This book describes the many ways in which music was used in Italian theatrical performances between the late fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In part

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) is well known as the composer of the earliest operas still performed today. His Orfeo, Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, and L'incor

"Florence is justly celebrated as one of the world's most important cities. It enjoys mythic status and occupies an enviable place in the historical imagination

This book is born out of two contradictions: first, it explores the making of meaning in a musical form that was made to lose its meaning at the turn of the nin