Music and wonder at the Medici court

"On May 2, 1589, the Medici court staged the most costly and elaborate entertainment yet produced at Florence. In the Uffizi theater, the intermedi (interludes) performed between the acts of Girolamo Bargagli's comedy La pellegrina were the high point of a series of celebrations mobilized by the newly proclaimed Grand Duke of Florence - Ferdinando I de' Medici - for his wedding to Christine of Lorraine." "These interludes were one of the major cultural events of their time and were central to the activities of the Florentine Camerata and the development of early opera. In a new approach to these works Nina Treadwell addresses directly the "ineffability" of the listener's experience and the sometimes contradictory accounts of the event as recorded by diarists and chroniclers. She takes these varied impressions as part of the meaning-making process surrounding these extraordinary performances, exploring in particular the role of musical sound in the creation of meraviglia, or wonder - an important aspect of Florentine politics. Treadwell also considers the bodily practices of musico-theatrical performance and how these influenced the audience's spatial and temporal perception to further convey the "mystery of the state" as proclaimed by Florentine absolutism. Finally, she uses the many first-hand accounts of the event to reveal how meraviglia sometimes functioned in unanticipated ways."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.