Abstract
Towards the middle of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese composer and theorist Vicente Lusitano wrote a manuscript treatise on improvised counterpoint which constitutes the most thorough and detailed explanation that has survived on the subject. This manuscript has long been overlooked by music historians, despite being easily accessible at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris). The manuscript is described and its history traced. Lusitano's rules, techniques and stylistic advice are investigated and compared with contemporary theory. The extraordinary complexity of the contrapuntal lines singers were expected to invent extempore calls for a reappraisal of the relationship between improvisation and composition, also discussed by Lusitano. Historical evidence is adduced to provide a context for this document; far from being disconnected from the real life of sixteenth-century music, Lusitano's manuscript counterpoint treatise provides a key to understanding the oral tradition of Renaissance art music.
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