Ottaviano (dei) Petrucci Biography

Italian music printer and publisher. He was the first to use movable type for printing polyphonic music, beginning in 1501 in Florence with his Harmonice musices odhecaton A, which consists mainly of chansons by Franco-Flemish composers. Over the next eight years he published much polyphonic music by the leading Franco-Flemish and Italian composers of his day. By 1511 he had returned to Fossombrone; he continued printing there until about 1520 , after which he opened a paper mill and ceased printing activity. He returned to Venice in 1536 .

See also printing and publishing of music, 4.

J. M. Thomson / John Wagstaff