Girolamo Conversi

Girolamo Conversi (fl. 1572–1575) was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance. His music, which was popular from the 1570s through the 1590s, was noted for its combination of the light canzone alla napolitana with the literary and musical sophistication of the madrigal. He appears to have written only secular vocal music. Life Little is known of his life but what can be inferred from the dedications to his madrigal books. He was born in Correggio in Reggio Emilia. In 1575 he dedicated a book of madrigals to Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, and described himself as being in that man’s service. Whether he lived in Naples at the time, or elsewhere in the Spanish Kingdom of Naples, is not known. Since his only publications after 1575 are reprints – in copious quantity – he may have died around that year. Unusually for a popular composer of the time, he seems to have held no positions either in aristocratic courts or religious institutions for which records have been kept. Music and influence Conversi’s music is distinguished by its marriage of the lightness of the Neapolitan villanella, also known as the canzone alla napolitana, with the more serious an