Giulio Caccini

Italian Renaissance Composer and Singer

Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) was an Italian composer, singer, and instrumentalist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. He is often credited as one of the pioneers of the early opera and the style known as monody—an early form of song in which a solo voice is accompanied by simple chords, as opposed to the more complex polyphonic style that was prevalent during the Renaissance. Caccini was a member of the Florentine Camerata, a group of humanists, poets, musicians, and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama.