Editing Medieval music (section)

===Italy: ''Trecento''===
{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2017}}
{{main|Music of the Trecento}}
Most of the music of ''Ars nova'' was French in origin; however, the term is often loosely applied to all of the music of the fourteenth century, especially to include the secular music in Italy. There this period was often referred to as ''[[Trecento]]''. Italian music has always been known for its lyrical or melodic character, and this goes back to the 14th century in many respects. Italian secular music of this time (what little surviving liturgical music there is, is similar to the French except for somewhat different notation) featured what has been called the ''cantalina'' style, with a florid top voice supported by two (or even one; a fair amount of Italian Trecento music is for only two voices) that are more regular and slower moving. This type of texture remained a feature of Italian music in the popular 15th and 16th century secular genres as well, and was an important influence on the eventual development of the trio texture that revolutionized music in the 17th.

There were three main forms for secular works in the Trecento. One was the [[Trecento-Madrigal|madrigal]], not the same as that of 150–250 years later, but with a verse/refrain-like form. Three-line stanzas, each with different words, alternated with a two-line ''[[ritornello]]'', with the same text at each appearance. Perhaps we can see the seeds of the subsequent late-Renaissance and Baroque ritornello in this device; it too returns again and again, recognizable each time, in contrast with its surrounding disparate sections. Another form, the ''caccia'' ("chase,") was written for two voices in a canon at the unison. Sometimes, this form also featured a ritornello, which was occasionally also in a canonic style. Usually, the name of this genre provided a double meaning, since the texts of ''caccia'' were primarily about hunts and related outdoor activities, or at least action-filled scenes; second meaning was that a voice ''caccia'' (follows, run after) the preceding one. The third main form was the ''ballata'', which was roughly equivalent to the French ''virelai''.

Surviving Italian manuscripts include the [[Squarcialupi Codex]] and the [[Rossi Codex]]. For information about specific Italian composers writing in the late medieval era, see [[Francesco Landini]], [[Gherardello da Firenze]], [[Andrea da Firenze]], [[Lorenzo da Firenze]], [[Giovanni da Firenze]] (aka Giovanni da Cascia), [[Bartolino da Padova]], [[Jacopo da Bologna]], [[Donato da Cascia]], [[Lorenzo Masini]], [[Niccolò da Perugia]], and [[Maestro Piero]].