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 painting the panel depicting the "Entry of Christ into Jerusalem". He was commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in 1572-1573 to paint galleries ("Sale del Giudizio", "della Penitenza", "dei Sogni", as well as the "Anticamera degli Angeli") of the Villa Farnese in Caprarola, where he replaced the role of Taddeo Zuccari. He had earlier worked in Caprarola with Federico Zuccari in 1574, painting in the "Sala di Ercole". 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