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In music, a villanella (pl. villanelle — not to be confused with the French poetic form villanelle) is a form of light Italian secular vocal music which originated in Italy just before the middle of the 16th century. It first appeared in Naples, and influenced the later canzonetta, and from there also influenced the madrigal.

The subject matter is generally rustic, comic, and often satirical; frequently the mannerisms of art music, such as the madrigal, are a subject of parody. The rhyme scheme of the verse in the earlier Neapolitan forms of the villanelle is usually abR abR abR ccR. The villanelle became one of the most popular forms of song in Italy around mid-century.

The music of the early villanella is invariably for three unaccompanied voices. The first composers of villanellas were the Neapolitans Giovanni Domenico da Nola and Giovan Tomaso di Maio; later composers of villanellas, no longer from Naples, included Adrian Willaert, Luca Marenzio, Adriano Banchieri, Orlande de Lassus and others.

References and further reading

• Denis Arnold. "Villanella", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980), xix, 770-773.
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304
• The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Don Randel. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1986. ISBN 0674615255