Bernardo Pisano (also Pagoli) (October 12, 1490 – January 23, 1548) was an Italian composer, priest, singer, and scholar of the Renaissance. He was one of the first madrigalists, and the first composer anywhere to have a printed collection of secular music devoted entirely to himself. October 12 is the 285th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (286th in leap years). ... Events Tirant Lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell, Martí Joan De Galba is published. ... January 23 is the 23rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Events Mary I of Scotland sent to France Births Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher, astronomer, occultist, and heretic, (burned at the stake) 1600 Cornelis Ketel, Dutch painter Carel van Mander, Dutch painter and poet (d. ... Renaissance music is classical music written during the Renaissance period, approximately 1400 to 1600 CE. Defining the end of the period is easier than defining the beginning, since there were no revolutionary shifts in musical thinking at the beginning of the 15th century corresponding to the sudden development of the... A madrigal is a setting for 4–6 voices of a secular text, often in Italian. ...

Life

He was born in Florence, and may have spent some time in Pisa (hence his name). As a young man he sang and studied music at the church of Ss Annunziata. In 1512 he became maestro di cappella, a job which held in addition to supervising the choristers and singing in its various chapels. Evidently he was favored of the Medici, for they not only hired him for his church job but gave him a post as a singer in the papal chapel in Rome, immediately after Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici became Pope Leo X. Florence - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... Pisas coat of arms. ... Events April 11 - Battle of Ravenna. ... The Medici family was a powerful and influential Florentine family from the 13th to 17th century. ... Location within Italy The Roman Colosseum Rome (Italian and Latin: Roma) is the capital city of Italy and of its Latium region. ... Pope Leo X Leo X, né Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici (December 11, 1475 - December 1, 1521), was the only pope who has bestowed his own name upon his age, and one of the few whose original extraction has corresponded in some measure with the splendour of the pontifical dignity. ...

Pisano remained based in Rome for the rest of his life. In addition to singing in the papal chapel choir, he acquired ecclesiastical benefices from the Pope, including one each at the cathedrals of Seville and Lerida. Between 1515 and 1519 he traveled between Florence and Rome, holding musical positions in both cities, but in 1520 he returned to Rome, except for occasional visits to Florence. This article is about the city in Spain. ... La Seu Vella, the Romanesque-Gothic Cathedral of Lleida Lleida (Catalan: Lleida, Spanish: Lérida) is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. ... Events June - Invasion of Persia by Sultan Selim I of the Ottoman Empire. ... Events March 4 - Hernán Cortés lands in Mexico. ... Events January 18 - King Christian II of Denmark and Norway defeats the Swedes at Lake Asunde. ...

Pisano made the mistake of returning to Florence in 1529, during the three-year period of republican government, the result of a successful coup d'état against the Medici. Since he had obviously close connections to the Medici, he was accused of being a spy for the papacy, seized, imprisoned, and put to torture. In September 1529 the famous siege of Florence began, and he was released. In 1530 Florence was captured by papal troops and the Medici returned to power. After escaping alive from his former home, he returned to Rome to stay. Events April 22 - Treaty of Saragossa divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal, stipulating that the dividing line should lie 297. ... Events June 25 - Augsburg confession presented to Charles V of Holy Roman Empire. ...

In 1546 Pope Paul III appointed him maestro di cappella of his private chapel, a position which he only held for two years, for he died in 1548. Among the singers in this elite group was Jacques Arcadelt, who was to become even more famous than Pisano as a madrigal composer. Events Spanish conquest of Yucatan Peace between England and France Foundation of Trinity College, Cambridge by Henry VIII of England Katharina von Bora flees to Magdeburg Science Architecture Michelangelo Buonarroti is made chief architect of St. ... Pope Paul III, (1543) portrait by Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples Paul III, né Alessandro Farnese (February 29, 1468 - November 10, 1549) was pope from 1534 to 1549. ... Jacques Arcadelt (also Jacob Arcadelt) (1504 or 1505 – October 14, 1568) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the middle to late Renaissance, principally of madrigals and chansons. ...

Music and influence

While Pisano wrote sacred music in a sober, homophonic style, almost certainly for use in Ss Annunziata when he was maestro di cappella there, it is as a composer of secular music that he was most influential. Pisano is arguably the first madrigalist. The slightly later composers who became famous masters of the genre — Costanzo Festa, Jacques Arcadelt, Philippe Verdelot — were aware of his work and copied some of his stylistic traits. In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ... Costanzo Festa (c. ... Philippe Verdelot was a French composer of the Renaissance, who spent most of his life in Italy. ...

Pisano's early secular music is typical of Italian music of the first two decades of the 16th century: light, rhythmically active, usually homophonic, containing frequent repetition, and generally for three voices. Most of these pieces are ballatas or canzonettas. His later secular music, including the important collection of 1520, the first printed book of secular music dedicated to the work of a single composer, contains music which is best defined as madrigalian (although he did not use the term). Poetry is sometimes serious, and sometimes humorous; seven poems by Petrarch are represented. The music carefully attempts to convey the emotion expressed by the poem being set. Often the last line of the text is repeated for emphasis, a peculiarity which was to become a defining feature of the early madrigal. Texturally, the music varies between homophonic and polyphonic passages, as well as between passages for groups of two, three, and four singers together. (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... The ballata (plural: ballate) is an Italian poetic and musical form which was in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. ... In music, a canzonetta (pl. ... Events January 18 - King Christian II of Denmark and Norway defeats the Swedes at Lake Asunde. ... From the c. ... Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of several independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). ...

References and further reading

• "Bernardo Pisano," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304
• Alfred Einstein, The Italian Madrigal. Princeton, 1949.