Dictionary of Italian Music Publishers: From the Beginnings to the Mid-18th Century

The research project on Italian music publishing, promoted by the Italian Society of Musicology and directed by Bianca Maria Antolini, with a scientific committee composed of Alberto Basso, Jeffrey Kurtzman, François Lesure, Agostina Zecca Laterza, and Agostino Ziino, has finally reached completion. Its first outcome was the Dictionary of Italian Music Publishers 1750–1930, edited by B.M. Antolini, published by ETS in Pisa in 2000.

In 2019, the same publishing house issued the volume Dictionary of Italian Music Publishers: From the Origins to the Mid-Eighteenth Century, edited by Bianca Maria Antolini. In recent years, the drafting of the entries on music publishers has benefited from many important studies on music publishing production in the Ancien Régime, as well as from the bibliographic and historical research tools made available by new technologies, which have made it possible to cross-reference a vast amount of data and to examine a large number of editions more easily than in the past. The volume includes 385 entries, based on in-depth archival research and an extensive examination of the editions themselves. It encompasses the various figures involved in the printed publication of music, from the incunabula to the mid-eighteenth century: printers, publishers, engravers, booksellers, and editorial curators. As in the previous volume, each individual entry defines the activity and chronological coordinates, outlines the history of the publishing house, the technical characteristics of the editions, and the repertoire and authors published. Particular cases are treated in detail.

The volume opens with three essays: Bianca Maria Antolini outlines the characteristics of music publishing in the period under consideration; Licia Sirch offers a detailed examination of the different printing techniques; Saverio Franchi devotes several observations to music publishing within the broader history of printing and publishing. The volume concludes with an extensive bibliography and a series of indexes. The book is offered to members of the Italian Society of Musicology with a 25% discount and free shipping within Italy.

On Saturday, 19 May 2018, a meeting was held at the International Museum of Music in Bologna, during which the results of the project were discussed.

Contributors: Bianca Maria Antolini, Rodolfo Baroncini, Paola Besutti, Carmela Bongiovanni, Alessandra Chiarelli, Barbara Cipollone, Luigi Collarile, Alba Crea, Gianluca D’Agostino, Maria Grazia Dalai, Domenico Antonio D’Alessandro, Antonio Dell’Olio, Elsa De Luca, Dinko Fabris, Saverio Franchi, Piero Gargiulo, Teresa M. Gialdroni, Giulia Giovani, Maria Girardi, Marco Gozzi, Nicoletta Guidobaldi, Marinella Laini, Maria Rosa Moretti, Francesca Muccioli, Caterina Pampaloni, Francesco Passadore, Chiara Pelliccia, Francesco Rocco Rossi, Mariella Sala, Marco Salvarani, Licia Sirch, Anna Tedesco, Marina Toffetti, Maria Tomasi, Claudio Toscani, Marina Vaccarini.
Editorial coordination: Chiara Pelliccia
Indexes: Maria Borghesi

Contents

• Foreword
• Bianca Maria Antolini, Music Publishing in Italy: From the Incunabula to the Mid-Eighteenth Century
• Licia Sirch, From Another Perspective: The Techniques and Processes of Music Printing in Italy (15th–19th Century)
• Saverio Franchi, Italian Music Publishing from Its Origins to the Eighteenth Century in the Context of the History of Printing and Publishing
• Abbreviations and bibliographical sigla
• Dictionary of Italian Music Publishers, from the Origins to the Mid-Eighteenth Century
• General bibliography
• Index of names