Francesco Landini
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, organist
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, singer, poet and instrument maker. He was one of the most famous and revered composers of the second half of the 14th century, and by far the most famous composer in Italy.
Life
Details of his life are sketchy and few facts can be established with certainty, but the general outline has begun to take shape as more research has been done, especially into Florentine records. Most of the original biographical data on Landini comes from a 1385 book on famous Florentine citizens by chronicler Filippo VillaniFilippo Villani
Filippo Villani was a chronicler of Florence. Son of the chronicler Matteo Villani, he extended the original Nuova Cronica of his uncle Giovanni Villani down to 1382.-Career:...
, who was also born approximately 1325.
Landini was most likely born in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, though his great-nephew, humanist Cristoforo Landino
Cristoforo Landino
Cristoforo Landino was an Italian humanist and an important figure of the Florentine Renaissance.-Biography:...
, gave his birthplace as Fiesole
Fiesole
Fiesole is a town and comune of the province of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a famously scenic height above Florence, 8 km NE of that city...
. His father, Jacopo del Casentino
Jacopo del Casentino
Jacopo del Casentino was an Italian painter called Jacopo Landino or da Prato Vecchio, active mainly in Tuscany...
, was a noted painter in the school of Giotto
Giotto di Bondone
Giotto di Bondone , better known simply as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence in the late Middle Ages...
. Blind from childhood (an effect of contracting smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
), Landini became devoted to music early in life, and mastered many instruments, including the lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
, as well as the art of singing, writing poetry, and composition. Villani, in his chronicle, also stated that Landini was an inventor of instruments, including a stringed instrument called the 'syrena syrenarum', that combined features of the lute and psaltery
Psaltery
A psaltery is a stringed musical instrument of the harp or the zither family. The psaltery of Ancient Greece dates from at least 2800 BC, when it was a harp-like instrument...
, and it is believed to be the ancestor of the bandura
Bandura
Bandura refers to a Ukrainian plucked string folk instrument. It combines elements of a box zither and lute, as well as its lute-like predecessor, the kobza...
.
Despite his young age, Landini was already active in the early 1350s and it is likely that he was very close to Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
.
According to Villani, Landini was given a crown of laurel by the King of Cyprus
Peter I of Cyprus
Peter I of Cyprus or Pierre I de Lusignan was King of Cyprus, and Titular King of Jerusalem from his father's abdication on 24 November 1358 until his own death in 1369. He was also Latin King of Armenia from either 1361 or 1368...
, who was in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
for several periods during the 1360s. Probably Landini spent some time in northern Italy prior to 1370. Evidence in some of his music also points to this: a motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
by a certain "Franciscus" is dedicated to Andrea Contarini
Andrea Contarini
Andrea Contarini was doge of Venice from 1367 to 1382. He served as doge during the War of Chioggia, which was fought between the Venetian Republic and the Republic of Genoa....
, who was Doge of Venice
Doge of Venice
The Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...
from 1368 to 1382; and in addition, his works are well-represented in northern Italian sources.
He was employed as organist at the Florentine monastery of Santa Trinità in 1361, and at the church of San Lorenzo from 1365 onward. He was heavily involved in the political and religious controversies of his day, according to Villani, but he seems to have remained in the good graces of the Florentine authorities. Landini knew many of the other Italian composers of the Trecento, including Lorenzo da Firenze
Lorenzo da Firenze
Lorenzo da Firenze was an Italian composer and music teacher of the Trecento. He was closely associated with Francesco Landini in Florence, and was one of the composers of the period known as the Italian ars nova.Little is known about his life, but some details can be inferred from the music...
, with whom he was associated at Santa Trinità, as well as Andreas da Florentia
Andrea da Firenze
Andrea da Firenze was an Italian composer and organist of the late medieval era. Along with Francesco Landini and Paolo da Firenze, he was a leading representative of the Italian ars nova style of the Trecento, and was a prolific composer of secular songs, principally ballate.-Life:Since Andrea...
, who he knew in the 1370s. Around or shortly after 1375, Andreas hired him as a consultant to help build the organ at the Servite
Servite Order
The Servite Order is one of the five original Catholic mendicant orders. Its objects are the sanctification of its members, preaching the Gospel, and the propagation of devotion to the Mother of God, with special reference to her sorrows. The members of the Order use O.S.M. as their post-nominal...
house in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. Among the surviving records are the receipts for the wine that the two consumed during the three days it had taken to tune the instrument. Landini also helped build the new organ at SS Annunziata in 1379, and in 1387 he was involved in yet another organ-building project, this time at Florence Cathedral.
Numerous contemporary writers attest to his fame, not only as a composer, but as a singer, poet, organist, philosopher, and passionately devoted citizen of Florence, notably Giovanni da Prato, in hist book Paradiso degli Alberti. This book, written in 1389 contains short stories, one of which supposedly was related by Landini himself. His reputation for moving an audience with his music was so powerful that writers noted "the sweetness of his melodies was such that hearts burst from their bosoms."
He is buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. His tombstone, lost until the 19th century and now again displayed in the church, contains a depiction of him with a portative organ
Portative organ
A portative organ is a small pipe organ that consists of one rank of flue pipes, sometimes arranged in two rows, to be played while strapped to the performer at a right angle...
.
Music and influence
Landini was the foremost exponent of the Italian TrecentoTrecento
The Trecento refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history.Commonly the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history...
style, sometimes also called the "Italian ars nova
Music of the trecento
The Trecento was a period of vigorous activity in Italy in the arts, including painting, architecture, literature, and music. The music of the Trecento paralleled the achievements in the other arts in many ways, for example, in pioneering new forms of expression, especially in secular song in the...
". His output was almost exclusively secular. While there are records that he composed sacred music, none of it has survived. What have survived are eighty-nine ballate
Ballata
The ballata is an Italian poetic and musical form, which was in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. It has the musical structure AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same texts. It is thus most similar to the French musical 'forme fixe' virelai...
for two voices, forty-two ballate for three voices, and another nine which exist in both two and three-voice versions. In addition to the ballate, a smaller number of madrigal
Madrigal (Trecento)
The Madrigal is an Italian musical form of the 14th century. The form flourished ca. 1300 – 1370 with a short revival near 1400. It was a composition for two voices, sometimes on a pastoral subject...
s have survived. Landini is assumed to have written his own texts for many of his works. His output, preserved most completely in the Squarcialupi Codex
Squarcialupi Codex
The Squarcialupi Codex is an illuminated manuscript compiled in Florence, Italy in the early 15th century...
, represents almost a quarter of all surviving 14th century Italian music.
Landini is the eponym of the Landini cadence
Landini cadence
A Landini cadence , or under-third cadence, is a type of cadence, a technique in music composition, named after Francesco Landini , a blind Florentine organist, in honor of his extensive use of the technique...
(or Landino sixth), a cadential
Cadence (music)
In Western musical theory, a cadence is, "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of repose or resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of two chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music...
formula whereby the sixth degree of the scale (the submediant
Submediant
In music, the submediant is the sixth scale degree of the diatonic scale, the 'lower mediant' halfway between the tonic and the subdominant or 'lower dominant'...
) is inserted between the leading note and its resolution on the tonic
Tonic (music)
In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...
. However this cadence neither originated with him, nor is unique to his music; it can be found in much polyphonic music of the period, and well into the 15th century (for example in the songs of Gilles Binchois
Gilles Binchois
Gilles de Binche , also known as Gilles de Bins , was a Franco-Flemish composer, one of the earliest members of the Burgundian School, and one of the three most famous composers of the early 15th century...
). Gherardello da Firenze
Gherardello da Firenze
Gherardello da Firenze was an Italian composer of the Trecento...
is the earliest composer to use the cadence whose works have survived. Yet Landini used the formula consistently throughout his music, so the eponym—which dates from after the medieval era—is appropriate.