ARETIN, Guido, famous for his musical improvements, lived in the 13th century. He was a native of Arezzo, a city in Tuscany; and having been taught the practice of music in his youth, and being probably retained as a chorister in the service of the Benedictine monastery founded in that city, he became a monk professed, and a brother of the order of St Benedict.

In this retirement he seems to have devoted himself to the study of music, particularly the system of the ancients, [7:3:480]and, above all, to reform their method of notation. The difficulties that attended the instruction of youth in the church offices were so great, that, as he himself says, ten years were generally consumed barely in acquiring the knowledge of the plain song; and this consideration induced him to labour after some amendment,—some method that might facilitate instruction, and enable those employed in the choral office to perform the duties of it in a correct and decent manner. Were we to credit those legendary accounts that are extant in old monkish manuscripts, we should believe he was assisted in his pious intention by immediate communications from heaven. Some speak of the invention of the syllables as the effect of inspiration; and Guido himself seems to have been of the same opinion, by his saying it was revealed to him by the Lord, or, as some interpret his words, in a dream. Graver historians say, that being at vespers in the chapel of his monastery, it happened that one of the offices appointed for that day was the hymn to St John,—
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During the performance of the hymn, he remarked the iteration of the words, and the frequent returns of uτ, re, mi, fa, sol, la. He observed likewise a dissimilarity between the closeness of the syllable mi and broad open sound of fa, which, he thought, could not fail to impress upon the mind a lasting idea of their congruity; and immediately conceived a thought of applying these six syllables to perfect an improvement either then actually made by him, or under consideration, viz. that of converting the ancient tetrachords into hexachords.

Struck with the discovery, he retired to his study, and having perfected his system, began to introduce it into practice. The persons to whom fie communicated it were the brethren of his own monastery, from whom it met with but a cold reception, which he ascribed to envy. However, his interest with the abbot, and his employment in the chapel, gave him an opportunity of trying the efficacy of his method on the boys who were training up for the choral service, and it exceeded the most sanguine expectation. “To the admiration of all,” says Cardinal Baronius, “a boy thereby learnt, in a few months, what no man, though of great ingenuity, could before that attain in several years.”

The fame of Guido’s invention soon spread abroad, and his method of instruction was adopted by the clergy of other countries. We are told by Kircher, that Herman-nus, bishop of Hamburg, and Elviricus, bishop of Osnaburg, made use of it; and by the authors of the Histoire Littéraire de la France, that it was received in that country, and taught in all the monasteries in the kingdom. It is certain that the reputation of his great skill in music had excited in the pope a desire to see and converse with him; of which, and of his going to Rome for that purpose, and the reception he met with from the pontiff, he himself has given a circumstantial account in the epistle hereafter mentioned.

It seems that John XX., or, as some writers compute, the nineteenth, pope of that name, having heard of the fame of Guido s school, and conceiving a desire to see him, sent three messengers to invite him to Rome. Upon their arrival, it was resolved by the brethren of the monastery that he should go thither attended by Grimaldo the abbot, and Peter the chief of the canons of the church of Arezzo. Arriving at Rome, he was presented to the holy father, and by him received with great kindness. The pope had several conversations with him, in all which he interrogated him as to his knowledge in music; and upon sight of an antiphonary which Guido had brought with him, marked with the syllables agreeable to his new invention, the pope looked upon it as a kind of prodigy, and ruminating on the doctrines delivered by Guido, would not stir from his seat till he had learned perfectly to sing off a verse; upon which he declared that he could not have believed the efficacy of the method, if he had not been convinced by the experiment he had himself made of it. The pope would have detained him at Rome; but labouring under a bodily disorder, and fearing an injury to his health from the air of the place, and the heats of the summer, which was then approaching, Guido left that city upon a promise to revisit it, and explain to his holiness the principles of his new system. On his return homewards he made a visit to the abbot of Pomposa, a town in the duchy of Ferrara, who was very earnest to have Guido settle in the monastery of that place; to which invitation, it seems, he yielded, being, as he says, desirous of rendering so great a monastery still more famous by his studies there.

Here it was that he composed a tract on music, entitled Mierologus, i. e. a short discourse, which he dedicated to Theobald, bishop of Arezzo; and finished, as he himself at the end of it tells us, under the pontificate of John XX., and in the 34th year of his age. Vossius speaks also of another musical treatise written by him, and dedicated to the same person.

Most of the authors who have taken occasion to mention Guido, speak of the Micrologus as containing the sum of his doctrine; but it is in a small tract, entitled Argumentum novi Cantus inveniendi, that his declaration of his use of the syllables, with their several mutations, and in short his whole doctrine of solousation, is to be found. This tract makes part of an epistle to a very dear and intimate friend of Guido, whom he addresses thus, “Beatissimo atque dulcissimo fratri Michaeli,” at whose request the tract itself seems to have been composed.

Whether Guido was the author of any other tracts is not easy to determine. It nowhere appears that any of his works were ever printed, except that Baronins, in his Annales Ecclesiastici, tom. xi. p. 73, has given at length the epistle from him to his friend Michael of Pomposa, and that to Theobald, bishop of Arezzo, prefixed to the Micrologus; and yet the writers on music speak of the Micrologus as of a book in the hands of every one. Martini cites several manuscripts of Guido; namely, two in the Ambrosian library at Milan, the one written about the twelfth century, the other less ancient; another among the archives of the chapter of Pistoja, a city in Tuscany; and a third in the MedicoLaurenziano library at Florence, of the fifteenth century: these are clearly the Micrologus. Of the epistle to Michael of Pomposa, together with the Argumentum novi Cantus inveniendi, he mentions only one, which, he says, is somewhere at Ratisbon. Of the several tracts above mentioned, the last excepted, a manuscript is extant in the library of Baliol college in Oxford.

Aretin, Leonard, one of the most learned men of the fifteenth century, was secretary to the republic of Florence, and translated from the Greek into Latin some of the Lives of Plutarch, and Aristotle’s Ethics. He also composed three books of the Punic war, that may serve as a supplement to those wanting in Livy; the history of the transactions in Italy during his time; that of ancient Greece; that of the Goths; that of the republic of Florence; and many other books. He died in 1443, aged 74.

Aretin, Francis, a man of great reading, and well acquainted with the Greek language. He translated into Latin the Commentaries of St Chrysostom upon St John, and about 2Q homilies of the same father; he also trans [7:3:481]lated the Letters of Phalaris into Latin, and wrote a treatise De Balncis Puteolanis. He studied at Sienna about the year 1443, and afterwards taught law there with such reputation that they called him the Prince of Subtleties. He taught also in the university of Pisa, and in that of Ferrara.

Aretin, Peter, a native of Arezzo, who lived in the 16th century. He was famous for his satirical writings; and was so bold as to carry his invectives even against sovereigns, and from thence got the title of the Scourge of Princes. Francis I., the emperor Charles V., most of the princes of Italy, several cardinals, and many noblemen, courted his friendship by presents, either because they liked his compositions, or perhaps from an apprehension of falling under the lash of his satire. Aretin became so insolent, that he is said to have got a medal struck, on one side of which he is represented, with these words, Il divino Aretino ; and on the reverse, sitting upon a throne, receiving the presents of princes, with these words, Iprin-cipi tributati da popoli, tributano il servidor loro. Some imagine that he gave himself the title of Divine, signifying thereby that he performed the functions of a god upon earth, by the thunderbolts with which he struck the heads of the highest personages. He used to boast that his lampoons did more service to the world than sermons; and it was said of him, that he had subjected more princes by his pen than the greatest had ever done by their arms. Aretin wrote many irreligious and obscene pieces; such are his dialogues, called Bagionamenti. There is likewise imputed to him another very obscene performance, De omnibus Veneris schematibus. “It was about the year 1525 (says Μ. Chevillieř, Origine de ĭ Imprimerie de Paris, p. 224) that Julio Romano, the most famous painter of Italy, instigated by the enemy of the salvation of mankind, invented drawings to engrave 20 plates; the subjects are so immodest that I dare only name them. Peter Aretin composed sonnets for each figure. George Vasari, who relates this in his Lives of the Painters, says he does not know which would be the greatest impurity, to cast one’s eyes upon the drawings of Julio, or to dip into the verses of Aretin.” Some say that Aretin changed his libertine principles; but however this may be, it is certain that he composed several theological or pious pieces. He wrote a paraphrase on the penitential psalms, and another on Genesis; the Life of the Virgin Mary, and that of St Catharine of Sienna, and of St Thomas Aquinas. His familiar Letters have been collected, and published in 6 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1609. He was author likewise of various poetical pieces, among which is a tragedy on the subject of the Horatii, possessed of considerable merit. He died in the year 1556, at the age of 65.