jingly rhythms a debased poetic tone—even an “antiliterary” one, as their leading American historian,
James Haar, has put it.^3
A musical composition like the one in Ex. 17-1, then, was not so much a song as a kind of matrix for
song-making; a melodic/harmonic mold into which countless poems could be poured. The song as it
appears in print is a sort of transcription from life: a snapshot of an improvisation, or of a pattern
abstracted from countless improvisations. The “improvisatory hypothesis” is strengthened by the
inclusion in several Petrucci frottola prints of textless aere or modi—“arias” or “ways,” recitation
formulas for declaiming poems in various meters (see Ex. 17-2 for the “way of singing sonnets” as given
textlessly in Petrucci’s fourth book)—and by the inclusion of what the publisher called giustiniane:
lavishly ornamented “Giustinian songs,” named after Leonardo Giustiniani or Giustinian (1383–1446), a
Venetian courtier who was famous for extemporizing florid impromptu arias to his own accompaniment
on the lira da braccio or “arm-held lyre,” a sort of bowed lute much favored by humanists for its
pseudoclassical associations. Again the impression is that of a model for decorative singing, a style of
improvisation that could be learned from such examples and applied to other songs—indeed, to any song.
The appearance of Cara’s songs in Petrucci’s book as four-partpolyphonic settings in correct if
rudimentary counterpoint might seem to contradict the improvisatory hypothesis. Anything is possible
with practice, of course, but improvisation is generally a soloist’s domain. Closer inspection of Ex. 17-1
lessens the apparent contradiction. Only the cantus part is texted. The other parts do not always have
enough notes to accommodate the words, particularly at cadences. Now there is no reason to think that
singers could not easily have adapted the lower parts to the words for a fully texted vocal rendition; but
that does not seem to have been the primary medium for these songs. Rather, putting them in part books
was just the most versatile or adaptable or presentable (or—perhaps more to the point—saleable) way of
marketing them.
FIG. 17-2 Poetry recitation to the accompaniment of a lira da braccio: wood-cut from Luigi Pulci’s epic Morgante maggiore
(Florence, ca. 1500).
As to the primary medium, connect these facts. Petrucci issued three books of frottole arranged by a
lutenist named Franciscus Bossinensis (“Francis from Bosnia”) con tenori et bassi tabulati et con
soprani in canto figurato, “with the tenors and basses written in lute tablature and the sopranos in staff
notation.” One of the primary tasks for which the Regola rubertina, Silvestro di Ganassi’s mid-century
viol treatise, trained its readers was that of reducing notated part-songs to solo songs with instrumental
accompaniment. Especially pertinent: in several contemporary writings, including Baldesar Castiglione’s
famous Book of the Courtier, Marchetto Cara is described as a renowned “singer to the lute”^4 —that is, a