k was wont to write at the pleasure of Lorenzo.

[Footnote 24: "Geschichte der Musik" von August Wilhelm Ambros.
Leipsic, 1880.]

The source of our knowledge of the frottola music is nine volumes of
these songs, averaging sixty-four to the volume, published by Petrucci
at Venice between 1504 and 1509, and a book of twenty-two published at
Rome by Junta in 1526. Ambros's study of these works convinced him that
the composers "while not having actually sat in the school of the
Netherlanders, had occasionally listened at the door." The composers of
the frottole showed sound knowledge of the ancient rules of ligature and
the correct use of accidentals; on the other hand it is always held by
the writers of the early periods that an elaborately made frottola is no
longer a frottola, but a madrigal. Thus Cerone[25] in the twelfth book
of his "Melopeo" gives an account of the manner of composing frottole.
He demands for this species of song a simple and easily comprehended
harmony, such as appears only in common melodies. So we see that a
frottola is practically a folk song artistically treated.

[Footnote 25: "El Melopeo y Maestro," by Dominic Pierre Cerone.
Naples, 1613. (Quoted here from Ambros.)]

"He who puts into a frottola fugues, imitations, etc., is like one who
sets a worthless stone in gold. A frottola thus ennobled would become a
madrigal, while a madrigal, all too scantily treated, would sink to a
frottola." A typical frottola by Scotus shows observance of Cerone's
requirements.

[Musical Notation]

These compositions are what we would call part songs and they are
usually constructed in simple four-part harmony, without fugato passages
or imitations. When imitations do appear, they are secondary and do not
deal with the fundamental melodic ideas of the song. Nothing
corresponding to subject and answer is found in these works. If we turn
from a frottola to a motet by the same composer, we meet at once the
device of canonic imitation and with it a clearly different artistic
purpose. These composers evidently did not expect the people to be such
accomplished musicians as the singers of the trained choirs.

"Indeed, the frottola descended by an extremely easy transition to
the villanelle, a still more popular form of composition and one
marked by even less relationship to the counterpoint of the low
countries. At the time of the full development of the madrigal the
serious and humorou