LORENZO CORSINI'S ‘LIBRI DI CANZONE’ AND THE MADRIGAL IN MID-SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FLORENCE

Abstract

The musical life of Florence in the sixteenth century was no rival to that of Rome or Venice, but the city could legitimately claim to be the birthplace of the madrigal. In troubled times, scarred by a succession of contrasting political regimes and against a backdrop of civil war, foreign composers like Arcadelt and Verdelot, as well as native Florentines like Pisano, Corteccia, Layolle and Rampollini, contributed significantly to the creation of this most representative musical genre of the Italian Renaissance. Of the many factors contributing to the appearance of the madrigal, one of the most important was patronage: several studies have shown how members of the great Florentine families encouraged the dawning of the genre by commissioning new works from composers or by ordering manuscript copies of anthologies, which today give us a precise idea of the repertory that was sung in the 1520s and 1530s.