''Piva'' is an Italian

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

dance that may have originated from a peasant dance to the accompaniment of bagpipes. In 15th-century sources it is described as the fastest version of the

basse danse The ''basse danse'', or "low dance", was a popular court dance in the 15th and early 16th centuries, especially at the Burgundian court. The word ''basse'' describes the nature of the dance, in which partners move quietly and gracefully in a ...

Antonio Cornazzano Antonio Cornazzano (c. 1430 in Piacenza – 1484 in Ferrara) was an Italian poet, writer, biographer, and Choreography, dancing master. Biography In the city of Piacenza, which was then in the Duchy of Milan, Antonio Cornazzano was born probabl ...

, for example, in his ''Libro del'arte del danzare'' (ca. 1455), explains that the music for the piva was also called ''cacciata'', was in quadruple time beginning on the downbeat and was twice as fast as music for the basse danse . The term appeared also in the 16th century, applied to compositions for lute. The pivas in

Joan Ambrosio Dalza Joan Ambrosio Dalza (fl. 1508) was a Milanese lutenist and composer. His surviving works comprise the fourth volume of Ottaviano Petrucci's influential series of lute music publications, ''Intabolatura de lauto libro quarto'' (Venice, 1508). Dalza i ...

's 1508 lute collection are very repetitive pieces in quick triple time, with no clearly defined structure. However, it may not be accurate to describe them as being in triple time, since the fast triple rhythmic groupings do not represent one bar each, but rather single beats divided into triplets, just like

Thoinot Arbeau Thoinot Arbeau is the anagrammatic pen name of French cleric Jehan Tabourot (March 17, 1520 – July 23, 1595). Tabourot is most famous for his ''Orchésographie'', a study of late sixteenth-century French Renaissance social dance. He was born ...

's ''mesure ternaire'' for the basse danse .

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Further reading