The magic square of Olocin Ozzaniugnas

Abstract

In 2009 Herbert Seifert published a description of certain Vivaldi sources held in the Estensischen Musikalien collection at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. In passing he described an unusual manuscript pasted into a print of Vivaldi’s op.2 violin sonatas—a ‘magic square’, consisting of a repeated array of alphabet symbols, running both horizontally and vertically, with an obscure series of pitch names running in four columns alongside. Although Seifert could not explain this document, he did identify the scribe as Nicolo Sanguinazzi (who tended to sign his name backwards), a bass string player who also copied many of the other items in the collection. Although Sanguinazzi held the collection prior to its acquisition by the Obizzi family in the late 18th century, no connection between the families has yet been made. This article offers both an explanation of the magic square and a possible identification of Nicolo Sanguinazzi as the uncle of Angela Sala, wife to Fernando Obizzi and mother to Tommaso Obizzi, the founder of the collection. The ‘magic square’ is in fact a visual guide to aid in the transposition of harmonic patterns using the alphabet symbols of 17th-century guitar notation (alfabeto). Alfabeto represents an anomaly in relation to the rest of the collection. These symbols do not appear anywhere else within the Vivaldi print, and are in any case stylistically inappropriate for that repertory. And Sanguinazzi’s other contributions to the collection postdate 1710, when alfabeto symbols were no longer current—he himself seems to have lived at least until 1740, at which point the alfabeto system was over 150 years old. There are antecedents, going back to the 16th century, of charts combining the alfabeto system with other types of harmonic notation, and Sanguinazzi’s magic square can be interpreted in that tradition. It is unique, however, in the extent to which it attempts to merge the alfabeto system with major–minor harmonic tonality. This remarkable visual artefact argues for the influence of 17th-century harmonic practice, in the form of alfabeto symbols, well into the early 18th century, long past the currency of alfabeto as a performance practice.