Florentine Camerata
While Florence itself needs no introduction as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, the music of Florence may, in fact, need such an introduction. The city was at the heart of much of the entire Western musical tradition. It was here that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony.