A fascinating and unusual drawing. Laid paper, no discernible watermark (just the tip of something, not identifiable), but certainly late 17th to early 18th century. 3.5 x 5.2 inches. 9 x 13 cm.

The drawing is reminiscent of diagrams found in Italian books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though this particular one does not appear to be based on a known printed exemplar. Though it is in some senses a standard Guidonian hand, it only shows Fa, "illustrating all the Fas of the gamut, which also happen to be the clefs, for the most part.  It also has extensions. Each hexachord (indicated by its fa) is labeled. B-molle grave, B-Quadro grave, naturale grave etc. The nice thing about nine hexachords is that there are three in each octave: grave, acute, and superacute. The indication above the middle finger means the natural superacute scale, and it’s the ninth in the series. The crosses indicate the two  “A”s (there are actually two crosses, one in each octave, but the one on the pinky is smaller), which are the dividing points of the three octaves (low, high, super-high)."

Thus, "the steps are not actually necessarily the pitches, although they happen to be in the case of B, when B is flat. Also, it’s B quad not S quad. Gamut step 3 (Base of the thumb) is Fa in a fictitious soft (here represented by “mol”) scale, while step 4 is Fa in the hexachord that has B quad (that is, C fa ut), and so on and so forth. The Fa of 9 hexachords are shown in their places in ascending order. In other words, there is a hexachord added both above and below the standard 7. What’s funny about the top one is that you have to imagine not just one but two pitches above the middle finger (ee as per usual, but also ff!)."

We have not been able to arrive any conclusions regarding the A.E. on the sleeve. Nor can we positively identify this hand's intended purpose. Though indicated as a hand for "Canto Fermo" (a melody that is the basis to which other parts are added in polyphonic music), it was probably not intended for accompaniment specifically, since by its rough creation date, the keyboard would have supplanted the hand as primary way of thinking about pitches. The term "Canto Fermo" is used interchangeably with plainchant and other such terms (though no chant goes up to high F) and thus our drawing seems certainly to have something to do with more than just chant.

"Nicholas Baragwanath suggests in The Solfeggio Tradition that in the eighteenth century, the pedagogy was centered around Fa. One “placed all the Fas” on the staff and used that to anchor yourself around the half steps. For example, in a book by Sabbatini, one can see the Fas colored in as black notes so that they stand out, going way beyond chant and applying this notion to tonal music."

This diagram of the hand is a notably rare record of the most important method of teaching medieval music, here brought into use towards a later purpose. It takes its name after its probable inventor, Guido da Arezzo (d. after 1033), a music scholar who was assigned the task of training singers for the cathedral of Arezzo. He developed the ancestor of the modern system of precise pitch notation through lines and spaces (the stave), and a method of sight-singing based on the syllables ut , re , mi , fa , sol , la. Guido is described by a near-contemporary as using the joints of the hand as an aid in teaching this hexachord, and it may be that the notations here were intended to be copied onto the student's actual right hand. Though the original purpose of the present drawing remains obscure, we can certainly state that as a record of the teaching of music in the 17th and 18th centuries, it is a very uncommon survival in manuscript. 

We are very grateful for their assistance in the cataloguing of this item to Thomas Forrest Kelly and Charles Weaver, from whose generous notes the above quotations have been adapted.