Petrucci Ottaviano, *18 June 1466 Fossombrone, †7 May 1539 Venice, Italian music publisher and printer. He came from a poor noble family, expelled from Fano in the 14th century. He probably received his humanistic education at the court of Duke Guidobaldo I in Urbino, where he learned the art of printing from German printers. Around 1490, he moved to Venice and, together with the booksellers A. Scotto and Niccolo di Raphael, opened a printing house, improved the system used for printing musical examples in liturgical books and used triple font for printing polyphonic vocal and instrumental music. On 25 May 1498, he received from the Venetian Senate a 20-year exclusive privilege to print with his own system and to sell his publications in the Republic of Venice. On 15 May 1501, he published the first musical print Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A (reissued several times), containing 96 pieces, mainly 3- and 4-voice chansons by all composers of the Flemish school. He dedicated this work to his patrons: Girolamo Donato and Bartolomeo Budrio. In terms of the clarity and elegance of the printing, it is an exemplary achievement in the history of music editing, and subsequent music printings have confirmed the success of his method.
In 1501–09, Petrucci published over 40 prints of vocal, religious and secular music and 4 volumes of lute tablature. In 1510, he left the printing house to his partners and, for political and financial reasons, he returned to Fossombrone, where from 1504, he belonged to the council of elders and held several offices. In 1511, together with the engraver Francesco da Bologna, he founded a new printing house. Prints from Fossombrone were not as elegant and carefully produced as in the Venetian period, which resulted from the desire to reduce costs and popularise publishing production. The efficiency of the outbuilding also decreased; in the years 1511–20, Petrucci published only 14 musical prints and a few literary works, including Paul von Middelburg (Bishop of Fossombrone) and Baldassar Castiglione. The decline in publishing output was the result of unfair competition that reprinted his editions, but also of Petrucci’s holding of various offices and his membership in the council of elders. As an envoy, he went to Rome several times and came into conflict with Pope Leo X, which could have been the reason for losing the privilege to print organ tablatures received in 1513 (but he did not print them). In 1516, he lost the privilege to the Roman printer A. Antico de Montana, the most famous follower of Petrucci, who soon moved to Venice and around 1520, based on the concluded contract, used his Antico musical fonts; the most perfect musical woodcut artist in history, he was also a composer, and his frottole were also printed by Petrucci. From 1520, Petrucci changed the nature of his business: he stopped printing, purchased land in Acqua Santa near Fossombrone and built a paper mill, which for many years brought him significant profits and was his main source of income. In 1536, at the invitation of the Senate, he returned to Venice, but he no longer published musical prints, but highly rated literary prints of Latin and Italian classics.
Petrucci’s activities initiated a new era of music editing and consolidated the importance of Venice in this field. His invention, known as triple movable type printing, was characterised by perfect precision in the coordination of word text, lines and notes. Petrucci first printed the text and initials, then the staff, then combined individual fonts with notes, which were cast in the position the note was to occupy on the staff. Each voice was printed in a separate volume (always in a transverse quarto), which remained a common practice for a long time. In 1501–20, he published masses by Josquin des Prés (5 editions 1502–16), J. Obrecht (1503), A. Brumel (1503), J. Ghiselin and P. de La Rue (1503), A. Agricola (1504), M. de Orto (1505), H. Isaac (1506), Gaspar van Weerbeke (1507), J. Mouton and A. Fevin (1515), also 45 volumes (including reissues) of collective works by various composers, containing including masses (4 volumes, 1505–15), motets (10 volumes, 1502–19), hymns (1507), lamentations (2 volumes, 1506), magnificat (1507), laudes (2 volumes, 1508) and 4 volumes of Intabolatura de laauto, including 2 volumes with original works and transcriptions by Francesco Spinacino (1507–08) and 2 volumes of Tenori et contrabassi intabulati… by Franciscus Bossinensis (1509–11). Among the editions of secular music, in particular: 11 volumes of frottole (1504–14) are noteworthy.
Petrucci’s system remained in common use for a long time. Movable type in music printing was also used in 1536 by Francesco Marcolini, probably with Petrucci’s approval, and then by Antonio Gardano, but their editions did not match the quality and elegance of Petrucci’s prints, who was also an excellent editor of his publications, and therefore the first modern music publisher. Today, Petrucci’s prints are rare, some have not survived at all (e.g. hymns, magnificat, volume 10 of frottole, volume 3 of violin-making tablature). A list of 61 musical prints was presented by Petrucci in his works by C. Sartori.
Literature: A. Schmid Ottaviano dei Petrucci da Fossombrone, der erste Erfinder des Musiknotendruckes mit beweglichen Metalltypen, Vienna 1845, reprint Amsterdam 1968; A. Vernarecci Ottaviano de’ Petrucci da Fossombrone, Bologna 1882; C. Sartori Bibliografia delle opere musicali stampate da Ottaviano Petrucci, Florence 1948, Nuove conclusive aggiunte alla Bibliografia del Petrucci, «Collectanea Historiae Musicae» I, Florence 1953 oraz Commemorazione di Ottaviano de’ Petrucci, Fossombrone 1968.
