secular vocal music which originated in Italy just before the middle of the 16th century. It first appeared in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, and influenced the later canzonetta

Canzonetta

In music, a canzonetta was a popular Italian secular vocal composition which originated around 1560...

, and from there also influenced the madrigal

Madrigal (music)

A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....

.

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 (known as the canzone villanesca) is invariably for three unaccompanied voices. The first composers of villanellas were the Neapolitans Giovanni Domenico da Nola

Giovanni Domenico da Nola

Giovanni Domenico da Nola was an Italian composer and poet of the Renaissance.He was born in the town of Nola, Italy. He was a founding member of the Accademia dei Sereni in 1546-47, where he knew Luigi Dentice and Marchese della Terza, who was a patron of Orlando di Lasso...

 and Giovan Tomaso di Maio; later composers of villanellas, no longer from Naples, included Adrian Willaert

Adrian Willaert

Adrian Willaert was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance and founder of the Venetian School. He was one of the most representative members of the generation of northern composers who moved to Italy and transplanted the polyphonic Franco-Flemish style there....

, Luca Marenzio

Luca Marenzio

Luca Marenzio was an Italian composer and singer of the late Renaissance. He was one of the most renowned composers of madrigals, and wrote some of the most famous examples of the form in its late stage of development, prior to its early Baroque transformation by Monteverdi...

, Adriano Banchieri

Adriano Banchieri

Adriano Banchieri was an Italian composer, music theorist, organist and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna.-Biography:...

, Orlande de Lassus

Orlande de Lassus

Orlande de Lassus was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance...

, Eva Dell'Acqua

Eva Dell'Acqua

Eva Dell'Acqua was a Belgian singer and composer of Italian ancestry.-Biography:Eva Dell'Acqua was born in 1856 in Brussels, Belgium, and was the daughter of the Italian painter Cesare Dell'Acqua...

and others.