Italian opera "Dafne" by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. Peri's works, however, did not arise out of a creative vacuum in the area of sung drama. An underlying prerequisite for the creation of opera proper was the practice of monody. Monody is the solo singing/setting of a dramatically conceived melody, designed to express the emotional content of the text it carries, which is accompanied by a relatively simple sequence of chords rather than other polyphonic parts. Italian composers began composing in this style late in the 16th century, and it grew in part from the long-standing
Jacopo Coppi Jacopo Coppi Jacopo Coppi, also called "Giacomo Coppi" or "'Jacopo del Meglio'" ("the Best") (Peretola, 1523 - 1591) was an Italian painter, mainly active in Florence and Rome in a Mannerist style. Other sources call him Giacinto Coppi. He was one of the team of painters under Giorgio Vasari engaged in the decoration of the Studiolo of Francesco I de' Medici in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. For the room, he depicted the "Invention of Gunpowder" and the "Family of Darius before Alexander the Great". Some of the sources dispute the identity of Coppi and Meglio. He is said to have