Niccolò da Perugia (Niccolò del Proposto also spelled as Nicolò. Latin, Magister Sere Nicholaus Prepositi de Perugia) (fl. second half of the 14th century) 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 musical period also known as the "Italian ars nova". He was a contemporary of

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 apparently was most active in

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

Life and career

Little is known for certain about his life; only a few biographical details are verifiable from extramusical sources. He was probably from

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and pa ...

, and may have been the son of the provost ("proposto") there. In 1362 he was listed as a visitor to the monastery of

Santa Trinita Santa Trinita (; Italian for "Holy Trinity") is a Roman Catholic church located in front of the piazza of the same name, traversed by Via de' Tornabuoni, in central Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy. It is the mother church of the Vallumbrosan ...

along with

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 ...

. From the evidence of his music, he was probably a friend of the Florentine poet Franco Sacchetti, and must have done the bulk of his composing between 1360 and 1375, since those are the outside dates known for the poems he set. He may be the same as the Ser Niccolò recorded as a notable singer of laude in 1393. One of his compositions, ''La fiera testa'', was likely written against the Visconti family when Florence was at war with

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

between 1397 and 1400; Niccolò may have been in Perugia then.

Music

A total of 41 compositions of Niccolò have survived with reliable attribution, the majority of them 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'' ( ...

, and all the others from sources in

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

. All are secular, all are vocal, and they include 16

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, 21 ballate, and 4 cacce. The madrigals are all for two voices, except for one which uses three, and all are in a relatively conservative style, uninfluenced by contemporary French practice (thereby differing from the similar works of Landini). Sacchetti's records of his poetry that was set to music includes the titles of several other pieces by Niccolò that do not survive. One peculiarity of Niccolò was the genre of the tiny ballata, the 'ballatae minimae'. These pieces are very short, consisting of a single moralizing line of text, much different from the amorous love poetry set by other contemporary composers such as Landini.

Life and career

Music

See also

Further reading