All Topics  
Giovanni Battista Guarini

 
Giovanni Battista Guarini

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Giovanni Battista Guarini
 
 
  Topics Giovanni Battista Guarini Topic Home

Giovanni Battista Guarini (December 10, 1538 – October 7, 1612) was an Italian
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
 poet, dramatist, and diplomat.

Life
He was born in Ferrara
Ferrara

Ferrara is a city in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara.It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north....
, and spent his early life both in Padua
Padua

Padua is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 ....
 and Ferrara, entering the service of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1567.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Giovanni Battista Guarini'
Start a new discussion about 'Giovanni Battista Guarini'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Battista Guarini
Giovanni Battista Guarini (December 10, 1538 – October 7, 1612) was an Italian
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
 poet, dramatist, and diplomat.

Life


He was born in Ferrara
Ferrara

Ferrara is a city in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara.It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north....
, and spent his early life both in Padua
Padua

Padua is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 ....
 and Ferrara, entering the service of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1567. After 15 years in the service of the Duke, he resigned and withdrew to his family estate, the Villa Guarina, where he wrote his most notable work, Il pastor fido (1590; The Faithful Shepherd, 1647). This play, a pastoral tragicomedy, polished in style, was translated into many languages and became popular during the 17th century. It set the pattern for a code of refinement and gallantry that lasted until the late 18th century.

He was the father of Anna Guarini
Anna Guarini

Anna Guarini, Contessa Trotti, was an Italy virtuoso singer of the late Renaissance music. She was one of the most renowned singers of the age, and was one of the three concerto di donne at the Ferrara court of the Este family, for whom many composers wrote in a progressive style....
, one of the famous virtuose singers of the Ferrara court, the three women of the concerto di donne. She was murdered by her husband in 1598, with the assistance of her brother Girolamo.

Work and influence


No poet was more influential on music history
Music history

The field of music history, sometimes called historical musicology, is the highly diverse subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies the composition, performance, reception, and criticism of music over time....
 in the late Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 and Baroque
Baroque

In the the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural Epoch , starting roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in Baroque sculpture, Baroque painting, literature, Baroque dance, and Baroque music....
 eras than Guarini. His poems were set more often by madrigal
Madrigal (music)

A madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance music and early Baroque music eras. Throughout most of its history it was Polyphony and unaccompanied by instruments, with the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six....
 composers than the work of any other poet, even Tasso
Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso was an Italy poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem ....
, who came in a close second; the prolific madrigal composer Philippe de Monte
Philippe de Monte

Philippe de Monte , sometimes known as Philippus de Monte, was a Flanders composer of the late Renaissance music. He was a member of the 3rd generation madrigalists and wrote more madrigal s than any other composer of the time....
 even named one of his collections Il pastor fido after Guarini's most famous work. His popularity was due to his providing texts to composers which were rich with possibilities for word-painting and other easy translations of emotion into music. One of his poems, the erotic Tirsi morir volea, recounting the amorous encounter of a shepherd and a nymph, was set to music as a madrigal more often than any other single poem of the entire era.

In addition to his decisive influence on madrigal composers, he was the single largest influence on opera librettists
Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, Musical theater, and ballet....
 up until the time of Metastasio in the 18th century.

While Guarini's work may be seen as lacking the deep feeling and sentiment of his predecessor at the Estensi court, Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso was an Italy poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem ....
, it was precisely this quality which commended it to musical setting at a time when excessive emotionalism had become unfashionable.

An example of his work would be "O come e\ gran martire" from Libro Terzo dei Madrigali (1592), Monteverdi.

External links