Forma, testo, musica: osservazioni sulla partizione strofica dal punto di vista di Dante

The lyrical texts cited in the ars cantionis of the De vulgari eloquentia represent both the passive and active experiences that inform Dante’s theorising and reveal a comparative outlook in which the Italian lyric repertoire is viewed alongside the Provençal and French repertoires. This contribution aims to examine to what extent, and in what ways, the parameters defined in the treatise for the stanza of the canzone can be identified in the Gallo-Romance examples offered by Dante. The analysis focuses on the relationship among the components that Dante considers essential for the design of stanza structure – cantus, abitudo partium, and rithimorum relatio – and concludes with an assessment of the consistency between the verbal segmentation of the stanza and its musical articulation in those texts whose melodies have been preserved.