Petrarca in the music of the early Cinquecento

Petrarchism” and the music of the early CinquecentoFrancesco Petrarca (Arezzo 1304-Arquà 1374) both knew and practiced music.
It seems that he possessed a lovely voice and probably also knew how to play some instruments, for in his will he declared that he wished to leave his lute to a certain Maestro Tommaso Bambasio di Ferrara.
In addition, he was also interested in the effects which music might have on the soul, transmitting, for example, joy, comfort, elevation, but also vain merriment and scant devotion.
Despite the significant presence of music among Petrarch’s interests, however, only one of his poetic texts–the madrigal Non al suo amante più Dïana piacque–was set to music in the fourteenth century (by Jacopo da Bologna), judging at least from those pieces which have come down to us.
The French musician Guillaume Dufay, who in the fifteenth century provided music for the text Vergine bella, che di sol vestita, also represents an isolated case.
It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the cultural and literary current known as Petrarchism took hold in the musical world, thanks above all to the works of Pietro Bembo, and in particular to the Canzoniere, edited by Bembo and published by Aldo Manuzio in 1501.
The Canzoniere became so famous and was so admired that it was considered by poets of the early Cinquecento to be a veritable “mirror of life”.
Ownership of the Petrarchino, an abridged edition of the Canzoniere, was a measure of one’s cultural refinement and noble vision of life.