Outlines:

1. Historical Background
   
   
   1. Italy was not a unified country but a collection of independent city-states.
      
      
   2. Composers who were hired by churches also composed secular entertainment.
      
      
   3. No church polyphony survives, probably because it was improvised.
      
      
   4. Boccacio's Decameron describes music in social life (see vignette in CHWM)
      
      
   5. The Squarcialupi Codex (named for a former owner)
      1. Copied ca. 1420
      2. Contains 354 pieces by twelve composers of the Trecento and early Quattrocento (1400s).
      3. Each section contains works by a single composer and opens with his portrait (see plate II in CHWM).
         
         
2. Secular song types
   
   
   1. Madrigal
      1. Subjects: love, satire, pastoral life
      2. NAWM 22, Fenice fù
         1. By Jacopo da Bologna
         2. Both voices meant to be sung with the same text
         3. Upper voice more florid
            
            
   2. Caccia ("chase")
      1. Canon at the unison with lively descriptive words
      2. Instrumental part supporting two equal uppervoice parts
      3. Subject often portrayed in the music such as bird songs and horn calls.
         
         
   3. Ballata: Song to Accompany Dancing (pl. ballate)
      1. Later than the madrigal and caccia (most after 1365)
      2. Earlier ballate described in Boccacio's Decameron
      3. Form similar to the French virelai
         
         
3. Francesco Landini (ca. 1325–1397)
   
   
   1. Landini was the leading composer of ballate.
      
      
   2. He was blind since boyhood.
      
      
   3. Virtuoso on small organ (organetto)—(see color plate II in CHWM)
      
      
   4. Composed only secular music but may have improvised sacred music
      
      
   5. NAWM 23, Non avrà ma' pietà
      1. Strophic with a refrain
      2. Melismas on first and penultimate syllables
      3. "Landini cadence" (CHWM, ex. 4.2, mm. 5–6 and 10–11) in which upper voice descends before leaping a third to the resolution
         
         
4. Late Fourteenth-Century Style
   
   
   1. French influence came to Italy via the return of the papal court from Avignon to Rome in 1377.
      
      
   2. Italian composers wrote songs in French genres and used French notation.
      
      
   3. This style is sometimes called ars subtilior by musicologists because of its extreme rhythmic complexity.
      
      
   4. NAWM 24, Belle, bonne, sage by Baude Cordier
      1. Intellectual play using notation graphically in heart shape (see facsimile, p. 81, in HWM)
      2. Three levels of hemiola (see CHWM example 4.3)
      3. Shifts of mensuration (meter) marked by red notes in manuscript
         
         
5. Notation and performance practice
   
   
   1. Musica ficta (false or feigned music)
      1. Raising or lowering a note by a half-step
      2. Used to avoid tritones or to create leading tones for cadences
      3. Often not indicated because singers knew when and how to alter pitches
      4. In modern editions, accidentals that are in the original source appear next to the note, but those added by the editor are above the pitch.
         
         
   2. French notation
      1. Expansion of Franconian principles
      2. Division of the note values
         1. Division of the long: mode (modus)
         2. Division of the breve: time (tempus)
         3. Division of the semibreve: prolation (prolatio)
         4. Triple division of these: perfect (or major)
         5. Duple division of these: imperfect (or minor)
      3. New note values possible through division of the semibreve
         1. Minim: one-half or one-third of semibreve
         2. Semiminim: one-half of a minim
      4. Time signatures
         1. Signs for mode were dropped.
         2. Time
            1. Perfect time: circle
            2. Imperfect time: half-circle
         3. Prolation
            1. Major prolation: dot inside the circle or half-circle
            2. Minor prolation: no dot in the circle or half-circle
         4. Red notes
            1. Continued to indicate a change from duple to triple or vice versa
            2. Could also show that a note is half its normal value
               
               
6. Musical Instruments
   
   
   1. Evidence for musical instruments consists of pictures and descriptions.
      
      
   2. Ensembles could be all instrumental or combine voices and instruments.
      
      
   3. Instruments may have doubled the voice in cantilena-style pieces.
      
      
   4. Some untexted tenors were probably instrumental, but otherwise little is known.
      
      
   5. Instruments were divided into "high" (haut ) and "low" (bas ) based on loudness.
      1. Low instruments
         1. Included stringed instruments (harps, vielles), flutes, and recorders
         2. Would be used indoors
      2. High instruments
         1. Included shawms, cornetts, brass instruments, and percussion
         2. Would be used outdoors and for dancing
            
            
   6. Keyboard instruments
      1. Clavichord and harpsichord types were invented in the fourteenth century but were not commonly used until the fifteenth.
      2. Organs
         1. Small organs (portative and positive) continued to be used.
         2. Large organs installed in churches
         3. Pedal keyboards first appear in Germany in the late 1300s.