The marvels of the Medici intermedi

Abstract

The 1589 Medici festivities celebrating the wedding of Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici and Christine of Lorraine have been exhaustively discussed by musicologists and theatre historians, in particular the performance of Girolamo Bargagli's play, La pellegrina, with spectacular intermedi (interludes) staged in the Uffizi theatre. The intermedi—a free succession of vocal and instrumental items performed between the acts of the play, which aimed to exploit their subjects for spectacular visual and aural effect—are generally considered central to the development and precursors of early opera, albeit part of a declining theatrical genre that had been extensively exploited by the Medici throughout the 16th century for their politics of prestige and legitimization of princely rule. By contrast, Nina Treadwell's book provides the first detailed interpretative work on the music of the intermedi, emphasizing especially the importance of the performance context. In particular, her novel approach to these works focuses on the 16th-century audience's experience and the accounts of the event produced by contemporary diarists and chroniclers as part of a ‘meaning-making process’ (p.2). She addresses especially the musical and performative contexts that aimed to evoke ‘meraviglia’ (wonder) and ‘the mystery of the state’, thus exploring the wider role of music and theatre in Medicean absolutism, particularly as sponsored by Ferdinando. She also links ‘meraviglia’ to the bodily practices of musico-theatrical performance and how these exerted influence on the audience's perception of space and time by the use of different styles and juxtapositions of musics emanating from various bodily configurations.