(b nr Terracina, 1584; d Loreto, 2 Oct 1629 ). Maestro di cappella at Santa Casa, Loreto, from 1609, and at St John Lateran, Rome (1623-6), he was a prolific if uninspired composer of sacred music. His output is dominated by eight books of concertato motets and includes two volumes of masses (1619, 1621) in a more traditional style. His later polychoral music is more modern in outlook but still conservative. More inventive are the Scherzi sacri (1616, 1618) and secular scherzi. He also composed six books of five-part madrigals which show deft rhythmic and contrapuntal interplay.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.