Andreas de Florentia, Squarcialupi Codex, page 370

Andreas de Florentia (also known as Andrea da Firenze, Andrea de' Servi, Andrea degli Organi and Andrea di Giovanni; died 1415) was a Florentine composer and

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

of the late

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

era. Along with

Francesco Landini Francesco Landini ( or 1335 – 2 September 1397; also known by many names) was an Italian composer, poet, organist, singer and instrument maker who was a central figure of the Trecento style in late Medieval music. One of the most revered c ...

and

Paolo da Firenze Paolo da Firenze (Paolo Tenorista, "Magister Dominus Paulas Abbas de Florentia") (c. 1355 – after September 20, 1436) was an Italian composer and music theorist of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, the transition from the musical Medie ...

, he was a leading representative of the Italian '' ars nova'' style of the ''

Trecento The Trecento (, also , ; short for , "1300") refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history. Period Art Commonly, the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history. Painters of the Trecento included Giotto ...

'', and was a prolific composer of secular songs, principally ''

ballate The ''ballata'' (plural: ''ballate'') is an Italian poetic and musical form in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. It has the musicapenim AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same texts. It is thus most similar to the Fre ...

''.

Life

Since Andreas was a member of the

Servite The Servite Order, officially known as the Order of Servants of Mary ( la, Ordo Servorum Beatae Mariae Virginis; abbreviation: OSM), is one of the five original Catholic mendicant orders. It includes several branches of friars (priests and brothe ...

religious order, whose records have largely survived intact, more is known about his life than is usually the case for fourteenth-century composers. He entered the order in 1375, though at what age is not known. One of his first activities within the order was to carry out a commission to build an organ for the Servite house in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

, for which he hired

as a consultant. Among the surviving records are the receipts for the wine that the two consumed during the three days it took to tune the instrument. Evidently he and Landini were successful, for in 1387 Andreas received a similar commission to build an organ for

Florence Cathedral Florence Cathedral, formally the (; in English Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower), is the cathedral of Florence, Italy ( it, Duomo di Firenze). It was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and was structurally c ...

. A commission recorded in 1382 for a "Maestro Andrea" to build an organ in

Rieti Rieti (; lat, Reate, Sabino: ) is a town and ''comune'' in Lazio, central Italy, with a population of 47,700. It is the administrative seat of the province of Rieti and see of the diocese of Rieti, as well as the modern capital of the Sabina re ...

, between Florence and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, may have been his as well, but has not been conclusively identified. The two men were evidently close friends, from the evidence of their time together, as well as the references found in their music. Andreas was also active within his order as an administrator. In 1380 he became prior of the Florentine Servite monastery, SS Annunziata; in 1393 he took on the additional role of

prior Prior (or prioress) is an ecclesiastical title for a superior in some religious orders. The word is derived from the Latin for "earlier" or "first". Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior. In abbeys, a prior would be l ...

of the monastery in

Pistoia Pistoia (, is a city and ''comune'' in the Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of a province of the same name, located about west and north of Florence and is crossed by the Ombrone Pistoiese, a tributary of the River Arno. It is a typi ...

. From 1407 to 1410 he led the entire Servite order in

Tuscany Tuscany ( ; it, Toscana ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (''Firenze''). Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, art ...

Music

All of Andreas's surviving music with reliable attribution is in the genre of the ''

ballata The ''ballata'' (plural: ''ballate'') is an Italian poetic and musical form in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. It has the musicapenim AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same texts. It is thus most similar to the Frenc ...

''. Thirty are known, with eighteen being for two voices and twelve for three; in addition, one ''ballade'' in French may be his work, based on stylistic similarities and a contemporary attribution of it to a name similar to his. The main source for his work is the ''

Squarcialupi Codex The Squarcialupi Codex (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Pal. 87) is an illuminated manuscript compiled in Florence in the early 15th century. It is the single largest primary source of music of the 14th-century Italian ''Trecento'' ...

'', which also includes, in the section containing Andreas's music, a colorful illustration of a man playing an organ, probably Andreas himself. The two-voice ''ballate'' are usually for two singing voices; two of them include an instrumental tenor. Not all of the three-voice ''ballate'' have text in all three voices, and the third voice sometimes may have been played on an instrument. Compared to Landini's music, in which refinement, elegance, and a memorable melodic line were the clear goals of the composer, Andreas's music is dramatic, restless, and sometimes disjunct, and includes sharp dissonances to highlight certain passages in the text. One of his ''ballate'' includes a melodic leap of an

augmented octave In Western tonal music theory, an augmented octave is the sum of a perfect octave and an augmented unison or chromatic semitone. It is the interval between two notes, with the same note letter on staff positions an octave apart, whose altera ...

, highlighting the word ''maledetto'' (accursed), causing it to leap out from the rest of the music.

References

* Richard H. Hoppin, ''Medieval Music''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. *

Kurt von Fischer Kurt von Fischer (25 April 1913 – 27 November 2003) was a Swiss musicologist and classical pianist. Life Fischer wurde was born on 25 April 1913 in Bern as the son of the mycologist Eduard Fischer. Fischer studied piano at the University of th ...

/Gianluca d'Agostino: "Andreas de Florentia", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed December 5, 2005)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Firenze, Andrea da Italian male classical composers 14th-century births 1415 deaths Trecento composers 15th-century Italian composers