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Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style (Latin: De Utraque Verborum ac Rerum Copia) is a rhetorical guide written by Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus in 1512. It is Erasmus' systematic instruction on how to embellish, amplify, and give variety to speech and writing. Written as both a manual on rhetoric and as a treatise against what Erasmus believed to be the “false copia” of the time that was inspired by an overwhelming admiration of the texts of Cicero, De Copia operates in multiple rhetorical spheres, for multiple purposes: mainly as a style guide for students and as an example of Erasmus’ rhetorical virtuosity.^[1]

The first official edition of De Copia, titled De duplici copia rerum ac verborum commentarii duo, was published by Josse Bade in Paris in 1512 and helped establish Erasmus as a major humanist scholar.^[2] Erasmus began conceptualizing the work much earlier, in the 1490s, during a time when creating style manuals for school boys was considered to be a noble calling.^[3] It is widely believed that Erasmus left a working copy of the manuscript behind after a trip to Italy (1506–1509) and, upon hearing that an unauthorized version was forthcoming, quickly produced a version to thwart the effort.^[4] Though he was reluctant to publish the work in haste, Erasmus hoped to avoid being associated with what he called “a thoroughly bad text” and ultimately produced “the lesser evil of the two”.^[5] The early draft version of the text that was left behind in Italy is written as a dialogue between two students and is titled Brevis de Copia Praeceptio; it was eventually printed in 1519 as an appendix to the Formulae.^[6]

Aside from wishing to discredit any unauthorized editions, Erasmus did wish to contribute to the existing scholarship on style.^[7] To that end, he put forth in De Copia that style must be abundant in order to be effective, and that the abundance consists of two primary elements: variety of expression and variety of subject matter. Variety, he says, “is so powerful in every sphere that there is absolutely nothing, however brilliant, which is not dimmed if not commended by variety”.^[8]

Book 1 of De Copia contains Erasmus’ thoughts on the abundance of expression and is divided into 206 short chapters or sections. The initial chapters concern themselves with general commentary on copia, its advantages, and its importance. Chapters 11-32 then detail twenty methods/varieties of expression, while the remaining chapters provide further examples of variety of expression. Book 2 deals with abundance of subject matter which Erasmus says, “involves the assembling, explaining, and amplifying of arguments by the use of examples, comparisons, similarities, dissimilarities, opposites, and other like procedures which I shall treat in detail in the appropriate place”.^[9]

Erasmus did not feel that his work was fully complete with the 1512 edition of De Copia, and he continued to update the work throughout his life. The general concept and structure of the work remained the same over time, even as Erasmus amended and expanded the text.^[10] Subsequent authorized editions of De Copia were published in December 1514 (in a volume which also included the Parabolae), April 1517, May 1526, and August 1534.^[11]

Contents[link]

The text is divided into two books. Book I ultimately consisted of 206 chapters, while Book II is not sectioned off.

Book I:

Chapters 1-12 A discussion of the general nature and value of the abundant style

Chapters 13 - 33 An analysis of major tropes in classical literature: synecdoche, equivalence, allegory, etc. Chapter 33 is a famous demonstration of variety, where Erasmus illustrates 195 variations on the sentence, "Your letter pleased me greatly". (Latin: tuae litterae me magnopere delectarunt.)

Chapters 34-94 Features variations of grammatical and syntactic forms

'Chapters 94 - 206 Operates like a Thesaurus, although the organization is haphazard, not alphabetical

Book II : Abundance of Subject Matter

Not divided into chapters, but does address 11 separate methods of using abundant subject matter. Here Erasmus uses a more dialectical approach, and typically gives a few lines of theory followed by many illustrations from classical sources.

While designed as a university text book, Copia enjoyed far broader appeal. The book was immensely popular in England and in Europe, at least 85 editions of the book were printed in Erasmus' own lifetime, and countless more after that. Erasmus made three separate revisions to the original text, adding chapters each time. The original 1512 edition contained 153 chapters, which swelled to 206 in the final version that Erasmus completed before his death.

See also[link]

• Exercises in Style, 20th century French book, illustrating variations

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Callahan, Virginia W. “The De Copia: The Bounteous Horn.” Essays on the Work of Erasmus. Ed. Richard L. DeMolen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978. 99-109. Print.

• Erasmus, Desiderius. “Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style (De duplici copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo).” Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 24. Ed. Craig R. Thompson. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1978. Print.

• Kennedy, George. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980. Print.

• Knott, Betty (trans.). “Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style (De duplici copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo).” Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 24. Ed. Craig R. Thompson. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1978. Print.

v t e Desiderius Erasmus Original works Handbook of a Christian Knight The Praise of Folly Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style Julius Excluded from Heaven The Education of a Christian Prince Paraphrases of Erasmus Colloquies De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio Ciceroniamus A Playne and Godly Exposition or Declaration of the Commune Crede Ecclesiastes of Erasmus Translations Adagia Textus Receptus Apophthegmatum opus Related topics The first tome or volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the newe testamente

Look up copia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Copia may refer to:

• Copia (or Copiae), the ancient city also called Thurii
• Copia (Boeotia) (or Copae or Copiae), an ancient Greek city in Boeotia
• Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, a 1512 rhetorical guidebook by Desiderius Erasmus
• COPIA, The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts
• Copia (album), a 2007 album by Eluvium
• A LTR-Retrotransposon genetic element found in many animals and plants

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Andrea Gabrieli (1532/1533^[1] – August 30, 1585) was an Italian^[2] composer and organist of the late Renaissance. The uncle of the somewhat more famous Giovanni Gabrieli, he was the first internationally renowned member of the Venetian School of composers, and was extremely influential in spreading the Venetian style in Italy as well as in Germany.

Life[link]

Details on Gabrieli's early life are sketchy. He was probably a native of Venice, most likely the parish of S. Geremia. He may have been a pupil of Adrian Willaert at St. Mark's in Venice at an early age. There is some evidence that he may have spent some time in Verona in the early 1550s, due to a connection with Vincenzo Ruffo, who worked there as maestro di cappella – Ruffo published one of Gabrieli's madrigals in 1554, and Gabrieli also wrote some music for a Veronese academy. Gabrieli is known to have been organist in Cannaregio between 1555 and 1557, at which time he competed unsuccessfully for the post of organist at St. Mark's.^[1]

In 1562 he went to Germany, where he visited Frankfurt am Main and Munich; while there he met and became friends with Orlande de Lassus, one of the most wide-ranging composers of the entire Renaissance, who wrote secular songs in French, Italian, and German, as well as abundant Latin sacred music. This musical relationship proved immensely fruitful for both composers: while Lassus certainly learned from the Venetian, Gabrieli took back to Venice numerous ideas he learned while visiting Lassus in Bavaria, and within a short time was composing in most of the current idioms, including one which Lassus entirely avoided: purely instrumental music.^[3]

In 1566 Gabrieli was chosen for the post of organist at St. Mark's, one of the most prestigious musical posts in northern Italy; he retained this position for the rest of his life. Around this time he acquired, and maintained, a reputation as one of the finest current composers. Working in the unique acoustical space of St. Mark's, he was able to develop his unique, grand ceremonial style, which was enormously influential in the development of the polychoral style and the concertato idiom, which partially defined the beginning of the Baroque era in music.^[4]

His duties at St. Mark's clearly included composition, for he wrote a great deal of music for ceremonial affairs, some of considerable historical interest. He provided the music for the festivities accompanying the celebration of the victory over the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto (1571); he also composed music for the visit of several princes from Japan (1585).

Late in his career he also became famous as a teacher. Prominent among his students were his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli; the music theorist Lodovico Zacconi; Hans Leo Hassler, who carried the concertato style to Germany; and many others.

The date and circumstances of his death were not known until the 1980s, when the register containing his death date was found. Dated August 30, 1585, it includes the notation that he was "about 52 years old"; his approximate birth date has been inferred from this.^[1] His position at St. Mark's was not filled until the end of 1586, and a large amount of his music was published posthumously in 1587.

Works[link]

Gabrieli was a prolific and versatile composer, and wrote a large amount of music, including sacred and secular vocal music, music for mixed groups of voices and instruments, and purely instrumental music, much of it for the huge, resonant space of St. Mark's. His works include over a hundred motets and madrigals, as well as a smaller number of instrumental works.

His early style is indebted to Cipriano de Rore, and his madrigals are representative of mid-century trends. Even in his earliest music, however, he had a liking for homophonic textures at climaxes, foreshadowing the grand style of his later years. After his meeting with Lassus in 1562, his style changed considerably, and the Netherlander became the strongest influence on him.

Once Gabrieli was working at St. Mark's, he began to turn away from the Franco-Flemish contrapuntal style which had dominated the music of the 16th century, instead exploiting the sonorous grandeur of mixed instrumental and vocal groups playing antiphonally in the great basilica. His music of this time uses repetition of phrases with different combinations of voices at different pitch levels; although instrumentation is not specifically indicated, it can be inferred; he carefully contrasts texture and sonority to shape sections of music in a way which was unique, and which defined the Venetian style for the next generation.

Not everything Gabrieli wrote was for St. Mark's, though. He provided the music for one of the earliest revivals of an ancient Greek drama in Italian translation: Oedipus tyrannus, by Sophocles, for which he wrote the music for the choruses, setting separate lines for different groupings of voices. It was produced at Vicenza in 1585.

Evidently Andrea Gabrieli was reluctant to publish much of his own music, and his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli published much of it after his uncle's death.

Media[link]

	Ricercar del Sesto Tuono Performed by Ulrich Metzner
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

References[link]

• David Bryant: "Andrea Gabrieli", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed July 15, 2007), (subscription access)
• Denis Arnold, "Andrea Gabrieli," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Denis Arnold, Giovanni Gabrieli and the Music of the Venetian High Renaissance. London, Oxford University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-19-315232-0
• Giuseppe Clericetti, "Le composizioni per strumenti a tastiera di Andrea Gabrieli. Catalogo, bibliografia, varianti" in "L'Organo" XXV-XXVI (1987-1988), 9-62.
• Giuseppe Clericetti, "Martin menoit son pourceau au marché: due intavolature di Andrea Gabrieli" in "Musicus Perfectus. Studi in onore di Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini nella ricorrenza del LXV. compleanno", Bologna 1995, Pàtron, 147-183.
• Giuseppe Clericetti, "Una terra di nessuno: le tre Messe per organo di Andrea Gabrieli" in "Fiori Musicologici. Studi in onore di Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini nella ricorrenza del suo LXX. compleanno", Bologna 2001, Pàtron, 139-170.

Editions[link]

"Complete Keyboard Works" (edited by Giuseppe Clericetti), 6 Vol. + Critical Report, Wien 1997-99, Doblinger (Diletto Musicale 1141-46, 09671).

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Free scores by Andrea Gabrieli at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Andrea Gabrieli in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Andrea Gabrieli in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)