ARETINO, GUIDO, famous for his improvements in music, lived in the eleventh century. He was born in the city of Arezzo, in Tuscany; and having been taught the practice of music in his youth, and being probably retained as a chorister in the service of the Benedictine monastery founded in that city, he became a monk professed, and a brother of the order of St Benedict.
In this retirement he seems to have devoted himself to the study of music, particularly the system of the ancients, and, above all, to reform their method of notation. The difficulties that attended the instruction of youth in the church offices were so great, that, as he himself says, ten years were
generally consumed barely in acquiring the knowledge of the plain song; and this consideration induced him to labour after some amendment,—some method that might facilitate instruction, and enable those employed in the choral office to perform the duties of it in a correct and decent manner. Were we to credit those legendary accounts that are extant in old monkish manuscripts, we should believe he was assisted in his pious intention by immediate communications from heaven. Some speak of the invention of the syllables as the effect of inspiration; and Guido himself seems to have been of the same opinion, by his saying it was revealed to him by the Lord, or, as some interpret his words, in a dream. Graver historians say, that being at vespers in the chapel of his monastery, it happened that one of the officers appointed for that day was the hymn to St John,—
UT quærit laxis
Mira gestorum
SOLve poluti
REvenare fbris
Famuli tuorum
LABii vestras,
Sanctæ Joannæ!
During the performance of the hymn, he remarked the iteration of the words, and the frequent returns of UT, NE, MI, FA, SOL, LA. He observed likewise a dissimilarity between the closeness of the syllable MI and broad open sound of FA, which, he thought, could not fail to impress upon the mind a lasting idea of their congruity; and immediately conceived a thought of applying these six syllables to perfect an improvement either then actually made by him, or under consideration, viz., that of converting the ancient tetrachords into hexachords.
Struck with the discovery, he retired to his study, and having perfected his system, began to introduce it into practice. The persons to whom he communicated it were the brethren of his own monastery, from whom it met with but a cold reception, which he ascribed to envy. However, his interest with the abbot, and his employment in the chapel, gave him an opportunity of trying the efficacy of his method on the boys who were training up for the choral service, and it exceeded the most sanguine expectation. "To the admiration of all," says Cardinal Baronius, "a boy thereby learnt, in a few months, what no man, though of great ingenuity, could hitherto acquire in several years."
The fame of Guido's invention soon spread abroad, and his method of instruction was adopted by the clergy of other countries. We are told by Kircher, that Hermannus bishop of Hamburg, and Elviricus bishop of Osnaburg, made use of it; and by the authors of the Histoire Littéraire de la France, that it was received in that country, and taught in all the monasteries in the kingdom. It is certain that the reputation of his great skill in music had excited in the pope a desire to see and converse with him; of which, and of his going to Rome for that purpose, and the reception he met with from the pontiff, he himself has given a circumstantial account in the epistle hereafter mentioned.
It seems that John XX., or, as some writers compute, the nineteenth pope of that name, having heard of the fame of Guido's school, and conceiving a desire to see him, sent three messengers to invite him to Rome. Upon their arrival, it was resolved by the brethren of the monastery that he should go thither attended by Grimaldo the abbot, and Peter the chief of the canons of the church of Arezzo. Arriving at Rome, he was presented to the holy father, who received him with great kindness, and honoured him with several interviews, during which he interrogated him as to his knowledge in music; and upon sight of an antiphony which Guido had brought with him, marked with the syllables according to his new invention, the pontiff looked upon it as a kind of prodigy, and ruminating on the doctrines delivered by Guido, would not stir from his seat till he had learned perfectly to sing off a verse; upon which he declared that he could not have believed the efficacy of the method,