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Ludovico Paschali, a Poet set to Music (5 works)

Renaissance Music in Croatia is a website dedicated to the critical edition of music by composers and sources from the Croatian area, and also by Italian musicians who worked in Croatia during the Renaissance. This site collects the critical editions of pieces of music, references to musical and literary manuscripts and printed sources produced from the fifteenth to the end of the sixteenth century, and biographies. The critical editions can be downloaded in three formats: PDF, Sibelius and MEI files. This is a project in progress, periodically enriched with new editions of music.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Croatia was a crossroads of cultures, politically controlled by the Hapsburgs, the Hungarian kingdom, the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire, while the Republic of Dubrovnik remained autonomous. Croatian Renaissance culture, especially in the region from Istria to Dubrovnik, contributed to the development of European musical production in different forms, such as:

humanism and musical theory, as is attested by the Speculum astronomicum by Federik Grisogono (Venice, 1507), the Enciclopediae, seu Orbis disciplinarum by Pavao Skalić (Basle, 1559) and the Della poetica by Francesco Patrizi (Ferrara, 1586)
the printing of musical texts, as in Italy by Andrea Antico "da Montona" (from Motovun)
the composition of polyphonic masses, motets, madrigals and other secular songs, thanks to composers such as Andrija Patricij, Giulio Schiavetti, and many others
the reception of Croatian Renaissance poets whose poems in Italian were set to music by contemporary composers
the preservation of sixteenth-century traditional music, published in anthologies by Giulio Cesare Barbetta (1569), Marco Facoli (1588) and Grgur Mekinić (1609 and 1611)

The results of the researches on music in Renaissance Croatia are published in the following volumes:

Ennio Stipčević, Renaissance Music and Culture in Croatia (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016)
Ennio Stipčević, Renesansna glazba i kultura u Hrvatskoj (Zagreb: Koncertna dvorana Vatroslava Lisinskog, Muzički informativni centar, 2017)
Marco Gurrieri and Vasco Zara (eds.), Renaissance Music in the Slavic World (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019)
Francesco Sponga Usper, Salmi vespertini (1627), ed. Dario Poljak and Ennio Stipčević (Zagreb: Koncertna dvorana Vatroslava Lisinskog, Muzički informativni centar, 2017)
Francesco Sponga Usper, Compositioni armoniche (1619), ed. Ennio Stipčević (Zagreb: Koncertna dvorana Vatroslava Lisinskog, Muzički informativni centar, 2019)

Musicologists interested in contributing are invited to contact the responsible of the project, Vincent Besson.

External links

Renaissance Music and Culture in Croatia (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016)
Renaissance Music in the Slavic World (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019)

Contributors

Hyacinthe Belliot

Nikola Lovrinic

Francesco Pezzi

Ennio Stipčević

Philippe Vendrix

Angelo Gardano circa 1540-1611

Roles: Bookseller ; Music printer

Antoine Barré fl. 1551-1572

Roles: Bookseller ; Composer ; Instrumentalist ; Music printer ; Singer

Bartholomeus Le Conte fl. 1547-1565

Roles: Composer ; Member of a church (musician) ; Member of a court chapel (musician) ; Singer ; Tenor

Bartolomeo Spontone 1530-circa 1592

Roles: Choirmaster ; Composer ; Member of a civic musical ensemble ; Singer ; Student

Felice Anerio circa 1560-1614

Roles: Altus ; Choirboy ; Choirmaster ; Composer ; Secondary composer ; Superius

Francesco Stivori circa 1550-1605

Roles: Composer ; Organist

Gabriele Fattorini 1570-fl. 1609

Roles: Choirmaster ; Composer

Giacomo Vincenti fl. 1583/1604

Roles: Bookseller ; Music printer ; Printer/Publisher

Giovanni Croce circa 1557-1609

Roles: Altus ; Choirmaster ; Cleric ; Composer ; Singer

Giovanni Gabrieli 1554/1557-1612

Roles: Composer ; Instrumentalist ; Organist

Giovanni Matteo Asola circa 1532-1609

Roles: Choirmaster ; Cleric ; Composer ; Instrumentalist

Giulio Belli circa 1560-fl. 1600

Roles: Choirmaster ; Cleric ; Composer ; Member of a church (lower ranked officer) ; Monastic Order

Ippolito Baccusi circa 1540-1609

Roles: Choirmaster ; Composer

Jacques Arcadelt 1507-1568

Roles: Choirboy ; Composer ; Instrumentalist ; Master of choirboys ; Member of a court chapel (musician) ; Singer

Lodovico Bellanda circa 1575-after 1613

Roles: Composer ; Organist

Lodovico Viadana circa 1560-1627

Roles: Choirmaster ; Composer ; Monastic Order

Roles: Dedicatee/Owner

Orazio Vecchi 1550-1605

Roles: Choirmaster ; Cleric ; Composer ; Member of a court chapel (musician) ; Teacher

Pierre Phalèse I l'Ancien circa 1510-1574/1577

Roles: Bookseller ; Dedicator ; Music printer ; Printer/Publisher

Romolo Naldi circa 1550-1612

Roles: Composer ; Member of a princely/private household ; Organist ; Writer/Scientist

Ruggiero Giovannelli circa 1560-1625

Roles: Choirmaster ; Composer ; Instrumentalist ; Singer

Stefano Felis 1538-1603

Roles: Choirmaster ; Composer ; Dedicator ; Priest

Torquato Tasso 1544-1595

Roles: Lyricist-Poet ; Member of a princely/private household ; Student

Vincenzo Ruffo circa 1508-1587

Roles: Choirmaster ; Composer

Vittorio Baldini fl. 1575-1618†

Roles: Bookseller ; Music printer ; Printer/Publisher

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Besson Vincent, Renaissance Music in Croatia (2005-2007), in RicercarDataLab [https://ricercardatalab.cesr.univ-tours.fr/projects/2/] (accessed 23 January 2026).

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