Francesco Landini

1325–1397

Organist
Composer

An Eminent Organist and Composer.

Francesco Landini (1325–1397) was the most renowned Italian composer of the fourteenth century. His father was a painter and a member of Giotto's circle of artists in Florence. As the result of smallpox in his youth, Francesco was blind, an affliction that kept him from taking up the profession of his father but did not prevent him from pursuing a distinguished career as an organist, organ builder, singer, poet, and composer. He is described as poet, composer, and performer by Giovanni da Prato in his 1389 Il Paradiso degli Alberti: "He plays his love verses so sweetly that no one had ever heard such beautiful harmonies, and their hearts almost burst from their bosoms." Landini was buried in the Florentine Church of San Lorenzo, where his tombstone depicts him holding a portative organ, one of the symbols of a revered musician. He is similarly portrayed in a miniature illumination in the Squarcialupi Codex, one of the most important sources of late medieval Italian music. His compositions were all secular and almost all in a single form, the ballata, written for two and three voices. In addition to having written excellent musical compositions, Landini was influential in the adoption of the French compositional style by Italians.

sources

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 29 vols. 2nd ed. Ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 2001).