| Sumario: | <p>Leonora Bernardi (1559-1616), a gentlewoman of Lucca, was ahighly regarded poet, dramatist and singer. She was active in thebrilliant courts of Ferrara and Florence at a time when creativewomen enjoyed exceptional visibility in Italy. Like many suchfigures, she has since suffered historical neglect. <em>Drama,Poetry and Music in Late-Renaissance Italy</em> presents the firstever study of Bernardi's life, and modern edition of her recentlydiscovered literary corpus, which mostly exists in manuscript. Herwritings appear in the original Italian with new Englishtranslations, scholarly notes, critical essays and contributions byEric Nicholson, Eugenio Refini and Davide Daolmi.</p><p>Based on new archival research, the substantial opening sectionreconstructs Bernardi's unusually colourful life. Bernardi's worksreveal her connections with some of the most pioneering poets,dramatists and musicians of the day, including her mentor AngeloGrillo and the first opera librettist Ottavio Rinuccini. The secondmajor section presents her pastoral tragicomedy <em>Clorilli</em>,one of the earliest secular dramatic works by a woman. It wasapparently performed in the early 1590s at a Medici villa nearFlorence, before Grandduke Ferdinando I de' Medici, and his consortChristine of Lorraine, but now exists in an enigmatic Venetianmanuscript. The third section presents Bernardi's secular andreligious verse, which engaged with new trends in lyric and poetryfor music, and was set by various key composers across Italy.</p>.
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