Homage to Vincenzo Galilei

The two videos are also precious opportunities to listen to the music that marked Galileo’s upbringing and musical education. Galileo, in addition to being a very talented lutenist, devoted himself to writing many significant passages on the survey of the science of sounds.

The musical performances and settings for the interviews took place in the Museo Galileo, both in the room of the armillary sphere built between 1588 and 1593 by Antonio Santucci and in the room which displays Galileo’s two surviving telescopes.

The videos outline the strong ties between science and music in the works by Vincenzo and Galileo, as well as introduce a selection of Vincenzo’s musical compositions, some of which were performed as world premieres. The iconographic repertoire on Vincenzo Galilei’s portraits and on the musical scores of his madrigals is largely ignored and the musical repertoire stems from on-going scientific and musicological research.

The first video, titled Homage to Vincenzo Galilei, includes four lute compositions drawn from the two editions of the Fronimo (1568, 1584) and four madrigals coming from the only surviving collection of vocal music by Vincenzo Galilei, the Secondo libro de Madrigali a quattro et a cinque voci (1587), which was rediscovered in Danzig after almost three centuries of oblivion. In 1934 Fabio Fano edited the first scholarly edition and transcription of Vincenzo's madrigals. His volume is therefore one of the musical sources of this video.

The second video, titled Echoes of Vincenzo Galilei in Florence, focuses on the discovery and revaluation of Vincenzo’s madrigals that occurred in Florence during the first decades of the 20^th century thanks to the works of Arnaldo Bonanvetura – who was Director of the Conservatorio Cherubini – and of the transcription realized by Felice Boghen, which was published in Florence in 1930.

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