Caccini, Giulio

(born c. 1550, Rome, Papal States—buried Dec. 10, 1618, Florence) Italian composer and singer. He accompanied his patron, Cosimo I, to Florence in the 1570s; there he became associated with the Camerata, an academy that dedicated much attention to producing a revival of ancient Greek drama. His Euridice (1600), embodying the Camerata's ideals, was the first opera to be published and was one of the first two surviving operas; the other, also titled Euridice, is largely by Jacopo Peri (1561–1633), whose lost Dafne (1598) was the first opera of all. Caccini's Le nuove musiche (1602), a collection of songs with basso continuo, was of landmark importance in establishing the new monodic style.