The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance: Skeptics, Libertines, and Opera

What makes the culture wars of the late Renaissance significant is the wide range of ideas the skeptics, libertines, and librettists explored under the protection of Venice's relatively tolerant government ... In several respects this moment in the late Renaissance can be seen as a kind of proto-Enlightenment, a foreshadowing of the cultural concerns of the eighteenth century. The Venetians and their allies defended religious skepticism (even atheism), scientific experimentation, sexual liberty (even pederasty), women's rights to an education and freedom from parental tyranny, the presence of women on the stage, and the seductive power of the female voice in opera. Book jacket.