumes, the Quarrels makes them approachable for a global audience for the first time. Eighteenth-Century Music \uf644\uf64b/\uf645, \uf645\uf64c\uf648–\uf646\uf645\uf644 © The Author(s), \uf645\uf643\uf645\uf644. Published by Cambridge University Press