He wrote poetry and plays, but is best remembered as one of the first writers of
libretti, the texts used for all kinds of musical plays but most specifically opera. His earliest known work was in 1609, an oration for the burial of
Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, for whom he also organized the burial rites. It was the first in a long-term series of efforts to get the patronage of the Medici family during the next decades, including a lengthy dedication of his 1624 reprint of the
Venetia edificata to
Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. From 1627 on, he mostly dedicated himself to writing opera libretti, and he was probably the most important opera writer in Venice in the 1630s and 1640s. He wrote
La finta pazza Licori for
Claudio Monteverdi in 1627. The two had first met in 1621. The opera was never performed and it is unknown how much of the music for it had been written before the project was abandoned. Both the music and the libretto are lost. In the 1630s and 1640s, Strozzi was one of the driving forces behind the successful growth of opera in Venice. He wrote the libretto for the opening of the
Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in 1639 (
La Delia, music by
Francesco Manelli), and for the 1641 opening of the
Teatro Novissimo (
La finta pazza, music by
Francesco Sacrati). In 1630 Strozzi wrote
Proserpina Rapita. His last libretto, ''Veremonda, l'amazzone di Aragona'', was written for
Francesco Cavalli in 1652. He was a member of the
Accademia degli Incogniti in Venice. He was the founder of some cultural "academies", gatherings of like-minded intellectuals; these included the
Ordinati during his stay in Rome, and the
Dubbiosi in Venice. In 1637 he founded the
Accademia degli Unisoni, a gathering of musicians where his adopted daughter Barbara sang. ==Bibliography==