Seicento

In fields such as theatre (both tragedy and comedy), music (both religious and secular), art history, rhetoric, and political philosophy, Italians of this period played leading roles—the poets Giambattista Marino and Alessandro Tassoni, the composers Claudio Monteverdi and Francesco Cavalli, the art historian Giovanni Pietro Bellori, the literary theorist Emanuele Tesauro and the political theorist and statesman Giovanni Botero, to name just a few.

As research into early modern Italy continues, the old Enlightenment historiography that argues for a decline into a dark age and a disjunction between the period of the Italian Renaissance and that of the 18th-century reformers dissolves.

[4] Events which happened during this period include the 1633 papal trial of scientist Galileo Galilei, the 1647 revolt in Naples, the 1669 Etna eruption, the 1674 rebellion in Messina and the 1693 Sicily earthquake.

17th-century Italian Baroque art was similar in style and subject matter to that during the same period in Spain - characterised by rich, dark colours, and often religious themes relating notably to martyrdom, and also the presence of several still lifes.

Having one of the forefathers of Baroque art,[5] and one of the earliest modern painters, his styles influenced other Italian and foreign artists following him, including Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was a prominent mid to late-17th century Baroque artist and sculptor, known for his statues, such as the "Ecstasy of Saint Theresa".

Buildings in Rome were constructed in a Baroque style ever since the early-17th century, and examples of this could be St Peter's Basilica and the Palazzo Bernini.

By the 1680s and 90s, women tended to wear simple or averagely decorated dresses, with a mantua, elaborate hair (often a wig), long-sleeved gloves, and often carried around a fan.

By the late-17th century, male fashion concentrated on highly elaborate dresses and shoes, grey curled wigs, and richly decorated petticoats and overskirts.

Galileo Galilei's discovering of Saturn's rings, the Venus' phases, and several new technological inventions, such as his 1609 telescope and compass made for military reasons in 1604.

According to Albert N. Mancini "while the preeminence of seventeenth-century art and music is a matter of common acceptance, the literary term secentismo [...] retains pejorative connotations that reflect a negative attitude of 18th and 19th century critics and historians".

Contrary to widespread prejudice, dating back to the work of Jacob Burckhardt, authors such as Paul Grendler have documented Italy's continuing vitality in the Counter-Reformation period.

In the late-17th century, Cremona-based luthier Antonio Stradivari developed the classical violin, then called the Stradivarius after his name, and in 1700, Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the piano in Florence, Tuscany.