Pietro Cerone (ca.1560/1566, Bergamo — May 1625, Naples) was an Italian music theorist, musicologist, cantor, and ordained priest. He is best known as the author of
El Melopeo y Maestro: Tractado de música theorica y pratica, a monumental treatise on music theory published in 1613. Comprising 22 folio volumes of over 1,100 pages, Cerone's "magnum opus" is virtually unparalleled in its depth and scope; however, both contemporary and subsequent scholars criticized the manuscript as overly scrupulous, loquacious, and tremendously challenging for average readers.
Name variations: Pedro Cerone, Petrus Ceronus, R. D. Pedro Cerone de Bergamo, D. Petrus Ceronus Bergomen, Domenico Pietro Cerone.
Cerone grew up in Italy, educated as a musician and singer, and eventually ordained as a Catholic priest. Pietro's exact birthdate is unknown, with the year '𝟭𝟱𝟲𝟲' derived from the inscription on his portrait in the 1613 edition of "el Melopeo," which read:
D· Petrvs Ceronvs Bergomen • Anno Ætatis Aetatis Svæ XXXXVII ("D. Petrus Ceronus ⟨from⟩ Bergamo – In the 47th year of his age"). However, the printing was delayed by about five years, as stated on the book's "erratum" page, as well as in the ending of Cerone's previous 1609 manuscript, which referred to upcoming
Melopeo as "still in print." Thus, it's more plausible that Pietro Cerone was forty-seven circa 1608, not in 1613, placing his approximate birthdate at '𝟭𝟱𝟲𝟬–𝟲𝟭.' Around 1593, Cerone went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwestern Spain. The following year, he relocated to Madrid, reportedly struggling in poverty until a local nobleman and priest,
Jacobo de Grattis (1517—1619), also known as "Caballero de Gracia," took Pedro under his protection. Subsequently, and likely thanks to Jacobo's patronage, Cerone began serving at the Royal Chapel of the King of Spain, Philip II (1527—1598), and later his successor, Philip III (1578—1621). Around 1603 or 1605, Cerone returned to Italy and settled in Naples, where he joined the court of a newly appointed viceroy, the Count of Lemos, Pedro Fernández de Castro y Andrade (1576—1622). His first treatise on liturgical "plainchant" singing,
Le regole più necessarie per l’introduzione del canto fermo, was published in 1609.
In 1613, Cerone's long-awaited "magnum opus" finally came out, written in Spanish and mostly completed during his tenure in Madrid. The full title of Pietro's manuscript was
El Melopeo y Maestro • Tractado de música theorica y pratica: en que se pone por extenso, lo que uno para hazerse perfecto musico ha menester saber ("Melopeo & Maestro: Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Music, in which is set forth in detail what one needs to know to become a perfect musician." Presumably, 'Melopeo' referred to
melopœia, ancient Greek for "melody-making.") The book, as promised, went into excruciating detail on every aspect of the musical oeuvre, from moral and social behavior expected of practicing musicians and thorough polemical review of earlier scholars, like [url=/artist/3884920]Zarlino[/url], [url=/artist/4283039]Vicentino[/url], and [url=/artist/1648006]Juan Bermudo[/url] to specific advice on achieving expressive intensity in composition for every common late-Renaissance form and detailed list of instruments popular in Spain at the time. Curiously, Cerone praised "Renaissance polyphony" and the style of great
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525/26—1594) as the ultimate benchmark and compositional ideal, while, at the same time, rejecting the strict adherence to counterpoint "canon" and claiming that any composer should strive to abandon these rules as they become proficient.
At the time of publication,
El Melopeo gained certain notoriety, with polarizing reviews among contemporary scholars and composers. The gigantic 1000-page+ tome, quite ironically, boldly promised in the subtitle:
Va tan exemplificado y claro, que qualquiera de mediana habilidad, con poco trabajo, alcançarà eſta profeſsion ("It's obvious and clear that anyone of average ability, with little effort, will achieve this profession"). While it was helpful as a reference manual for advanced academic research and professional musicians, the notion that an astoundingly complex, arcane manuscript is suitable as a "low-effort" beginner's guide was ridiculed by most critics. Furthermore, entirely written in Spanish, Cerone's book had an explicit bias in favor of Italian music tradition, and Pietro consistently pointed out the inferiority of Spaniards versus "top-tier" Italian composers and thinkers. By the early 19th century, a new point of contempt against
Melopeo y Maestro came to light, with some Spanish music theorists arguing that Cerone's conservative views negatively impacted and delayed the propagation of the Baroque style across the Iberian Peninsula (compared to neighboring European countries). In 1803, for instance, a Jesuit philosopher, polymath, and musicologist,
Antonio Eximeno (1729—1809), mocked Cerone's "magnum opus" by comparing it to
Don Quixote's chivalric romances, described by [url=/artist/2284087]Cervantes[/url] in his iconic novel as an "impossibly detailed and absurd compilation of nonsense."
