Music of the Trecento system of division of the breve into 2, 3, 4, 6,8, 9, or 12 semibreves (later minims) with dots (singular "punctus divisionis") indicating breaks at the end of a breve (however, Marchetto never used a term 'punctus divisionis'). Although more Trecento music is written in the international system of notation descended from Franco of Cologne and Philippe de Vitry than in the Marchettian system (and there exist a few, mostly instrumental, works not of Italian origin that use this system), nonetheless, Marchetto's contribution to rhythmic notation is so connected with the Italian Trecento that it is often referred to as
Note value duration, as at the end of a piece (e.g. at the end of Mozart's Mass KV 192). A single eighth note, or any faster note, is always stemmed with flags, while two or more are usually beamed in groups. When a stem is present, it can go either up (from the right side of the note head) or down (from the left side), except in the cases of the "longa" or "maxima" which are nearly always written with downward stems. In most cases, the stem goes down if the notehead is on the center line or above, and up otherwise.