An important composer during the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, Adriano Banchieri is most noted for his founding of the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna. Banchieri was one of the first composers to convert the madrigal into use for dramatic purposes. He developed a form called “madrigal comedy,” which was an unstaged, but still dramatic, collection of madrigals which told a story when sung together. These works are performed by the Delitiae Musicae, conducted by Marco Longhini.