A Phantom Treatise of the Fourteenth Century? The Ars Nova

Abstract

Did de Vitry write a treatise Ars nova? The question may surprise, so prominent a landmark is Ars in established landscape of Western music history. Yet it merits attention, not only because physical being of this landmark seems less rock solid than some other celebrated monuments of music theory, but also, and particularly, because Philippe de Vitry's Ars nova is rallying point for ideas about a critical period of musical development in fourteenth-century France, about dissemination of new practices from Paris south, beyond Alps to Italy, and about de Vitry's stature and influence as a theorist. A close survey of this landmark bears upon present-day teaching on historical phenomenon ars and invites fresh inquiry into how and where new practice was taught in its own time. Traditional scholarship equivocates on genesis of what we conceive to be treatise Ars nova. Confronted with circumstance that the preserved versions of his [Philippe de Vitry's] treatise Ars are all different, Gilbert Reaney remarks, the theoretical work of Vitry must have been imparted mainly by word of mouth, for it is exceptional to find a treatise in such widely differing forms.1 Writing of Vitry's theoretical contributions, Ernest Sanders states, Evidently versions [of Ars nova] that survive represent author's work only as formulated by several of his disciples.2 Yet neither scholar doubts reality of a treatise written by de Vitry. Sanders writes, In his capacity as musician Vitry wrote a famous and authoritative treatise on practice of music, Ars (c. 1322-3), and he proceeds to relate theoretical contributions of de Vitry in minute detail.3 Commenting on Coussemaker's liberal attributions, Reaney states, However, we ought not to go as far as Riemann in considering Ars itself as of doubtful authenticity, since we have clear statements of Coussemaker's Anon. III and VII, explicit of Paris 7378A and that of Vatican codex.4 Both men regard proposition that de Vitry wrote a treatise Ars as a certainty rather than an