Giovanni da Cascia (Giovanni de Florentia)
Giovanni da Cascia (Giovanni de Florentia)
Giovanni da Cascia (Giovanni de Florentia ), Italian composer who flourished in the 14th century. According to his younger contemporary Filippo Villani, in Liber de civitatis Florentiae famosis civibus, he was the initiator of the stylistic reform which spread from Florence shortly after 1300. He was organist and probably chorus master at S. Maria del Fiore at Florence. He lived at the court of Mastino II della Scala, Verona, c. 1329-51. His extant compositions include 16 madrigals and 3 cacce, MSS of which may be found in libraries at Florence and Paris and in the British Museum. For modern editions of his works, see N. Pirrotta, ed., The Music of 14th Century Italy, in Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, VIII/1 (1954) and W. Marrocco, ed., Italian Secular Music, in Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century, VI (1967).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire