(b Zwolle, late 14th or early 15th century; d Paris, 6 Sept 1466). Franco-Flemish physician, astrologer, astronomer and author of a treatise on musical instruments, of which he was presumably also a maker. Even if he did not, as has been assumed, study at the University of Paris, he would have become familiar with much of its curriculum through Jean Fusoris, whom Arnaut called his master. Fusoris, who had received degrees in theology, arts and medicine at the University, was a physician, astrologer, astronomer and prolific maker of astronomical and horological devices. By 1432 Arnaut had entered the service of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, as ‘professeur en medecine’, ‘astronomien’ and ‘maistre … en astrologie’. Between 1454 and 1461 he left the Burgundian court in Dijon and entered the service of the French king in Paris (Charles VII, and later Louis XI), where he died of the plague.
Arnaut is known chiefly for a manuscript (F-Pn lat.7295), mostly autograph, which contains treatises in Latin, tables and technical drawings about subjects including astronomy, hydraulics and the construction of astronomical instruments. Other devices are described, including a folding ladder and a machine to polish gems. Of musical interest are a copy of Johannes de Muris’s Musica speculativa and a treatise on the design of musical instruments, both in Arnaut’s hand. The latter, presumably of his own authorship (except for a brief section on clavichord scaling which he attributes to a certain Baudecetus), furnishes detailed information on the design and construction of the lute and various keyboard instruments, including the harpsichord, clavichord, dulce melos and organ (for his diagrams, see Clavichord, fig. 2; Dulce melos, fig.1; Harpsichord, fig.2; and Lute, fig.8). Also bound into the volume are notes written in several later 15th-century hands, mainly giving technical information about organs. Arnaut’s manuscript probably existed as a collection of separate fascicles and sheets until they were bound together during the first half of the 16th century. The watermark in the paper used for the musical-instrument treatise suggests that it was written between about 1438 and 1446, whilst Arnaut was living in Dijon.
The treatise is an invaluable organological source: it gives the earliest known technical description of a large number of instruments. Often it documents earlier stages of development than can be observed in surviving examples, which, except for some fragments of organs, come from later periods. Arnaut’s information about the portative and the dulce melos is especially significant, since no example of either instrument survives. Equally valuable is his unique record of the composition of the ranks in several Blockwerk organs.
Correspondences between Arnaut’s designs and later 15th- and 16th-century organs, harpsichords, clavichords and lutes, as well as details known from other documentary and iconographical sources, demonstrate that he worked within the mainstream traditions of instrument making. His account of the harpsichord, which he called the clavisimbalum, is particularly interesting since it was written at a very early stage of the instrument’s development. He explains that any one of four actions can be used; none is quite like the jack action that later became standard. One of these, a form of primitive hammer action not unlike that of a pianoforte, he associates particularly with the dulce melos, a rectangular keyed dulcimer which was probably his own invention. By suggesting that a plucking action could be applied to the clavichord, he also envisioned the virginal.
G. Le Cerf and E.-R. Labande, eds.: Instruments de musique du XVe siècle: les traités d’Henri-Arnaut de Zwolle et de divers anonymes (Paris, 1932/R) [incl. facs., transcr. and Fr. trans.]
I. Harwood: ‘A Fifteenth-Century Lute Design’, LSJ, ii (1960), 3–8 [incl. partial facs., transcr. and Eng. trans.]
E. Poulle: Un constructeur d’instruments astronomiques au XVe siècle: Jean Fusoris (Paris, 1963)
K. Bormann: Die gotische Orgel zu Halberstadt (Berlin, 1966), 147–172 [incl. partial facs., transcr. and Ger. trans.]
E.M. Ripin: ‘The Early Clavichord’, MQ, liii (1967), 518–38
M.-K. Kaufmann: ‘Le Clavier à balancier du clavisimbalum (XVe siècle): un moment exceptionnel de l’évolution des instruments à clavier’, La Facture de clavecin du XVe au XVIIIe siècle: Louvain-la-Neuve 1976, 9–57 [incl. partial facs., transcr. and Fr. trans.]
P. Williams: A New History of the Organ from the Greeks to the Present Day (London, 1980), 59–63
H. Heyde: Musikinstrumentenbau, 15.–19. Jahrhundert: Kunst-Handwerk-Entwurf (Leipzig, 1986)
S. Howell: ‘Medical Astrologers and the Invention of Stringed Keyboard Instruments’, JMR, x († 1990), 1–17
S. Pollens: The Early Pianoforte (Cambridge, 1995), 7–26 [incl. partial facs., transcr. and Eng. trans.]
J. Koster: ‘The Origins of Hans Ruckers’s Craft’, Hans Ruckers (†1598), Stichter van een klavecimbelatelier van wereldformaat in Antwerpen, ed. J. Lambrechts-Douillez (Peer, 1998), 53–64
JOHN KOSTER