Ugolino of Orvieto

Ugolino of Orvieto, also known as Ugolino di Francesco Urbevetano or Ugolinus de Urbeveteri, was an Italian music theorist and composer born around 1380, although the exact place and date of his birth are not known with certainty, and he died in Ferrara between late January and early February 1452. He is of interest chiefly as one of the last surviving composers of the Italian Trecento and for having left a theoretical treatise of wide scope.

His life unfolded between Forlì and Ferrara. As early as 1411 he was attached to the cathedral of Forlì, and in 1413 he is cited as a papal singer who swore loyalty to Pope Gregory XII. From 1415, when he represented Forlì at the Council of Konstanz, he was a canon of its cathedral, becoming archdeacon there in 1425; he also held the rectorship of Sant'Antonio Abate in Rivaldino. In 1427 he acted as episcopal vicar during the absence of Bishop Giovanni Caffarelli, which indicates the weight he carried in the city. He maintained correspondence with humanists such as Girolamo Guarini, Ambrogio Traversari and Flavio Biondo, and had a reputation as an orator.

In 1429 he was elected canon of the cathedral of Ferrara, although his permanent residence there is not documented until March 1431. That same year he was appointed archpriest of the cathedral, a post he held until 1448, and in which he seems to have promoted the choir school. Between 1448 and 1451 he served as vicar of Cardinal Pietro Barbo, the future Pope Paul II, in the diocese of Cervia, and in December 1449 he was appointed papal secretary, a post he retained until his death.

His musical legacy is difficult to assess. Much of his output survives in almost illegible manuscripts, and some songs, such as Si videar invidorum sequi consortia, L'alta virtute and Chi solo a si, show the black notation of the Ars Subtilior combined with a style characteristic of the late Trecento. His theoretical work, by contrast, carries greater weight. The Declaratio musicae disciplinae, probably completed in Ferrara and divided into five books, sets out an Aristotelian conception of music as a science, with particular attention to counterpoint and musica ficta. Though less original than once thought, it was read and used by Franchino Gaffurio, John Hothby and Bartolomeo Ramis de Pareja, and served as a source for a Venetian compendium printed at the end of the fifteenth century.