Spataro, Giovanni

Spataro, Giovanni, Italian music theorist and composer; b. Bologna, c. 1458; d. there, Jan. 17, 1541. He studied with Bartolomeo Ramos de Pareia while the latter was in Bologna in 1482. Ramos publ, his Musica pratica in 1482, which resulted in an attack from Niccolo Buzio. Spataro countered on his teacher’s behalf with his Honesta defensio (1491). Gaffurius entered the fray with his Apologia (1520), which Spataro answered in his Errori (1521). Spataro championed what he saw as the progressive ideas of his teacher. He was active as a member of the choir at S. Petronio from at least 1505, and was installed as maestro di canto in 1512. His only extant works are 6 motets and 1 laude, which are publ, in the Antiquae Musicae Italicae series Monumenta Bononiensa, II (1967).

Writings

Honesta defensio in Nicolai Burtii parmensis opusculum (Bologna, 1491; ed. in the Antiquae Musicae Italicae series Monumenta Bononiensa, II/1, 1967); Dilucide, et probatissime demonstratione…contra cert frivole et vane excusatio[n]e, da Fra[n]chino Gafurio (maestro de li errori) (Bologna, 1521); Errori di Franchino Gafurio da Lodi, da maestro Joanne Spatario, musico bolognese, in sua defensione, e del suo precettore mro. Bartolomeo Ramis hispano subtilmente dimonstrati (Bologne, 1521); Tractato di musica, nel quale si tracta de la perfectione de la sesquialtera producta in la musica mensurata (Venice, 1531).

Bibliography

B. Blackburn, E. Lowinsky, and C. Miller, eds. and trs., A Correspondence of Renaissance Musicians (Oxford, 1991).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire