This study provides insight into the compositional features of the monophonic ballata, a genre developed in the early to mid-fourteenth century in northern Italy. In analyzing the formal structure, melodic contour, application of musica ficta, and relationship between text and melody, I suggest ways in which performers of this repertoire can highlight the exceptional qualities of this music while remaining rooted in a historically-informed tradition of early music performance practice. Using principles of Schenkerian ideas of prolongation, Salzerian approaches to constructing voice-leading analyses of early music, and Steve Larson's theory of musical forces as criteria for well-formed melodies, I created a method that shows every note as structural or ornamental at every given level.;The use of these theoretical approaches serves to highlight what about this music is compelling and what can be brought out as 'familiar' in a piece, what repeats, and what connects sections and how. I conclude that counterpoint is behind the organization of these works at the structural level, even as monophonic songs. I acknowledge that there are features we could construe as "tonal," but that information is only useful to a performer familiar with tonal elements, and it is therefore only one of many layers of understanding that should be accessed by the modern performer.
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