ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that references to distant Greek and Roman antiquity provided an anchor of authority through seismic cultural shifts in early seventeenth-century Rome. These references to antiquity are present even in the work of the supposedly most advanced of scientific academies of the period, the Academia dei Lincei, as well as in music that was written within the same Roman cultural milieu. The Accademia dei Lincei was founded in Rome in 1603 by Prince Federico Cesi with the goal of studying the natural world in minute detail, in imitation of their chosen emblem, the sharp-eyed lynx. Cassiano dal Pozzo was elected to membership of the Accademia dei Lincei in 1622. At this stage he had already begun collecting artefacts and commissioning the drawings of plants, animals, birds and fossils that assured his scientific legacy.
