Variar 'le prime 7 stanze della luna': ritrovati versi di ballo per Jacopo Peri

Between 1611 and 1620, Jacopo Peri (1561-1633) composed dances often, especially in the carnival entertainments, organized in "high room" (“Sala alta”) of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Then, the correspondence between Peri and the Gonzaga court, with whom he had ancient relations, keeps the news of a dance which he wrote to the duchess Catherine de 'Medici Gonzaga, which was to be represented at Mantua in the spring of 1620. It was thought that the libretto for this event was lost, in fact it exists and here for the first time gives you argumentative news of the discovery, as well as the full edition. Unrecognized, perhaps because of a little eloquent title ("Versi cantati nel ballo fatto dalla Sereniss. Sig. Duchessa di Mantova …”), the printed libretto was lying in the University Library of Bologna. His identification was made possible by the review, through documents known and unknown, the festivities held in Mantua, in court and elsewhere, between Sunday, April 26 and Monday, May 4, 1620, a week in which the forceful preparations and celebrations for the birthdays of the Duke (April 26) and Duchess (May 2), and for the wedding of Maria Zati with Traiano Bobba (May 3-4). The music, as often happens, is untraceable, but the discovery of the verses is important because it adds a new source to the series, not very rich, of texts for dance, and it permits to enter the 'laboratory' of the author and the mechanisms of production era, including failed projects and implemented. Finally, the contextualisation of found libretto, allows us to clarify the involvement, sometimes misunderstood, by Claudio Monteverdi in those same festivities, and contributes to the debate on the dissemination of models of fiorentine and mantuan entertainment in the european courts.[...]