CANTARE. - Narrative poems, the rich production of which flourished especially in Tuscany from the 14th to the 16th century. They were, as a rule, composed by popular poets and street singers (*canterini* or *cantambanco*), who sang them in the piazza (in Florence, the small square of S. Martino al Vescovo), accompanying themselves on the viola at fixed times and hours before an audience composed mainly of common folk. The custom of the street singers was so pleasing to the lower classes that in some cities, such as Florence, Perugia, and L'Aquila, they were paid a salary by the Commune. Rarely have the names of the authors of the *cantari* come down to us, but one who has remained famous is Antonio Pucci (1310–88), a bell-ringer and town crier of the Commune of Florence.
The metre used was, as a rule, the ottava rima, although some narrative poems in the metre of the *sìlvese* or the ballad were also called *cantari*. The *cantare* (often also called *istoria*) consisted of about fifty ottave, a length that allowed for sufficient development of the narrative without tiring the audience; but sometimes the subjects treated required more extensive compositions, including a notable number of *cantari*. The material was drawn from everything that constituted the imaginative and spiritual world of the public to which they were addressed.
According to their principal subjects, the *cantari* have been divided into various groups, listed below, with the most important examples for each:
1) Legendary and fairy-tale *cantari* (Bel Gherardino, Lionbruno, Donna del Vergiù, Reina d'Oriente);
2) Chivalric *cantari*, dealing with themes from the Carolingian and Breton cycles (La Rotta di Roncisvalle, Rinaldo da Montalbano, Storia di Milone e Berta, Vanto dei Paladini, *cantari* of Tristano, Lancillotto, Carduino);
3) Historical *cantari*, inspired by events and figures from Italian history of the 14th–16th centuries (Guerra di Pisa, Guerra aquilana di Braccio, Sacco di Volterra, Istoria del Duca Valentino);
4) Classical *cantari*, narrating episodes from the ancient Greek and Roman world (Guerra di Troia, Fatti di Cesare, Piramo e Tisbe);
5) Sacred *cantari*, on which some particulars will be given below.
As for their subject matter, these include:
a) Hagiographic legends;
b) Legends inspired by the Bible and the Gospels;
c) Moralising legends.
For the first group, which is also the most important, there are *cantari* relating to the following saints: Alberto, Antonio Abate, Bernardino da Siena, Caterina Martire, Cristina, Cristoforo, Feliciano, Giacomo, Giovanni Crisostomo, Giorgio, Giuliano di Buon Albergo, Lorenzo, Lucia, Orsola, Sebastiano, Stefano, Teodora, and a few others. Among those of the second group, we may recall the *cantari* of Adamo ed Eva, S. Giovanni Battista, S. Maria Maddalena, Resurrezione, Vendetta del Salvatore, Giudizio Universale, Vita, Lamento e Transito della Madonna. To this group may also be assigned two 14th-century poems, which, although composed in a tone of greater literary refinement, do not fundamentally depart from the style of the *cantari*: *La Fanciullezza di Gesù* by Fra Felice da Massa and *La Passione di Cristo* by Niccolò di Mino Cicerchia (1364). Both authors were followers of St Catherine of Siena.
Among the principal moralising legends, the following deserve mention: *Il castellano*, *Leonzio*, *La cortigiana*, *Il giocatore disperato*, and the “bellissima storia di Senso che cercava di non morire mai.”
As for their character and poetic value, the sacred *cantari* share a style and a set of procedures common, more or less, to all *cantari*, connected with the character of improvisation (in a relative sense) and popularity that distinguishes these poems. Their authors, that is, employ similar formulae for the opening and closing of the *cantari* and a whole terminology made up of adjectives, adverbs, and stereotyped verses, used as occasion demanded to facilitate the rapid composition of the poem.
There is, in short, a kind of “aedict” style, making it impossible to distinguish the personality of individual authors of the *cantari* or to highlight their differing significance even from the point of view of aesthetic value: all the compositions have the same family likeness, even if distant in time or coming from different regions. Compared with the fairy-tale or chivalric *cantari*, the sacred ones generally reveal mediocre craftsmanship and little poetic quality. None can stand comparison with the flowing ottave of the *cantare* of Lionbruno or with the epic, albeit episodic, style of the *cantari* of the Guerra aquilana. Nevertheless, in the best examples, such as the *cantari* of S. Alessio, S. Caterina, S. Giorgio, and S. Giovanni Evangelista, the qualities proper to these compositions—such as narrative fluency, vividness, and spontaneity—imbue the poems and make them pleasant reading. Two poems, however, stand out for their absolute poetic value: the aforementioned *La Fanciullezza di Gesù* and *La Passione di Cristo*. In these, the intense religious sentiment finds some of the deepest and loftiest accents in all of Italian sacred poetry: stanzas 410–13 of the *Fanciullezza* (on the silence of Jesus in the desert) and the episode of the meeting between Mary and Jesus in the *Passione* of Niccolò di Mino Cicerchia deserve to be included in the poetic heritage essential to every educated person.
The sacred *cantari* are, for the great majority, still unpublished, scattered in manuscripts, incunabula, and popular prints in various libraries (Casanatense and Corsiniana in Rome, Nazionale in Florence, Marciana in Venice, the library of Wolfenbüttel in Bavaria, etc.). Some have been gradually published in journals of philology or literary history, but a critically edited collection such as that which Levi produced for the legendary *cantari* does not yet exist. The situation in this regard is outlined in the essay by Cianciolo cited below. It is important to note that several of these sacred *cantari* have been reproduced in popular booklets, in rough prints that have circulated for centuries up to our own time, and some have even passed into the oral tradition of the people: sure proof of their vitality.