GAFO'RIUS, FKANCIllee US, or FRANCHINO OAFORI, a very Isarned writer on music, was born of bumble parents at Lodi in 1451. In his boyhood he was devoted to the service of the church, and among other branches of knowledge to which he applied himself with marked diligence, be studied music under • Carmelite friar named Godendach, of which science, both theoretically and practically, he became a complete master. It does not seem certain that tho same dotal dignity was ever conferred on him, though it has beau coufidently stated that he entered into holy orders. Ito first went ,to Verona, publicly taught musio there duriug some few years, and also wrote his work,Cl1 InstitutionesCollecutionese The reputatiou he thereby acquired procured him an invitation from tho Doge to visit Genoa, which he acespted, but soon after proceeded to Naples, where he met Tinetor, Garnerius, liyeart, and other celebrated musicians, and, according to the usage of the time, held public disputatious with thorn. At NapIrs he also produced his Tbeerieurn Opus Hartnonicm Die. ciplintee But the Turks having brought war and the plague into the Neapolitan territory, he was striven from that part of Italy, and by the persuasion of Pallavicine bishop of biouticelle, returned to Lodi, gave lectures on music, end began his Practice Musicas utriusque Cantos; his greatest work, which was first printed at Milan in 1496.
Of this, Sir J. llawkins has given a copious abstract, an honour to which it was entitled, not only ou account of its intrinsic merit, but because it is the first treatise on the art that erer appeared in print. It is full of that kind of information which was called fur, and proved eminently useful at the period iu which it was publiShed, quickly spreading the author's fame throughout Europe ; but, touched by the pedantic spirit of the age, he invented terms that must have coat hint vast labour to compound, and which doubtless exacted no less from his readers to understand. His work lying before 113, we are tempted to give a specimen of the language of art adopted in the 15th century, as it appears in the heading of one of his chapters : 'De Proportiono Subquadrup1asupertripartientiqusrta.' Gaforius (erroneously called Gaffurius by Hawkins, Buruey, &c.) wrote other works, which were held in high estimatiou. It is supposed that he died in or about the year 1520.