Music, Patronage and Printing in Late Renaissance Florence

This collection of reprinted essays starts from the author's doctoral research on Jacopo Peri and the rise of opera and solo song in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Florence. It extends to broader issues concerning music and patronage in the city as they affected individual composers, patrons and institutions, and thence to the commerce of music printing and the book trade. It concludes with an attempt to suggest a broader view of these various issues as they impact upon musical life in the 'provinces' in Tuscany. There is a great deal of new documentary and other information here, but the aim is also to expand methodological horizons so as to prompt new ways of thinking about music in its contexts.

Tim Carter

Contents: Introduction; Jacopo Peri (1561-1633): aspects of his life and works; Jacopo Peri; Jacopo Peri's Euridice (1600): a contextual study; A Florentine wedding of 1608; Serate musicali in early seventeenth-century Florence: Girolamo Montesardo's L'allegre notti di Fiorenza (1608); Giulio Caccini (1551-1618): New facts, new music; Music and patronage in late sixteenth-century Florence: the case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602); Non occorre nominare tanti musici: private patronage and public ceremony in late sixteenth-century Florence; Another promoter of the 1582 'Rassettatura' of the Decameron; The music trade in late sixteenth-century Florence; Music-printing in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Florence: Giorgio Marescotti and Zanobi Pignoni; Music-selling in late sixteenth-century Florence: the bookshop of Piero di Giuliano Morosi; Music at the Duomo in Pistoia: Three new documents from the Cinquecento; Index.