Jacopo Peri Jacopo Peri Jacopo Peri (20 August 156112 August 1633), known under the pseudonym Il Zazzerino, I was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera. He wrote the first work to be called an opera today, "Dafne" (around 1597), and also the first opera to have survived to the present day, "Euridice" (1600). Peri was born in Rome, but studied in Florence with Cristofano Malvezzi, and went on to work in a number of churches there, both as an organist and as a singer. He
Jacopo della Quercia Jacopo della Quercia Jacopo della Quercia (; 20 October 1438) was an Italian sculptor of the Italian Renaissance, a contemporary of Brunelleschi, Ghiberti and Donatello. He is considered a precursor of Michelangelo. Jacopo della Quercia takes his name from Quercia Grossa (now Quercegrossa), a place near Siena, where he was born in 1374. He received his early training from his father, Piero d'Angelo, a woodcarver and goldsmith. Jacopo della Quercia, a Sienese, must have seen the works of Nicola Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio on the pulpit in the cathedral of Siena and this must have influenced him. His first