Pietro Bembo by Titian (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A few posts ago, I listed two old posts as related articles. One was about the Petrarchan Movement, the other about Joachim du Bellay

In 1525, Cardinal Pietro Bembo (20 May 1470 – either 11 January or 18 January 1547) wrote Prose della volgar lingua, a work in which he encouraged writers to write in Italian, the vernacular, rather than Latin. The vernacular was Italian as spoken in Florence and Tuscani. For Pietro Bembo, it was in fact the Italian used by Francesco Petrarch (20 May 1470 – either 11 January or 18 January 1547) that he preferred. But I also mentioned Italian authors Dante Alighieri (1625 – 1321) and Giovanni Boccaccio (c. 1313 – 21 December 1375).

The Madrigal

As for musicians they too were to set to music texts written in Italian, rather than Latin. In the area of music, Francesco Landini (c. 1325 or 1335 – September…