On Compositional Process in the Fifteenth Century

1987 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie J. Blackburn
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Current View ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Musica Poetica ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ultimate Result ◽  
Harmonic Composition ◽  
Correct Understanding ◽  
Inner Voices

The change from "successive composition" to "simultaneous conception" is one of the great turning points in the history of music. The latter term, derived from Pietro Aaron's allusion to the method of composition used by modern composers, does not correctly convey Aaron's meaning. He said that modern composers "take all the parts into consideration at once," disposing them in different ranges and thus allowing the avoidance of awkward clashes between the inner voices. This more harmonic orientation finds confirmation in the writings of Giovanni Spataro, whose theory of harmony, later developed by Zarlino, contradicts a current view of fifteenth-century music as purely intervallic counterpoint founded on a superius-tenor framework in which the bass is nonstructural and nonessential. The theory is grounded in the functional role of dissonance, adumbrated a century earlier in the treatise by Goscalcus. Discussion of the new compositional process can already be found fifty years earlier in the writings of Johannes Tinctoris. That this has not been recognized is due to persistent confusion over the term res facta. The key to comprehending this term lies in a correct understanding of what Tinctoris meant by counterpoint: it is not what we today call counterpoint but successive composition. Res facta differs from counterpoint in that each voice must be related to every other voice so that no improper dissonances appear between them. This method, "harmonic composition," could be quasi-simultaneous or successive; the criterion is the ultimate result-the finished work of art. Res facta is both a method of composition and a term that denotes a work composed in this manner, analogous to Listenius's opus perfectum et absolutum. The musica poetica of the sixteenth century is the legacy of res facta, and the two terms are indirectly connected. The new process of composition is the foundation for Tinctoris's delineation of an ars nova beginning about 1437, a date that may have been chosen in recognition of its first great representation in Dufay's Nuper rosarum flores.

Malacca's Early Kings and the Reception of Islam

1964 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher H. Wake
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Early History ◽  
Current View ◽  
World War ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

The sources for the early history of Malacca are so meagre, and often so contradictory, that not only is the detail in some doubt but the whole framework of events rests on an uncertain foundation. Dates ranging from the middle of the fifteenth century back to the eighth have at various times been proposed for the foundation of Malacca, and considerable uncertainty has surrounded both the identity and sequence of the early kings and the time and manner of their conversion to Islam. As a result of evidence which has come to light within the last thirty years, notably the Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires and a partially deciphered inscription, from Sumatra, the current view of the early history of Malacca differs materially from that which was generally held before the second world war. Whereas it was then believed that there were four kings before Sultan Muzaftar Shah and that two or three of them were severally converted to Islam, it is now held that there were only three kings and only one conversion, and that this took place in the reign of the first king, about the year 1414. In view of the nature of the evidence upon which this latest interpretation rests it will be useful to review the king-list and the question of the conversion in some detail.

scholarly journals The Influence of Milan on the Development of the Lombard Koiné in Fifteenth-Century Italy: the Letters of Elisabetta of Pavia

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Brown
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Religious Writings ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Tendency ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Development Of Language ◽  
The One

The main tendency characterizing the development of language in Lombardy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is the formation of a koiné. The extent to which Milan influenced the Lombard koiné is the subject of ongoing debate. On the one hand, scholars suggest that Milan provided a centralizing force for the “Milanization” of other Lombard vernaculars, similar to what occurred for Piedmont and the Veneto. On the other hand, studies have pointed out that Milan was not a centralizing force for the Lombard koiné and that it remains to be verified whether the prestige of Milanese influenced non-Milanese vernaculars. This paper looks at the extent to which Milan influenced the koiné in fifteenth-century Lombardy. I consider eight linguistic items, previously described as unique to the vernacular of Pavia, to verify their presence or absence in a corpus of religious writings from the fifteenth-century nun Elisabetta of Pavia and whether Milanese items can be identified. I consider aspects of phonology and morphology in Elisabetta’s letters and conclude that her language is best characterized as a pre-koiné. The article concludes by arguing for less emphasis on the role of Milan in histories of the vernacular in Lombardy. This finding has implications for the history of non-literary writing in northern Italy and the importance attributed to capital cities in processes of koineization.

Eating the World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candice Goucher
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Dinner Table ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Indigenous Foods

This essay follows the iguana, an indigenous genus of herbivorous lizards, to the Caribbean dinner table, from the fifteenth century to the present. Inspired by historian Jerry Bentley’s scholarly contributions to questions of cultural encounters, the essay argues for the importance of indigenous foods in complex, often ambiguous, and consistently nuanced processes of cultural interactions between indigenous peoples and transplanted Europeans, Asians, and Africans. The story of how and why the iguana consistently appeared in the region’s foodways provides a critical perspective on the history of globalization in the Atlantic world. Mapping the variety of these culinary experiences can also reveal insights into the Caribbean’s changing ecology and the role of indigenous beliefs and African interpretations in the eco-cultural encounters that reshaped the flavors and choices of the region.

A Victory Tower Built by a Slave: The Chand Minar at Daulatabad in Deccan India

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-76
Author(s):  
Mohit Manohar
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Islamic Architecture ◽  
Major Work ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Military Victory

Abstract The Chand Minar (1446) at Daulatabad Fort is one of the tallest pre-modern stone minarets in the world and has long been recognized as a major work of Indo-Islamic architecture. Yet surprisingly little is known about the building: its iconography and the reason for its construction have not been established; even its height is frequently misreported by half. The present article analyzes the building’s architecture and urban context and critically reads its inscriptions against the Tārīkh-i Firishta (ca. 1610), the main primary text for the history of the medieval Deccan. In so doing, the article demonstrates that issues of race shaped the courtly politics in the Deccan at the time of the minaret’s construction. The Chand Minar was commissioned by Parvez bin Qaranful, an African military slave, who dedicated the building to the Bahmani sultan ʿAla⁠ʾ al-Din Ahmad II (r. 1436–58). The article shows that the building commemorated the role of African and Indian officers in a 1443 military victory of the Bahmani sultanate (1347–1527) against the Vijayanagara empire (1336–1664). The construction of the Chand Minar impressed upon Ahmad II the importance of retaining in his court dark-skinned officers from India and Africa (dakkaniyān) at a time when their standing was threatened by the lighter-skinned gharībān, who had immigrated from the western Islamic regions. The article thus presents a detailed study of an important but neglected monument while shedding new light on racial factionalism in the fifteenth-century Deccan.

THE PLEA ROLLS OF THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS: AN UNUSED SOURCE FOR THE ART AND HISTORY OF LATER MEDIEVAL ENGLAND, 1422–1509

2015 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 157-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A Danbury ◽  
Kathleen L Scott
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Art History ◽  
Great Emphasis ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Land Inheritance ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Contemporary Context

The court of Common Pleas was one of the most important courts in the English legal system for more than 600 years, until its abolition by Act of Parliament in 1873. The cases heard before this royal court were civil disputes between the king’s subjects, often relating to land, inheritance and debts. The purpose of this paper is to introduce readers to the ornament and imagery that appeared on the headings of the main records of the court of Common Pleas between 1422 and 1509 and to explore the origins and contemporary context of the images and representations employed by the clerk-artists who wrote and decorated these headings. The decoration they chose ranged from simple ornament to representations of plants, birds, animals and people. Great emphasis was placed on the role of the sovereign as the fount of justice, and this emphasis was reinforced by the incorporation of words and phrases, acclamations and verses from the Psalms chosen to underline the majesty and power of successive monarchs. The illustrations provide an important insight into the art, history and politics of late fifteenth-century England.

scholarly journals Costabili Palace and the Architecture “All’Antica” in Ferrara at the End of the XV Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (special issue) ◽  
pp. 173-198
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Building Site ◽  
Eastern Area ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
Stylistic Elements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Architectural Language ◽  
The City ◽  
Masonry Units

Costabili Palace, also known as Ludovico “il Moro” (Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan) Palace, is located in Ferrara on the ancient Ghiara road, occupying the corner that it forms with via Porta d'Amore, in the south-eastern area of the city. Attributed to the architect Biagio Rossetti (1447-1516) it represents, by size and formal wealth, begun but never completed, the most ambitious palace of the Renaissance in Ferrara. Commissioned by Count Antonio Costabili (1450-1527) at the end of the Fifteenth century, the construction was interrupted in 1503. Of four sides of its court only two were built in their rich and cultured architectural language, and only half of the main façade was sketched. Through the unpublished archival research carried out, crossed with the direct study of the building by surveying the relevant stylistic elements, helped by a proportional analysis and the reading of the stratigraphic masonry units, this doctoral research retraces the history of the construction. This work has clarified the role of the artists involved and their relationship with the strong personality of the client Antonio Costabili, ambassador in Milan of the Duke of Ferrara (Ercole I d’Este) from the year 1496 until the year 1499, one of the most representative intellectuals of his time thanks to a solid humanistic and artistic education. From a systematic study of an unfinished building site the precise design of the Costabili Palace will emerge as expression of a clear linguistic and lexical intention, called “all’antica”, inspired to the Roman classical architecture. The proposed research is wondering about the real contribution that the architectural culture in Ferrara at the end of the Fifteenth century, highly represented by the Costabili Palace, offers to the broader context of the Renaissance courts.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Jyoti Gulati Balachandran
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Textual Production ◽  
History Of

The Introduction establishes the historical and historiographical context for the production of Persian narrative texts in Gujarat in the fifteenth century. It emphasizes the role of Sufi texts as sites where an expanding Muslim community’s past in Gujarat was narrated and negotiated. At the same time, it places this development within a longer history of Muslim settlements and Sufi textual production in the subcontinent. The Introduction further discusses the importance of spatial contexts for the dissemination of texts, primarily Sufi residences and tomb-shrines, and in creating a regional identity and a history of the Muslim community that was unique to Gujarat.

scholarly journals The Role of Astronomy in the History of Science

1990 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 45-46
Author(s):  
James MacLachlan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Astronomical Observations ◽  
Precise Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
Motion Studies

This historian of science offers a few samples of the kinds of understandings his students will be subjected to. (a) In early times, Britons used careful observations of astronomical events to establish their calendar; (b) In the 4th century BC, Aristotle used the spheres of Eudoxus to establish his cosmological principles; (c) In the second century of our era, Ptolemy made astronomy scientific, partly for the sake of astrological predictions; (d) In the fifteenth century, Columbus used crude astronomical observations to find latitude, (e) In the sixteenth century, Copernicus revised Ptolemaic astronomy in order to improve its fit with Aristotelian cosmology, and in the process challenged that cosmology; (f) Kepler used Tycho’s more precise data to destroy heavenly circularity; (g) In the early seventeenth century, Galileo based his renovation of motion studies on the investigative style he learned from Ptolemy, coupled with mathematics learned from Euclid and Archimedes.

Elaborating the role of reflection and individual differences in the study of folk-economic beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Arceneaux
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Beliefs

AbstractIntuitions guide decision-making, and looking to the evolutionary history of humans illuminates why some behavioral responses are more intuitive than others. Yet a place remains for cognitive processes to second-guess intuitive responses – that is, to be reflective – and individual differences abound in automatic, intuitive processing as well.

The role of a family history of adenocarcinomas in patients with Barrett oesophagus

2001 ◽  
Vol 120 (5) ◽  
pp. A442-A442
Author(s):  
P TSIBOURIS ◽  
M HENDRICKSE ◽  
P ISAACS
Keyword(s):  
Family History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Barrett Oesophagus
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