Editing Canzone (section)

{{Short description|Italian or Provençal song or ballad}}

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{{For-multi|the 1968 song|Canzone (Don Backy song)|the American baseball player|Dominic Canzone}}
{{Distinguish|Calzone}}
{{Expand French|topic=cult|Canzone|date=March 2024}}

Literally 'song' in [[Italian language|Italian]], a '''[[wikt:canzone#Italian|canzone]]''' ({{IPA|it|kanˈtsoːne|lang}}; {{plural form}}: ''canzoni''; cognate with English ''to [[chant]]'') is an Italian or [[Provence|Provençal]] song or [[ballad]]. It is also used to describe a type of lyric which resembles a [[madrigal (music)|madrigal]]. Sometimes a composition which is simple and songlike is designated as a canzone, especially if it is by a non-Italian; a good example is the aria "Voi che sapete" from [[Mozart]]'s [[The Marriage of Figaro|Marriage of Figaro]].

The term ''canzone'' is also used interchangeably with [[canzona]], an important Italian instrumental form of the late 16th and early 17th century. Often works designated as such are ''canzoni da sonar''; these pieces are an important precursor to the [[sonata]]. Terminology was lax in the late [[Renaissance music|Renaissance]] and early [[Baroque music]] periods, and what one composer might call "canzoni da sonar" might be termed "canzona" by another, or even "[[fantasia (music)|fantasia]]". In the work of some composers, such as [[Paolo Quagliati]], the terms seem to have had no formal implication at all.

Derived from the [[Provençal dialect|Provençal]] ''[[Canso (song)|canso]]'', the very lyrical and original Italian canzone consists of 5 to 7 stanzas typically set to music, each stanza resounding the first in rhyme scheme and in number of lines (7 to 20 lines). The canzone is typically hendecasyllabic (11 syllables). The ''congedo'' or ''commiato'' also forms the pattern of the Provençal ''tornado'', known as the French ''envoi'', addressing the poem itself or directing it to the mission of a character, originally a personage. Originally delivered at the Sicilian court of Emperor Frederick II during the 13th century of the Middle Ages, the lyrical form was later commanded by Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and leading Renaissance writers such as Spenser (the marriage hymn in his ''Epithalamion'').