Regole, passaggi di musica, madrigali et motetti passeggiati

The treatise is one of the fundamental works on ornamentation for singers and instrumentalists in the late 16th century. Prior English translations had difficulties rendering some of Bovicelli’s more abstruse terminology and showed gaps in understanding of the performing context or the shades of meaning in Italian of the period. None included a modern edition of the music examples. A complete modern Italian edition contains extensive explanatory notes, but even this has errors.
Therefore, Septenary took the decision to create a new edition with preface, glossary and side-by-side translation. Appropriate reference works on historical Italian vocabulary and grammar, and dictionaries from the early 17th century, were used to clarify linguistic difficulties. Footnotes were used to give readers insight into the reasons for particular interpretative choices.

A number of errors in previous translations were identified and corrected: for example, the verb ‘compartire’, in context referring to word underlay, was incorrectly rendered in one case as ‘appointing’. A clearer understanding of certain more elusive terms was achieved: for example, the terms ‘accento’ and ‘tremolo’, which Bovicelli uses slightly differently from some contemporaries. The translation and presentation make it significantly easier to use the treatise practically. My 2021 recording ‘Con Arte e Maestria’ is one example of a creative response to this.