Girolamo Montesardo

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Girolamo Montesardo (fl. 1606–c.1620) was an Italian singer and composer. Although his surname was actually Melcarne, he was called Montesardo for his home town, a small town in the Province of Lecce. He worked as a singer at the San Petronio Basilica in Bologna, as a maestro di capella at Fano and at Ancona.

His earliest extant work was published in Florence in 1606.

He is famous for his description in Nuova inventione of using alphabet notation of chords for rasgueado playing a five-course guitar, which he claimed to invent, but which was probably being used in practice in Spain for a period before this. This style of tablature became very popular in Italy during the 17th century. Nuova inventione gave tablature for some of the most popular songs and harmonic patterns of the time, including the Ruggiero, bergamasca, folia, and Ballo del gran duca, and was the first Italian publication to include the ciaccone and passacaglias.

In terms of original music, Montesardo mainly composed polyphonic sacred music and madrigals. Montesardo also experimented with monody and published a collection of monody which included both his own experiments and works by Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini.

[edit] Reference

• Thomas Walker and Tim Carter. "Girolamo Montesardo", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed January 27, 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).