The Renaissance in music is usually dated to the 15th and 16th centuries. Its sound is many lines at once, and its great invention was not an instrument but a machine: the printing press.
Polyphony
Polyphony is several independent melodies sung or played together. It grew more and more elaborate through the 14th century and became a defining feature of Renaissance music. Out of the Franco-Flemish school came a shared musical language across Europe, built on the four-part textures of composers such as Johannes Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez.
Printing music
The printing press, invented in 1439, made it cheaper and easier to spread music and music theory to more people over a wider area. The Italian printer Ottaviano Petrucci went to Venice around 1490 to learn the trade, and in 1498 asked the Doge for the exclusive right to print music for twenty years.
In 1501 he published the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, 96 chansons and the earliest known printed polyphonic music. It is often wrongly called the first book of sheet music printed from movable type, but Petrucci did print the first book of polyphony with movable type.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1439 | The printing press |
| 1498 | Petrucci asks Venice for a monopoly on printing music |
| 1501 | The Odhecaton, the earliest known printed polyphony |
What changed
A piece no longer had to be copied by hand to travel. A composer in one country could be sung in another within a few years, and the same notes reached every copy. The printed page became the first mass medium for music.
Sources
Every date, name, tempo and origin on this page comes from these pages, read on 2026-10-24.