The Debate on Song in the Accademia Fiorentina

Abstract

For James Haar on his 70th BirthdayThe sixteenth century in Italy was a time when academies of all kinds flourished as venues, and often as arbiters, of literature and high culture. A casual look at the academies might give the impression that they were mostly social in nature, that they functioned as a pastime for bored aristocrats and ambitious letterati. As originally constituted, the Accademia degli Umidi, founded 1 November 1540, indeed fitted this description, but with one difference characteristic of Florentine society - it was organised by twelve men of various social classes with a common interest in poetry and language. The academy expanded considerably under the patronage of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici and on 25 March 1541 was reconstituted as the Accademia Fiorentina. Its avowed purpose was to promote the Tuscan language as an instrument of literature and knowledge, in an age when mastery of Latin was required of any educated man. In advancing the cause of vernacular literature, the Accademia Fiorentina, like other academies of the time, greatly extended the programme of Italian humanism, making available the fruits of humanist thought and enquiry to a larger public.

Akademie

“…In der Toskana standen die Voraussetzungen dafür besonders gut, konnte man hier doch auf das literarisch kunstvolle »Volgare« eines Dante, Boccaccio und Petrarca zurückgreifen. Eine der ersten Akademien, die sich die Standardisierung der toskanischen Mundart vornahm, war die 1540 entstandene Accademia degli Umidi, die sich bereits wenige Monate später auf Geheiß ihres Patrons Cosimo de' Medici in Accademia Fiorentina umtaufte (Nosow 2002;Sherberg 2003) (Conermann 1985(Conermann , 2008Kühlmann 2000;Mager 2001;Ball 2008). Allerdings glich die Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft in ihrem Aufbau und ihrer Zusammensetzung eher einer Adelsgesellschaft als einer Sprachakademie.…”

The Renaissance Academies between Science and the Humanities

“…But debates on song held in the early days of the Accademia Fiorentina had marginalized the practice of oral performance by focusing instead on Bembo's rules for written composition. 52 The Camerata's principal theorist, Vincenzo Galilei, explained how musical performance could reacquire the power to stir the emotions. In a famous 1581 Dialogue, Galilei argued that the ancient Greeks had practiced a much purer form of accompanied song, called monody, than the unaccompanied polyphony of the contemporary Italian madrigal.…”