Professor Cummings has produced a masterful synthesis of material from a variety of disciplines to give a striking portrait of music and music making in the Rome of Leo X, a portrait that goes far beyond other studies in its detail and careful consideration of the actual venues where the music making took place. Drawing on a vast trove of ... Read moredocumentary materials and alive to the latest theories of historians and art historians, Cummings’s book draws us into the sound world of Rome in the 16th century allowing us to imagine the music that followed Leo X wherever he went, in public festivals, in the Sistine Chapel, in the dining and concert rooms of the Vatican palace and elsewhere, in theatrical performances. Written in an engaging style, the book speaks to specialists and nonspecialists and to anyone who is interested in the place of music in one of the most brilliant periods in the history of Western civilization." — Richard Sherr, Smith College "An excellent overall presentation of this historical figure and his effect on the arts during the transitional period of the early Reformation." — B. L. Eden, Valparaiso University, Choice Show Less