FANTASIA

(It.) In Music, a species of composition in which the author ties himself to no particular theme, ranging as his fancy leads amidst various airs and movements. Rou eau in his definition of this word confines its meaning to extempore composition, and makes this distinction between the Capriccio and the Fantasia; namely, that the former is a collection of singular and whimsical ideas strung together by an excited imagination and written down at one's leisure, whilst the latter is an off-hand display of whatever comes acro the mind at the instant of execution. FANTOCCINI. i\t.fAntocc\o, a puppet.) Dramatic representations in which puppets are substituted in the scene for human performers. [s. 452]