Music and Culture in Florence in the Early Principality (1530-1570)

The seminar will focus on highlighting the role of music in the cultural apparatus created by the first dukes of Florence, Alessandro and Cosimo I, from the fall of the last Republic until Cosimo was granted the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany by Pope Pius V. These four decades, marked by political, social and cultural upheaval, have been examined in great detail in the fields of art history, political history, economic history and literary history, but the role of music in this changing society also deserves to be considered in depth. Observing Florentine musical life during this period reveals profound changes in power structures, social networks and cultural references. Through various case studies, we will observe how music played a role in structuring the Florentine cultural community, which included key figures such as the painters Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, and the writers and academics Benedetto Varchi, Antonfrancesco Grazzini and Giovan Battista Strozzi. Following the musical traces of this community allows us to understand the progressive transformation of carnival songs into court masquerades, the musical debates within the Florentine Academy, the dynamism of the practice of polyphonic madrigals outside the court, without forgetting the mechanisms of musical patronage and the construction of court music in the service of the new Medici duchy.