A carnival song or canto carnascialesco (pl. canti carnascialeschi) was a late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century song used to celebrate the carnival season in Florence, mainly the weeks preceding Lent and the Calendimaggio, which lasted from May 1 to June 24. The festivities included song and dance, usually performed or led by masked professionals.
The carnival song was elaborated under the rule of Duke Lorenzo the Magnificent (1469–92) and the ducal court became more involved. Lorenzo wrote lyric poems designed to be sung by members of his court and of the city's guilds, whose members also sang their own songs, with lyrics drawn mostly from popular legend and daily life. These canti are the textual descendants of the caccia , a song form that was typically satiric and obscene, revelling in the double entendre. The musical settings were generally chordal and strophic (often ABBC), similar to the frottola, which was then popular in Mantua. The A and B stanzas were typically in common metre, the final stanza was then in perfect (i.e. 3/4) time. Performance outdoors and before popular audiences probably constrained the music to be simple and unsubtle. These songs were usually serenades, chariot songs, and processionals, often song from parade floats.
Though we know that Heinrich Isaac composed canti carnascialeschi for Lorenzo around 1480, none of these works survive. One anonymous surviving song, Orsu car' Signori, is an advertisement paid for by the guild of scribes: "Step up, dear sirs, if you wish your bulls quickly certified." The fate of many of the canti was sealed by the fall of the Medici and the Bonfire of the Vanities (and the like) under Girolamo Savonarola. Some melodies escaped destruction by being set to new (sacred) words. The canti, with the carnivals, were restored after Savonarola's downfall in 1498, but they were increasing ceremonial in character and the exercise of writing songs for them became more literary.
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A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America.
Girolamo Savonarola, OP or Jerome Savonarola was an ascetic Italian Dominican friar from Ferrara and preacher active in Renaissance Florence. He was known for his prophecies of civic glory, the destruction of secular art and culture, and his calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule, and the exploitation of the poor.
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word troubadour is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz.
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites who stimulated a reappraisal of his work. Since then, his paintings have been seen to represent the linear grace of late Italian Gothic and some Early Renaissance painting, even though they date from the latter half of the Italian Renaissance period.
A jester, court jester, fool or joker was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch employed to entertain guests during the medieval and Renaissance eras. Jesters were also itinerant performers who entertained common folk at fairs and town markets, and the discipline continues into the modern day, where jesters perform at historical-themed events.
Gilles de Bins dit Binchois was a Franco-Flemish composer of early Renaissance music. A central figure of the Burgundian School, Binchois and his colleague Guillaume Du Fay were deeply influenced by the contenance angloise style of John Dunstaple. His efforts in consolidating a 'Burgundian tradition' would be important for the formation of the Franco-Flemish School. One of the three most famous composers of the early 15th century, Binchois is often ranked behind Du Fay and Dunstable by contemporary scholars, but his works were still widely cited, emulated and used as source material after his death.
Piero di Cosimo, also known as Piero di Lorenzo, was an Italian painter of the Renaissance.
The ballade is a form of medieval and Renaissance French poetry as well as the corresponding musical chanson form. It was one of the three formes fixes and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries.
The cittern or cithren is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the Medieval citole. Its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the lute. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate and more portable. Played by people of all social classes, the cittern was a premier instrument of casual music-making much as is the guitar today.
Guillaume Du Fay was a French composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. Considered the leading European composer of his time, his music was widely performed and reproduced. Du Fay was well-associated with composers of the Burgundian School, particularly his colleague Gilles Binchois, but was never a regular member of the Burgundian chapel himself.
The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form of four lines. Originally composed in quantitative verse and unrhymed, since the Middle Ages imitations of the form typically feature rhyme and accentual prosody. It is "the longest lived of the Classical lyric strophes in the West".
A chanson is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic songs of troubadours and trouvères, though the only polyphonic precedents were 16 works by Adam de la Halle and one by Jehan de Lescurel. Not until the ars nova composer Guillaume de Machaut did any composer write a significant number of polyphonic chansons.
A bonfire of the vanities is a burning of objects condemned by religious authorities as occasions of sin. The phrase itself usually refers to the bonfire of 7 February 1497, when supporters of the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola collected and burned thousands of objects such as cosmetics, art, and books in the public square of Florence, Italy, on the occasion of Shrove Tuesday, martedí grasso.
A virelai is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three formes fixes and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries.
Antonio Francesco Grazzini or Antonfrancisco Grazzini was an Italian author.
The music of Florence is foundational in the history of Western European music. Music was an important part of the Italian Renaissance. It was in Florence that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony.
Italian music terminology consists of words and phrases used in the discussion of the music of Italy. Some Italian music terms are derived from the common Italian language. Others come from Spanish, or Neapolitan, Sicilian, Sardinian or other regional languages of Italy. The terms listed here describe a genre, song form, dance, instrument, style, quality of music, technique or other important aspect of Italian music.
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also applies to non-Western art music. Classical music is often characterized by formality and complexity in its musical form and harmonic organization, particularly with the use of polyphony. Since at least the ninth century it has been primarily a written tradition, spawning a sophisticated notational system, as well as accompanying literature in analytical, critical, historiographical, musicological and philosophical practices. A foundational component of Western Culture, classical music is frequently seen from the perspective of individual or groups of composers, whose compositions, personalities and beliefs have fundamentally shaped its history.
Music in Medieval England, from the end of Roman rule in the fifth century until the Reformation in the sixteenth century, was a diverse and rich culture, including sacred and secular music and ranging from the popular to the elite.
Alessandro Braccesi was an Italian humanist, writer and diplomat. He was born in Florence and died in Rome. Perugino's Portrait of a Boy was long identified as him, but this identification has now been refuted.
