(It.: ‘chaining’).
A term used by modern scholars to refer to the Quodlibet of 16th-century Italy. Torrefranca divided such works into two types: the villotta d'incatenatura, in which a succession of borrowed fragments in one part is accompanied homophonically by other free voices; and the incatenatura da villotta, in which every voice is a different patchwork of quotations. Examples of the former include L'ultimo dì di maggio, Che mangerà la sposa and P. da Hostia's Vray dieu d'amor. In the latter category are such works as Non dormite o cacciatori, Lodovico Fogliani's Fortuna d'un gran tempo, Matthias Werrecore's Horsu and Isaac's famous Donna di dentro. In the last piece, ‘Donna di dentro’ is skilfully combined with the well-known tune ‘Fortuna d'un gran tempo’ and a comical plea, ‘Dammene un pocho di quella maza crocha’. The printed and manuscript sources for the frottola repertory include examples of related procedures in which elements of independent songs are recombined either simultaneously or in formal juxtaposition. The incatenatura may have developed from an improvised practice of quoting popular villotta refrains at the ends of pieces, which often contain ‘lilolelas’ (onomatopoeic imitations of instruments). Patchwork refrain led to the filastrocca, a long villotta coda.
EinsteinIM
K. Jeppesen: ‘Venetian Folk-Songs of the Renaissance’, PAMS 1939, 62–75
F. Torrefranca: Il segreto del Quattrocento (Milan, 1939)
B. Becherini: ‘Tre incatenature del codice fiorentino Magl.XIX.164, 65, 66, 67’, CHM, i (1953), 79–96
K. Jeppesen: La frottola, iii: Frottola und Volkslied (Århus, 1970)
W.F. Prizer: Courtly Pastimes: the Frottole of Marchetto Cara (Ann Arbor, 1980)
D.G. Cardamone: The Canzone villanesca alla napolitana and Related Forms, 1537–1570 (Ann Arbor, 1981)
For further bibliography see Quodlibet.
MARIA RIKA MANIATES/RICHARD FREEDMAN