Nicola Vicentino

Nicola Vicentino (1511 – 1575 or 1576) was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most progressive musicians of the age, inventing, among other things, a microtonal keyboard. Life Little is known of his early life. Born in Vicenza, he may have studied with Adrian Willaert in Venice, which was close by, and he acquired an early interest in the contemporary humanistic revival, including the study of ancient Greek music theory and performance practice (about which little was known, but was then being uncovered, through the work of scholars such as Girolamo Mei and Giangiorgio Trissino). At some time in the 1530s or early 1540s, he went to Ferrara, which was to become the center for experimental secular music in Italy from the middle to the end of the 16th century. Apparently, he served as a music tutor to the Duke of Ferrara and some of his family members in the House of Este, and some of Vincentino’s music was sung at the court of Ferrara. During the late 1540s, his reputation as a music theorist grew. He established his reputation as a composer with his publication of a book of madrigals in Venice in 1546, and in 1551 he took part in one of the