e work of Jacopo Peri and his
friends. They, however, thought of it rather as a revival of the manner
of the ancient Greek tragedy, which was, in a sense, a crude form of
Wagnerian recitation, with musical accompaniment.

As the English novel owes its origin to the commission given to Mr.
Samuel Richardson to prepare a Ready Letter Writer, which he decided to
put in the form of a story told in letters, so grand opera, which has
almost rivalled the novel in the world's favour, found its origin in a
conference among certain aristocratic gentlemen, of the city of
Florence, concerning the possibility of reviving part of Greek tragedy.
As an experiment, they prepared a small work called "Dafne" for private
presentation at the palace of the Corsi. Rinuccini was the first of a
long and usually incompetent lineage of librettists. The music was
written by Peri and Caccini. It was appropriate that they should have
chosen the love affairs of the first musician Orpheus and the coy
Daphne, seeing what a vast amount of love-making, pretended and real,
the school of opera has handed down upon the world. Reissman has
reckoned it out that twenty thousand lovers are joined or are parted
every night in the world's theatres.

Peri played the part of Apollo, and he was fitted to play the sun-god by
his aureole of notoriously ardent hair. According to Fetis, Peri was
very avaricious. Of noble birth himself, he grew rich on the favour of
the Medicis, and added to his wealth by marrying a daughter of the house
of Fortini, who incidentally brought with her a very handsome dot. She
bore him a son, who won an early fame by his mathematics, his temper,
and his dissipations, which led his tutor, the famous Galileo, to call
him his demon. And this is all I know of the love affairs of the father
of modern opera.

His collaborator, Caccini, who was more famous among his contemporaries
than Peri, states in the preface to a book of his, that he was married
twice, both times to pupils. His former wife was a well-known singer,
and his daughters were musicians, the elder, Francesca, being also a
composer.

The name of Monteverde is immortal in the history of music, because,
although no one sings his songs now, or hears his operas, even the
strictest composers make constant use of certain musical procedures,
which were in his time forbidden, and which he fought for tooth and
nail. Irisi says that he entered the Church after the death of his wife,
and a