Francesca Caccini

Francesca Caccini (September 18, 1587 – c. 1641) was an Italian composer, singer, lutenist, poet, and music teacher of the early Baroque era who became one of the highest-paid musicians at the Medici court in Florence. She is considered the first woman known to have composed an opera that survives.

She was born in Florence, the elder daughter of the singer and composer Giulio Caccini, a central figure in the development of monody and one of the inventors of opera. Trained from childhood in singing, keyboard, lute, and composition, she performed alongside her sister Settimia and her stepmother in the family ensemble known as Le donne di Giulio Romano.

By her early twenties Francesca was a salaried virtuosa at the court of Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine. King Henry IV of France tried to recruit her in 1605, but the Medici refused to release her. She composed sacred and secular music for ducal entertainments, weddings, and chapel services, and taught singing to court ladies and the children of the grand-ducal family.

Her best-known surviving work is the dramatic ballet-opera La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina, premiered at the Villa di Poggio Imperiale in 1625 to honor a visiting Polish prince and printed soon afterward. She also published a large collection of songs, Il primo libro delle musiche (1618), containing solo arias and duets that show her command of expressive Florentine monody. Records suggest she died around 1641 in Florence.

The name Francesca is the Italian feminine form of Francesco, from the Late Latin Franciscus meaning Frenchman or free one. She carries the legacy of a name long associated with Tuscan saints and Renaissance women of letters.