In 1969,well before and independently of that which will constitute the fashion of “early music”, a few experts and musicians founded on the 30th of June in Florence, city of the official residence, at the notary’s office in Florence, the CENTRO STUDI RINASCIMENTO MUSICALE.

This CENTRE made the scope to study with close examination the great Renaissance period of our civilization both from a theoretical and practical point of view, with a special reference to the period of the efflorescence of which we can define the “Humanistic Song” that, from the Platonic recuperation thanks to the work of Ficino in the Florence of four-hundred, conduces to the realization of the “poetic Song” in the classic sense in Florence and all of Italy between the XVI and the beginning XVII century.
 

The activity of the CSRM took place in many sectors:

	the historical and musicological research;
	the close examination of the aesthetics and philosophy;
	the transcription and publication of unpublished music;
	the specific study of Vocal Art and study of musical instruments;
	the organization at a Round Table and International conventions on Musicology;
	the organization of seasonal concerts for the presentation in the first modern performance of unpublished music, above all vocal;
	the organization of seminars of Vocal Master classes.

The concert activities had occurred in the most prestigious places in Florence: from the Museo del Bargello in Palazzo Davanzati, from Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti, to the Florentine Churches most antique (with historical Organs of immense value) like S. Trinità and the Badia Fiorentina. The cultural activity (International Conventions of Musicology and Master classes) had as there official residence both the Villa Medicea “La Ferdinanda” of Artimino, where immediately after its constitution, the CSRM had its official residence, and also the Villa Medicea of Poggio a Caiano, both situated in Carmignano, a zone very rich of Etruscan artefacts and a famous wine, a few kilometres from Florence, Prato and Vinci.

The first publication of the CRSM dates back to 1969 and regards the first modern original edition of the Unicum in the Venetian edition in 1623 of Arianna by Claudio Monteverdi.
The editorial Corpus comprises up to about fifty publications to date, of which a few depleted.
The first international Convention on Musicology dates back to 1971 and is an annual event continuous today. To these conventions have participated the most illustrious experts originated from the 5 continents: Jacques Chailley (Sorbonne), Claude Palisca (Yale University), David Galliver (Adelaide University) and our own famous Nino Pirrotta (Harvard University and Rome University).
The first seasonal concert dates back also to 1971 so as the annual Vocal Master classes on the Monody of the XVI – XVII centuries.
The president of the CSRM since the beginning has been Prof. Annibale GIANUARIO, the most important Monteverdian expert in our time, expert without equals in the poetic-musical aesthetics of the Humanistic Song in the Renaissance period. Prof. Gianuario has been elected again to hold the presidency until the year of his death in May 1991.
He has therefore guided the CSRM lavishing physical and spiritual energies, and also a good quantity of personal money, until the transformation of the CSRM in “Foundation” in 1992, when the presidency was assumed by Dr. Nella Anfuso, already founder of the CSRM and collaborator with Prof. Gianuario.
This activity for both has been a result of pure and disinterested research, far away from the fashions, in Musical Art of the greatest and complete period of the Italian civilization.
 

One of the merits in the activities of the CSRM in place, as indisputable target and unanimously recognized all over the world, are in particular:

	the discovery of the Platonic essence of the aesthetics by the Florentine Camerata of Bardi’s House, of Monteverdi, of Italian authors, above all Tuscans, and the production of the “representative style” in the beginning of Six-hundred;
	the different definitions of the “Operatic style”;
	the recuperation of the Italian School of Song in the golden age (XV-XVIII century);
	the proposition again in world première of the different performing styles that characterized more than four centuries of Italian Vocalism;
	the close examination with regards to the authenticity of the “Incoronazione di Poppea” attributed falsely to Claudio Monteverdi.