The Florentine Camerata (), also known as the Camerata de' Bardi, were a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. They met at the house of Giovanni de' Bardi, and their gatherings had the reputation of having all the most famous men of Florence as frequent guests. After first meeting in 1573, the activity of the Camerata reached its height between 1577 and 1582. While propounding a revival of the Greek dramatic style, the Camerata's musical experiments led to the development of the stile recitativo. In this way it facilitated the composition of dramatic music and the development of opera.
Membership
The term camerata is entirely a new construct coined by the members of Bardi's circle, although apparently based on the Italian word for "chamber", camera, a term used for a room where important meetings were held. The name for Bardi's group comes from Giulio Caccini's score for Euridice, wherein he dedicates the work to Count Bardi, remembering the "Camerata's good years." The earliest recorded meeting was 14 January 1573 at Count Giovanni Bardi's house. Known members of the group besides Bardi included Giulio Caccini, Pietro Strozzi, and Vincenzo Galilei (the father of the astronomer Galileo Galilei). Girolamo Mei also participated, and at a young age, Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621), likely the first opera librettist, may have also participated. Less prominent members of the Camerata may have included the musicians Emilio de' Cavalieri, Francesco Cini, Cristoforo Malvezzi, and Alessandro Striggio. Literary figures included Giovanni Battista Guarini, Gabriello Chiabrera, and Giovanni Battista Strozzi the younger.
Unifying the Camerata members was the belief that music had become corrupt, and by returning to the forms and style of the ancient Greeks, the art of music could be improved, and thereby society could be improved as well. Though they did not originate many of their conclusions about music, the Camerata of Bardi solidified the ideas gleaned from outside thinkers like Girolamo Mei. The current day's thought held that the Greeks used a style between speech and song, and this belief guided the Camerata's discourse. They were influenced by Girolamo Mei, the foremost scholar of ancient Greece at the time, who held—among other things—that ancient Greek drama was predominantly sung rather than spoken.
Largely concerned with a revival of the Greek dramatic style, the Camerata's musical experiments led to the development of the stile recitativo. Cavalieri was the first to employ the new recitative style, trying his creative hand at a few pastoral scenes.
The criticism of contemporary music by the Camerata centered on the overuse of polyphony at the expense of the sung text's intelligibility. Intrigued by ancient descriptions of the emotional and moral effect of ancient Greek tragedy and comedy, which they presumed to be sung as a single line to a simple instrumental accompaniment, the Camerata proposed creating a new kind of music. Instead of trying to make the clearest polyphony they could, the Camerata voiced an opinion recorded by a contemporary Florentine, "means must be found in the attempt to bring music closer to that of classical times." The instrumentation for an opera from the Camerata composers (Caccini and Peri) was written for a handful of gambas, lutes, and harpsichord or organ for continuo.
The Camerata's view on counterpoint and monody did not rise to prominence without opposition. Galilei's famed theory teacher Zarlino countered, "What has the musician to do with those who recite tragedies and comedies?"
In the compositions of the Camerata members, the theory preceded the practice; the men decided how the music should sound before they set to compose it. The composers of the Camerata became so faithfully committed to the exploration of their declamatory style that often their pieces became rife with monotone sonorities.
Legacy
Bardi, Galilei, and Caccini left writings expounding their ideas. Bardi wrote the Discorso (1578), a long letter to Giulio Caccini, and Galilei published the Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna (1581–1582).