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 Ripanda Jacopo Ripanda Jacopo Ripanda (Bologna, 15th century - Rome, c.1516) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance era. His works were mainly undertaken in his home town of Bologna, and in Rome, as a result of his numerous papal commissions for frescoes in churches and Vatican palaces. Little is known of the life and work of this painter, though he was highly admired in his lifetime. He was probably born in Bologna in the second half of the fifteenth century, from which the artist must have left at a fairly young age to travel to Rome during the pontificate of