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 Sansovino Jacopo Sansovino Jacopo d'Antonio Sansovino (2 July 1486 – 27 November 1570) was an Italian sculptor and architect, known best for his works around the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Andrea Palladio, in the Preface to his "Quattro Libri" was of the opinion that Sansovino's Biblioteca Marciana was the best building erected since Antiquity. Giorgio Vasari uniquely printed his "Vita" of Sansovino separately. He was born in Florence and apprenticed with Andrea Sansovino whose name he subsequently adopted, changing his name from Jacopo Tatti. In Rome he attracted the notice of Bramante and Raphael and made a wax model of