A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Musica Figurata

by William Smyth Rockstro

MUSICA FIGURATA (Figured music). I. In its earliest sense, this term was applied to Plain-Chaunt Melodies, corrupted by the introduction of forbidden intervals, and overloaded with those ill-conceived embellishments, which, in the year 1322, were so sternly condemned by the celebrated Bull of Pope John the 22nd. [See Macicotaticum.] II. In later times, it was more generally understood to indicate the Polyphonic Music of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, in which the beauty of a Plain-Chaunt Canto fermo was enhanced by the addition of an elaborate and regularly-constructed Counterpoint.

[ W. S. R. ]