Note di musica e note di censura

Is it possible to censure music ? This question may sound rather extravagant, and this is perhaps why music is often overlooked in studies on ecclesiastical censorship in the early modern period, for it would seem that its very essence is incompatible with any form of control. There is no simple answer to the initial question. The conciliar decrees, the Indexes of prohibited books, the treatises on music and the manuals on demonology reveal a wide range of grounds for censorship. Some of these went beyond written or spoken words and could be applied to music. Musical censorship did not only involve zealous inquisitors battling with some licentious musician, but also the language of worship and the circulation of prohibited knowledge, which included dangers in the form of sounds that went beyond erotic seduction.