1 See especially Joseph Kerman: ‘The myth of Orpheus … deals with man specifically as artist, and one is drawn inevitably to see in it, mirrored with a kind of prophetic vision, the peculiar problems of the opera composer… . Can its symbolic boldness have escaped the musicians of 1600, seeking new power in the stronger forms of drama?’ (Opera as Drama [New York, 1956], p. 27). For a study of the political implications of Orpheus for the early sixteenth-century Florentine court, see Langedijk, Karla, ‘Baccio Bandinelli's Orpheus: A Political Message,’ Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 20 (1976), 33–52 Google Scholar. Three settings of the Orpheus myth date from the first decade of opera composition: L'Euridice by Jacopo Peri on a text by Ottavio Rinuccini (1600); the same text set to music by Giulio Caccini (1600); and La favola d'Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi on a text by Alessandro Striggio (1607).

2 ‘La Dafne / D'Ottavio Rinuccini / Rappresentata alia Sereniss. Gran Duchessa / Di Toscana / Dal Signor Iacopo Corsi / … In Firenze / Apresso Giorgio Marescotti./ MDC. / …'. Angelo Solerti reprinted the 1600 edition of the libretto, giving the variants of 1604 and 1608 in the notes. See Gli albori del melodramma, 3 vols. (Milan, 1904-05; repr. Hildesheim, 1969), II, 64—105. The libretto is also reproduced in Drammi per musica, dal Rinuccini alio Zeno, ed. A. della Corte (Turin, 1926; repr. 1958), I, 45-68; and in Parnaso italiano, ovvero, Raccoka de'poeti classici italiani, ed. A. Rubbi (Venice, 1784-91), XVII, 347-66. In the preface to the 1608 edition of his score, Marco da Gagliano gives Carnival, 1597 as the date of the first performance of La Dafne. (See Solerti, Gli albori, p. 68.) Because the Florentine calendar year began on March 25, da Gagliano's date refers presumably to February or March, 1598. From Jacopo Peri's preface to his setting of Rinuccini's Euridice of 1600 (cf. Solerti, p. 110), we learn that La Dafne was performed during three consecutive carnival seasons in Florence. Thus the dates of the earlier version of La Dafne are generally assumed to be 1597/8, 1598/9, and 1599/1600. Most recently, F. W. Sternfeld has written about the chronology of La Dafne (‘The First Printed Opera Libretto,’ Music and Letters, 59 [1978], 121-138), concluding that the undated libretto extant in the New York Public Library belongs to the first performance of 1597/8. The surviving musical excerpts are transcribed and discussed in Porter, William V., ‘Peri and Corsi's Dafne: Some New Discoveries and Observations,’ Journal of the American Musicological Society, 18(1965), 170–196 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Cf. Donald Jay Grout's remark: ‘Dafne, however, is not, properly speaking, an opera but rather a pair of intermedi, one of which is based on one of the Florentine intermedi of 1589’ (‘The Chorus in Early Opera,’ in Festschrift Friedrich Blume zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. A. A. Abert and W. Pfannkuch [Kassel, 1963], p. 159). Nino Pirrotta also dismisses La Dafne as the starting point, ‘not because the dates of its various performances are uncertain and a complete score missing, but because both the text and the few surviving fragments of the music make this work seem immature and preliminary compared to the full-fledged vitality of Euridice.’ See his essay, ‘Early Opera and Aria,’ in New Looks at Italian Opera, ed. William Austin (Ithaca, 1968), p. 39. The essay also appears in Italian in Pirrotta, Li due Orfei, da Poliziano a Monteverdi (Turin, 1969; repr. 1975), pp. 276-333. For Pirrotta's evaluation of my earlier views on La Dafne, published in my article, ‘Apologia pro Ottavio Rinuccini’ (Journal of the American Musicological Society, 26 [1973], 240-262), see his note 86a on p. 329. Cf. also Tomlinson, Gary, ‘Ancora su Ottavio Rinuccini,’ Journal of the American Musicological Society, 28 (1975), 351-56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. and my ‘Communication’ in ibid., 29 (1976), 501-503.

4 My reading of the various elements of the legend owes much to the study of Giraud, Yves F.-A., La fable de Daphné: Essai sur un type de métamorphose végétate dans la littérature et dans les arts jusqu'à la fin du XVII^e siecle (Geneva, 1968)Google Scholar.

5 In the preface to his 1608 score, Marco da Gagliano himself refers to ‘la scena del pianto d'Apollo’ and this classification has lasted through the centuries. According to Giraud, however, the real import of the last scene for the classical poets was Apollo's consecration of the laurel (see La fable de Daphné, pp. 58—59), and Rinuccini does not fail to include this element in his treatment.

6 Metamorphoses i. 557-565:

7 La Dafne, lines 371—378. Although in the 1608 version of the libretto Rinuccini expanded this portion of Apollo's monologue by the addition of twelve lines, thereby equalizing the number of verses in Apollo's complaint and subsequent encomium, still the consecration verses (quoted below) were left untouched, and their presence cannot satisfactorily be reconciled with the rhetoric of lament.

8 Ibid., lines 379-397.

9 See Solerti, Gli albori, II, 70 and 72.

10 See the third intermedio with its description by Bastiano de’ Rossi; text reprinted in Solerti, ibid., 25-28, as well as in the volume edited by Walker, D. P. and Jacquot, J., Les Fêtes de Florence (1589): Musique des intermèdes de ‘La Pellegrina’ (Paris, 1963), pp. xxxiii-lviiiGoogle Scholar. The most recent discussion of the music is by Pirrotta in Li due Orfei, pp. 245ff. The unifying theme of the six intermedii, invented by Giovanni Bardi for Bargagli's comedy La Pellegrina and performed during the 1589 wedding festivities, was the power of music. According to de’ Rossi, the Pythic battle was executed in the manner described by Julius Pollux, incorporating certain rhythms of ancient music which aided Apollo in achieving and celebrating his victory.

11 Metamorphoses i. 416-444. According to Giraud, Ovid was the only author of antiquity to attach this episode to the story of Daphne. See La fable de Daphné, pp. 41-42.

12 Metamorphoses i. 450-451.

The replacement of oak by laurel occurs significantly in some of the iconography of the Medici court and is discussed below.

13 Lodovico Dolce, he trasformationi (Venice, 1561), p. 17. The work first appeared in 1539, with six subsequent editions from 1553 to 1570.

14 Dolce, Le trasformationi ii. 43.

15 Ibid., ii. 44.

16 Candace Adelson made this point in a paper (‘Political Allegory in the Medici Garden of Castello’) delivered at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America held at Smith College in March, 1976.

17 Cf. Pliny the Elder, Historia naturalis (xv. 40), which received several publications in Venice, beginning in 1472.

18 Cosimo il Vecchio, known as Pater patriae, died in 1464. Pontormo's painting dates from 1518-19. Cf. Forster, Kurt W., Pontormo: Monographic mil Kritischem Katalog (Munich, 1966), p. 134 Google Scholar. The inscription is a quotation from Virgil's Aeneid (VI. 143). Further on Cosimo's political image, see Matthias Winner, ‘Cosimo il Vecchio als Cicero,’ Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 33 (1970), 261-297.

19 Hill, George F., A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance before Cellini (London, 1930), no. 1109Google Scholar.

20 I quote the third and fourth stanzas of the text and its translation by Symonds, J. A., Renaissance in Italy, II: The Revival of Learning (London, 1898), 258 Google Scholar.

According to Pliny, it was thought that lightning could not strike the laurel (cf. Apollo's consecration verses in Rinuccini's libretto, quoted above, note 8), for which reason the emperor Tiberius always wore a wreath of it during thunderstorms. Matthias Winner documents the literary allusions to Lorenzo as Lauro by Poliziano and also Ariosto in ‘Pontormos Fresko in Poggio a Caiano: Hinweise zu seiner Deuting,’ Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 35 (1972), 153-197. See also Kliemann, Julian, ‘Vertumnus und Pomona: Zum programm von Pontormos Fresko in Poggio a Caiano,’ Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 16 (1972), 304 Google Scholar.

21 Giraud, La fable de Daphné, pp. r 59ff. For further associations between Lorenzo and the laurel, see Rochon, André, La jeunesse de Laurent de Médicis (Paris, 1963), pp. 95, 98Google Scholar.

22 See Bargellini, Piero, The Medici Palace and the Frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli, trans. Gladys Hutton (Florence, 1948)Google Scholar, and Hatfield, Rab, Botticelli's Uffizi ‘Adoration': A Study in Pictorial Content (Princeton, 1976), p. 79 Google Scholar. E. H. Gombrich takes exception to this interpretation, although he ventures to identify several figures among the retinue as Medici family members; see ‘The Early Medici as Patrons of Art,’ in Gombrich, Norm and Form (New York and London, 1966), pp. 49-50.

23 Lorenzo's grandfather, Cosimo il Vecchio, is represented kneeling at the Virgin's feet while his father, Piero the Gouty, is probably the Magus in the foreground with his back to us. See Hatfield, pp. 78—79, et passim. Including Lorenzo, the disposition of these key members of three generations of Medici leaders forms a triangle similar to that created by the three shoots of laurel sprouting from the crevice above Lorenzo's head.

24 Shown in Le sententiose imprese di Monsignor Paolo Giovio (Lyons, 1562), p. 73. Further on this device, see Marilyn Perry, ‘Candor Illaesus: the Impresa of Clement VII and other Medici devices in the Vatican Stanze,’ The Burlington Magazine 119/895 (October, 1977), 680; and Henry Kaufmann, ‘Art for the Wedding of Cosimo de’ Medici and Eleonora of Toledo (1539).’ Paragone, 243 (May, 1970), 12. The latter describes the role this and other imprese played in the iconography of the 1539 wedding celebrations, although he incorrectly assumes that the device belonged to the poet Lorenzo, the Magnificent, rather than to his grandson.

25 ‘Quel tronco secco di lauro, che manda fuori quella vermena diritta e fresca di fronde, e la casa de’ Medici, già spenta, che per la persona del duca Alessandro deve crescere di prole infinitamente.’ Quoted from Vasari's letter to Ottaviano de’ Medici, 1534, in La letteratura italiana; storia e testi, Vol. 32, Tomo III: Scritti d'arte del cinquecento; ed., P. Barocchi (Milan and Naples, 1977), p. 2709.

26 Kaufmann, ‘Art for the Wedding … ,’ plate 49b and p. 15, note 10. The rest of the motto—'non deficit alter'—is inscribed around the rim of the medal. This device was discussed by Paolo Giovio in his Dialogo delle imprese militari et amorose (Lyons, 1559), pp. 52-53.

27 Hildegarde Utz, ‘The Labors of Hercules and Other Works by Vincenzo de’ Rossi,’ Art Bulletin, 53 (1971), 357-8; and Utz, ‘Sculptures by Domenico Poggini,’ Metropolitan Museum Journal, 10 (1975), 63—78. Among other evidence demonstrating the glorification of Cosimo I as Apollo is a sonnet by Poggini comparing him to the Sun God (ibid., p. 68). See also Richelson, Paul William, Studies in the Personal Imagery of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Duke of Florence (New York and London, 1978), pp. 37–40 Google Scholar.

28 Forster, Kurt, ‘Metaphors of Rule: Political Ideology and History in the Portraits of Cosimo I de’ Medici,’ Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorisches Institutes in Florenz, 15 (1971), 86 Google Scholar. Further on the larger symbolism of the Danti statue in its original context, see Richelson, Studies, pp. 42-45.

29 Utz, ‘The Labors of Hercules … ,’ p. 358.

30 De Monorchia II.9.ii. See Ettlinger, Leopold D., ‘Hercules Florentinus,’ Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 16 (1952), 119—142 Google Scholar, especially p. 127: ‘Dante's interpretation links Hercules with David, and … this parallel was still recognized in the sixteenth century.’

31 Janson, H. W., The Sculpture of Donatello, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1957), II, 77–86 Google Scholar. Of Donatello's earlier, marble David, Janson says, ‘The iconographic type of the victorious David as an isolated figure seems to have been coined in Florence during the early Trecento… . The iconographic novelty of our statue consists in showing David the Prophet as the youthful victor over Goliath rather than in the customary form of a bearded king with harp or psaltery, and there is reason to believe that this daring idea was conceived by Donatello …’ (p. 6).

32 Utz, ‘The Labors of Hercules,’ p. 359.

33 Ibid., p. 355. Also see Forster, ‘Metaphors of Rule … ,’ p. 82, for a discussion of artistic analogies between Hercules and Cosimo; and Richelson, Studies, pp. 79—92.

34 Metamorphoses i. 521-24.

35 The saints flank Vasari's copy of Raphael's Madonna dell’ Impannata in the Chapel off Leo X's room in the Palazzo Vecchio.

36 See A Renaissance Entertainment: Festivities/or the Marriage of Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, in 1539, ed. A. Minor and 13. Mitchell (Columbia, Missouri, 1968), pp. 136-223.

37 Rinuccini wrote a brief Maschere d'Amazzone for this occasion in which he alludes fleetingly to ‘il vincitor de’ mostri e de’ serpenti’ (strophe 4), who is probably Hercules. See Solerti, Glialbori, II, 3.

38 Nagler, A. M., Theatre Festivals of the Medici, 1539-1637 (New Haven and London, 1964), p. 53 Google Scholar and plate 29. The sketch is from Raffaello Gualterotti, Teste nelle nozze / Del Serenissimo Don / Francesco Medici Gran / Duca di Toscana; / … Firenze, 1579,’ whose description of the event Nagler paraphrases.

39 The dragon's guise, with its many heads and its serpent's tail, resembles that of the Lernean Hydra slain by Hercules, as depicted by A. Pollaiuolo and Vasari, among others. See Nagler, Theatre Festivals, plate 30.

40 Although Grand Duke Francesco presided over the festivities, it is noteworthy that the occasion this time did not involve a Medici ducal heir, but rather the marriage of the duke of Ferrara, Cesare d'Este, to Francesco's half-sister, Virginia, who had been born out of wedlock and whose mother Francesco had banished to a convent twelve years earlier, at the death of Cosimo I.

41 Apollo also figures iconographically in two, possibly three other intermedii of the 1589 group: in the first, which deals with the ‘Harmony of the Spheres,’ possibly in the second (see Nagler, Theatre Festivals, p. 82 and plate 51), and in the sixth, where he reappears in the ‘Assembly of the Gods.’ In each case, Rinuccini was the author of the sung verses.

42 Bastiano de’ Rossi, ‘Descrizione / dell'Apparato, / e degl'Intcr- / niedi … Firenze, 1589': ‘Fece venire Apollo … con l'arco in mano e il turcasso al fianco pien di saette e vestito d'un abito risplendentc di tela d'oro, nella guisa che fu posto nel primo intermedio tra i sette Pianeti in cielo. È ben vero che il detto abito non era tanto infocato e, perché fosse destro e spedito, non circondato da raggi’ (printed in Solerti, Gli albori, II, 27).

43 Cf. Rossi:'… e Apollo che il piè gli teneva sopra la testa …’ (ibid.).

44 Nagler (Theatre Festivals, plate 53) publishes this sketch by Buontalenti which is preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence.

45 During the 1608 wedding celebrations, a naval spectacle was staged on the Arno during which the bride of Prince Cosimo, Maria Magdalena of Austria, was presented with six golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides, the same number as there are palle on the Medici escutcheon. The gift was carried to her by the river god in the presence of Hercules, whose ship led the flotilla of ‘Florentine Argonauts’ in the mostra. See the Descrizione by Camillo Rinuccini, paraphrased by Nagler, Theatre Festivals, p. 115.

46 It was the official reception room, and the site of the family's celebrations for the 1565 marriage of Francesco I, for the 1568 baptism of his first-born child, Leonora, and for the 1569 entertainments to honor the Archduke Karl of Austria. In 1600 and 1608, it was the setting of the great banquets following the wedding ceremonies of Maria de’ Medici and Prince Cosimo. See below.

47 Barocchi, Paola, Vasari, pittore (Milan, 1964), pp. 53ff. and 139Google Scholar.

48 There the oak wreath is replaced by laurel in the central ceiling fresco, one which was undoubtedly intended to invite comparison with Vasari's work. See below, and fig. 8.

49 A further parallel between the two rulers was seen in the fact that Cosimo came to power after the assassination of his distant cousin, Duke Alessandro, just as Augustus had succeeded his great uncle, the fallen Julius Caesar. See Forster, ‘Metaphors of Rule … ,’ p. 85.

50 The statues were originally intended for Rossi's colossal fountain, ‘a climax, in grandeur and learnedness, of the use of Herculean imagery by Cosimo’ (Richelson, Studies, pp. 91-92). Also see notes 32 and 33 above.

51 Palisca, Claude, ‘The First Performance of Euridice ,’ in The Twenty-fifth Anniversary Festschrift (Queens College of the City University of New York, Music Department, 1964), p. 10 Google Scholar.

52 Angelo Solerti, Musica, ballo, e drammatica alia corte Medicea dal 1600 al 1637 (Florence, 1905). P. 34.

53 This may be the performance which took place in February, 1611, while Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga was visiting Florence. See Solerti, , Musica, ballo, e drammatica, p. 60 Google Scholar, and below.

54 Ibid., p. 102.

55 Solerti, Gli albori, I, 75-76.

56 Strainchamps, Edmond, ‘New Light on the Accademia degli Elevati of Florence,’ The Musical Quarterly, 62 (1976), 529 Google Scholar.

57 Solerti, Gli albori, I, 86.

58 Strainchamps, ‘New Light… ,’ pp. 516-518.

59 See ‘Descrizione / delle felicissime / Nozze / … Di Michelagnolo Buonaroti. / In Firenze / Appresso Giorgio Marescotti. MDC,’ excerpts from which are printed in Solerti, Gli albori, III, 14.

60 ‘Apollo nel carro sopra una nuvola cantando et a piedi suoi doi sonatori’ and ‘Una ninfa cantando in una Concha marina et doi sonatori sedendo a piedi suoi.’ See items G and H in the engraving by Matthias Grcuter reproduced by Solerti, Musica, ballo, e drammatica, p. 43. Nagler's account seems confused in its reference to Cupid's presence (Theatre Festivals, p. 101).

61 So wrote Marco da Gagliano to Ferdinando Gonzaga in July, 1608 (cf. Solerti, Gli albori, I, 105). Solerti hypothesized that Rinuccini's Narciso was intended for this occasion (ibid., pp. 107-108).

62 Printed in Solerti, Gli albori, II, 103-04. I quote stanzas 7 and 8.

In 1609, while Rinuccini was consolo of the Elevati, the Academy had suffered a schism in its ranks which may have contributed to its eventual demise, and to Rinuccini's bitterness. See Solerti, Gli albori, I, 113, and Strainchamps, ‘New Light… ,’ pp. 524)?.

63 Most of the rooms were redecorated during the period of the Lorraine grand dukes in the eighteenth century.

64 Diaz, Furio, Il Granducato di Toscana: I Medici (Storia d'Italia. Vol. 13, no. 1, Torino, 1976), pp. 294–295 Google Scholar.

65 Venturi, A., Storia dell'arte italiana, IX, vii (Milan, 1934), 632 Google Scholar; Langedijk, Karla, De Portretten van de Medici tot omstreeks 1600 (Amsterdam, n.d.), pp. 114ff.Google Scholar; and Marco Chiarini, ‘The Decoration of Palazzo Pitti in the 17th and 18th Centuries,’ Apollo, 106, no. 187 (September, 1977), 179.

66 poccetti had collaborated with Bernardo Buontalenti in decorating the grotto in the Boboli Gardens between 1583 and 1593. See D. Heikamp, ‘L'architecture de le metamorphose,’ Oeil, 114 (1964), 2—9. Nagler (Theatre Festivals, plate 63) publishes Buontalenti's sketch for an Apollo costume preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence and suggests that it was intended for the sixth intermedio of 1589.

67 Langedijk notes the appearance of the right angle or carpenter's square several times in Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, particularly in connection with the personification of'Ordine dritto e giusto’ (De Portretten … , pp. 114—115). For the symbolic interpretation of the pyramid in the Renaissance, see Heckscher, W. S., ‘Bernini's Elephant and Obelisk,’ Art Bulletin, 29 (1947), 177ff.Google Scholar

68 See Malcolm Campbell's recent study, Pietro da Cortona at the Pitti Palace (Princeton, 1977).

69 Rinuccini substitutes poets and kings (‘i bei cigni di Dirce e i sommi regi’) for Ovid's Roman victors (La Dafne, lines 391-393). Pindar (518-438 B.C.), the most celebrated Greek lyric poet, was known as the Dircaean swan after Dirce, a marvellous fountain in the vicinity of Thebes, the poet's birthplace.