madrigale

Forms

madrigale m (plural madrigali)^[1] Forms in the TLIO include Old Italian madriale, Old Italian madrial, Old Italian marigale, Old Italian marighale and Old Italian matrical.^[2] Mandriale is found in the 16th century in Varchi.^[3][4]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[5][6][7] The explanation most dictionaries give, after Migliorini, is that it is borrowed from Venetian madregal (“simple, artless”), a Venetian adjective from Late Latin mātrīcālis (“of the womb”).^[8][9][6] The Late Latin word is recorded in Zeno before about 380.^[8] Migliorini read the adjective as “naive, like one just come out of the womb”, the same change of sense as from nātīvus to French naïf.^[8][9] The Latin adjective comes from mātrīx (“womb”), from māter (“mother”).^[9][1] The voiced ⟨dr⟩ and ⟨g⟩ show the northern, Venetian voicing of /tr/ and /k/.^[10][11] The difficulty is that the Venetian adjective is recorded much later, and that the oldest Italian form is Old Italian madriale, without ⟨g⟩.^[8][3][4]

Bembo gave the traditional view: the poems got their name because coarse, “material” things were first sung in that loose kind of rhyme.^[8] Dolce derived the name from mandra, since pastoral loves were sung in them.^[12] Meyer-Lübke rejected a derivation from that word on phonetic grounds and took mandriale for a form reshaped after mandria.^[13][4] Cherubini thought of the town ⟨Madrigal⟩ between Salamanca and Segovia, which the oldest form also contradicts.^[4]

The word passed from Italian to French madrigal and on to Spanish madrigal, madrigal and German Madrigal.^[9][14][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Antonio da Ferrara, before about 1370, in the form madrial: a short poem, mostly about love, of free metrical scheme.^[8][11] The TLIO's first example is in the Rime of Francesco di Vannozzo (1380), where it names both the metrical form and its setting for two or three voices.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Sacchetti still wrote madriale.^[4][3] The GDLI describes the form as popular and Italian, taken into learned poetry by Petrarch and in favour until the end of the 18th century, and revived in the late 19th by Carducci and D'Annunzio.^[11] The form madrigale appears in 1537, in a collection printed with Ariosto's Forze d'amore.^[8]

In music the word named the 14th-century settings for two or three voices.^[15] From the 16th century it named the secular polyphonic pieces on non-strophic texts.^[15] The madrigale concertato, with basso continuo, flourished in the early 17th century.^[15] The figurative sense “gallant compliment” is modern.^[6][16] French took the word in 1541, English in 1584 and German at the end of the 16th century.^[14]

Timeline

• Before about 1370 – Antonio da Ferrara writes of a madrial.^[8][11]
• 1380 – Francesco di Vannozzo uses madriale.^[2]
• 1537 – The form madrigale appears.^[8]
• 1541 – French madrigale is first recorded.^[14]
• 1562 – The musical sense is recorded in Italian.^[14]
• 1584 – English madrigalis (plural) is first recorded.^[14]
• 1847 – Gioberti uses madrigalista.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literature) A short lyric poem of popular origin, usually on a pastoral or amorous subject, in hendecasyllables or hendecasyllables and seven-syllable lines, common in Italy from the 14th to the 18th century.^{[6][16][17][18]}
2. (music) A madrigal: a secular polyphonic vocal composition, sometimes with instruments, of the 14th to 17th centuries: Il coro ha cantato due madrigali del Cinquecento.^{[6][17][18][5]}
3. (figurative) A gallant or playful compliment.^{[6][16][17][5]}

Word family

• madrigalista
• madrigalistico
• madrigalesco
• madrigaleggiare
• madrigalessa
• madrigaletto
• madrigalino

Related words

• matrice
• matricale
• Latin matricalis
• English madrigal

Usage notes

GRADIT and DEI also record madrigale as a botanical variant of matricale, the name of feverfew and other plants.^[6][3] That word comes from the same Late Latin matricālis, with herba understood, because the plant was used for ailments of the womb.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2308
4. ^ a b c d e Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 614
5. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
6. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 9
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ a b c d e Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
17. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
18. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli