Ars Antiqua

(Medieval Latin: �Ancient Art�), in music history, period of musical activity in 13th-century France, characterized by increasingly sophisticated counterpoint (the art of combining simultaneous voice parts), that culminated in the innovations of the 14th-century Ars Nova (q.v.). The term Ars Antiqua originated, in fact, with the Ars Nova theorists, some of whom spoke of the �Ancient