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Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750: From the Priorate of the Guilds to the End of the Medici Grand Duchy

Online ISBN:
9780226822792
Print ISBN:
9780226822785
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750: From the Priorate of the Guilds to the End of the Medici Grand Duchy

Anthony M. Cummings
Anthony M. Cummings
Lafayette College
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Published online:
18 January 2024
Published in print:
10 May 2023
Online ISBN:
9780226822792
Print ISBN:
9780226822785
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

This book is a general history of music in Florence from the late Middle Ages (around 1250) to the end of the Medici regime (around 1750). Its fundamental premise is that monumental Florentine achievements in the history of literature, political thought, the arts, and science may have obscured equally consequential achievements in music. If Florence was the home of Dante, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo, it was also the birthplace of the madrigal, opera, and the piano. The book seeks to correct the imbalance in our understanding of Florentines’ attainments in music relative to other realms of human activity. The book also explores some defining characteristics of Florentine musical culture relative to other centers of cultural activity: among others, the phenomenon of “Florentinism,” a purposeful celebration of distinctively Florentine accomplishments; an alternation between an openness to non-Florentine influences on the musical culture and a contrasting tendency for Florentines to close in on themselves; a Florentine tendency to concentrate and expend creative energy on the initial innovation, after which Florentines can cede primacy to other centers of musical activity; and the increasing tendency to deploy the arts (including music) to facilitate and then consolidate the establishment of the Medici duchy after centuries of a proud Florentine republican political tradition. Music is the mirror of society.

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