She descended on a cloud ‘from the highest spheres’: Florentine monody ‘alla Romanina’

Abstract

Taking the opening solo song from the Florentine intermedi of 1589 as its focus, this article engages with questions regarding musical ownership, authorship, and the culture of print as it relates to musico-theatrical performance. The song, ‘Dalle più alte sfere’, was performed by the Florentine court’s prima donna Vittoria Archilei and the version she ostensibly sang appeared two years later in a commemorative print. While calling into question rigid distinctions between performer and composer during this period, the article nonetheless suggests that Archilei likely ‘composed’ the song, for which there are conflicting attributions. Evidence for this assertion includes disjunctions between the song as it appeared in print, its likely mode of ‘composition’, and the song’s realisation through the process-oriented act of live performance. These issues stand in stark relief to the likely incentives for publishing the Medici-commissioned music: harnessing the possibilities of print technology, the Florentines could effectively distill – and thus claim as their own – a primarily Roman/Neapolitan-associated performance practice, at the same time as attempting to rival the female-centred musical traditions of competing courts.