ABSTRACT
The importance of the 'cronaca' aspect of this movement should not be overlooked, particularly as it gives rise to the noun Cantacronache, the construction of which also follows the model of the figure of the cantastorie, Italian minstrels popular during the medieval and Renaissance period. The significance of the role which the Cantacronache played in the development of Italian popular music is also highlighted by critics writing during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both the Sanremo Festival and the Cantacronache, then, play important roles in the development of the canzone d'autore genre. The work of the Cantacronache, and later of the Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano, is significant within Italian popular music because it prompted the rediscovery and subsequent valorisation of Italian folk music. In the context of what has been written about the canzone d'autore, the paradoxical influences of the Sanremo Festival and the Cantacronache on the genre form part of its conceptualisation and subsequent legitimation.
