frottola, Italian secular song popular in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Usually the frottola was a composition for four voice parts with the melody in the top line. Frottole could be performed by unaccompanied voices or by a solo voice with instrumental accompaniment. The frottola had chordal texture and clear-cut rhythm, usually in 3/4 or 4/4 metre. The voice parts had narrow ranges and frequently repeated voices. Its musical style was simple, in deliberate contrast to the complexity of more sophisticated vocal music of the period. The frottola, as it developed by 1530, was the direct antecedent of the 16th-century madrigal.
The frottola was aristocratic music, although popular tunes were sometimes incorporated. Under the patronage of Isabella d’Este, the frottola developed at the court at Mantua, and it also became popular at other courts of northern Italy, particularly at Ferrara and Urbino. Serafino dall’Aquila (d. 1500) was an important frottola poet. The most important composers of frottola were Bartolomeo Tromboncino (d. c. 1535) and Marchetto Cara (d. c. 1530). At times the same person wrote both text and music.
Frottola texts were usually of limited literary value, typically consisting of several six-line verses, each followed by a four-line refrain, using the same music.
The term frottola was also used for a class of compositions, some with specific poetic forms, including the strambotto, the oda, and the barzelletta. Ottaviano dei Petrucci, the first significant printer to use movable music type, printed 11 books of frottole in Venice between 1504 and 1514.