denotes a part or division of a poem, answering to what is otherwise called a book. The word is Italian, where it properly signifies song. Tasso, Ariosto, and several other Italians, have divided their longer or heroic poems into cantos. In imitation of them, Scarron has also divided his Gigantomachia, and Boileau his Lutrin, into chants or songs. The like usage has been adopted by some English writers, as Butler, who divides his Hudibras, and Dr Garth his Dunciad, into cantos. A late translator of part of Virgil's Aeneid has even subdivided a book of Virgil into several cantos.

the Italian music, signifies a song: hence canto simplex is where all the notes or figures are equal, and called also canto fermo; canto figurato, that where the figures are unequal, and express different motions.