What Arthur Ness says is very interesting, I have just one doubt: was a
servant really as expensive as today, or should we rather consider the price
of a horse versus a car?

Anyway, something more about money used in Italy in the  XVI Century:

1 lira -libbra (1 pound of silver = 408gr) = 20 soldi= 240 denari=960
quattrini
1 denaro= 1,7 grams of silver =4 ( or two) quattrini
The system was created in 790 AD as above and mantained until the French
Revolution introduced the decimal system (everywhere but in Great Britain).

In Genoa a pound (317grams) of meat cost 2 soldi in 1500 , a servant boy
or
a cleaner ( woman) earned 6 soldi a day, an adult ( man) about 10-15 soldi
a
day according to the kind of job ( ="mestiere " -craft). I don't know about
Rome, but according to this the  cost of lute music described was equivalent
to two days work of a craftsman.

Before Gutemberg things were different: in Pavia's University doctor Sylanus
Niger in 1400 had a library of about 30 medical books, valued 133 1\2
fiorini, while the lawyer Jacopo De Ascheriis had 15 books about law
estimated 385 fiorini. Two  "antifonari" ( books of prayers and music) in
Pavia in 1495 cost 55 fiorini (38 of which to write words and music). A
University  Professor in Pavia in 1435 could earn from 10 to 50 fiorini
a
year.


Donatella

http://spazioinwind.libero.it/donatella_galletti/index.htm

----- Original Message -----
From: "Arthur Ness (boston)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "LUTE NET" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 7:18 PM
Subject: Re: The cost of lute music


> I think if one were to investigate the price of score in the 16th century,
> you would find that their high price made them accessible only to wealthy
> persons.  (And many professional lutenists were wealthy.) I once looked
> into the price of high quality paper in 16th century Augsburg, paper of
the
> kind one would use to copy lute music.  A ream of folio sized paper (about
> 9x12) in Augsburg cost the equivalent of a kitchen servant's monthly
> salary.  Today a ream of highest quality paper could be bought with three
> hour's work by a dishwasher.  I should also have checked the price of
other
> items in daily use, such as a loaf of bread.
>
> The cost of copying pieces onto that paper was probably rather modest
o9n
> those days if one hired a professional scribe.  The salaries were probably
> rather low because there were so many of them (like lawyers today).  The
> Augsburg guild of scribes refused to take apprinetices unless they agreed
> to leave Augsburg when their training ended, because of the glut of
> scribes.  So it would probably be rather inexpensive to have tablatures
> copied, and from time to time one does encounter what is surely the work
of
> a professional scribe.  I have wondered how easy it was to purchsase a
> handwritten book of lute music in a stationer's shop. I do know one
> instance of such a manuscript.. Some stationers had equipment for drawing
> stave lines (not just a rastral).
>
> Not too much has been studied about professional scriptoria, althogh we
are
> coming to realize that many music publishers also sold music copied by
> hand, perhaps on demand.  The most famous was the Breitkopf scirptorium
in
> Leipzig during the 18th century.  They had music from throughout Euroipe
> and would on order [rovide hadnwritten copies.   They even published
famous
> thematic catlaogues of their offerings, including some tablatures with
> music by SLWeiss, some of which has not survived.  The largest collection
> of lute music from the Breitkopf scriptorium is from the library of
Fétis,
> the 19th-century music lexicographer, whose library went to the Royal
> Library in Brussels.  These are the concertos, partitas, suites etc. that
> so many of you play by Kohaut, Durand, Falkenhagen, Hagen, Weiss, Baron,
> Kropfgans, et al.  Fétis bought three or four bundles of music from the
> Breitkopf auction of 1820. The auction lot numbers are still on the music.
>
>



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