Ottaviano Scotto

Ottaviano Scotto (Monza, ? – Venice, 24 December 1498) was one of the most active printers and booksellers in Venice in the late fifteenth century. He came from a patrician family, a circumstance reflected in the title *nobilis vir* by which he styled himself in his publications. He arrived in Venice at an uncertain date, before 1479, the year in which his first printed work appeared.

His output covered philosophy, medicine, law and classical literature, but he is chiefly remembered for the incunabula liturgical books that included printed musical notation. His Roman missal of 1481 left spaces for music and, in some copies, printed staves on which the notation was added by hand. In 1482 he published three books, two Roman missals and one Dominican missal, with black notation and four-line staves in red, printed in two passes, a procedure essentially identical to that used by Petrucci. At least ten other printers worked on occasion for him, and at his commission Johann Hamman printed several Roman missals in octavo (1493 and 1497) and a Dominican missal (1494 or 1495), all with music, possibly composed with Scotto's type.

His missals were notable achievements: the 1481 volume was perhaps the second illustrated book printed in Venice; the 1482 volumes made him the first to print music with movable type in the city; and the 1493 missal was the first in octavo format. The delicacy of his note forms and the precision of his register set standards rarely surpassed in the following three centuries of liturgical music printing. His printer's mark was a globe surmounted by a cross, with the initials O[ctavianus] S[cotus] M[odoetiensis].

After his death, his nephews continued the business under the imprint 'heirs of Ottaviano Scotto', until 1532. Amadio Scotto, active between 1498 and 1532, provided financial support to Petrucci. Paolo Scotto, brother of Girolamo and Ottaviano (ii), was a composer as well as a bookseller; although Petrucci printed some frottolas and a lauda by him, neither he nor Ottaviano published music.