Italian Madrigal Verse

Extract

Early, thirteenth-fourteenth century; middle, fourteenth-sixteenth century; late, fifteenth and sixteenth century.

Early. Dante died 1321, twenty years before Chaucer was born, wrote his Divina Commedia in Capitoli, stanzas of three lines of which the first and third rhyme, and the last word of the second line determines the first and third of the next stanza, so that each rhyme has three representatives.¹ Another early form of the fourteenth century is the Caccia, of which the words were in the form of a madrigal (described below), but the essential point is that the music was in strict canon (at several bars distance) over an independent bass.