Landini, Francesco
Landini, Francesco
Landini, Francesco (also known as Franciscus Landino, Francesco degli orehany, Magister Franciscus de Florentia, Magister Franciscus Cecus Horghanista de Florentia, and Cechus de Florentia), important Italian composer; b. probably in Florence, c. 1325; d. there, Sept. 2, 1397. His father was the painter Jacopo Del Casentino, co-founder of Florence’s guild of painters (1339). After being blinded by smallpox as a child, Francesco turned to music; he learned to play the organ and other instruments and also sang. He became well known as an organist, organ builder, organ tuner, and instrument maker, and he was also active as a poet. He was organist at the monastery of S. Trinità (1361), and cappellanus at the church of S. Lorenzo from 1365 until his death. His output is particularly significant, for it represents about a quarter of extant Italian 14th-century music. Some 154 works have been identified as his, including 90 ballate for 2 Voices, 42 for 3 Voices, and 8 in both 2- and 3-part versions; 9 madrigals for 2 or 3 Voices; 1 French virelai; 1 caccia. See L. Ellinwood, ed., The Works of Francesco Landini (Cambridge, Mass., 1939; 2nd ed., 1945), J. Wolf, ed., Der Squarcialupi-Codex Pal. 87 der Biblioteca medicea laurenziana zu Florenz (Lippstadt, 1955), and L. Schrade, ed., The Works of Francesco Landini, Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century, IV (1958).
Bibliography
G. Galletti, ed., Philippi Villani liber de civitatis Florentiae famosis civibus (c. 1400; Florence, 1847); H. Nolthenius, Renaissance in Mei: Florentijns leven rond F. Landino (Utrecht, 1956); D. Baumann, Die dreistimmige Satztechnik bei F. L. (Baden-Baden, 1978).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire