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| Landini | |
|---|---|
| Name | Trecento lute-type instrument |
| Background | string |
| Classification | Plucked string instrument |
| Developed | 14th century |
| Builders | Italian luthiers, Venetian workshops |
| Related | Lute, Cithara, Gittern, Psaltery |
Landini
A prominent 14th-century Italian instrument maker and composer associated with the late medieval Ars Nova period, whose name is tied to a distinctive plucked-string instrument and a characteristic musical cadence. Active in Florence and connected with institutions such as the Florentine Republic's guilds and the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, this figure influenced contemporaries across Italy, France, and the Holy Roman Empire. Surviving manuscripts, iconography, and later treatises in collections at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana provide evidence for performance practice and instrument construction.
Documentary traces link the maker-composer to civic records in Florence and to patrons from the House of Medici milieu, with references in notarial acts and guild rolls alongside names such as Francesco Datini, Palla Strozzi, and clerical figures of Santa Maria del Fiore. Correspondence and payment lists reveal interactions with travelers and performers from Avignon, Pisa, and Siena, paralleling exchanges recorded in the Chansonnier du Roi and the Squarcialupi Codex. Contemporaries cited in chronicles include composers from the Roman School and practitioners of the Ars Subtilior like Philippe de Vitry and Gilles Binchois. Posthumous mentions appear in inventories of Venetian collectors and in the writings of Francesco Landini's later biographers and music theorists working in the Renaissance courts of Mantua and Ferrara.
The instrument attributed to this maker is a plucked string instrument combining features of the lute, gittern, and fretted citole, featuring a rounded back, carved soundboard, and a neck fitted with tied gut frets similar to those described by Marchetto da Padova and illustrated in the Robertsbridge Codex. Construction techniques involve spruce or willow soundboards, maple or sycamore ribs, and pegs of boxwood following traditions from Padua and Venice. Tuning systems reflect medieval modal practice with courses and single strings tuned to intervals referenced in treatises by Guillaume de Machaut and Franco of Cologne. A signature mechanical ornament—a recessed lateral bridge and a trailing-tone mechanism producing a stepwise cadential formula—correlates with descriptions in the Tacuinum Sanitatis-era iconography and with organological accounts in the manuscripts of Johannes de Grocheio.
Repertoire associated with this figure appears in anthologies such as the Squarcialupi Codex, the Trinity Carol Roll parallels, and various chansonnier compilations containing madrigals, ballate, and instrumental estampies. Pieces frequently employ forms linked to Trecento poetic meters and are set in modes catalogued by Marchetto da Padova, often featuring open-voiced textures resembling works by Jacopo da Bologna and Andrea da Firenze. Instrumental arrangements and vocal settings demonstrate contrapuntal techniques comparable to those in manuscripts circulating among Avignon Papacy musicians and performers for the Bergamo and Padua chapels. Notated tablatures and mensural transcriptions survive in collections alongside compositions by Paolo da Firenze and Solage.
This maker-composer's cadential idiom and instrument design informed the development of later plucked instruments in Renaissance Italy and influenced composers working in the Sforza and Este courts. Musicians in Naples and Milan adopted tuning and ornament conventions cited in the theoretical works of Guglielmo d'Arezzo successors and in the pedagogical writings of Hugo of Saint Victor-inspired schools. The instrument's iconography appears in painting cycles by Giotto-school artists and in civic festival records alongside processional ensembles. Centuries of luthiers referenced its construction when evolving the Baroque guitar and early renaissance lute families, with echoes in the output of later makers in Cremona and Bologna.
Revivalists in the 20th and 21st centuries reconstructed the instrument using sources from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana and the Vatican Library, guided by scholarship from the Early Music movement and performers associated with ensembles like Ensemble Micrologus, Fretwork, and Ricercar Consort. Recordings on period labels document repertoire attributed to this figure and to contemporaries listed in the Squarcialupi Codex, produced using gut strings and historical temperaments advocated by researchers at King's College, Cambridge and Conservatorio di Musica "Giuseppe Verdi". Modern luthiers in Florence, Venice, and Paris continue to build replicas displayed at institutions such as the Museo degli Strumenti Musicali and performed at festivals including the Festival dei Due Mondi and the Festival de Royaumont.
Category:Medieval musical instruments Category:Trecento music Category:Italian luthiers