survived, however; the kind of music Galilei imagined on the basis of Mei’s research can only be inferred
from the work of others.
INTERMEDII
One of the first practical demonstrations, or tests, of the new radical–humanist esthetic came in 1589,
when Count Bardi was asked to organize the entertainment for the wedding of the Grand Duke Ferdinando
de’ Medici of Tuscany, the brother and successor (some said the murderer) of Bardi’s original patron
Francesco, to the Princess Christine of Lorraine. Seizing the opportunity, he put his friends to work on a
colossally extravagant set of intermedii, allegorical pageants with music to be performed between the
acts of a spoken comedy (La pellegrina, “The pilgrim girl,” by the court poet Girolamo Bargagli).
Such entr’actes were a North Italian theatrical specialty. Their original purpose was utilitarian and
the music correspondingly modest: since the curtain was not lowered between the acts, the musical
interludes (often instrumental, played from the wings) merely signaled the divisions of the play.
Particularly in Florence, and especially at court celebrations, the intermedii became increasingly lavish
and costly—a form of conspicuous consumption meant to impress invited guests with their noble host’s
wealth and liberality. Their height was reached at Medici family weddings, each successive one striving
hard to outdo the last.
The first Florentine ruler to glorify himself in this way was Lorenzo de’ Medici (not “the
Magnificent” but his grandson, the Duke of Urbino), in 1518. The first Medici wedding for which the
music survives was that of Cosimo I in 1539. It was composed by the madrigalist Francesco Corteccia,
and consists of motets and madrigals for up to 24 voices, doubled by full family choirs of instruments.
This was “concerted” music before its time, so to speak; but the instruments did not yet have independent
parts. Between the concerted numbers, a singer representing Apollo sang to the “lyre,” probably a lute or
harp. His music is not notated; presumably it consisted of “arias” improvised over a ground, according to
a method that (as we know) went back to the fifteenth century.
FIG. 19-2 Ventura Salimbeni, Wedding of Ferdinand de’ Medici and Christine of Lorraine (1589). This was the occasion for which
members of the Florentine Camerata devised their intermedii.
From then until 1589 no intermedio music has survived, but souvenir books contain copious
illustrations of the sets, descriptions of the action, and lists of participants, from which one can get an