Introduction

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.

Scope of the Essays

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.

Conclusion and Objectives

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.