Stile antico (literally "ancient style", Italian pronunciation: [ˈstiːle anˈtiːko]), is a term describing a manner of musical composition from the sixteenth century onwards that was historically conscious, as opposed to stile moderno, which adhered to more modern trends.
Stile antico has been associated with composers of the high Baroque and early Classical periods of music, in which composers used controlled dissonance and modal effects and avoided overtly instrumental textures and lavish ornamentation, to imitate the compositional style of the late Renaissance.
Stile antico was deemed appropriate in the conservative confines of church music, or as a compositional exercise as in J. J. Fux's Gradus Ad Parnassum (1725), the classic textbook on strict counterpoint.
His Mass in B minor has sections written in stile antico which contrast with up-to-date Baroque idioms.
Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, written after the composer's study of Palestrina, is a late flowering of the style.