Marte armonioso. Trionfo della battaglia musicale nel Rinascimento

Marte armonioso proposes to observe the phenomenon of the musical Battle and how it was configured and consolidated in Renaissance times in terms of genealogy and structure. The exquisite Franco-Italian genre was evaluated by contemporaries as a triumph in the description of war events that was never again to be found in later eras. A first approach poses the question of why this is so and presents the possible reasons for it: the extraordinary interest or rather the idealization of war and primarily the composition which had reached a technical maturity of its own around 1500. Historical, political, technological and cultural factors are some of the premises which contributed to the birth of the musical Battle. This form was manifested for the very first time in the famous La Guerre by Clément Janequin which recalls Francis I of France's glorious victory over the Swiss in Marignano, 1515. The analysis of such an extraordinary chanson, which was printed in 1528, is essential for identifying the specific musical means used in stylizing the war event. These means were however reconstructions based on previous means dating also from late medieval times. La Guerre sheds light on the developments, trials and tribulations of compositions that follow such a form and of similar styles of the 1500s up until the Ottavo Libro by Claudio Monteverdi. But the search for the characteristics of the war style also includes an in depth study of the most widespread musical conventions and manners by investigating comparative, literary and aesthetic reflections in order to have a greater understanding of the chronological delimitation and the definitive decadence of this early 1600s genre.