Italian classical music is difficult to do if everyone is singing a melody at the same time; thus, polyphony gave way to homophony, and early opera consisted of relatively simple melodies with texts about Greek mythology, sung in Italian and supported by simple harmonies. The important city in Italy in this development of music in the 16th century was Florence. (See also: Florentine Camerata, Vincenzo Galilei, Jacopo Peri, Palestrina, Arcangelo Corelli.) Besides Florence, two other Italian cities are particularly worthy of mention in the period around 1600. There is somewhat of a friendly rivalry between advocates of the two cities as to which
The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis) is an epistolary novel written by Ugo Foscolo between 1798 and 1802 and first published later that year. It is considered the first such work in Italian literature. A second edition, with major changes, was published by Foscolo in Zurich (1816) and a third one in London (1817). The model was Goethe's novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther" (1774). Another influence is Rousseau's "Julie, or the New Heloise" (1761). Foscolo's work was also inspired by the political events that occurred in Northern Italy