Settimia Caccini – singer and songwriter

Esteemed soprano composed beautiful music

Settimia initially performed alongside her sister,
 Francesca (above), who was also a composer

Singer and composer Settimia Caccini, who is believed to have been one of the first women in Italy to have a successful career in music, was born on this day in 1591 in Florence.

Settimia was highly regarded by those who heard her sing because of her beautiful soprano voice and she initially worked with other members of her family singing for the Medici court in Florence. But she became famous as a solo artist in 1608 when she sang the role of Venus in Claudio Monteverdi’s opera Arianna in Mantua. 

Records show that for a time she received high pay from the Gonzaga family, who employed her at their court in Mantua and clearly valued her.

Born into a family of singers and composers, Settimia learnt music from an early age. Her father was Giulio Caccini, who was a key figure in the advance of the Baroque style of music and wrote musical dramas, which would now be recognised as operas. 

Her older sister was Francesca Caccini, who was also a talented singer and was the composer of what is thought to be the oldest surviving opera by a woman composer, La Liberazione di Ruggiero.

Settimia’s mother, Lucia Gagnolanti, was a talented singer, but she died when Settimia was still young. Her older brother, Pompeo Caccini, was also a singer.

Giulio Caccini was employed by the Medici family who ruled Florence at the time. While working for them he was introduced by the Medici to the ‘concerto delle donne’, a group of’ professional female singers who worked for the Este court in Ferrara. It is thought that Giulio may have persuaded these women to train his daughters to sing in the same way.

Due luci ridenti is one of just eight
surviving compositions by Settimia

Instead of singing solos, Settimia and  Francesca, were trained to sing soprano arias together and they were called Il Concerto Caccini. In 1600, they sang together in their father’s opera, Il rapimento di Cefalù, on the occasion of the wedding of Maria de’ Medici and Henry IV of France.

Settimia and Francesca grew up singing and performing together, but by 1608 when Settimia performed in Monteverdi’s opera in Mantua, they had gone their separate ways.

After her success in Mantua, Settimia was offered various offers of employment and marriage proposals, all of which she turned down. The following year, she married the singer and composer Alessandro Ghivizzani, who was from Lucca. After initially working for the Medici court in Florence together, the couple left the city to go to Lucca, which was Ghivizzani’s birthplace, and they then travelled throughout Italy before moving to Mantua to serve at the Gonzaga court. 

It is known that in 1622 Settimia and her husband were in the service of Odoardo Farnese in Parma and that in 1626 she was chosen to sing in two of Monteverdi’s operas. The composer himself is said to have stated that Settimia Caccini sang the arias ‘with superhuman grace and angelic voice.’

After Ghivizzani’s death in 1632, Settimia returned to Florence to work at the Medici court again, where she remained until her death, which is assumed to have been in the 1630s, but the exact date is not certain.

Settimia was mostly known for her beautiful singing but she was also an active composer. None of her work was published while she was alive and most of it is now lost. However, it was documented that in 1611 she had composed the music for a masked carnival in Venice.

Just eight of Settimia Caccini’s compositions have survived, all written for a single singer, so they were perfect for her to sing herself and she many not have expected anyone else to perform them. These include Due luci ridenti, a madrigal. Some are now performed as piano solos and one was published in a 17th century collection of music.

Ponte Vecchio in Florence, which connects the
Palazzo Pitti with the rest of the city

Travel tip:

Musicians working for the Medici family in Florence would have performed for them and their guests at Palazzo Pitti, a palace originally built for the banker Luca Pitti in 1457 in the centre of Florence, in a bid to try to outshine the Medici family. The Medici later bought it from his bankrupt heirs and made it their main residence in 1550. Today visitors can look round the richly decorated rooms and see treasures from the Medici collections. The Ponte Vecchio connects Palazzo Pitti with the rest of the city, which is on the other side of the River Arno. It was built in 1345 and is the oldest bridge remaining in Florence. The medieval workshops used to be inhabited by butchers and blacksmiths, but these were eventually given to goldsmiths and are still inhabited by jewellers today. The private corridor over the shops was designed by the architect, Vasari, to link the Palazzo Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti, via the Uffizi, allowing the Medici to move about between their residences without having to walk through the streets.

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The Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, where Settimia
is likely to have sung for the Gonzaga family

Travel tip:

Mantua, where Settimia Caccini worked for the Gonzaga family, is an atmospheric old city, to the south east of Milan, a highlight of which is the Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, which has a famous room, Camera degli Sposi, decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna. Settimia would probably have sung for the Gonzagas in what is known as the Galleria dei Fiumi, a space in the palace that has the dimensions to accommodate a stage and orchestra and where there is room for a small audience. It is not known for certain, but the premiere of the opera L’Orfeo, by the composer Claudio Monteverdi, may have taken place in the Galleria dei Fiumi. L’Orfeo, which is the earliest opera still being regularly staged, had its first performance in 1607 in Mantua. Settimia Caccini sang the role of Venus in Monteverdi’s opera Arianna in Mantua the following year. 

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More reading:

Giulio Caccini, the 16th century singer who helped create the opera genre

Francesca Caccini, the court musician who composed the oldest surviving opera by a woman

Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, the 400-year-old opera still staged today

Also on this day:

1836: The birth of writer and soldier Giuseppe Cesare Abba

1888: The birth of wartime nurse Saint Maria Bertilla Boscardin

1935: The birth of professional wrestler Bruno Sammartino

1943: The October Martyrs massacre

1943: The birth of football coach Ottavio Bianchi

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Giulio Caccini - composer

16th century singer who helped create opera genre

Giulio Caccini was at the forefront
of a new musical movement

The singer and composer Giulio Caccini, who was a key figure in the advance of Baroque style in music and wrote musical dramas that would now be recognised as opera, was born on this day in 1551.

The father of the composer Francesca Caccini and the singer Settimia Caccini, he served for some years at the court of the Medici family in Florence, by whom he was also employed, as a somewhat unusual sideline, as a spy.

Caccini wrote the music for three operas and published two collections of songs and madrigals.  His songs for solo voice accompanied by one musical instrument gained him particular fame and he is remembered now for one particular song, a madrigal entitled Amarilli, mia bella, which is often sung by voice students.

Caccini is thought to have been born in Tivoli, just outside Rome, the son of a carpenter, Michelangelo Caccini, from Montopoli, near Pisa.  His younger brother, Giovanni, became a sculptor and architect in Florence.

He developed his voice as a boy soprano in the prestigious Cappella Giulia at St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, studying under maestro di cappella Giovanni Animuccia.  Subsequently, he was invited to Florence by Prince Francesco de’ Medici to perform at his wedding to Johanna of Austria.

The title page of Caccini's collection
Le Nuove Musiche, published in 1601

Caccini would for the most part remain in Florence for the rest of his life.  By the late 1570s, he was established as a tenor in the Medici court and accompany himself on the viol or the archlute. He took part in the elaborate musical, dramatic, visual spectacles known as intermedi that were the precursors of opera.

He became part of a movement of humanists, writers, musicians and scholars known as the Florentine Camerata, which was dedicated to restoring public appreciation of ancient Greek dramatic music. It was the Camerata who developed the new concept of monody—an emotionally affective solo vocal line, accompanied by relatively simple chordal harmony on one or more instruments.

Caccini became a teacher as well as a singer and composer, training dozens of musicians to sing in the new style, including the castrato Giovanni Gualberto Magli, who sang in the first production of Monteverdi's first opera Orfeo.

He also acquired a reputation as a man driven by jealousy, envy and greed. To advance his position within the Medici court, for example, he spied on behalf of Pietro de’ Medici on Pietro’s wife, Eleonora di Garzia da Toledo, and uncovered an affair, which led an enraged Pietro to murder his wife and have her lover killed.

In 1584, he married another singer, Lucia di Filippo Gagnolanti, with whom he had his two daughters, Francesca and Settimia.

Pietro de' Medici, the prince who employed
Caccini to spy on his unfaithful wife

Caccini helped create musical entertainments for the weddings of two Medicis in the late 1580s.  In the first, the marriage of Virginia de’ Medici and Cesare d’Este in 1586, and of Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici and Christine of Lorraine in 1589.

He continued to be employed by Ferdinando until he lost his job in 1593 after a fight with one of his students. His wife, Lucia, died in the same year.

Caccini was known for his intense rivalry with fellow composers Emilio de' Cavalieri and Jacopo Peri. There are suspicions that it was Caccini who arranged for a furious Cavalieri to be removed from his post as director of festivities for the wedding of Henry IV of France and Maria de' Medici in 1600, while in response to hearing that Peri was working on a opera production of Euridice, based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, he hurriedly wrote his own version of the same story and ordered the singers under his charge to have nothing to do with Peri's production.

By around 1603, Caccini had established a singing group consisting of his daughters Francesca and Settimia, his illegitimate son Pompeo, and his second wife, Margherita di Agostino Benevoli della Scala. The group became very famous and, in 1604, were invited to France by Maria de' Medici.  Francesca was offered a position at the French court but could not accept because of the Florentine court’s refusal to release her.

After his return to Florence, Caccini continued  to write music for court celebrations, especially weddings, while trying to find husbands for his daughters.

In the last years of his life, Caccini was in trouble again in 1615 for fighting with the son of a famed singer and was placed under house arrest. Thereafter his health began to decline and he died in December 1618. He is buried in the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata in Florence.

The Arch of Castruccio and the Tower of San Matteo, in the
background, are echoes of Montopoli Val d'Arno's history

Travel tip:

Montopoli Val D’Arno, where Caccini’s father was born, is a small town on the banks of the Arno river about 40km (25 miles) southwest of Florence and about 30km (19 miles) east of Pisa, roughly halfway between Florence and the mouth of the Arno at Marina di Pisa. It is a town largely of medieval origins, which was regular fought over by Lucca, Pisa and Florence because of its strategic position. The remains of a fortress, the best preserved of which are the Tower of San Matteo and the Arch of Castruccio are worth a visit.  The area is blessed with a beautiful landscape and an economy based culture based on agriculture, arts and crafts and other traditional industries of Tuscany.

Giovanni Caccini's facade of the church of Santissima Annunziata

Travel tip:

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, where Caccini is buried, is a Renaissance-style minor basilica in Florence, located on the square of the same name, just over a kilometre’s walk north of the Piazza della Signoria. Built between 1469 and 1481 on the site of a pre-existing church by Leon Battista Alberti, it was refurbished in Baroque-style in the 17th century. The facade of the church, of semi-circular arches mounted on columns, was added in 1601 by Giulio Caccini’s brother, Giovanni, imitating the Renaissance-style of Brunelleschi's facade of the Foundling Hospital.

More reading:

Francesca Caccini and the oldest surviving opera composed by a woman

How Jacopo Peri gave the world its first opera

The Medici daughter who became the queen of France

Also on this day:

1881: The birth of Vincenzo Peruggia - the thief who stole the Mona Lisa

1957: The birth of footballer Antonio Cabrini



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