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Biography

Vincenzo Galilei was born in a suburb of Florence, Santa Maria a Monte, Italy, in 1520. He spent most of his time in Santa Maria a Monte studying Greek theory and composing the music he loved to create. In his free time, Galilei enjoyed playing the lute and violin as he was part of an artistic circle known as Florentine Camerata. He became famous for the type of music he made, the lute with a solo voice. Although he was famous for this type of music, here are a few pieces that were not done the way that made him famous, Contrapunti a due voci, Libro d'intavolatura di liuto, and Dialogo. The type of people that would pay to hear pieces like this would come from a variety wealth because certain seats or areas of the theatre would cost more to be in. This extremely successful life ended, July 2, 1591 in Florence, Italy.

Famous Work

The famous work I focused on looking at was Contrapunti a due voci, a composition that was created in 1584. Although this piece was created over 400 years ago, you might still see it performed at a theatre. This was one of Galilei's more popular pieces, but he was more famously known for being the first to create music with the lute and a solo voice as I already mentioned. I found this piece to be especially interesting because of the calming and soothing tone. This piece does not specifically display one of The Renaissance "isms" but Vincenzo's life demonstrates humanism because he was always coming up with new theories and educating people on them.

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