(b Perugia, c 1624; d Brufa, 1 July 1705). Italian composer. He sang at St Mark's, Venice, from 1643 but in 1650 went to the Saxon court at Dresden, becoming joint Kapellmeister (with Schütz and Albrici) in 1656. He is important for his two surviving operas and his Historia musica (1695) - the first history of music in Italian. The operas, typical of the mid-Baroque bel canto style, fuse German and Italian influences. Il Paride (1662) was a festival opera with ballets and comic intermezzos, while Dafne (1671; the libretto modelled on Schütz's, 1627) is the earliest German opera surviving in full score. Bontempi also wrote an important counter-point treatise (1660).

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