Guido Aretinus

Guido Aretinus, or GUY OF AREZZO, is believed to have been born near Paris in 990, and to have come to Arezzo as a Benedictine monk. He died a prior at Avellana in 1050. He greatly influenced musical studies, and almost every discovery made in music for 150 years has been attributed to him, including that of descent, counterpoint, and (absurdly enough) the spinet. It seems, however, that it was he who first adopted as names for the notes of the scale the initial syllables, set to regularly ascending tones, of the hemistichs of a hymn in honour of St John the Baptist (ut, re, mi, &c.). Mr Rockstro holds it certain that he invented the principle on which the construction of the stave is based, and probable that he invented the hexachord, solmisation, and the 'Harmonic or Guidonian Hand,' a mnemonic method of indicating the order of the musical sounds on the finger-joints of the left hand. The fame of Guido's musical invention drew upon him the attention of the popes Benedict VIII. and John XIX., who invited him to Rome. Guido left writings explanatory of his musical doctrines, especially the Micrologus and the Antiphonarium. See monographs by Angeloni (1811), Kieseowetter (1844), and Falchi (1882); Rockstro in the appendix to Grove's Dictionary (1889); and the articles MUSIC, SOLFEGGIO.