Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] Fabbri, Anna Maria

1. Introduction.

The emergence of the frottola is an event of historic moment when gauged against the seeming lull in the activity of Italian composers during the 15th century. With the demise of 14th-century forms about 1430, native music appears to have waned: few composers are known by name from the period that immediately preceded the frottola, and none of these is of high artistic standing (with the possible exception of Bartolomeus Brollo). Yet music-making continued apace, to judge from the large number of works with Italian texts transmitted in manuscript collections (among them E-E iv.a.24, S 5-1-43, F-Pn fr.15123, I-MC 871, PAVu 362 and PEc 431 [G.20]). The names of northerners (e.g. Dunstaple, Isaac, Martini, Morton) are affixed to several, or may be determined from concordances, while the majority of the anonymous pieces that remain were composed, presumably, by Italians. In style and structure they embrace many incipient frottolas (usually scored a 3, with the melody in the soprano, prevailingly homophonic texture and syllabic delivery of text). It may be wrong, though, to look for the roots of the form in an artistic development: the frottola seems at times to take a decidedly anti-artistic stance, paring itself of the artifices that accrued to 14th-century music and of those that typified northern counterpoint. Its roots lie, instead, in the groundwork of a popular performing practice.

The custom of reciting poetry to a musical accompaniment was widespread in the 15th century. Whereas native composition seems to have declined in quality and quantity, a tradition of extemporaneous song was rising, enjoying the esteem of both popular and aristocratic circles. Towards the end of the century the Medici in Florence were particularly inclined to this kind of entertainment (Raffaele Brandolini spoke of the favour Lorenzo de’ Medici accorded improvisers), and Mantua and other courts extended it their patronage. Not only were the classics presented in song (the favourite being Virgil), but many of the works of living poets seemed earmarked for such rendition. Their verses consisted of a motley assemblage of types ranging from the canzone a ballo (or ballata) to the rispetto and eclogue. Usually poet, singer and accompanist were one and the same, as in the case of the renowned Pietrobono, who on one occasion sang ‘in cetra ad ordinata frotta’ (Cornazano: La sforziade). In theatrical performance the labours might be divided, as when Baccio Ugolini acted the main part in Poliziano’s Orfeo in Mantua in 1471, or when Atalante (Manetto Migliorotti), taught to play the lute by Leonardo da Vinci, did the same in a Mantuan performance of 1490. Others who achieved renown in improvising ad lyram were Raffaele Brandolini, Bernardo Accolti, Jacopo Corsi and Lorenzo de’ Medici himself, whose dabbling in love-poetry was more than a casual pastime. Heading the list, though, were Il Chariteo (alias Benedetto Gareth), a Spaniard connected with the Aragonese house in Naples. The octave Amando e desiando io vivo, printed in Petrucci’s book 9 (no.64), is an example of his music as well as his poetry. Serafino dall’Aquila (1466–1500) was another important figure whose poetry (chiefly strambotti) turns up in numerous settings, many of which may be assumed to be his own.

Preceding Il Chariteo and Serafino, and establishing a weighty precedent, was Leonardo Giustiniani (c1383–1446), statesman and poet, largely remembered today in musical circles for Dunstaple’s setting of his verses O rosa bella. In his time he won fame for the singing of his poetry to the accompaniment of a lira da braccio; Pietro Bembo later attributed his renown to the ‘style [maniera] of the music to which he delivered his lyrics’ (Prose della volgar lingua, 1525). Rubsamen considered Giustiniani the exemplar for a host of imitators throughout the 15th century, and claimed to have uncovered examples of his lost art in four works that open Petrucci’s book 6 (nos.2–5). Apart from being the only settings of his verses in the frottola literature, these works bear unique stylistic traits, namely a soprano whose melismatic passage-work may be due directly to Giustiniani’s art of improvised ornamentation, the writing a 3 in a collection basically a 4, and the archaic structure of cadences. Petrucci did, in fact, speak of ‘giustiniane’ in the inscription to the tavola (without designating which pieces they were), and the possibility that such music may exemplify an early practice of arie veneziane led Rubsamen to posit the beginnings of the frottola at about 1450, hence narrowing the gap between 14th-century art music and the inchoate tradition of improvised song.

Descending from a popular performing practice, the new form gained from the energizing influences of the lingua volgare (competing with, and eventually winning out over, Latin as a literary vehicle) and the hybrid poesia popolaresca it engendered. The chief centre for the frottola was Mantua: there it developed and received its characteristic imprint under the patronage of Isabella d’Este (1474–1539). Daughter of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara, and after 1490 wife of Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua, Isabella was renowned for her culture and artistic sensibility. She consorted with the leading artists and men of letters of her time, winning words of praise from Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Castiglione and many others. For Ariosto she was ‘that friend of illustrious works and noble studies … liberal and magnanimous Isabella’ (Orlando furioso, xiii.59), and among her many merits she could claim instrumental and vocal abilities (Johannes Martini was her music teacher). Sensing the vitality of the new popular art she commissioned poets to supply her with verses which she then handed over for musical setting. Significantly, her composers were native Italians, not the northerners who had furnished the courts with music for most of the 15th century. Indeed, Italian art received a strong impetus towards development from her interest and patronage. From Mantua and the related courts of Ferrara and Urbino the novel form spread north to Florence, Milan, Pisa, Siena, Verona and Venice, eventually reaching southwards to Rome and Naples.

The major sources of the frottola are the 11 books printed by Petrucci in Venice from 1504 to 1514 (book 1 in 1504, 2–3 in 1504/5, 4–6 in 1505/6, 7–8 in 1507, 9 in 1508/9 and 11 in 1514; later editions of books 2–4 appeared in 1507/8; book 10 is no longer extant). Apart from this series 15 other frottola prints appeared from 1510 to 1531, extending the life of the frottola into the era of the madrigal and strengthening its link with the later form. Two of these prints were issued by Petrucci in Fossombrone, the rest by Andrea Antico in Rome and Venice, ?Giunta in Rome, Pietro Sambonetto in Siena, Giovanni Antonio de Caneto in Naples and Valerio Dorico in Rome; the printer-publishers of three collections remain unknown. The contents of these later sources consist mainly of reprints of pieces from the earlier Petrucci publications. Of special importance were the books of Antico, whose Canzoni nove con alcune scelte de varii libri di canto (1510) was the earliest dated frottola collection to be printed by someone other than Petrucci, which may have established him as a rival in this field. Unlike Petrucci, however, Antico also composed a number of frottolas of his own, many of which appear in Petrucci’s books.

In addition to reprints in later publications, the frottola repertory is duplicated to a large extent in a number of manuscript sources (I-Bc Q18, Q21, R142; Fc B2440, B2441, B2495; Fn Magl.XIX.117, 121, 130, 141, 164–7, 178, Pal.1178, Panciatichiano 27; Mt 55; MOe a.F.9.9; Vnm Ital.Cl.IV.1795–8; F-Pn Rés.Vm.⁷676 and GB-Lbl Eg.3051). The Florentine manuscript Magl.XIX.141 also contains a number of canzoni a ballo composed for Carnival time in Florence (for modern editions of works from I-Bc Q21 and Mt 55, see bibliography).

Special interest attaches to the barzelletta Viva el gran Re Don Fernando con la Reyna Donn’Isabella as the earliest datable frottola to be printed (ed. in EinsteinIM). Its text hails the Spanish occupation of Granada in 1492 by Ferdinand of Aragon who cast out the ‘falsa fè pagana’ from its precincts. It may have been sung first in Naples, making its way thereafter to Rome where it formed part of a play, printed in 1493, commemorating the event as the victory of Christianity over the forces of heathenry.

2. Poetry.

In line with the generic definition above, the frottola subsumes a variety of verse forms. Most heavily represented is the frottola proper, alias barzelletta (perhaps a derivative of the French bergerette): Petrucci’s first book contains 40 examples, the second 37, the third 48, and so on until the ninth with 39; it declines in numbers in books 4 and 11. Its poetry is formed of a ripresa of four lines (with the rhyme scheme abba or abab) and a stanza (comprising two mutazioni or piedi plus volta) of six or eight lines (rhyming cdcdda or cdcddeea). It descended no doubt from the ballata of the 14th century, but whereas the latter had verses of seven or 11 syllables in iambic metre, the frottola is restricted to lines of eight syllables (the ottonario) set in trochaic metre. It was sung to one or another of two musical units (A and B), each of which divides into two phrases. A typical scheme is the following:

poetry: ab ba cd cd da
music: A B A A B

with the ripresa repeated as a whole or in part after each stanza. Variant structures are not uncommon. In more developed examples, in fact, the stanza may be differentiated from the ripresa by music of its own. But generally the two parts are related by most or all of their music.

Still another form of the frottola proper, presented in earlier writings as a variant of the oda (see EinsteinIM, and Schwartz), is that whose lines scan as iambic heptasyllables (settenari). The ripresa rhymes as in the barzelletta (abba, though sometimes aaaa), while the stanza is limited to four lines, the last of which returns to the initial rhyme of the ripresa as did the last in the volta of the eight-syllable type: ccca (first stanza), ddda (second), eeea (third) etc.

The strambotto (or rispetto, later the ottava rima) figures most heavily in Petrucci’s book 4 (47 examples). It is absent from the first three books but appears with six settings in book 5, nine each in books 6, 7 and 8, seven in book 9 and eight in book 11. Its poetry consists of eight lines of equal length (11 syllables) in iambic metre. They divide into four couplets according to the rhyme scheme abababcc, thought to have been invented by Boccaccio in the 14th century. There are also a few examples of the Sicilian octave, abababab. Compared with the frottola, the strambotto shows an increase of sentiment and sobriety, relying frequently on the rhetorical figures of simile and metaphor. Its rather simple verse forms engendered an equally simple musical structure in which two phrases setting the first couplet return for the succeeding three, resulting in a fourfold AB. Yet other strambotti consist of more than two units: either the last couplet received music of its own or, more rarely, the octave was through-composed (as in no.14 by Tromboncino and no.15 by Cara in Petrucci’s book 9). Rather exceptional is the form displayed by nos.12 and 17 (both by Tromboncino) in book 4: there the music to lines 1–4 returns for lines 5–8.

The oda (no connection with the Horatian ode) comprises an indeterminate number of stanzas, each of four lines in iambic metre. Lines 1–3 are heptasyllabic, but the fourth may vary in length from four or five to seven or 11 syllables. Basic to the rhyme scheme is the linking of stanzas through a common rhyme, thus: abbc cdde effg etc. Another ordering of rhymes, though less frequent, is aaab bbbc etc. Unlike the frottola proper, the oda has no refrain, which distinguishes it from the seven-syllable barzelletta types mentioned above. In most of Petrucci’s books the oda is second to the frottola in numbers (11 in book 1; nine in book 2; nine in book 3; 14 in book 4). Its musical structure is strophic, the four lines of each succeeding stanza being set to the same strophe of music. The strophe may be composed as four separate phrases (ABCD) or as three, in which case the second is repeated in a musical pairing of the inner poetic rhymes (ABBC). Einstein characterized the oda as ‘the most primitive form’ of frottola.

The capitolo (or capitulo) is none other than the terza rima of Dante’s Commedia or Petrarch’s Trionfi serving as the basis of more menial types of verse. Like the oda, it may run to an indeterminate number of stanzas. Each has three lines, 11 syllables long, in iambic metre, but the last may sometimes add a verse. In the manner of terza rima the poetry rhymes in chain form (aba bcb cdc … xyxz). Musically, the three lines are written as three distinct phrases, which return as a unit for each succeeding stanza; where the last one constitutes a quatrain, the extra line is likely to be sung to music of its own. The rudimentary structure of poetry and music lent itself to the development of schematic melodies that could be used for different capitoli: Cara’s Nasce la speme mia (book 9 no.2), for example, is headed ‘Aer de capitoli’. Though the capitolo plays a relatively insignificant role in Petrucci’s collections (one example in book 1, two in book 4, one in book 6, two in book 7, etc.), it was widely employed around 1500 as the standard form of the dramatic or lyric eclogue.

The sonnet consists of 14 iambic hendecasyllables, grouped as two quatrains and two tercets rhyming abba abba cde cde. The length of the sonnet posed a problem for the composer, which he solved more often than not by resorting to repetition schemes, as in Brocco’s setting of Petrarch’s Ite caldi sospiri (Petrucci’s book 3 no.30, labelled ‘El modo de dir sonetti’): ABBC, ABBC, CDE, CDE, i.e. AABB. An even simpler scheme is based on the repetition of three phrases, thus: ABBC, ABBC, ABC, ABC. The first sonnet to appear in Petrucci’s books is Francesco d’Ana’s setting of Niccolò da Correggio’s Quest’e quel loco amor (book 2 no.3): it has music for a single quatrain and a single tercet, each restated once. (For other examples, see book 5 no.8 and book 6 nos.10 and 32, all three with the inscription ‘per sonetti’.) The structure of Cara’s S’io sedo al ombra, Amor (book 5 no.58), with music to lines 1–4 only, to be adapted to the ten lines that remain, is plainly unorthodox. In these and other sectional forms the ends of phrase units tend to be marked by long notes.

Structurally looser than any of the above-mentioned types is the canzone, whose lines freely alternate seven and 11 syllables in iambic metre, particularly in the verses that follow the initial ripresa. Like the sonnet, the canzone assumed increasing importance in later collections (e.g. book 11 and the print Musica di Meser Bernardo Pisano sopra le canzone del Petrarcha, 1520), pointing the way in its seriousness and literary pretensions to the madrigal. In fact, in the freedom of its verse form and musical construction, a single stanza of a canzone is virtually a madrigal, the only difference being that the frottolists retained the strophic form in which additional stanzas were sung to the music of the first. An example is Tromboncino’s setting of Petrarch’s Si è debile il filo (Petrucci’s book 7 no.5).

A number of pieces seem to qualify as villottas, a form whose origins are controversial. Torrefranca (Il segreto del Quattrocento, 1939) traced it to the first half of the 15th century and maintained that it reached the peak of its development about 1480 (a claim that cannot be substantiated). More likely is the division into an earlier variety, contemporaneous with other frottola types, in which a popular tune appears in the refrain or is used as a kind of cantus firmus (see book 4 nos.80, 81), and a later one, from about 1525, in which various folksongs are woven together in music of a more imitative and more distinctly vocal character. Poetically the villotta consists of a single stanza that is irregular in the number, length and rhyme scheme of its lines; it is likely to use nonsense syllables (e.g. Torela mo vilan in I-Bc R142 no.4). Musically, it incorporates one or more popular tunes, exploits contrasts of metres (duple, triple) and textures (homophonic, imitative), and may conclude with a nio, a section whose rhythmic pace accelerates (see Villotta).

The sporadic settings of Latin verse found in the frottola repertory are due in large part to humanistic impulses: Isabella d’Este, for example, indulged her love of Virgil by ordering music to his poetry. Such settings include Horatian odes (e.g. Integer vitae, book 1 no.47); portions of the Aeneid (e.g. Dissimulare etiam sperasti, composed by Filippo de Lurano, book 8 no.13); Tromboncino’s setting of Dido’s letter to Aeneas (Aspicias utinam quesit from Ovid’s Heroides, in Antico’s book 2 no.40), which, according to Einstein, is ‘the first love letter in music’; newly written humanistic odes (e.g. In hospitas per alpes, book 1 no.46); and an elegy by Propertius (Quicunque ille fuit set by Cara in Antico’s book 3 no.21). Some of them were composed schematically, as in the ‘Aer de versi latini’ of Caprioli that may be fitted to a distich in elegiac metre (book 4 no.62). Occasionally Latin was used for purposes of travesty (e.g. Rusticus ut asinum in F-Pn Rés.Vm.⁷676 no.64) or religious mockery: a frottola of Honophrius Patavinus (book 6 no.60) starts with ‘Sed libera nos de malo’ (from Pater noster) then switches to Italian (cf Josquin’s In te Domine speravi, book 1 no.56 and Tromboncino’s Vox clamantis in deserto, book 3 no.58). A pièce d’occasion was Lurano’s music to Quercus juncta columna est (book 9 no.1), composed for the wedding festivities of Marc’Antonio Colonna.

Pieces with Spanish text point to connections with Spain through the outpost of the Spanish court in Naples. (Il Chariteo, Serafino, Sannazaro and numerous others, musicians as well as poets, took up Neapolitan residence.) 12 frottolas found their way into the Cancionero de Palacio (E-Mp 2, 1–5); conversely, Antico’s second book of frottolas includes an ample selection of villancicos. The Tromboncino frottola Nun qua fu pena magiore (Petrucci’s book 3 no.55) seems, moreover, to rework text and music of a villancico by Juan de Urrede, Nunca fue pena mayor (from the above Cancionero). As in Latin settings, Spanish was sometimes discarded after the opening for a continuation in Italian (e.g. Tromboncino’s Muchos son que van perdidos, Caneto’s print of 1519, no.19). According to Einstein the vogue of Spanish-texted pieces may have had something to do with the many Spanish harlots in Rome during the papacy of Leo X (see Venimus en romeria, Petrucci’s book 6 no.55).

Frottola

3. Music.

Apart from Tromboncino and Cara, about whom little enough is known, stand a multitude of other frottola composers, known often by no more than their names or initials. Amateurs, professionals, commoners and aristocrats all contributed to the repertory. Most came from northern Italy (Michele Pesenti or P. Michele, not to be confused with Michele Vicentino, Giovanni and Nicolo Brocco, Peregrinus Cesena), Brescia (Antonio Caprioli), Padua (Giovanni Battista Zesso), Venice (Francesco d’Ana, from 1490 second organist at S Marco, and Andrea Antico), Milan and Vicenza, though surprisingly few came from Mantua itself. Among the north European composers who wrote frottolas are Josquin (while in the employ of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza), Alexander Agricola, Loyset Compère, Eneas Dupré, Carpentras and Jean Japart. Native composers who came to the fore during the transitional years that led to the madrigal were Sebastiano Festa, Giacomo Fogliano, Bernardo Pisano and Ruffin. Sometimes poet and composer were one and the same: seven works in Petrucci’s first book carry the indication ‘Michaelis cantus & verba’.

Generally, little attempt was made by frottola composers to express the content of the text. Even in those examples where the setting seems to follow closely upon the poetry, the relation dissolves with the delivery of different stanzas to the same music. The disparity of expression between verse and music is most evident in the setting of frivolous conceits to a solemn four-voice texture or of an occasionally soulful text to lively rhythms and skipping melodies. On the other hand, poetry and music relate closely in the coordination of verse and phrase lengths, of rhymes and musical repeats, and of verbal accentuation and rhythms. Further, the restricted number of poetic motifs corresponds to the small store of musical ideas from which entire pieces evolve.

Slight differences may be seen between the settings of one verse type and another as befit changes in form (iambs or trochees, settenari or 11-syllable lines) and content (the triviality of the barzelletta or the sentimentality of the strambotto). Also, a simpler frottola of three or four voices, handled homophonically, may be distinguished from more highly developed examples a 4 whose voices tend towards rhythmic and melodic independence (ex.1).

Referring to the compositional elements in turn, the following generalizations may be made. The melodies have a narrow range with occasional leaps of 5ths or octaves, a predilection for repeated notes, both within the phrase and in the feminine cadences that typify the ottonario; the main tune is in the soprano, not in the tenor, and clear phrasing veers towards period structure with pairs of three- or four-bar phrases joining to form larger groupings. The rhythm is simple and straightforward with emphasis on strong beats and a tendency to fall back on a restricted number of patterns (ex.1); cadences are sharply profiled. The text is set predominantly syllabically in the barzelletta and oda but with a freer correlation of words and music in strambotti; duple metre is prevalent (for two works prefixed by a triple metre sign, see Petrucci’s book 3 no.56 and book 5 no.23). Writing a 4 is the norm (with the exception of the bulk of earlier frottolas a 3, six pieces a 3 in book 6, one each a 5 in books 4 and 5, four a 5 in book 8 etc.); phrases begin and end chordally. There is a tendency towards polarization of the texture into the outer voices, the top carrying the melody and the bottom serving as bass, with the inner parts designed to serve as harmonic filler. The texture is basically homophonic, even in examples whose middle voices are in a state of rhythmic bustle (Einstein dubbed a frottola of this kind an ‘accompanied monody’); imitative writing is infrequent, limited to openings of phrases and the definition of broken triads, and extended pedal points (usually inverted, sometimes double) occur at the close of works. Strong harmonic support is lent by the bass, which often proceeds by 4ths and 5ths with seeming tonal function; emphasis is on basic triads (I, IV, V) as harmonic mainstays. Open 5th chords are infrequent, whether within the phrase or at the close of sections; there are many cadences, used for structural purposes, the full authentic form gaining the ascendance. More 4ths are used and there is freer treatment of dissonances than in the Netherlandish chanson; harmonic considerations are implicit in the division into outer and inner voices and in the frequency of root-position triads on strong beats.

There were several special procedures to which the frottolists resorted on occasion: the borrowing of popular melodies either singly (e.g. the tune De voltate in qua e do bella Rosina, made to serve as refrain of Poi ch’el ciel e la fortuna, book 1 no.38) or severally (e.g. Fortuna d’un gran tempo, Che fa la ramacina and others that come together in a quodlibet by Lodovico Fogliano, book 9 no.48); the use of pre-existing material as a cantus firmus, apt to occur in any voice (the soprano of Tromboncino’s Non val aqua al mio gran foco, book 1 no.20, becomes the alto of Cara’s Gliè pur gionto el giorno, book 1 no.11, and the bass of Michele’s parody L’aqua vale al mio gran foco, book 1 no.32; a frottola by Erasmus Lapicida in book 9 no.4 has as its top voice the soprano (reworked) of Cara’s Pietà, cara signora from book 1 no.15 and, as its tenor, the soprano (reworked) of Tromboncino’s La pietà chiuso ha le porte from book 2 no.26; etc.); the imitation of the sounds of animals (‘cucurucu’ – the crowing of the rooster, in Quasi sempre avanti, book 7 no.44; ‘turluru’ – the cooing of pigeons, in Tromboncino’s Hor ch’io son de preson fora, book 5 no.61; etc.), of laughter (‘hi hi hi’, book 9 no.29), of a bagpipe (a barzelletta of Rossino di Mantua, book 2 no.28, is inscribed with the words ‘sounding of the bagpipe in lower register’, the bass being restricted to the notes C, G and F) or of solmization syllables (‘Sol la re re mi’, in Cara’s A la absentia, book 5 no.46; Mi fa sol, O mia dea, book 4 no.27; etc.); ‘eye-music’ (Rusticus ut asinum, F-Pn Rés.Vm.⁷676 no.64, has the peasant’s ‘Alas, why must you die, mule?’ notated in black values); word-painting (for example at ‘fugge’, ‘correre’, ‘aria’ and ‘vento’ in Antonio Caprioli’s Ognun fuga amore, book 4 no.63), though this of infrequent occurrence and of questionable significance when the setting is strophic.

Of forms related to the frottola the canto carnascialesco is its Florentine counterpart and the lauda its extension into the semi-sacred sphere. The former differs from the frottola in its more irregular verse forms, which include canzoni a ballo by Lorenzo, Poliziano and others, as well as topical poetry rife with obscenities and political overtones. Unlike the frottola, the canto carnascialesco was intended for outdoor performance as part of the carri and trionfi of Carnival season and includes more striking contrasts in its metrical changes, sections of dance-like character in triple metre and occasional interpolations of duets and trios. Yet it shares with the frottola its strophic form and general features of style. Many composers of the frottola also wrote laude (e.g. Tromboncino, Cara, Giacomo Fogliano, Luprano), and the lauda depended considerably on its secular model for its forms and style. Their close musical relationship led to a vigorous practice of textual substitution (e.g. Sancta Maria ora pro nobis, a lauda in Petrucci’s Laude libro secondo of 1508, sung to the octave Me stesso incolpo, book 4 no.30): many laude, in fact, are frottolas in disguise (‘travestimenti’, as Ghisi designated them), generally of the strambotto type. Following the religious upheaval launched by Savonarola in Florence, canti carnascialeschi were similarly refitted to sacred texts and were performed in sacred processions or as part of the Lenten sacre rappresentazioni. (See Canti carnascialeschi and Lauda.)

Frottola

4. Performing practice.

The fact that the top voice in the frottola is in many instances the only one to carry a full text, plus the fact that the lower voices cannot always be fitted to it, lead one to infer that frottolas were published to accommodate a variety of optional performing media, depending perhaps on what performers were available. To the two possibilities of solo voice with accompaniment on a plucked string instrument (lute, vihuela), called by Castiglione ‘cantare alla viola’, and of solo instrument should be added a third: a fully vocal rendition, with or without instrumental doubling: the frontispiece to Antico’s Canzoni nove shows four male singers reading from a choirbook a cappella (see illustration). Such options may also have included an arrangement for solo voice with lower parts consigned to viols, winds or even a keyboard instrument; or a vocal performance in which instruments participated in interludes or postludes. Composers may have written works with a specific medium in mind (here the analysis of the music often assists in pointing to a solution), but this probably did not prevent the music from being adapted to other performing media.

5. Conclusion.

Taken individually, frottolas strike one as meagre fare: their poetry is often trite and their music modest. Yet the frottola as a genre is important, primarily because it effected a renewal of music in Italy after years of stagnation and instilled a new vitality into the processes of composition generally. Chordality, rhythmic precision, a clear syllabic delivery, an incipient feeling for tonal functions and harmonic colour, overall simplicity of means and directness of expression: these features, combined with the more artful procedures of the northerners, led in time to the madrigal. But they also extended beyond the peninsula to renew the compositional basis of northern music, as reflected in the development of its secular and sacred forms in the 16th century. The frottola established a new norm of four-part writing; it presupposed a novel concept of simultaneous composition. In those works in which the soprano dominates and lower parts support (e.g. Ludovico Milanese’s Ameni colli, book 8 no.32), as well as in those so performed as to introduce such a division between voice and accompaniment, the frottola may be regarded as an antecedent of Baroque monody. Although its stylistic means were later diverted into more artistic channels (the madrigal), they were retained throughout the century, more or less continuously, in the lighter forms of the villanella and its offshoots.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

modern editions

R. Schwartz, ed.: O. Petrucci: Frottole Buch I und IV (Leipzig, 1935/R1967)

A. Einstein, ed.: Canzoni sonetti strambotti et frottole, libro tertio (Andrea Antico, 1517), SCMA, iv (1941)

R. Monterosso, ed.: Le frottole nell’edizione di Ottaviano Petrucci, Tomo I: Lib. I, II, e III, IMa, 1st ser., i (1954)

B. Disertori, ed.: Le frottole per canto e liuto intabulate da Franciscus Bossinensis (Milan, 1964)

F. Alberto Gallo, ed.: Il codice musicale 2216 della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna (Bologna, 1968–70)

K. Jeppesen, ed.: Vollständige kritische Neuausgabe vom älteren Teil des Ms. 55 der Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milano [suppl. to La frottola, iii, Århus, 1970]

Complete Original Editions of Ottaviano Petrucci: Frottole libro quinto, 1505, Les éditions renaissantes, ed. B. Bailly de Surcy, i (New York and Paris, 1974–)

F. Luisi, ed.: Il secondo libro di frottole di Andrea Antico (Rome, 1975–6)

F. Luisi, ed.: Apografo miscellaneo marciano: frottole, canzoni e madrigali con alcuni alla pavana in villanesco (Venice, 1979) [Critical edn of I-Vnm It.Cl.IV.1795–8]

G. La Face Bianconi, ed.: Gli strambotti del codice estense alpha.F.9.9 (Florence, 1990)

general monographs

EinsteinIM

K. Jeppesen: Die italienische Orgelmusik am Anfang des Cinquecento (Copenhagen, 1943, 2/1960) [six pieces from Antico’s Frottole intabulate da sonare organi in vol.i, 3*–25*]

W. Rubsamen: Literary Sources of Secular Music in Italy (ca. 1500) (Berkeley, 1943/R) [with appx of music exx.]

H. Rosenberg: ‘Frottola und deutsches Lied um 1500: ein Stilvergleich’, AcM, xviii–xix (1946–7), 30–78

N. Bridgman: ‘La frottola e la transition de la frottola au madrigal’, Musique et poésie au XVIe siècle: Paris 1953, 63–77

B. Disertori: ‘La frottola nella storia della musica’, IMa, 1st ser., i (1954), ix–lxv

W. Rubsamen: ‘The Justiniane or Viniziane of the 15th Century’, AcM, xxix (1957), 172

J. Haar, ed.: Chanson and Madrigal 1480–1530 (Cambridge, MA, 1964)

W. Osthoff: Theatergesang und darstellende Musik in der italienischen Renaissance (15. und 16. Jahrhunderts) (Tutzing, 1969)

K. Jeppesen: La frottola, iii: Frottola und Volkslied: zur musikalischen Überlieferung des folkloristischen Guts in der Frottola (Århus, 1970)

C. Gallico: ‘Josquin's Compositions on Italian Texts and the Frottola’, Josquin des Prez: New York 1971, 446–54

W.F. Prizer: ‘Performance Practices in the Frottola’, EMc, iii (1975), 227–35

F. Luisi: La musica vocale nel Rinascimento (Turin, 1977)

W.F. Prizer: Courtly Pastimes: the Frottole of Marchetto Cara (Ann Arbor, 1981)

D. Fusi: ‘La non vol esser più mia e Tua volsi esser sempre mai: due frottole di Poliziano (?) e di Jacopo da Fogliano’, L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento, v, ed. A. Ziino (Palermo, 1985), 138–48

W. Prizer: ‘Isabella d'Este und Lucrezia Borgia as Patrons of Music: the Frottola at Mantua and Ferrara’, JAMS, xxxviii (1985), 1–33

W. Prizer: ‘The Frottola and the Unwritten Tradition’, Studi musicali, xv (1986), 3–37

F. Luisi: ‘La frottola nelle rappresentazioni popolaresche coeve’, IMSCR XIV: Bologna 1987, ii, 232–5

F. Luisi: Frottole di B. Tromboncino e M. Cara ‘per cantar et sonar col lauto’ (Rome, 1987) [incl. facs. and transcrs.]

I. Fenlon and J. Haar: The Italian Madrigal in the Early Sixteenth Century: Sources and Interpretation (Cambridge, 1988)

F. Brancacci: ‘Il sonetto nei libri di frottole di O. Petrucci (1504–1514)’, NRMI, xxv (1991), 177–215; xxvi (1992), 441–68

N. Pirrotta: ‘Before the Madrigal’, JM, xii (1994), 237–52

F. Luisi: ‘In margine al repertorio frottolistico: citazioni e variazioni’, Musica e storia, iv (1996), 155–87

J. Haar: ‘Petrucci's Justiniane Revisited’, JAMS, lii (1999), 1–38

source studies

N. Bridgman: ‘Un manuscrit italien du début du XVIe siècle à la Bibliothèque nationale’ [F-Pn Rés.Vm.⁷676], AnnM, i (1953), 177–267

C. Gallico: Un canzoniere musicale italiano del Cinquecento [I-Bc Q21] (Florence, 1961) [with appx of 16 exx.]

K. Jeppesen: La frottola: Bemerkungen zur Bibliographie der ältesten weltlichen Notendrucke in Italien (Århus, 1968)

L. Pannella: ‘Le composizioni profane di una raccolta fiorentina del Cinquecento’ [I-Fn Magl.XIX.164–7], RIM, iii (1968), 3–47

K. Jeppesen: La frottola, ii: Zur Bibliographie der handschriftlichen musikalischen Überlieferung des weltlichen italienischen Lieds um 1500 (Århus, 1969)

M. Staehelin: ‘Eine Florentiner Musik-Handschrift aus der Zeit um 1500: quellenkundliche Bemerkungen zur Frottola-Sammlung Ms. Egerton 3051 des British Museum und zum “Wolffheim Manuskript” der Library of Congress’, Schweizer Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft, 3rd ser., i (1972), 55

F. Luisi: ‘Le frottole per canto e liuto di B. Tromboncino e M. Cara nella edizione adespota di Andrea Antico’, NRMI, x (1976), 211–58 [incl. facs., bibliography and worklist]

S.F. Weiss: The Manuscript Bologna, Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, Codex Q 18 (olim 143): a Bolognese Instrumental Collection of the Early Cinquecento (diss., U. of Maryland, 1985) [incl. facs., thematic catalogue and transcs.]

S.F. Weiss: ‘Bologna Q 18: some Reflections on Content and Context’, JAMS, xli (1988), 1–39

W.F. Prizer: ‘Secular Music at Milan During the Early Cinquecento: Florence, Biblioteca del Conservatorio, MS Basevi 2441’, MD, l (1996), 9–57

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