Giacomo Fogliano

Giacomo Fogliano (da Modena; also Jacopo, Fogliani; 1468 – 10 April 1548) was an Italian composer, organist, harpsichordist, and music teacher of the Renaissance, active mainly in Modena in northern Italy. He was a composer of frottole, the popular vocal form ancestral to the madrigal, and later in his career he also wrote madrigals themselves. He also wrote some sacred music and a few instrumental compositions. Life Giacomo Fogliano was the older brother of Lodovico Fogliano (c. 1475 – 1542). Lodovico, also a composer, was better known as a theorist. Giacomo was born in Modena, where he evidently spent most of his career. Details of his life are sketchy, but most of his years of employment and at least one of his journeys are known. Early in his life he was praised for his mastery of various instruments, particularly the organ and the harpsichord, and in 1479 he became organist at Modena Cathedral – an unusual achievement for a musician of 11. The records of the cathedral list him as maestro di cappella (singing master) also starting in that year, ending in 1497, at which time he vanished from the record, reappearing again in 1504, from which year he held the dual post of organist