Italian composer and one of the earliest to compose dramatic music.

A nobleman, he became supervisor of fine arts and entertainments at the court of the grand duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany. He was a member of the Camerata in Florence, a group whose theories gave rise to the first operas. He composed intermezzi and pastorals, which stood midway between the masquelike intermezzi and true operas. Historically, his most significant work is La rappresentazione di anima e di corpo (Representation of Soul and Body), an allegorical morality play. Important as a precursor of opera and of oratorio, it had characteristics of both. Published in 1600, it contained the earliest printed examples of figured bass (basso continuo). Although it was surpassed in musical and dramatic intensity by the first true operas (those of Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini), it was one of the earliest examples of the monodic recitative style that blossomed in early opera.