more
liberally minded pontiffs, the general weight of church influence was
against the new musical tendency, and the most skilled composers were at
first afraid to devote their talents to further its growth.

What musicians did not dare undertake out of dread of the thunderbolts
of the church, a company of _literati_ at Florence commenced in 1580.
The primary purpose was the revival of Greek art, including music. This
association, in conjunction with the Medicean Academy, laid down the
rule that distinct individuality of expression in music was to be sought
for. As results, quickly came musical drama with recitative (modern form
of the Greek chorus) and solo melody for characteristic parts of the
legend or story. Out of this beginning swiftly grew the opera. Composers
in the new form sprung up in various parts of Italy, though Naples,
Venice, and Florence continued to be its centres.

Between 1637 and 1700, there were performed three hundred operas at
Venice alone. An account of the performance of "Berenice," composed by
Domenico Freschi, at Padua, in 1680, dwarfs all our present ideas of
spectacular splendor. In this opera there were choruses of a hundred
virgins and a hundred soldiers; a hundred horsemen in steel armor; a
hundred performers on trumpets, cornets, sackbuts, drums, flutes, and
other instruments, on horseback and on foot; two lions led by two Turks,
and two elephants led by two Indians; Berenice's triumphal car drawn
by four horses, and six other cars with spoils and prisoners, drawn by
twelve horses. Among the scenes in the first act was a vast plain
with two triumphal arches; another with pavilions and tents; a square
prepared for the entrance of the triumphal procession, and a forest
for the chase. In the second act there were the royal apartments of
Berenice's temple of vengeance, a spacious court with view of the prison
and a covered way with long lines of chariots. In the third act there
were the royal dressing-room, the stables with a hundred live horses,
porticoes adorned with tapestry, and a great palace in the perspective.
In the course of the piece there were representations of the hunting of
the boar, the stag, and the lions. The whole concluded with a huge globe
descending from the skies, and dividing itself in lesser globes of fire
on which stood allegorical figures of fame, honor, nobility, virtue, and
glory. The theatriccal manager had princes and nobles for bankers and
assistants, and th