Giorgio Lapazaya (1495 in

Monopoli Monopoli (; Monopolitano: ) is a town and municipality in Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Bari and region of Apulia. The town is roughly in area and lies on the Adriatic Sea about southeast of Bari. It has a population of 49,246 ...

1570) was an Italian mathematician and musician of Albanian descent.

Biography

He was the son of Danush and Maruccia whom arrived in

from

Durrës Durrës ( , ; sq-definite, Durrësi) is the second most populous city of the Republic of Albania and seat of Durrës County and Durrës Municipality. It is located on a flat plain along the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast between the mouths of ...

after the fall of

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

to the Turks (1453). He achieved the title of sub-diaconate in 1508, and was a Canonical of the Cathedral of

from 1533. In the following years he was given the office of Prothonotary apostolic by

Pope Pius IV Pope Pius IV ( it, Pio IV; 31 March 1499 – 9 December 1565), born Giovanni Angelo Medici, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 December 1559 to his death in December 1565. Born in Milan, his family considered ...

. He was trained culturally in the

quadrivium From the time of Plato through the Middle Ages, the ''quadrivium'' (plural: quadrivia) was a grouping of four subjects or arts—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—that formed a second curricular stage following preparatory work in the ...

, and in 1532 has compiled an Antiphonary (of processional type) where, in addition to well-known songs from the Gregorian repertoire, he put some his short compositions monophonic closely linked to the cult practiced in the Renaissance in

. This was discovered in the late 1970s and published by eminent musicologist

Domenico Morgante Domenico Morgante (born 1956) is an Italian musicologist, organist and harpsichordist. Biography As a researcher he has worked on various European Projects of Music. Of many compositions of the past has performed salvages and restorations critics ...

in various studies since 1981. This precious parchment is the oldest Italo-Albanian music source and testifies to the existence of a profitable cultural "contamination" between the two sides of the

Adriatic Sea The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to t ...

. In 1542 he edited, at the publisher Sultzbach in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, an important treatise on Arithmetic and Geometry which was reprinted almost without interruption until the late Eighteenth century (1566, 1569, 1575, 1590, 1601, 1723, 1727, 1784). The presence of his family, owner of jus patronatus in the ancient Church of St. Peter, is documented in

at least until the first half of the Eighteenth century. His original surname in Albanian (''Lapazaya'') appears, both in handwritten documents in the archive, both in printed works, in a rich variety of forms: ''Lapizzaya'', ''Lapizzaglia'', ''Lapizzaga'', ''Lapezzaja'', etc. The City of

has dedicated him a street not far from the cathedral, and his marble bust stands in the entrance to the Council Chamber of the City of

References

*''Antifonario'' (1532); Monopoli, Archivio Unico Diocesano. *''Selva d'Oro del Cirullo monopolitano'' (sec. XVII), ivi. *D. Morgante, ''La Cappella musicale del Duomo di Monopoli nel Rinascimento: l'Antifonario del 1532, la prassi esecutiva, i documenti inediti su Jachet de Berchem'', in “Monumenta Apuliae ac Japygiae”, I (1981), pp. 27–34. *G. Luisi, ''Giorgio Lapazzaja, matematico monopolitano del Cinquecento'', in “Monopoli nell'Età del Rinascimento”, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studio (1985), vol. III, Città di Monopoli, Biblioteca Comunale “P. Rendella”, 1988, pp. 1045–1063. *D. Morgante, ''La Musica in Puglia tra Rinascite e Rivoluzioni'', prefazione di Giorgio Pestelli, Bari, Fondazione “N. Piccinni”, 1991. *D. Morgante, ''L'Abate albanese venuto a Monopoli - Storia e analisi dell'Antifonario cinquecentesco di Giorgio Lapazaya'', in "Pentagramma", IV (1/1992), pp. 9–10. *D. Morgante, ''Una fonte musicale italo-albanese del primo Cinquecento: l'Antifonario dell'Abate Lapazaya nell'Archivio Diocesano di Monopoli'', in “Atti del Congresso Internazionale sulle relazioni tra Italia e Albania (Ancona-Fabriano-Senigallia, 30 gennaio - 1º febbraio 1992)”, Bari, Editrice Tipografica, 1994, pp. 149–171. *D. Morgante, ''Monopoli nella Storia della Musica - Il Cinquecento'', in AA. VV., Monopoli ieri, oggi e domani, Fasano, Schena, 1995, pp. 23–33. *D. Morgante, ''Presenze Albanesi a Monopoli dal XV secolo e loro ruolo nella Storia della Cultura Mediterranea'', testo della relazione letta al Convegno “La Giornata dell'Amicizia tra Monopoli e Berati”, Monopoli 1995. *D. Morgante, ''Prania e shqiptarëvë në Monopoli nga shekulli XV dhe roli i tyre në historinë e kulturës mesdhetae'', in “Riljndia”, e përditshme informative e pavarur, Tiranë, ë martë 27 qershor 1995. *D. Morgante, ''Sande Necòle va pe màre'', in "Puglia in Tavola-Tradizione e Cultura", I (n. 5/6, 2002), pp. 110–111. *Flora Gjondedaj Dervishi, ''Mes Kryemesharit dhe Antifonarit. A nuk i detyrohet Muzikologjia, cultura shqiptare, professor Domeniko Morgantes, për Antifonarin e durrsakut Gjergj Danush Lapacaj'', të vitit 1532??, in “Bulevard”, 2 Korrik 2013, VIII (653), pp. 10 e sgg. *D. Morgante, ''Il Codice di Giorgio Lapazaya (1532), un “connubio” musicale tra Italia e Albania nel primo Cinquecento'', testo della Lectio Magistralis svolta nell’ambito della Biennale Musica di Durazzo (1-7 agosto 2013), Istituto Mediterraneo di Musicologia, 2013. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lapazaya, Giorgio 1490s births 1570s deaths People from Bari 16th-century Italian mathematicians