A decorative woodcut headpiece features a symmetrical arrangement of flowers and foliage, including carnations and lilies, with curling vines.

PREFACE TO THE

FIRST BOOK.

The first Book is like the summary and abridgment of the others that follow after, and explains the Theory and the Practice of Music. It contains almost everything that Zarlin Gioseffo Zarlino, Italian music theorist has of value in the four books of his Institutions, and what Salinas Francisco de Salinas, Spanish music theorist teaches in his first four books of Music; and the two books of the Music of the Greeks, one of which was composed by Bacchius Bacchius the Elder, Greek music theorist, and the other by Euclide Euclid of Alexandria; so that he who perfectly understands this first book will be able to compose in Music, and give the reason for what is practiced there. The Table that follows will substitute for a longer discourse. I will only give notice of four things: 1. that the same Table shows clearly what is treated in the whole of the first book, which contains some Theorems in better terms than they