Instrumental Music and ‘Conversazione’ in Early Seicento Venice: Biagio Marini’s ‘Affetti Musicali’ (1617)

In entitling his debut publication of 1617 Affetti musicali, Biagio Marini became the first composer to use the suggestive term affetti in the title of a book consisting entirely of instrumental music. Marini indicated that the book grew out of live music-making among a progressive group of Venetian listeners. Consideration of these social musical events in the context of early modern theories of friendship and civility—especially those articulated in Stefano Guazzo’s Civil conversazione (1574)—sheds light on Marini’s project. His compositions may have been intended as ‘test’ pieces, meant to inspire conversation among his listeners, thereby arousing their affetti. In its published form, the Affetti musicali constitutes a record of those discussions and the affetti they inspired, as well as a public model for emulation by other like-minded listeners.