PERI, JACOPO (1561-1633), Italian composer, was born at Florence on Aug. 20, 1561, of a noble family. After studying under Cristoforo Malvezzi of Lucca, he became maestro di cap pella, first to Ferdinand, duke of Tuscany, and later to Cosmo II. He was a member of the literary and artistic circle which fre quented the house of Giovanni Bardi, conte de Vernio, where the revival of Greek tragedy with its appropriate musical declama tion was a favourite subject of discussion. The poet Ottavio Rinuccini supplied a drama with the title of Dafne, to which Peri composed music, and this first attempt at opera was performed privately in 1597 in the Palazzo Corsi at Florence. In 1600 Rinuccini and Peri were commissioned to produce an opera on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France with Maria de' Medici. This work (L'Euridice) attracted a great deal of atten tion, and the type once publicly established, the musical drama was set on the road to success by the efforts of other composers and the patronage of other courts. Peri afterward wrote recitatives
to Rinuccini's Arianna (1608), an opera Adone for Mantua (1620), and La precedenza delle dame for the court of Florence (1625). He died in Florence on Aug. 12, 1633.
Peri's Dafne (which has entirely disappeared) and L'Euridice (printed at Florence 1600; reprinted Venice 1608 and Florence 1863) are of the greatest importance not only as being the earliest attempts at opera, but as representing the new monodic and declamatory style which is the basis of modern music as opposed to the contrapuntal methods of Palestrina and his contemporaries. Of his work only L'Euridice and the V arie musiche a una, due a tre voci (Florence, 1609) survive.
See R. Rolland, Histoire de l'opera en Europe avant Lulli et Scarlatti (7895).