i Sebastiani - Timeline Music
 
Commedia dell'Arte Music Timeline
Before 1545
The details on this timeline come from numerous secondary sources, but most of them come from Anne MacNeil's Music and Women of the Commedia dell'Arte in the Late Sixteenth Century, Oxford University Press, c2003. This book gives pointers and translated excerpts from primary sources. Some additional references are from Robert Henke's Performance and Literature in the Commedia dell'Arte, Cambridge University Press, c2002.
Year
A
B
C
D
1545 Madrigals were used as invisible intermedi from before 1545 in plays.
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565 At the wedding of Giovanna of Austria and Francesco Maria de' Medici in Florence, there is a description of the comic music used for Intermedi [between acts of a scripted play]. - Grazzini
1566 Il Canto de sogni, Mascherata della Bufole, and several others performed in Florence.
1567
1568 In the wedding in Trausnitz, Orlando di Lasso played the lute and sang a lament. The first intermezzo was five violas and five voices. The second intermezzo was four voices, two lutes, a mandolin, pipes, and a bass viol da gamba.
1569
1570
1571

1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578

1579
1580 New troupe in Ferrara has youths that dance saltare honestly, and women sang pleasingly to the lute.

1581 Pedrolino dances the Canario in Venice, about the time the dance is first described.

1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593 The account books of Mantua list paymnt for 4 trombones, 5 violins, 3 tambourines, and a number of piffari and bombarderi
1594 A priest is described as dancing a Canario dance in the style of Pedrolino
1595 Francesco sends some Burlesque compositions to Vincenzo Gonzaga. Claudio Monteverdi and five musicians are in Vincenzo Gonzaga's Entourage as they march to fight the Turks.
1596
1597
1598 Mantua, an engineer has looked at the non-working machinery for the upcoming intermedi and requests more help.
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604