Editing Ars nova (section)

{{short description|Musical style of the Late Middle Ages}}
{{italic title}}
{{Other uses}}
[[Image:Roman de Fauvel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Page of the French manuscript ''[[Roman de Fauvel]]'', Paris, [[Bibliothèque Nationale de France|B.N. Fr.]] 146 ({{circa|1318}}), "the first practical source of {{lang|la|Ars nova}} music".<ref name="Earp">[https://books.google.com/books?id=4qFY1jpF2JAC&dq=%22ars+nova%22&pg=PA72 Earp 1995], 72.</ref>]]
{{Medieval music sidebar}}

'''''Ars nova''''' ({{langnf|la||new art}})<ref name="NG">Fallows, David. (2001). "Ars nova". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by [[Stanley Sadie]] and [[John Tyrrell (professor of music)|John Tyrrell]]. London: Macmillan.</ref> refers to a musical style which flourished in the [[Kingdom of France]] and its surroundings during the [[Late Middle Ages]]. More particularly, it refers to the period between the preparation of the ''[[Roman de Fauvel]]'' (1310s) and the death of composer [[Guillaume de Machaut]] in 1377. The term is sometimes used more generally to refer to all European [[polyphony|polyphonic]] music of the fourteenth century. For instance, the term "Italian {{lang|la|ars nova}}" is sometimes used to denote the music of [[Francesco Landini]] and his compatriots, although [[music of the Trecento|Trecento music]] is the more common term for the contemporary 14th-century music in Italy. The "ars" in "ars nova" can be read as "technique", or "style".<ref>Schrade 1956, 331.</ref> The term was first used in two musical treatises, titled ''Ars novae musicae'' (New Technique of Music) ({{circa|1320}}) by [[Johannes de Muris]], and a collection of writings (c. 1322) attributed to [[Philippe de Vitry]] often simply called "''Ars nova''" today.<ref name="Fuller">Fuller, Sarah. "A Phantom Treatise of the Fourteenth Century? The ''Ars Nova''", ''Journal of Musicology'' 4 (1985–6), pp. 23–50.</ref> Musicologist [[Johannes Wolf (musicologist)|Johannes Wolf]] first applied to the term as description of an entire era (as opposed to merely specific persons) in 1904.<ref name="NG"/>

The term {{lang|la|ars nova}} is often used in juxtaposition to two other periodic terms, of which the first, {{lang|la|[[ars antiqua]]}}, refers to the music of the immediately preceding age, usually extending back to take in the period of [[Notre Dame school|Notre Dame]] [[polyphony]] (from about 1170 to 1320). Roughly, then, {{lang|la|ars antiqua}} refers to music of the thirteenth century, and the {{lang|la|ars nova}} that of the fourteenth; many music histories use the terms in this more general sense.<ref name="NG"/>

The period from the death of Machaut (1377) until the early fifteenth century, including the rhythmic innovations of the {{lang|la|[[ars subtilior]]}}, is sometimes considered the end of, or late, {{lang|la|ars nova}} but at other times an independent era in music.<ref name="NG"/> Other musical periods and styles have at various times been called "new art." [[Johannes Tinctoris]] used the term to describe [[John Dunstaple|Dunstaple]];<ref>Schrade, Leo. "The Chronology of the Ars Nova in France", in ''Les Colloques de Wégimont II—1955, L'Ars nova: Recueil d'études sur la musique du XIVe siècle'' (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959), 37–62.</ref> however, in modern [[music history|historiographical]] usage, it is restricted entirely to the period described above.<ref name="NG"/>