Gioseffo Zarlino (jan 1, 1517 – jan 1, 1590)

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Codifier of the Ars Perfecta, the idea that music had reached a state of perfection. The works of Michaelangelo and others also exemplified the pursuit of perfection.

"Zarlino recognized that harmony as it actually functioned in the music of his age was worthy of theoretical attention. For quite some time now--at least since the beginning of the fifteenth century and most likely before that in unwritten repertories--the triad, first imported into continental music from England, had been the basic consonance for EUropean polyphonic music. Before Zarlino, however, no theorist had recognized it as an entity, given it a name, or legitimized its use. All theory we have studied up to now has been discant theory, in which two voices (the structural pair) define harmonic norms and in which only perfect consonances can be used freely.

Zarlino accepted the triad as a full-fledged consonance and named it the harmonia perfetta--the "perfect harmony." He appreciated the sensory pleasure that triadic harmony evoked and its affective qualities. He was the first to state outright that "when in a triad the major third is below the minor the harmony is gay, and when it is above, the harmony is sad."

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