Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, of eight 11-syllable lines, with a rhyme scheme of ABABABCC. It originated in the late 13th and early 14th centuries and was developed by Tuscan poets for religious verse and drama and in troubadour songs. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio.
This melody is a contrafact of the secular song Es ist nicht lang, daß es geschah (“It’s not long ago that this happened”) also known or identified as the Lindenschmied-Weise (either ‘Mr. Lindenschmied’s melody’ or ‘the tune sung by the blacksmith who has his shop next to the linden or lime tree’). This melody can be traced back to south Germany around 1490. The melody later appears in 1530 with the text by Georg Grünwald as a broadside entitled Ain schöns newes Christlichs Lyed (“A nice, new Christian song”) published within the circle of the Mennonites or Baptists.
Barzelletta (lit. "jest") was a popular verse form used by frottola composers in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is generally trochaic, with eight syllables per line. The barzelletta consists of two sections: a reprisa which is four rhyming lines (abba or abab), a stanza, and a volta. The barzelletta tends to be lively and dance-like, with heavy accents on cadences (Wikipedia).
