Nicolò Farfaro

Nicolò Farfaro, who sometimes signed his work as Giorgio Mazzaferro, was an Italian humanist active at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. His dates of birth and death are not known with certainty, although he died before 1647. His importance lies in having written reflectively about the music of his time, in the wake of the Florentine Camerata.

In 1640, under the pseudonym Mazzaferro, he wrote a Discorso sopra la musica antica, e moderna, preserved in Florence. He argued that ancient music was superior because in it poetry and music formed a unity, something that modern music was believed to have lost. In his view, in antiquity the text was sung simply, so that everyone could understand the words, rhythm and metre, whereas modern vocal music was "crippled" by imitation, canons and repetitions. He also considered that music had grown softer and more lascivious.

His criticism was also moral. He lamented that the new monodic style had spread to liturgical music, to the point of failing to distinguish between a serenade song and one intended to honour God in church. The work, covertly addressed to Pietro della Valle, provoked a reply from him in his Note, to which Farfaro responded with a Risposta, now lost.