Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
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Composer Biography: Bartholus de Florentia (fl. 1375-1405)
Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
Also known as Frate Bartholino, Frater Bartholomeus, scappucia Frate Baroino, Magister Frater Bartolinus de
Padua, Bartolino da Padova, Bartolino da Padu, Bartolo da Firenze.
Bartholus de Florentia is an obscure composer but for his one Credo movement, once attributed to Lorenzo
da Firenza. He may have been the first Italian to compose a polyphonic Mass movement, but the
documentation is so sparse, it’s hard to tell. He’s portrayed in the Squarcialupi Codex with a tonsured head
and wearing a Carmelite habit.
It’s possible that he was prior at the Carmelite abbey in Padua in 1380. In 1405, he was forced into exile to
Florence. It seems that he’d written some unfavorable allusions regarding the political and moral behavior of
the Visconti family that controlled Padua, so off he went.
Most of the music collections of the time include only or mostly secular songs—there’s a surprising dearth of
sacred music from the period. Ecclesiastical composers were focusing on secular polyphony, which is why
only a handful of Mass movements survive. And even fewer complete Masses from a single composer
survive. Bartholus wrote the Credo I mentioned earlier, but that’s the extent of his sacred output.
The Credo is in two voices, like the other movements from other composers, and both parts sing the text. On
a few occasions, the voices sing phrases of text at different times, and alternate in singing successive
phrases. The style is called “restrained madrigal” and includes short and unobtrusive melismas. Most of the
time, though, the text is sung in unison.
Of the eleven madrigals and twenty-seven ballate that he wrote, most are in two voices with a handful in
three. His style lacks the flow and clear-cut melodic lines that are characteristic of the Italian composers who
came before him. But despite the lack of information regarding how such a thing could occur, his work seems
strongly influenced by the French ars subtilior in its rhythmic complexity.
Just as I found very little about his life and family, I found nothing about his death or burial.