Philippe de Vitry (1291-1360) was a French poet, composer, and churchman-statesman. His treatise Ars nova became the rallying cry for all "modern" composers after about 1320.

Born in Paris, Philippe de Vitry was the son of a royal notary. Philippe served several French kings, carrying out political missions that took him to southern France and a meeting with the Pope at Avignon. As a cleric, he received several money-producing canonates; in 1351 he became bishop of Meaux near Paris. One of his friends, Italy's leading poet, Petrarch, in a letter of 1350, called Vitry the foremost French poet of his time.

Nearly all Vitry's literary works are lost. Especially regrettable is the loss of his French poetry set to music, ballades and rondeaux in which he created a new style in song anticipating Guillaume de Machaut. Surviving are one ballade without music; two longer poems, one written in reference to a...