14th-Century Madrigal

As a poetic form the madrigal consists of two or, more rarely, three strophes of three lines each, which are followed by a final strophe of two lines, called ritornello. In each strophe, two lines rhyme with one another. The subject of the madrigal is often amatory and pastoral. Often the poems present fantastic images of animals or birds, symbolic of men or women in pursuit of love.

Music for these texts was composed usually in two, sometimes in three voice-parts, in a form that closely follows that of the poetry, the same music being provided for the strophes and different music for the ritornello, so that the two-stanza (8-line) madrigal has the form a a b, and the three-stanza (11-line) madrigal has the form a a a b. The normal form, a a b, is similar to, but probably not derived from, the French ballade.

Madrigals were composed chiefly by the members of the early Italian school, whereas in the second half of the 14th century the madrigal was largely abandoned in favor of the ballata.