After the death of the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri (1321), the thought of courtly love originating from the troubadours continues to flourish in the Italian secular musical art of the trecento. The Florentine monodic ballata is illustrated in the art of cantare a ballo - singing for the dance.

 

This dance was practiced by the ten young people of Boccaccio's DECAMERON. In a villa in the Tuscan countryside, away from the plague epidemic that raged Florence, our young protagonists began and ended their giornate in music and dance to the sound of canzoni sung a voce sola or supported by an instrument.

 

Alongside this important and refined genre that is the Italian ars nova ballata, a purely instrumental and complex contemporary repertoire made up of saltarelli and istampitte shows us through a veritable musical labyrinth a major interest in experimentation and musical virtuosity and intellectual