Remarkably for such old music, Una panthera is securely dated: May or June 1399. At that time, Ciconia was serving Giangaleazzo Visconti in Padua. Una panthera, one of his most famous and delighting compositions, was composed for the visit of the noble Lazzaro, from the city of Lucca. The lyrics, possibly by Ciconia, engage Lazzaro in deep flattery. They refer to the mythical founding of Lucca by an armored panther (or leopard), in the company of the war-god Mars. The celebration of the creature's strong defense of the city is aimed to flatter Lazzaro into accepting terms for a political and military alliance with Padua. It is one of four Italian madrigals attributed to Ciconia. All four of these pieces are consistent in their Italianized style and tone. Their particularly Italian traits are mostly rhythmic/melodic: quick lines with many notes, triplets in the beat, longish scalar passages, and often sequenced. The cumulative effect is celebratory and oddly three-dimensional. Una panthera breaks back and forth between sections of ebullient fluidity and studies in the syncopated montage of parts. In these latter sections (the refrains), Ciconia seems to be experimenting with the kind of the angular grace that can be created when somewhat awkward, syncopated lines are justly superimposed. He makes a point of weaving the movements of one line into the open or static spaces of another. His concept seems to draw inspiration directly from the conventions of French Gothic architecture, sometimes described as the "awareness of space as a tangible entity." Such an awareness naturally leads to a fascination with the dramatic intersection of the hard lines that compose a space. To this learned, rational French sensibility, Ciconia adds an Italianate interest in color and flair, individualistic expressions of his own creative pleasure. The result of his efforts are some of the most enjoyable, influential works of the entire ars subtilior.

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