2009 Reviews

Giuseppe Gerbino. 2009. Music and the Myth of Arcadia in Renaissance Italy. New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Bryant, Brooke

Greek tragedy, their themes were pastoral, an archetype which antiquity failed to provide. In tracing this history, Gerbino refashions the pastoral as a forum in which late-Renaissance elites represented themselves as ideal members of a society that prized the ability to communicate and form social bonds via musical and poetic activity. Music played a significant role in Arcadia; the shepherds of Theocritus and Virgil expressed and managed their emotions through music, a practice that aligned with the values of Renaissance court culture. Gerbino suggests that through assuming the characters of unsophisticated shepherds in rural settings, the aristocracy displayed signs of superior sensitivity, representing themselves as men and women positioned at the apex of civilization. The book is divided into three parts, each addressing an issue in the history of sixteenth -century pastoral music.