Canto Harmonico...Col quale sì può arriuare alla perfetta cognitione del Canto Fermo

Modena: Heirs of G. Cassiani, 1690. Contemporary tan calf (worn) decorated with ten tools. The wide outer frame has gilt rules around a daisy roll, interrupted in the middle of each side with blind impressions of drawer handles and at the corners with interlacing vines and foliage. A narrow gilt vine roll sets off the large partly azured inner corner ornaments in blind. The center of the blind scrollwork central cartouche is gilt. The flat spine has drawer handles repeated in the four compartments (crown and base repaired); evidence of four leather ties, edges mottled red.

            Only Edition. "One of the finest works written on the subject...of excessive rarity" (Fétis, tr.), the book is rarely found complete with all three engravings, as here. It deals with chant - alone and as the basis of new polyphonic compositions. Its five parts and some eighty-five chapters of increasing complexity cover the basics of plainchant, the eight standard church modes and practical aspects of singing.
            The separately paginated final section concerns polyphonic song with exactly measured notes and offers whole portions of the mass in figured settings (50p.). The nine-hundred-entry alphabetic index and table of contents serve teacher and student. A Franciscan monk, the author's family name was Guicciardi. He dedicated this, his only book, to the local head of his order.
            The Cassiani family dominated 17th-century music printing in Modena. In their final years they issued four books on plain chant in rapid succession, of which this is the last. Printed on poor paper (somewhat browned throughout, four headlines shaved), bookplate and stamp of pianist, conductor, and collector of music books, Alfred Cortot (1877-1962).
¶Fétis, Biographie universelle des musiciens I: 101; Cortot, Bibliothèque. Première partie. Théorie de la musique 6; Meyer & Hirsch, Katalog der Musikbibliothek Paul Hirsch I: 412 (no plates); Wolffheim, Versteigerung der Musikbibliothek (11-12.VI.1928) I: 412 "Selten" (lacking two plates); RISM Écrits imprimés concernant la musique B/VI1 87 and RISM A/I/1 A-1074; Sartori, Dizionario degli editori musicali italiani 44.