Francesca Caccini (; 18 September 1587 – most likely between 1641 and 1645) was an Italian composer, singer,

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

nist, poet, and music teacher of the early

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

era. She was also known by the nickname La Cecchina , given to her by the Florentines and probably a diminutive of ''Francesca''. She was the daughter of Giulio Caccini. Her only surviving stage work, '' La liberazione di Ruggiero'', is widely considered the oldest opera by a woman composer. As a female composer she helped to solidify the agency and the cultural and political programs of her female patron.

Personal life

Early life

Caccini was born in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, and received a humanistic education (Latin, some Greek, as well as modern languages and literature, mathematics) in addition to early musical training with her father. According to Liliana Panella, the first well-founded testimony of Francesca's singer's activity, together with her sister Settimia, at the Medici court, is 1602: in his diary Cesare Tinghi notes that on 3 April 1602 St. Nicholas church in Pisa, where the court moved every year during Lent, polychoral music was directed by "Giulio Romano iulio Caccini having the wife (the second wife, Margherita) and the two daughters singing well". Rome In her early life, Caccini performed with her parents, her half-brother Pompeo, her sister Settimia, and possibly other unnamed Caccini pupils in an ensemble contemporaries referred to as ''le donne di Giulio Romano''. After she was hired by the court, she continued to perform with the family ensemble until Settimia's marriage and resulting move to Mantua caused its breakup. Caccini served the Medici court as a teacher, chamber singer, rehearsal coach and composer of both chamber and stage music until early 1627. By 1614 she was the court's most highly paid musician, in no small part because her musical virtuosity so well exemplified an idea of female excellence projected by Tuscany's de facto Regent, Grand-Duchess Christina of Lorraine. By 1623 she earned 240 scudi.

Later life

After Caccini's first husband (Giovanni Battista Signorini, with whom she had one daughter, Margherita, in 1622) died in December 1626, she quickly arranged to marry again in October 1627, this time to a music-loving nobleman in

Lucca Città di Lucca ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its Province of Lucca, province has a population of 383,9 ...

, Tommaso Raffaelli. Although her legal name remained Francesca de Giulio Caccini, it was only the discovery of documents using Francesca Raffaelli that makes it possible to find evidence of her life from 1627 to 1634. She lived in Raffaelli's Lucchese homes, apparently bearing a son (also Tommaso, in 1628), and having some musical relationship to the Buonvisi family in Lucca, until his death in 1630.Rebecca Cypess: "Francesca Caccini: Italian composer and singer" at britannica.com
Accessed 2 November 2017 Although as the wife of a nobleman she had declined at least one request to perform (in Parma, in 1628), once she was widowed Caccini immediately tried to return to serve the Medici court. Her return delayed by the plagues of 1630–33, by 1634 Caccini was back in Florence with her two children, serving as music teacher not only to her daughter Margherita but also to the Medici princesses who lived at or frequently visited the convent of La Crocetta, and composing and performing chamber music and minor entertainments for the women's court. Caccini stopped serving the Medicis on 8 May 1641, and disappeared from the public record.

Professional career

Caccini is believed to have been a quick and prolific composer, equal in productivity to her court colleagues

Jacopo Peri Jacopo Peri (20 August 156112 August 1633) was an Italian composer, singer and instrumentalist of the late Renaissance music, Renaissance and early Baroque music, Baroque periods. He wrote what is considered the first opera, the mostly lost ''D ...

and

Marco da Gagliano Marco da Gagliano (1 May 1582 – 25 February 1643) was an Italian composer of the early Baroque music, Baroque era. He was important in the early history of opera and the development of the solo and concerted madrigal (music), madrigal. Li ...

. Very little of her music survives. Most of her stage music was composed for performance in comedies by poet Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger (grand-nephew of the artist) such as ''La Tancia'' (1613), ''Il passatempo'' (1614) and ''La fiera'' (1619). In 1618 she published a collection of thirty-six solo songs and soprano/bass duets (''Il primo libro delle musiche'') that is a compendium of contemporary styles, ranging from intensely moving, harmonically adventurous laments to joyful sacred songs in Italian and Latin, to witty strophic songs about the joys and perils of romantic love. In winter 1625 Caccini composed all the music for a 75-minute "comedy-ballet" entitled ''La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina'' which was performed for the visiting crown prince of Poland, Ladislaus Sigismondo (later Władysław IV). Combining witty parodies of early opera's stock scenes and self-important characters with moments of surprising emotional intensity, the score shows that Caccini had mastered the full range of musico-theatrical devices in her time and that she had had a strong sense of large-scale musical design. ''La liberazione'' so pleased the prince that he had it performed in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

in 1628. This is also widely regarded as the first opera written by a woman. There is no evidence to suggest that Caccini composed any of the accompanying poetry, however, which is instead by her contemporaries Michelangelo Buonarroti, Andrea Salvadori and Francesco Gualterotti.

Compositional style

Caccini's musical and compositional style has been likened to that of Monteverdi and

, and she started composing music after the closing of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

period, playing a key part in developing the

style of music. She composed within a very innovative musical context. For many of her songs, she was the author of the accompanying poetry, which also tended to be comedic. Although the musical pieces did not denote a specific instrument for playing the accompaniment, a

theorbo The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck that houses the second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box with a flat top, typically with one or three sound holes decorated with rose ...

could be used.

Works

Francesca Caccini wrote some or all of the music for at least six staged works. All but ''La liberazione di Ruggiero'' and some excerpts from ''La Tancia'' and ''Il passatempo'' published in the 1618 collection are believed lost. Her surviving scores reveal Caccini to have taken extraordinary care over the notation of her music, focusing special attention on the rhythmic placement of syllables and words, and on the precise notation of often very long, melodically fluid vocal melismas. Although her music is not especially notable for the expressive dissonances made fashionable by her contemporary Monteverdi, Caccini was a master of dramatic harmonic surprise: in her music it is harmony, more than counterpoint, that most powerfully communicates affect. Opera and stage works: *''La Stiava'' (performed 1607) (lost) *''La mascherata, delle ninfe di Senna'',

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

to,

Palazzo Pitti The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present ...

, 1611 *''La tancia'',

incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...

, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1611 *''Il passatempo'', incidental music to balletto, Pallazo Pitti, Florence, 1614 *''Il ballo delle Zingane'', balletto, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, music lost, 1615 *Il Primo libro delle musiche a 1–2 voci e basso continuo (1618) *''La fiera'', incidental music, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1619 *''Il martirio de S. Agata'', Florence, 1622 *''La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina'',

musical comedy Musical theatre is a form of theatre, theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, ...

, Villa Poggio Imperiale, Florence (1625) *''Rinaldo inamorato'', commissioned by Prince Wladislaw of Poland, 1626.

References

Notes Sources *

External links

* *
Free choral scores by Francesca Caccini
at the

Choral Public Domain Library The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL), also known as the ChoralWiki, is an online database for choral and vocal music. Its contents primarily include sheet music in the public domain or otherwise freely available for printing and performing ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caccini, Francesca Italian Baroque composers Italian women classical composers Italian opera composers 1587 births 1640s deaths Women opera composers Composers from Florence 17th-century Italian composers 17th-century Italian actresses Italian stage actresses 17th-century Italian women composers