Caccia.

Poetic and musical genre, in use in Italy during the 14th and 15th centuries.

1. Form.

The earliest reference to the caccia in theoretical writings is found in an early 14th-century Venetian treatise (see Debenedetti, 1906–7, 1922). In this a genre called cacie sive incalci is discussed, whose text consists entirely of five- or seven-syllable lines, and which can be performed by several (up to five) singers in the manner of a voice-exchange canon (see Voice-exchange). Although there were indeed attempts to increase the number of canonic voices beyond the normal two in certain cacce (see Toguchi, 1970), there is no evidence of voice-exchange (whose structural principle is common in the rondellus) among Trecento cacce. It appears from this that the cacie sive incalci belonged to a type no longer used at the time when the caccia was fully developed.

Both literary and musical elements contribute to the definition of a caccia. Textually, Italian cacce are often descriptive pieces in dialogue, sometimes involving hunting scenes. They may be linked with the pastime of hunting cultivated by the nobility at that time, as literature and paintings also show. The hunting scenes are often replaced by allegorical amatory texts or by market or fishing scenes. 11 of the 25 surviving texts are in the form of a madrigal and one is in that of a ballata: their texts consist of eleven- or seven-syllable lines of verse. When not in the form of a madrigal the texts consist of a random number of syllables, as is also the case in the contemporary genres of the frottola and motto confetto (but see Brasolin, 1975). As in the madrigal, a ritornello may occur as the final section. A work by Gherardello da Firenze (see illustration) will serve as an example of a caccia text with a two-line ritornello (text from F-Pn it.568, ff. 25v-26):

Tosto che ll’alba del bel giorno appare
isveglia gli cacciator: – Su su su su ch’egli è ’l tenpo.
Alletta gli can: – Te te te te, Viola.
– Te, primerante. –
Sus’alto al monte con buon cani a mano
e gli brachett’ al piano.
E nella piaggia ad ordine ciascuno. –
– Io vegio sentir uno
de’ nostri miglior brachi: star avisato! –
– Bussate d’ogni lato
ciascun le machie, che Quaglina suona. –
– Ayo, ayo, a tte le cerbia vene. –
– Carbon la prese, in bocca la tene. –
Del monte que’ che v’era su gridava:
– All’altra, all’altra! – suo corno sonava.

Among the authors renowned for their caccia texts were Niccolò Soldanieri and Franco Sacchetti (and also Giannozzo Sacchetti).

Musically the caccia, in the strict sense of the word, may be defined as a texted canon for upper voices to which is added an untexted tenor. Its development presumably ran parallel to that of the madrigal in that the canon between the upper voices provides the essential framework, while the untexted tenor part is an accessory. However, a small number of cacce were constructed around the relationship of each of the canonic voices to the tenor. Stylistic links with the madrigal are evident in the alternating melismatic and parlando phrases (see Madrigal, §I, ex.1), in the hocket-like passages and in the frequently encountered ritornello, itself usually canonic. Ex.1 shows two sections from the above-mentioned caccia by Gherardello.

18 of the 26 cacce have a canon between the upper voices with an untexted tenor part. Four of these should be designated as canonic madrigals because of their textual structure (one has a text which can be traced back to a trouvère song). Four further cacce are texted in all three parts. One of these is constructed as a three-voice canon in the manner of the French chace (Lorenzo da Firenze’s A poste messe); two others of these three-voice pieces are canonic madrigals (one of them, Landini’s Dè, dimmi tu, having its two lower voices in canon). Three more pieces are two-voice canonic madrigals. Andreas de Florentia’s Dal traditor shows the ballata adopting the technique of the caccia. In addition, two madrigals by Ciconia survive which can be designated as cacce only because of their textual content (Caçando un giorno and I cani sono fuora).

2. History.

The earliest known caccia, Or qua compagni, perhaps by Magister Piero, is found in the northern Italian manuscript I-Rvat 215. As well as by Piero, the caccia was especially cultivated by Giovanni da Cascia and Jacopo da Bologna in Milan and Verona between 1340 and 1360. Cacce from the following composers are transmitted in Florentine manuscripts: Gherardello da Firenze, Donato da Cascia, Lorenzo da Firenze, Vincenzo da Rimini, Niccolò da Perugia, Landini and Zacharias (whose multi-textual caccia Cacciando per gustar shows linguistic traits suggesting a provenance in central-southern Italy). The canonic Trecento caccia seems to have disappeared shortly after 1400. Yet in non-canonic form it survived into the 15th and early 16th centuries in the shape of the strambotti and even the canti carnascialeschi (see Ghisi, 1942). Until now the only evidence of the dissemination of the 14th-century caccia outside its country of origin is to be found in the Salve mater Jesu Christi contrafactum of Cacciando per gustar in the southern German manuscript F-Sm 222 and in mention of the katschetum, presumably referring to caccia, in the mensural manuscript PL-WRu I 4° 466 (ed. J. Wolf, AMw, i, 336).

See also Chace.

EDITIONS

W.T. Marrocco, ed.: Fourteenth-Century Italian Cacce (Cambridge, MA, 1942, 2/1961)

N. Pirrotta, ed.: The Music of Fourteenth-Century Italy, CMM, viii/2 (1960)

W.T. Marrocco, ed.: Italian Secular Music, PMFC, vi (1967)

W.T. Marrocco, ed.: Italian Secular Music, PMFC, viii (1972)

THEORETICAL SOURCES

Anon: Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis, ed. S. Debenedetti: ‘Un trattatello del secolo XIV sopra la poesia musicale’, Studi medievali, ii (1906–7), 59–82; repr. in Il ‘Sollazzo’: contributi alla storia della novella, della poesia musicale e del costume nel Trecento, ed. S. Debenedetti (Turin, 1913/R), 179–84

BIBLIOGRAPHY

G. Carducci, ed.: Cacce in rima dei secoli XIV e XV (Bologna, 1896)

F. Novati: ‘Contributi alla storia della lirica musicale neolatina, I: per l’origine e la storia delle cacce’, Studi medievali, ii (1906–7), 303–26

F. Ghisi: ‘Due saggi di cacce inedite del secondo Quattrocento’, La Rinascita, v (1942), 72–103; repr. in Studi e testi di musica italiana dall’Ars Nova a Carissimi (Bologna, 1971), 59–93

N. Pirrotta: ‘Per l’origine e la storia della “caccia” e del “madrigale” trecentesco’, RMI, xlviii (1946), 305–23; xlix (1947), 121–42

A. Ringer: The Chasse: Historical and Analytical Bibliography of a Musical Genre (diss., Columbia U., 1955)

K. von Fischer: Studien zur italienischen Musik des Trecento und frühen Quattrocento (Berne, 1956), 34–9

N. Pirrotta: ‘Piero e l’impressionismo musicale del secolo XIV’, L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento I: Certaldo 1959, 57–74; repr. in Pirrotta: Musica tra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Turin, 1984), 102–14

M.L. Martinez: Die Musik des frühen Trecento (Tutzing, 1963)

A. Main: ‘Lorenzo Masini’s Deer Hunt’, The Commonwealth of Music, in Honor of Curt Sachs, ed. G. Reese and R. Brandel (New York, 1965), 130–62

T. Karp: ‘The Textual Origin of a Piece of Trecento Polyphony’, JAMS, xx (1967), 469–73

K. Toguchi: ‘Sulla struttura e l’esecuzione di alcune cacce italiane: un cenno sulle origini delle cacce arsnovistiche’, L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento: Convegno II: Certaldo and Florence 1969 [L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento, iii (Bologna, 1970)], 67–81

G. Corsi, ed.: Poesie musicali del Trecento (Bologna, 1970)

F.A. Gallo: ‘Caccia’ (1973), HMT [incl. discussion of theoretical sources]

M.T. Brasolin: ‘Proposta per una classificazione metrica delle cacce trecentesche’, La musica al tempo del Boccaccio e i suoi rapporti con la letteratura: Siena and Certaldo 1975, 83–105

D. Baumann: Die dreistimmige italienische Lied-Satztechnik im Trecento (Baden-Baden, 1979)

F.A. Gallo: ‘The Musical and Literary Tradition of Fourteenth-Century Poetry set to Music’, Musik und Text in der Mehrstimmigkeit des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, Wolfenbüttel 1980, 55–76

F.A. Gallo: Preface to Il codice musicale Panciatichi 26 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze (Florence, 1981)

F.A. D’Accone: ‘Una nuova fonte dell' Ars nova italiana: il codice di San Lorenzo, 2211’, Studi musicali, xiii (1984), 3–31

J. Nádas: ‘Manuscript San Lorenzo 2211: some Further Observations’, L’Europa e la musica del Trecento: Congresso IV: Certaldo 1984 [L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento, vi (Certaldo, 1992)], 145–68

A. Ziino: ‘Rime per musica e per danza’, Storia della letteratura italiana, ed. E. Malato, ii (Rome, 1985), 455–529

J. Nádas: ‘Magister Antonius dietus Zacharias’, MD, xl (1986), 167–82

V. Newes: Fuga and Related Contrapuntal Procedures in European Polyphony ca. 1350–ca. 1420 (diss., Brandeis U., 1987)

V. Newes: ‘Chace, Caccia, Fuga: the Convergence of French and Italian Traditions’, MD, xli (1987), 27–57

N. Pirrotta: Preface to Il Codice Rossi 215 (Lucca, 1992)

M. Gozzi: ‘Un nuovo frammento trentino di polifonia del primo Quattrocento’, Studi musicali, xxi (1992), 237–51

S. Orlando: Manuale di metrica italiana (Milan, 1993), 103–4

KURT VON FISCHER/GIANLUCA D’AGOSTINO