Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250–1750

Cummings's history of music in Florence over a five-hundred-year period is a work of brilliant synthesis, bringing together in one place a vast array of sources that few readers could otherwise hope to access, much less encompass. Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250-1750 succeeds in its author's goal of raising Florentine accomplishments in music to a status comparable to that enjoyed by the city's extraordinary achievements in arts, letters, and science, and in so doing it becomes a compelling argument for why music should be integrated into interdisciplinary considerations of Florentine culture. Specialists and nonspecialists alike will find this a highly readable narrative of this great city's vibrant musical life during the medieval and early-modern periods. * Blake Wilson, Dickinson College * Whether one is studying human endeavors in the areas of humanism, architecture, painting, or literature or evaluating musical inventions such as the Renaissance madrigal, opera, or pianoforte, the city of Florence emerges as a location in which pioneering work was valued. In the book's opening pages, Cummings situates readers in the city's buildings, streets, and public squares, then encourages readers to imagine the music heard in those spaces during past centuries. Cummings not only explores both well- and lesser-known musical genres and works but also introduces the individuals who commissioned, performed, and listened to music. This book is a valuable resource for historians of all stripes, whether musicologists, art historians, or scholars of Italian literature. It can also serve as a useful guide for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the history of this much visited and beloved city. * Kelley Harness, University of Minnesota *