The Burning Salamander: Assigning a Printer to Some Sixteenth- Century Music Prints

Abstract

One of the most challenging problems facing a bibliographer of sixteenth-century music is the identification of a printer who has omitted his name from a music publication. Involved in an exacting field otherwise filled with minute details and repetitive tasks, the bibliographer finds the unsigned music print a tantalizing mystery which cannot be left unsolved. It is no wonder that in recent years, several different unsigned music publications have claimed the attention of scholars.' Among them, none is more deserving of further exploration than a group of twenty-two Italian publications dating from the brief period 1545 to 1547. These music prints have remained enigmatic because their plain title pages reveal neither the name of a printer nor a printer's mark commonly associated with any sixteenth-century music publisher. Yet despite this anonymity, they prove significant not only because of their large number, but also because in some cases they contain works by such luminaries as Morales, Rore, Verdelot, Arcadelt, and Festa, and in other cases, provide us with first or unique editions of works by such composers as Vicentino, Perissone Cambio, Ruffo, and da Nola.2 An examination of all the unsigned prints reveals that eighteen of them emanated from the same press.3 Lawrence Moe, in his study of Italian lute publications, was the first to discover a connection between some of the prints. He noted that the six unsigned lute books in this