Jacopo Corsi

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Coat of arms of the Corsi family

Jacopo Corsi (born July 17, 1561 in Florence , † December 29, 1602 there ) was an Italian entrepreneur, patron and composer at the turn from the music of the Renaissance to that of the early Baroque . As head of the Florentine Camerata , he made possible the creation of the first operas .

Life

The Palazzo Corsi-Tornabuoni, meeting point of Corsis Camerata and place of the world premiere of La Dafne

Jacopo Corsi came from an old Florentine merchant family who, however, fell out of favor due to their opposition to the Medici during their second expulsion from Florence in the first decades of the 16th century. Corsi's grandfather and an uncle were accused of treason and executed in 1529, parts of the family left Florence. The family's situation improved when another uncle Corsis was elected to the Florentine Senate in 1556. As a result, Corsi's father Giovanni returned to the city, where he cemented his social advancement through successful investments in real estate, wool and silk manufacturing, and banking. In 1560 he married Allessandra from the highly respected Della Gherardesca family . The couple had three sons (Jacopo, Giulio and Bardo), whose parents financed a comprehensive education. Luca Bati , among others, was responsible for the musical education of the children .

In 1587 Jacopo Corsi traveled to Rome to meet his first wife, Settimia di Pierantonio Bandi. After her death in 1592 he married Laura di Lorenzo Corsini in 1595. Both marriages strengthened existing business relationships between the families. Corsi's brothers remained unmarried and childless, so Jacopo Corsi played a central role in the family. The Corsi brothers cemented their family's reputation by granting loans to leading families including the Medici and successfully completing diplomatic missions. The Medici's trust in the Corsi is shown, among other things, by the fact that Jacopo was involved in the difficult negotiations about the marriage of Henry IV of France with Maria de 'Medici .

Jacopo Corsi's sudden death from a fever in December 1602 caused great consternation in Florentine society. The composers Marco da Gagliano , Giovanni del Turco and Piero Strozzi made musical contributions to the funeral and memorial ceremonies. Corsi was a member of the Jesuits and the Florentine brotherhood Compagnia dell'Arcangelo Raffaello , which held commemorations for him in January and February 1603, respectively. Allegedly, Henry IV also sent an expression of mourning.

Artist and patron

Title page of Rinuccini's libretto on La Dafne with Corsi as patron

An obituary written by an unknown author on the occasion of Jacopo's death describes his artistic interests as follows:

“Egli della Pittura estremamente gustava; le scienzie con somma riverenza honorava; la Poesia, eccessivamente essaltava: Ma l'arte della Musica (non solo altre alle sopradette) era appresso di lui in sommo pregio. ”

“He enjoyed painting very much; he honored the sciences with the greatest respect; He praised poetry to the utmost: But the art of music was highly valued by him (and not only through the aforementioned). "

His interest in art and culture seems to have awakened after a number of trips to complete his education in the 1580s. The surviving account books of the family document extensive purchases of literary and scientific works in Italian, German, Spanish and ancient Greek from that time on. As a lover of painting, he bought paintings by well-known artists of his time or took them directly as repayment for loans. Works by Giorgio Vasari , Jacopo Ligozzi , Pompeo Caccini (son of the composer Giulio Caccini ), Jacopo da Pontormo and Andrea Boscoli are documented.

Unlike literature and painting, Jacopo Corsi was also actively involved in music. He owned a large collection of various instruments (including two organs ), had been instructed in singing and music theory by Luca Bati and organ from Cristofano Malvezzi , and had learned to play the lute with Vincenzo Galilei . He expanded his library with an extensive collection of music and made his household a meeting place for the leading composers of the time. The regular purchase of music paper and payments to copyists indicate that Corsi was an independent composer, but these works have only survived in very fragments. Some parts of the opera La Dafne , which is often only associated with Jacopo Peri's name, seem to have come from him. He regularly housed composers from other cities (such as Alfonso Fontanelli or Carlo Gesualdo ) and thus ensured an exchange of ideas between them and the Florentine composers. After Giovanni de 'Bardi's departure from Florence, Jacopo Corsi took over his position as head and patron of the group of artists later known as the Florentine Camerata .

In retrospect, his greatest merit in music history lies in paving the way for the emerging art form of opera as head of the Camerata . La Dafne , known as the very first opera, was premiered on the occasion of Carnival in 1598 in the Palazzo Corsi-Tornabuoni and Corsi himself seems to have composed parts of it. Euridice (the oldest fully preserved opera) was premiered on the occasion of the wedding of Henry IV to Maria de Medici arranged by Jacopo Corsi in 1600, Corsi himself played in the performance and the harpsichord . The vast majority of the artists involved in these productions were part of the Camerata and were sponsored by Corsi. This included the composer Peri as well as the lyricist Ottavio Rinuccini , but also Peri's rival Giulio Caccini , whose daughter Francesca Caccini sang the title role of Euridice and who was also working on his Euridice (the first opera to appear in print).

literature

  • Christopher Headington: Opera. A history . St. Martins Press, New York 1987, ISBN 0-312-01585-2 , pp. 21st f .
  • Tim Carter: Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) . In: I Tatti. Studies in the Italian Renaissance I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance . No. 1 . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985, pp. 57-104 , JSTOR : 4603641 .
  • William V. Porter: Peri and Corsi's “Dafne”: Some New Discoveries and Observations . In: Journal of the American Musicological Society . tape 18 , no. 2 . University of California Press, Berkeley 1965, pp. 170-196 , JSTOR : 830682 .
  • Donald Jay Grout, Peter J. Burkholder, Claude V. Palisca: A History of Western Music . Norton & Company, New York 1960, ISBN 0-312-01585-2 , pp. 278 .

Individual evidence

  1. Tim Carter: Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) . In: I Tatti. Studies in the Italian Renaissance . No. 1 . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985, pp. 59 f ., JSTOR : 4603641 .
  2. Tim Carter: Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) . In: I Tatti. Studies in the Italian Renaissance . No. 1 . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985, pp. 62-66 ., JSTOR : 4603641 .
  3. Tim Carter: Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) . In: I Tatti. Studies in the Italian Renaissance . No. 1 . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985, pp. 77 f ., JSTOR : 4603641 .
  4. Tim Carter: Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) . In: I Tatti. Studies in the Italian Renaissance . No. 1 . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985, pp. 67 or note 46 , JSTOR : 4603641 .
  5. Tim Carter: Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) . In: I Tatti. Studies in the Italian Renaissance . No. 1 . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985, pp. 68 f ., JSTOR : 4603641 .
  6. Tim Carter: Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) . In: I Tatti. Studies in the Italian Renaissance . No. 1 . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985, pp. 71 f ., JSTOR : 4603641 .
  7. ^ A b William V. Porter: Peri and Corsi's "Dafne": Some New Discoveries and Observations . In: Journal of the American Musicological Society . tape 18 , no. 2 . University of California Press, Berkeley 1965, pp. 195 f ., JSTOR : 830682 .
  8. Tim Carter: Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) . In: I Tatti. Studies in the Italian Renaissance . No. 1 . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985, pp. 73 f ., JSTOR : 4603641 .
  9. Tim Carter: Music and Patronage in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence: The Case of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) . In: I Tatti. Studies in the Italian Renaissance . No. 1 . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985, pp. 76 f ., JSTOR : 4603641 .