(Franco de Colonia ; Franco L eodiensis; Franco Parisiensis; Franco of Cologne; Franco of Liege; Franco of Paris), the first writer to deal with the notation of measured music, i.e. music in which the notes have an exact time - value or ratio among themselves, instead of the fluid time-values of plain-song. His best-known work is the treatise De musica mensurabili,3 also known as the Ar s cantus mensural)ilis. He also wrote the treatise Compendium de discantu, tribus capitibus.4 There is some uncertainty as to the identity of the Franco who wrote these treatises, and as to his date. The earliest claimant is a certain Franco of Cologne, a learned writer of the 11th century, celebrated for his knowledge of mathematics, alchemy, judicial astrology and magic, who dedicated a tract De quadratura circuli to Herimanus, Archbishop of Cologne, some time before Feb. 1055, when Herimanus died.5 The same tract De quadratura circuli, together with another De computo ecclesiastico, et alia plum (inter alia one De motu perpetuo) is attributed by Trithemius,6 to Franco, Scholasticus Leodiensis Ecclesiae; who, he says, flourished under the Emperor Henry II I., about the year 1060 ; and Drobably to a later date ; for there is some evidence that he continued in office at Liege until 1083. Upon these, apparently conflicting, statements of Sigebertus and Trithemius as to 2 According to Wetzler's Lieder-Uistorie. 3 De m?uica mensurabili. The earliest copy of this is said to be Ereserved a t Vire, in Normandy. Other copies are in th e Bodleian ibrary, Oxford (MS. Bodl. 842 f. 49), under the title Mafistri Franconis musica, in the Ambrosian Library a t Milan, in the Paris Library, and in th e British Museum (Add. MS. 8866) a MS. of the 15th cent. * Copies in th e Bodleian (MS. Bodl. 842 f. 60), in the P aris L ibrary, and in th e Library of the Vatican. [ 5 Sigebertus Gemblacensis (rf. 1113). chron. ad anno 1047. 1 6 De script, eccles. (Lut. Par., 1512). the authorship of De quadratura circuli has been based the assumption that Franco of Cologne and Franco of Liege were two different persons. The schism seems needless, since there is no reason why the Franco of Cologne and the Franco of Liege should not have been one and the same writer, holding appointments first at one city and then at the other. A passage from an anonymous treatise 1 has been quoted as evidence of the existence of two Francos. The writer is describing the choralbooks of Perotin, and says the style of notation in which they were written was generally followed- * TIsque in tempus Magistri Franconis Primi et alterius Magistri Franconis de Colonia, qui inceperunt in suis libris aliter pro parte notare; qua de causa alias regulas proprias suis libris appropriatas tradiderunt.'* This passage is interesting, but too much value should not be attached to it. In its recognition of two Francos, both of whom taught a system of notation, it is a t variance with all tradition, and the vagueness of its wording suggests that the writer is trying to supply some gap in his knowledge by a general statement-a practice not uncommon in the early treatise-writers. In any case it is doubtful if it should be applied to the dis-identity of Franco of Cologne and Franco of Liege, since it places him of Cologne second, and this is contrary to the dates given by Sigebertus and Trimethius. But the 11th-century origin of De musica mensurabili was challenged by Kiesewetter, who in 1828 declared that it must be given a date 130 or 150 years later-i.e. towards the end of the 12th century. In his opinion the period which elapsed between G u id o d ' A rezzo (q.v.) and the traditional 1 lth-century Franco was not long enough for such a development of music as is indicated b}r the writings of the latter. Fetis opposed this theory, not unreasonably preferring the weight of historical evidence and tradition to a supposition based only on Kiesewetter's personal rendering of internal evidence; but de Coussemaker, Von Winterfeld and Perne agreed with Kiesewetter as to the necessity for a 12th-century Franco. De Coussemaker even went so far as to find one, identifying to his own satisfaction the author of De musica mensurabili with a certain Franco who existed at Dortmund in Westphalia about 1190.3 A Franco of an even later date than satisfied de Coussemaker might be deduced from the statement in one copy of the Ars cantus mensurabilis, which describes Franco as chaplain to the Pope and preceptor of the Hospital of St. John of Jerucialem at Cologne. The Vatican records do not go back to this early date, but it is 1 Printed in Coussemaker's Scriptores, i. 342. 2 Translation-* Down to th e time of M aster F ranco th e F ir s t and the second Master Franco of Cologne, who began in th e ir books to use a somewhat d ifferent n otation, and for t h a t reason h anded down different ra les suited to the ir own books.' a For this controversy see Kiesewetter in A .M .Z ., 1828, Nos. 48 49, 5 0 ; and 1838, Nos. 24, 2 5 ; Fetis, Dictionnaire; and de Coussemaker, Histoire de Vhannonie au moyen age. VOL. II known that the Hospital of St. John at Cologne was not founded till 1263.4 A late 13th-century Franco is a patent impossibility, unless we are to abandon the tradition which makes him the earliest exponent of his system of measured notation ; the 1 lth-century Franco of the 18th-century historians, though historically more probable, is not supported by any very convincing evidence ; the two Francos of the anonymous treatise are only supported by this single mention : we are thrown back upon the 11th-century Franco, Franco of Cologne, whom Marchetto di Padova speaks of as the inventor of the first four musical characters (Pomerium de musica mensurata), whom Johannes de Muris speaks of as ' Magister Franco qui invenit in Cantu Mensuram figurarum ' ; and with whom we may, without undue rashness, identify Franco of Liege. Subsequent research may shed new light on the problem ; but while we must choose between a theoretical 12th-century Franco of Dortmund and a traditional 11th-century Franco of Cologne, it seems wiser to choose him supported by tradition. The tradition is strong. The theorists of the 14th, 15th and lGth centuries only knew one Master Franco, and the quotations that they make from his works are with few exceptions to be found in the writings attributed to Franco of Cologne. Finally, it is not unworthy of consideration that the Francos, both of Cologne and Liege, were mathematicians. The music which has its place in the Quadrivium of the Seven Liberal Arts was akin to mathematics ; and it would not have been a very long step from squaring the circle to laying down a system of mensural notation or codifying the rules of descant. Franco is sometimes spoken of as the inventor of measured music, a misreading of the descriptions given of him by later writers. Actually they speak of him as the inventor of the characters of measured notation, or the inventor of the Time-Table. He himself in his treatise on the subject speaks of measured music as a thing already in existence, and when dealing with the modes-of which he acknowledges five only- says that other musicians used six or seven. It would be more fitting to speak of him as the organiser of measured music, for his great contribution to the subject was the gathering up and codifying of early experiments and tentative new usages of existing notational material into a regular and comprehensive system. How far he worked from a practical interest in the subject and how far from a theoretical-in other words, how much he was a musician and how much a mathematician-it is not possible to surmise. His authority is invoked by subsequent musical writers with invariable respect ; and we may suppose that the two treatises left * Coussemaker. i. 135, n o t e ; and Notice sur un manuscri i musical de la Bibliotheque de Saint-Dii. X us do not constitute all his teaching, though they may represent the basis of it. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that the system of notation called, after him, the Franconian n otation, was not so swiftly nor so invariably adopted as by his fame and its merits would have seemed likely. Indeed, an argument for his later date might be drawn from the ex amples of MSS. of the 12th and early 13th centuries, where the old plain-song notation persists even for the expression of music for which the Franconian notation is obviously more fitted. This, however, may rather indicate that the Franconian system was considered by some notationers as a theoretical system too complicated and learned for general use. How well founded it was upon reason, how clear and well suited to the needs of measured music may be gauged from the fact that though in the course of time new signs have been added to it and old material (such as the ligatures) discarded, the principles of Franco's system have never been superseded, and underlie the notation of to-day. See Musica Mensu rata and D escant. s . t . w .