Sethus Calvisius. Melopoeia
Sethus Calvisius’ Melopoeia (1592) is modestly presented by the author as a brief textbook of musical - mainly polyphonic - composition. In fact, the Melopoeia with its 21 chapters and extensive Prologue is a monument of 16th-century German culture set up by a Renaissance humanist for whom history, classical philology, mathematics, rhetoric, and other sciences were as much components of musica poetica as they were ‘mere precepts’ for composing music. This publication includes a complete edition of the original text of the Melopoeia and its translation into Russian, with modern transcriptions of more than 150 original illustrations. The edition is introduced by the article Melopoeia by Sethus Calvisius in the History of Musicology by Sergey N. Lebedev and Arina M. Saltykova, which presents a systematic overview of the scholar and didactic matters in the treatise, describes the author’s background and features of his style, identifies the main advantages and shortcomings of his doctrine.