sophisticated mathematics than was available to the Re-
naissance.
Further reading: Denis Cosgrove et al, Water, Engi-
neering and Landscape (Chichester, U.K.: John Wiley &
Sons, 1994).
hymnody In the usage of the Western Church, the hymn
is a strophic poem of praise, sung in worship since late an-
tiquity. In the medieval Church singing of hymns took
place mainly in the Divine Office, the set of daily services
apart from the Mass. As is the case with many forms of
liturgical music, congregational performance of hymns as
practiced in modern times was largely unknown until its
introduction in the worship of the Reformed denomina-
tions. Nevertheless, monophonic music such as the fa-
mous hymns used in processions during Holy Week and
Easter (for example, “Vexilla regis” and “Salve festa dies”)
was certainly known and loved by the laity well before the
16th century.
In many instances, the characteristics of the earliest
multivoice hymn settings find parallels in the first stages
of polyphonic PSALMODY. The liturgical context that
elicited the majority of such settings in the 15th century—
when these compositions first appeared in significant
numbers—was the office of Vespers, particularly on im-
portant feast days. A simple, transparent style of writing
predominates in these early works, with the separate
voices moving mainly in the same rhythm, unlike the
more elaborate compositional approaches found in con-
temporaneous Mass Ordinary settings and motets. As with
Vespers psalms, the sectional and repetitive structure of
the plainchant hymns encouraged composers to adopt al-
ternation schemes in their polyphonic versions. Multi-
voice settings of even-numbered strophes, for example,
could alternate with plainchant or organ-playing for the
odd-numbered strophes; likewise, the antiphonal alterna-
tion of polyphonic choirs was employed in certain hymn
settings more than half a century before multichoir writ-
ing became an established style of motet composition.
The evidence of late sources, as well as the treatment
of hymn melodies when reused in polyphonic composi-
tions, suggests that plainchant hymns were sometimes
sung in rhythmicized versions (reflecting the verse
forms); this practice is particularly well documented in
Spain. The original monophonic melodies were left com-
pletely intact in many polyphonic settings; indeed, exam-
ples from England and Germany use traditional
plainchant notation for the voice carrying the hymn tune,
while other voices weave more complex counterpoints
around it. The better-known hymn melodies found their
way into compositions for instrumental ensembles along-
side popular tunes of all sorts, suggesting their use in pri-
vate secular contexts.
As mentioned above, Protestant denominations took
the step of establishing congregational hymn-singing, cre-
ating a new repertory that mixed music from sources of
great variety: popular songs with sacred and secular ver-
nacular texts, Catholic plainsong hymns, and nonliturgi-
cal Latin religious songs. Many of the Latin works adopted
for Lutheran use were given vernacular texts, as in
LUTHER’s translation of “Veni redemptor gentium” as “Nun
komm, der Heiden Heiland.” In the music of the reformed
Church of England (as elsewhere) there was a somewhat
blurred line between metrical psalms and vernacular
hymns, including both translations of existing Latin
hymns and new texts. If the hymn in these contexts lost
some of its traditional characteristics and usage patterns,
nonetheless its transformation into a composition inviting
congregational participation proved to be one of the great-
est changes in the form’s history.
See also: LITURGYHypnerotomachia Polifili A romance, describing a
lover’s search for his mistress, written by the Dominican
monk Francesco Colonna (1433–1527) and published by
Aldus MANUTIUSin Venice in 1499. The large book is out-
standing for the beauty of its typography and woodcut il-
lustrations, as well as for its fine printing. The unknown
artist seems to have been influenced by both MANTEGNA
and Giovanni BELLINI, and some of his work records con-
temporary garden designs. The text, a mixture of Latin
and Italian, was translated into French by Jean Martin and
Jacques Ghorry in 1546 and published, with extra pic-
tures, in a format almost as beautiful as the original. The
Strife of Love in a Dreame, an incomplete English version
by Robert Dallington, appeared in a scruffy little book in- An electronic facsimile of the original 1499 edition
can be viewed at htpp://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/HP/
HHyyppnneerroottoommaacchhiiaa PPoolliiffiillii 224499