Book contents
- Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy
- Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Canterino Tradition
- 1 Early History: Ioculatores and Giullari
- 2 The Trecento Canterino
- Excursus 1 Piazza San Martino: Performance, Place, and Audience in Florence
- 3 The Canterino in the Fifteenth Century
- Part II Cantare ad Lyram: The Humanist Tradition
- Bibliography
- Index
Excursus 1 - Piazza San Martino: Performance, Place, and Audience in Florence
from Part I - The Canterino Tradition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2019
- Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy
- Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Canterino Tradition
- 1 Early History: Ioculatores and Giullari
- 2 The Trecento Canterino
- Excursus 1 Piazza San Martino: Performance, Place, and Audience in Florence
- 3 The Canterino in the Fifteenth Century
- Part II Cantare ad Lyram: The Humanist Tradition
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This is the first of two such short digressions that enable me to focus on a specific issue in a manner different from the chapters. In most of the cities of central and northern Italy a specific location, usually a piazza, became the traditional venue for poetic performance. By far the most famous and well-documented of these is Piazza San Martino in Florence, and it was arguably the city’s most famous soundscape. This essay explores the history and significance of this location in the heart of the Florentine wool district as a place that resisted control by special interests. Contrary to current perceptions, San Martino was not a low-brow venue for “wandering” hacks and mediocre poetry, but a prestigious and managed site where the full expressive range of Tuscan vernacular poetry was on display and in a continual state of forging and transmission.
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- Information
- Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance ItalyMemory, Performance, and Oral Poetry, pp. 87 - 101Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019