Costanzo Festa'sGradus ad Parnassum

Abstract

In September of 1536, the papal singer and composer Costanzo Festa wrote a letter to his Florentine patron Filippo Strozzi. Festa, having heard about a music printer in Venice, hoped to contact him there through one of Strozzi's agents. He continued:Have him [the printer] understand that if he wants my works, that is, the hymns [and] the Magnificats, I do not want less than one hundred fifty scudi and, if he wants the basse, two hundred in all. If he wants to print them, he can place the hymns and Magnificats in a large book [choirbook format] like that of the fifteen Masses [Antico's Quindecim missarum, RISM 1516], so that all choirs would be able to make use of them. The basse are good for learning to sing in counterpoint, to compose and to play all instruments.