produce in metal the puffed and slashed garments of con-
temporary civilian fashion, even down to simulation of
the stitching. From the mid-16th century changes in mil-
itary strategy and increasing deployment of firearms made
mobility more desirable than all-over body protection;
plainer suits, often without the lower leg protection, be-
came more common for practical purposes, while the pa-
rade or ceremonial armor of princes became increasingly
ornate. The use of etching (in northern Europe) or em-
bossing (predominantly an Italian fashion) for decoration
naturally negated one of the primary functions of plate
armor—to present a smooth surface off which a weapon
point would glance.
Besides suits of armor for the battlefield, armorers
also evolved specialist equipment to meet the rather dif-
ferent demands of the tournament. Heavily reinforced
pieces protected the knight’s left shoulder and arm, as the
side that would take the brunt of his opponent’s attack. A
premium was placed on helmet design that protected the
wearer against an opponent’s lance; the English great helm
and German frog-mouth helm are examples of this spe-
cialist type. For foot combat this kind of helmet restricted
visibility to an impractical degree, so a helmet with a visor
was used instead. The need to adapt armor for different
purposes led to the evolution of the garniture, in which
the basic suit of armor is provided with additional match-
ing pieces for special applications, such as a tournament
or a parade. Garnitures such as those made for Henry VIII
of England and Emperor Charles V and preserved in such
collections as the Tower of London or the Armería Real,
Madrid, exhibit the armorers’ ingenuity in the design and
decoration of these sets, which of course only the rich and
powerful could afford or needed. Sometimes matching
sets of horse armor were provided as well; one such set
was the ceremonial armor made for Eric XIV of Sweden in
1563.
Further reading: David Edge and John Miles Pad-
dock, Arms and Armor of the Medieval Knight: An Illus-
trated History of Weaponry in the Middle Ages (New York:
Crescent Books, 1988); Alan Williams, The Knight and the
Blast Furnace: A History of the Metallurgy of Armour in the
Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (Leyden, Nether-
lands: Brill, 2003).
Arrabbiati (Italian, the “Enraged”) The Florentine fac-
tion most hostile to SAVONAROLA. Its leaders were men of
wealth, who, while they did not hanker after Medici rule,
detested Savonarola’s property tax and other measures
against luxury and inequality. See PIAGNONI.
ars nova (Latin, “new art”) A movement in French and
Italian music named after Ars nova musicae (c. 1320), a
treatise by Philippe de VITRY. It marked a sharp break with
the older music, the ars antiqua, which had practically ig-
nored rhythm and from which the ars nova is distin-
guished by its rhythmical and contrapuntal innovations.
Musical parts became more independent, and a greater use
was made of instruments (the rebec, shawm, recorder,
viol, lute, and portative organ). Originating in France, the
ars nova was soon taken up in Florence, Bologna, Pisa, and
elsewhere in northern Italy. Building upon the tradition of
the troubadours and trouvères, the new art took a more
casual approach to musical composition. More secular
texts were set, and the Italian MADRIGALwas born, and the
French ballade and chace—and the related Italian ballata
and caccia—flourished. The Church was initially hostile
to the ars nova; in 1324/25 Pope John XXII condemned
the “lascivious wantonness” of de Vitry and others who
practiced the new art. Nevertheless, it entered the church
in the form of the isorhythmic motet, in which the plain-
chant basis of liturgical compositions was broken into sec-
tions, each having the same set of internal time values.
The leading exponents of the ars nova, besides de Vitry,
were Guillaume de MACHAUTand Francesco LANDINI. In
the later stages of the movement, the work of CICONIA, a
Walloon resident in Italy, is notable. His music fore-
shadows that of DUFAY and the Burgundian school of
composers.
Further reading: John D. Gray, The Ars Nova Treatises
Attributed to Philippe de Vitry: Translations and Commen-
taries (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Press, 1997).arte mayor In Iberian poetry, a verse line usually of 11 or
12 syllables with a strong caesura dividing the line into
half-lines, each having two major stresses, giving an ana-
paestic rhythm. Towards the end of the 14th century, this
metre gradually superseded the earlier cuaderna vía
(“fourfold way”), a narrative stanza used by clerical poets
(a 14-syllable line with strong caesura, arranged in four-
line stanzas having a single rhyme, aaaa, bbbb, ...). Al-
fonso Álvarez de Villasandino (c. 1345–c. 1425) was
especially influential in establishing arte mayor verse, and
it was popularized by humanists like Juan de MENA. The
beginning of the Siglo de Oro is dated from a further met-
rical reform, inspired by Italian verse, introduced in the
works (1543) of Juan BOSCÁNand GARCILASO DE LA VEGA.
However, arte mayor continued to be used in some courtly
verse until the 18th century.Artemis See DIANAArthur, legend of The cycle of stories, also known as
“the matter of Britain”, surrounding King Arthur and the
Round Table. It grew from a tiny germ in medieval chron-
icles concerning a fifth- or sixth-century British general or
chieftain who defied the Saxon invaders, was embroidered
in the 12th century, and then expanded into prose and
verse romances by English, French, and German authors.
The English writer Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1400–71)
stands at the intersection of medieval and Renaissance3322 AArrrraabbbbiiaattii