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 Bertoia Jacopo Bertoia Jacopo Bertoia, also known as Giacomo Zanguidi or Jacopo Zanguidi or Bertoja, (1544 – ca. 1574), was an Italian painter of a late-Renaissance or Mannerist style that emerged in Parma towards the end of the 16th century. He was strongly influenced by Parmigianino. Born in Parma, he apparently studied in Bologna with Sabatini. His masterpiece is the "Sala del Bacio", in the Palazzo del Giardino in Parma. He also helped decorate the "Sala di Orfeo" in the same palace. In Rome, he was part of the team that frescoed the walls of the Oratorio del Gonfalone in Rome,