I.

The art of music has a very important place in Dante’s Commedia, and there are several reasons which make it a matter for no surprise that this should be the case. Firstly, music has always been associated with worship, and it is natural that the prayers of the Church Suffering in Purgatory and the Glorias of the Church Triumphant in Paradise should be expressed in song. Secondly, music was very extensively studied in Dante’s time, and certain branches of the art had been brought to a high pitch of perfection. Thirdly, Dante himself had, besides a considerable knowledge, a very real and intimate love of music, as is attested by his biographers Boccaccio and Bruni and also by many allusions in his own works.

Owing, no doubt, to the high stage of development which music has reached in the present epoch, there is a tendency nowadays to underrate the importance of mediaeval music, to overlook the fact that music of great artistic merit was composed, and that it was studied not only as an abstruse science but also as a living art.

It is true that instrumental music was, if judged by the standards of to-day, of a most elementary description. A great variety of instruments existed, but—as far as we can tell—their quality was very poor, and they appear only to have been used to accompany singing, dancing and marching, never independently. The orchestra as we know it, or even as it was known in the seventeenth century, was non-existent.