La fortuna del dialogo De musica dello pseudo-Plutarco nell’Umanesimo

This paper illustrates the recovery of pseudo-Plutarch’s De Musica in fifteenth-century Italy. Since the dialogue was the only source of information concerning the cultural, social, and liturgical aspects of music in ancient Greece, it was especially appreciated by humanists. At first, the paper focuses on Vittorino da Feltre’s Mantuan school, the so-called the Ca’ Zoiosa, where an ancient and authoritative manuscript of the dialogue was preserved (I-Vnm gr. vi 10). Philological and literary evidence is gathered about the acquaintance with the Greek text of two pupils of Vittorino, Sassolo da Prato and Gian Pietro da Lucca. As the focus shifts to the translations of De Musica into Latin, special attention is devoted to Francesco Filelfo’s erudite dialogue Conviva mediolanensia (1442), in which the section concerning music largely depends on pseudo-Plutarch. Lastly, the paper analyses the way Franchino Gaffurio incorporated extensive passages of Filelfo’s translation into the laus musicae of his Theorica musice (1492).