Francesco Landini's contribution to the development of the Italian ballata is so large that gradual stylistic changes in the entire genre are reflected in different parts of his output. Landini is responsible for a third of all the Trecento ballate that survive to this day. He seems to have been an innovator in the genre, and his early two-voiced ballate show evidence of other Italian secular forms, and of the popular dance forms that gave it birth. Yet a number of later works clearly show that Landini and his colleagues were reacting to the inroads of French culture into the Italian courtly milieu. French courtly songs such as those of Machaut had their impact even on the thriving musical life of early Renaissance Florence. Landini's three-part ballata El gran disio, on an Italian text by poet Malatesta, provides an excellent example.

The very use of three voices first points to French influence upon the blind Italian master's writing. In addition, only the top voice of the three carries text, a disposition much more common in French minstrelsy. The distinction of the top voice, and the often disjunct nature of the lower voices' rhythms, suggests solo performance with instrumental accompaniment (Landini himself, though blind, played the organetto quite well). Similarly French in flavor is the higher level of tonal organization the two harmonic voices create; most cadences are on D or E, and never does the music stray far from the tonic D. Finally, in this ballata Landini uses a typically French articulation of the refrain form. The verse section of the poem begins with two "feet" sung to the same music. In this case, however, he composes two different cadences for the two feet: one "open" on E and one "closed" on D.

This relatively clear stylistic picture, however, is clouded by the survival of at least two versions of the ballata. One musical manuscript contains a version only in two parts, hearkening back to earlier Italian traditions. Yet another presents the piece in three verses, but with clues that the scribe was reading from a copy with two voices carrying text, again an indication of Italianate practices. El gran disio apparently was quite popular, and perhaps underwent revisions or adaptations.

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