Jacopo da Bologna ( fl. 1340 – c. 1386) was an Italian composer 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 ...

, the period sometimes known as the '' Italian ars nova''. He was one of the first composers of this group, making him a contemporary of

Gherardello da Firenze Gherardello da Firenze (also Niccolò di Francesco or Ghirardellus de Florentia) ( 1320–1325 – 1362 or 1363) was an Italian composer of the ''Trecento''. He was one of the first composers of the period sometimes known as the '' Italian ars nov ...

and Giovanni da Firenze. He concentrated mainly on

madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance music, Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque music, Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The Polyphony, polyphoni ...

s, including both canonic (caccia-madrigal) and non-canonic types, but also composed a single example each of a caccia, lauda-

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 Fre ...

, and motet. His setting of ''Non al suo amante'', written about 1350, is the only known contemporaneous setting of

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

's poetry. Jacopo's ideal was "suave dolce melodia" (sweet, gentle melody). His style is marked by fully texted voice parts that never

cross A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a sa ...

. The untexted passages which connect the textual lines in many of his madrigals are also noteworthy. He is well represented in 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'' ( ...

, the large collection of 14th-century music long owned by the

Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mu ...

family; twenty-nine compositions of his are found in that source, the principal source for music of the Italian '' ars nova'', alongside music by

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 others. A portrait of Jacopo is found in this manuscript, and another possible portrait is found in a north-Italian manuscript, Fulda, Landesbibliothek, Hs. D23, fol. 302. However, the identification of Jacopo as the subject of the painting in the latter source was made by a hand later than the manuscript copyist's, throwing some doubt on its reliability. In addition to his compositions, Jacopo also wrote a short theoretical treatise, ''L'arte del biscanto misurato'', which is influenced by French notational theory. He may also have been active as a poet, to judge from the autobiographical texts of the madrigals ''Io me sun un che'', ''Oselleto salvazo'', and ''Vestìse la cornachia''.

Selected bibliography

* * * * * Footnotes

External links

Jacopo da Bologna
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bologna, Jacopo da Trecento composers Italian male classical composers Medieval male composers