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
Jacopo da Empoli Battista Brazzè ("Il Bigio"), Giovanni Battista Vanni, and Virgilio Zaballi. Finally, working in a thematic often shunned by Florentine painters, after the 1620s he completed a series of exceptional still-life paintings . Jacopo da Empoli Jacopo da Empoli (30 April 1551 – 30 September 1640) was an Italian Florentine Reformist painter. Born in Florence as Jacopo Chimenti (Empoli being the birthplace of his father), he worked mostly in his native city. He apprenticed under Maso da San Friano. Like his contemporary in Counter-Maniera (Counter-Mannerism), Santi di Tito, he moved into a style often more crisp, less contorted, and less crowded