Bartolomeo Tromboncino

Bartolomeo Tromboncino (c. 1470 – 1535 or later) was an Italian composer of the middle Renaissance. He is mainly famous as a composer of frottole; he is principally infamous for murdering his wife. He was born in Verona and died in or near Venice. Life There is little information on his early life, as is common for most composers of the time. He mentions in a letter that he was originally from Verona, and it is most likely that he grew up in Mantua. Until around 1500 he lived and worked in Mantua, though he made occasional trips to adjacent cities such as Ferrara, Este, Vicenza, Milan, and Pavia, especially when he was in trouble. He fled Mantua in 1495 for unknown reasons, returning later that same year. In 1499 he murdered his wife when he discovered her in flagrante delicto but, unlike Gesualdo a hundred years later, he may have spared the man (the sources are contradictory on this detail). Curiously, he seems to have been pardoned again and again for his misdeeds, but he left Mantua again “without permission, and for despicable reasons”, as recorded in a letter from one of the Gonzaga family, his employers. His skill as a composer probably endeared him to Isabella d’Este, one o