Guido, famous for his musical improvements, lived in the 13th century. He was a native of Arezzo, a city in Tuscany; and having been taught the practice of music in his youth, and 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. If we may credit those legendary accounts that are extant in old monastic 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: but graver historians say, that being at vespers in the chapel of his monastery, it happened that one of the offices appointed for that day was the hymn * to St John.

UT queant laxis RESonare fibris Mira gestorum FAmuli tuorum SOLve pollutis LABii reatum, Sancte Joanne.

During the performance of the hymn, he remarked the iteration of the words, and the frequent returns of UT, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA: he observed likewise a familiarity between the closeness of the syllable MI and the 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 in the epistle to his friend, he ascribes undoubtedly to its true cause, 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 languishing expectation. "To the admiration of all (says Cardinal Baronius) a boy there- 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 Hamburgh, and Elviricus bishop of Osnaburg, made use of it, and by the authors of the *Histoire Litteraire 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.

The particulars of this relation are very curious; and as we have his own authority, there is no room to doubt the truth of it. It seems that John XX., or as some writers compute, the 10th 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, and by him received with great kindness. The pope had several conversations with him, in all which he interrogated him as to his knowledge in music; and upon sight of an antiphoner which Guido had brought with him, marked with the syllables agreeable to his new invention, the pope looked on 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, if he had not been convinced by the experiment he had himself made of it. The pope would have detained him at Rome; but labouring under a bodily disorder, and fearing an injury to his health from the air of the place, and the heats of the summer, which was then approaching, Guido left that city upon a promise to revisit it, and explain to his holiness the principles of his new system. On his return homewards, he made a visit to the abbot of Pomposa, a town in the duchy of Ferrara, who was very earnest to have Guido settle in the monastery of that place; to which invitation it seems he yielded, being, as he says, desirous of rendering so great a monastery still more famous by his studies there.

Here it was that he composed a tract on music, entitled *Micrologus*, i.e., "a short discourse;" which he dedicated to Theodald bishop of Arezzo; and finished, as he himself at the end of it tells us, under the pontificate of John XX. and in the 34th year of his age. Vossius speaks also of another musical treatise written by him, and dedicated to the same person.

Most of the authors who have taken occasion to mention Guido, speak of the Micrologus as containing the sum of his doctrine: but it is in a small tract, entitled *Argumentum novi Cantus inventandi*, that his declaration of his use of the syllables, with their several mutations, and in short his whole doctrine of formation, is to be found. This tract makes part of an epistle to a very dear and intimate friend of Guido, whom he addresses thus, "Beatissimo atque dulcisissimo fratri Michaeli;" at whose request the tract itself seems to have been composed.

Whether Guido was the author of any other tracts, is not easy to determine. It nowhere appears that any of his works were ever printed, except that Baronius, in his *Annales Ecclesiastici*, tom. xi. p. 73, has given at length the epistle from him to his friend Michael of Pomposa, and that to Theodald bishop of Arezzo, prefixed to the Micrologus: and yet the writers on music speak of the Micrologus as of a book in the hands of every one. Martini cites several manuscripts of Guido; namely, two in the Ambrosian library at Milan, the one written about the twelfth century, the other less ancient; another among the archives of the chapter of Pistoia, a city in Tuscany; and a third in the Mediceo-Laurenziano library at Florence, of the 15th century: these are clearly the Micrologus. Of the epistle to Michael of Pomposa, together with the *Argumentum novi Cantus inventandi*, he mentions only one, which he says is somewhere at Ratibon. Of the several tracts above mentioned, the last excepted, a manuscript is extant in the library of Balliol-college in Oxford. Several fragments of the two first, in one volume, are also among the Harleian manuscripts now in the British Museum, No. 3199; but so very much mutilated, that they afford but small satisfaction to a curious inquirer.

Aretin, Leonard, one of the most learned men of the 15th century, was secretary to the republic of Florence, and translated from the Greek into Latin some of the Lives of Plutarch, and Aristotle's Ethics: he also composed three books of the Punic war, that may serve as a supplement to those wanting in Livy; the history of the transactions in Italy during his time; that of ancient Greece; that of the Goths; that of the republic of Florence; and many other books. He died in 1443, aged 74.

Aretin, Francis, a man of great reading, and well acquainted with the Greek language. He translated into Latin the Commentaries of St Chrysostom upon St John, and about 20 Homilies of the same father: he also translated the Letters of Phalaris into Latin, and wrote a treatise *De balneis Puteolanis*. He studied at Sienna, about the year 1443; and afterwards taught law there with such reputation, that they called him the Prince of Subtleties, and his wit became a proverb. He displayed his talents chiefly in disputes, in which nobody could withstand him. He gave his opinions in law with so much confidence, as to assure those who consulted him that they should carry their cause: nor did experience contradict him; for it was a common saying at the bar, such a cause has been condemned by Aretin, it must therefore be lost. He taught also in the university of Pisa, and in that of Ferrara. He was at Rome under the pontificate of Sixtus IV. but did not stay here long; for he soon perceived that the great hopes which he had built upon his reputation would come to nothing. This pope, however, declared he would have given him a cardinal's hat, had he not thought he should have done a public injury by depriving the youth of such an excellent professor. When old age would not permit him to go through the duties of his office, they dispensed with his reading.