"Renaissance" means "re-birth" and it was the revival of ancient Greek and Roman
values in education and the arts. Although commonly defined as 1400 - 1600, or 1450 - 1600,
the beginnings of the Renaissance be seen as early as the early 1300s.
concept of Roman humanitas and the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that
of Protagoras, who said that "man is the measure of all things". This new thinking became
manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and literature. Although the printing press with
movable type was developed c. 1450, it took about a century for Renaissance thinking to move
to northern Europe from its birthplace in Italy. The Renaissance was greatly propelled by the
arrival in Italy of Greek Scholars with ancient texts following the fall of Constantinople to the
Turks in 1453.
History
1167 - 1179 - Republic of Sienna established
Ambrogio Lorenzetti - The Effects of Good Government (1339)
1237 - 1367 - Giotto
the nobility and the peasants.
1310 - 1314 - Roman de Fauvel written by Gervais du Bus. Fauvel is a horse who rises to
prominence in the French royal court. The book satirizes the self-serving
hedonism and hypocrisy of men, and the excesses of the ruling estates, both
secular and ecclesiastical. "Fauvel" can be broken down to mean "false veil",
and also forms an acrostic F-A-V-V-E-L with the letters standing for the human
vices: Flattery, Avarice, Vileness, Variability (Fickleness), Envy, and Laxity.
1304 - 1374 - Petrarch - scholar and poet - The "father of Renaissance humanism"
1315 - 1317 - The Great Famine in northern Europe (north of the Alps)
1320 Dante Alighieri finishes the Divine Comedy
1337 - 1360 - First phase of the Hundred Years' War
1347 - 1351 - The Black Death rips through Europe, at least 75 million die.
1378 - 1417 - The Western Schism (two popes, Rome & Avignon)
1387 - 1400 - Geoffrey Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales
Trecento - Italian artistic period - c. 1300 -1425)
The Trecento can be seen as the dawn of the Italian Renaissance.
The leading painters were Giotto di Bondone, as well as painters of the Sienese School,
Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio were the leading writers of the age, writing in vernacular
Italian instead of Latin.
Top composers included the renowned Francesco Landini, as well as Maestro Piero,
Gherardello da Firenze, Jacopo da Bologna, Giovanni da Cascia, Paolo "Tenorista"
da Firenze, Niccolò da Perugia, Bartolino da Padova, Antonio Zachara da Teramo,
Matteo da Perugia, and Johannes Ciconia.
The most popular works of the Trecento composers were called madrigals, but these are
not related to the better known madrigals of the late Renaissance.
c. 1400 - 1480: Early Renaissance
1399 - Giovani de Medici founds the Medici Bank. His descendants Cosimo and
Lorenzo the Magnificent will finance the Florentine Renaissance.
An increasingly important musical idea throughout the Renaissance is to reduce the
complexity of polyphonic lines to let a main melody stand out so the words are more
intelligible. This will be important for the advent of opera c. 1600 when complex
stories need to be set to music.
Personal emotions are expressed in music with a new focus on sensuality.
Five notes are added to the medieval octave, making our modern 12 note octave.
Transitional composers:
Leonel Power (c. 1370-1785 - 1445) English
Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376-7 - 1445) German
John Dunstaple (or Dunstable) (c. 1390 - 1453) English
Dunstaple develops the use of the "imperfect" 3rd note in the scale, creating triads, or
chords. The triads are "major" for a natural third, and "minor" for a flatted third.
During the Hundred Years' War, Dunstaple takes the third harmony to France. He influ-
enced the "Burgundian school" (first "Franco-Flemish" school). The most prominent
secular forms used used by this school were the four formes fixes (rondeau, ballade,
virelai, and bergerette), all generically known as chansons. Of the four, the rondeau
was by far the most popular.
Most of the rondeau were in three voices, and in French, though there are a few in other
languages. In most of the rondeau, the uppermost voice (the "superius") was texted, and
the other voices were most likely played by instruments. Most Franco-Flemish composers
also wrote sacred music in Latin; this was to remain true for the next several generations.
They wrote both masses and motets, as well as cycles of Magnificats.
Other Important Early Renaissance Franco-Flemish composers:
Guillaume Du Fay (1397 - 1474)
Rondo [Ce moys de may (The Month of May - rondeau for 3 voices) 1:55 ]
Motet [Missa L' Homme Armé (The Armed Man)]
Du Fay took a popular song and used the melody as the cantus firmus for this
polyphonic Mass.
Leonel Power (c. 1370-1785 - 1445) English
Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376-7 - 1445) German
John Dunstaple (or Dunstable) (c. 1390 - 1453) English
Dunstaple develops the use of the "imperfect" 3rd note in the scale, creating triads, or
chords. The triads are "major" for a natural third, and "minor" for a flatted third.
During the Hundred Years' War, Dunstaple takes the third harmony to France. He influ-
enced the "Burgundian school" (first "Franco-Flemish" school). The most prominent
secular forms used used by this school were the four formes fixes (rondeau, ballade,
virelai, and bergerette), all generically known as chansons. Of the four, the rondeau
was by far the most popular.
Most of the rondeau were in three voices, and in French, though there are a few in other
languages. In most of the rondeau, the uppermost voice (the "superius") was texted, and
the other voices were most likely played by instruments. Most Franco-Flemish composers
also wrote sacred music in Latin; this was to remain true for the next several generations.
They wrote both masses and motets, as well as cycles of Magnificats.
Other Important Early Renaissance Franco-Flemish composers:
Guillaume Du Fay (1397 - 1474)
Rondo [Ce moys de may (The Month of May - rondeau for 3 voices) 1:55 ]
Motet [Missa L' Homme Armé (The Armed Man)]
Du Fay took a popular song and used the melody as the cantus firmus for this
polyphonic Mass.
[Nuper rosarum flores (The Rose Flowers Recently) 2:10]
Du Fay wrote this work for the consecration of Filippo Brunelleschi's dome
of the Florence Cathedral on March 25, 1436.
Gilles de Binche (called Binchois); ca. 1400 – 1460)
Gilles de Binche (called Binchois); ca. 1400 – 1460)
Johannes Ockeghem (1425 - 1497) Franco-Flemish
[Ockeghem - Déploration sur la mort de Binchois 5:21]
Notice the complexity of the polyphony and how difficult it is to distinguish the individual
words.
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