Giordano Bruno was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, cosmological theorist, and Hermetic occultist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended the then-novel Copernican model. He proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets, and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own, a cosmological position known as cosmic pluralism. He also insisted that the universe is infinite and could have no "center".
Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. He took the name "Cavalli" from his patron, Venetian nobleman Federico Cavalli.
Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist who was one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. His compositions range over operas, ballets, orchestral suites, choral songs, and chamber music, and include transcriptions of pieces from Italian composers of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries and works of Bach and Rachmaninoff. Among his best known and most performed works are his three Roman tone poems, which brought him international fame: Fountains of Rome (1916), Pines of Rome (1924), and Roman Festivals (1928). All three demonstrate Respighi's use of rich orchestral colours.
Gioseffo Zarlino was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was possibly the most famous European music theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning.
Vincenzo Galilei was an Italian lutenist, composer, and music theorist. His children included the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei and the lute virtuoso and composer Michelagnolo Galilei. Vincenzo was a figure in the musical life of the late Renaissance and contributed significantly to the musical revolution which demarcates the beginning of the Baroque era.
The Florentine Camerata, also known as the Camerata de' Bardi, were a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. They met at the house of Giovanni de' Bardi, and their gatherings had the reputation of having all the most famous men of Florence as frequent guests. After first meeting in 1573, the activity of the Camerata reached its height between 1577 and 1582. While propounding a revival of the Greek dramatic style, the Camerata's musical experiments led to the development of the stile recitativo. In this way it facilitated the composition of dramatic music and the development of opera.
Giovanni de' Bardi, Count of Vernio, was an Italian literary critic, writer, composer and soldier.
Gioseffo Guami was an Italian composer, organist, violinist and singer of the late Renaissance Venetian School. He was a prolific composer of madrigals and instrumental music, and was renowned as one of the finest organists in Italy in the late 16th century; he was also the principal teacher of Adriano Banchieri.
Casa Ricordi is a publisher of primarily classical music and opera. Its classical repertoire represents one of the important sources in the world through its publishing of the work of the major 19th-century Italian composers such as Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Giuseppe Verdi, and, later in the century, Giacomo Puccini, composers with whom one or another of the Ricordi family came into close contact.
Giovanni Battista Doni was an Italian musicologist and humanist who made an extensive study of ancient music. He is known, among other works, for having renamed the note "Ut" to "Do" in solfège.
Count Ludovico Giuseppe Antonio Filippo Roncalli, or simply Count Ludovico (1654–1713), was an Italian composer.
Francesco Corbetta was an Italian guitar virtuoso, teacher and composer. Along with his compatriots Giovanni Paolo Foscarini and Angelo Michele Bartolotti, He was a pioneer and exponent of the combination of strummed and plucked textures referred to today as "mixed" style.
Francesco Balilla Pratella was an Italian composer, musicologist and essayist. One of the leading advocates of futurism in Italian music, much of Pratella's own music betrays little obvious connection to the views espoused in the manifestos he authored.
Michelagnolo Galilei was an Italian composer and lutenist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, active mainly in Bavaria and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was the son of music theorist and lutenist Vincenzo Galilei, and the younger brother of the scientist Galileo Galilei.
Ancient Airs and Dances is a set of three orchestral suites by Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, freely transcribed from original pieces for lute. In addition to being a renowned composer and conductor, Respighi was also a notable musicologist. His interest in Italian music of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries led him to compose works inspired by the music of these periods.
Francesco Florimo was an Italian librarian, musicologist, historian of music, and composer.
Ruggero Chiesa was a prominent Italian classical guitarist, teacher and editor.
