LANDINI, FRANCESCO
(c. 1325–2 September 1397)
Francesco Landini was a composer, organist, singer,
instrument maker, and poet of the second generation of
the Italian Trecento. He may have been born in Fiesole
or Florence and was the son of the painter Jacopo Del
Casentino (d. 1349), a cofounder of the Florentine guild
of painters. Landini lost his sight after having smallpox
as a child; as a result, he turned to music with a passion.
He mastered several instruments, including the organ;
worked as an organ builder, organ tuner, and instrument
maker; and played, sang, and wrote poetry. As a scholar,
he is recorded as following the teachings of William of
Ockham, and he was knowledgeable in many areas of
astrology, philosophy, and ethics. Landini was very ac-
tive in religious and political events. His musical works
indicate that he spent some time in northern Italy before
1370, probably in Venice. He was organist at the mon-
astery of Santa Trinita in 1361; and from 1365 until his
death he was capellanus at the church of San Lorenzo.
His acquaintances included the Florentine chancellor of
state and humanist Coluccio Salutati and the composer
Andreas de Florentia. In 1379 and 1387, Landini was
involved in building organs at the church of Santa An-
nunziata and at the cathedral of Florence. Giovanni da
Prato, in Il paradiso degli Alberti (1389), a narrative
poetic account of Florence, portrays Landini as an active
musician and humanist, taking part in extensive philo-
sophical and political conversations as well as singing
and playing the organ. Landini died in Florence, in the
church of San Lorenzo; his tombstone was discovered in
Prato in the nineteenth century. A picture of Landini can
be seen on folio 121v of the Squarcialupi Codex (I-Fl
87). His fame continued well into the fi fteenth century.
The French musicologist Fetis rediscovered Landini’s
music in 1827.
Not only was Landini a very prolifi c composer, but
the survival of his musical works attests to his popular-
ity and importance. His extant works represent almost a
quarter of the entire known repertoire of secular Trecento
music. One hundred fi fty-four works can be defi nitely
attributed to Landini: ninety ballate for two voices,
forty-two ballate for three voices, eight ballate that
survive in two-part and three-part versions, one French
virelai, nine madrigals for two or three voices, one
three-voice canonic madrigal, and one caccia. Works
of doubtful authenticity include two or three ballate for
two voices, and four motets with fragmentary single
voices. More than 145 works by Landini are contained
in the Squarcialupi Codex.
Landini’s musical style is multifaceted; he wrote
works ranging from simple dances to complex isorhyth-
mic and canonic pieces. His compositional technique is
often described as a synthesis of French and Italian mu-
sical infl uences. The melodic inventiveness of Landini’s
music is readily apparent. A special musical cadence—
which musicologists call the Landini cadence—appears
frequently in his music; it is recognizable at the end of
phrases as a leaping upward by an interval of a third.
Landini’s music points toward the polyphonic imitation
in fi fteenth-century early Renaissance music.Further ReadingEditions
The Works of Francesco Landini, ed. Leonard Ellinwood. Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1939. (2nd ed.,
1945; reprint, New York: Kraus Reprint, 1970.)
The Works of Francesco Landini, ed. Leo Schrade. Polyphonic
Music of the Fourteenth Century, 4. Monaco: Éditions de
l’Oiseau-Lyre, 1958.Studies
Ellinwood, Leonard. “Francesco Landini and His Music.” Musi-
cal Quarterly, 22, 1936, pp. 190ff. Fischer, Kurt von. “On the
Technique, Origin, and Evolution of Italian Trecento Music.”
Musical Quarterly, 47, 1963, pp. 41ff.
“Landini, Francesco.” In New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, Vol. 10, pp. 428–434.
Bradford Lee EdenLANFRANC OF BEC
(ca. 1010–1089)
Born into a good family in Pavia, Lanfranc was educated
in that city and more generally in northern Italy. He
left Italy for France while still a young man and made
his reputation as an itinerant teacher in the area around
Avranches. In 1042, he entered the new monastery at
Bec (founded 1041); he was abbot of Saint-Étienne,
Caen, in 1063; in 1070, he was made archbishop of
Canterbury. He had a dual reputation, fi rst as a teacher
and scholar and later as a brilliant administrator and
leader.
His scholarship falls into two periods, before and
after his entry into Bec. The earlier works, no longer
extant, are on the Trivium; after 1042, he devoted him-
self to theology, writing commentaries on the Psalms
and Pauline epistles that circulated widely. About 1063,
he wrote a treatise De sacramento corporis et sanguinis
Christi, against the opinions of Berengar of Tours’s De
eucharistia, and to which Berengar replied in De sacra
coena. Berengar’s ideas caused widespread antagonism
and were fi nally condemned by Pope Gregory VII in- The issue centers on the changes taking place in
the bread and wine of the eucharist in order for them to
become the body and blood of Christ. Both Berengar
and Lanfranc believed in the Real Presence, but they
differed on the necessity and type of any change in the
elements, Berengar insisting that no material alteration
was needed and Lanfranc arguing for outward identity
concealing inner grace. The question was compounded
LANDINI, FRANCESCO