Paolo da Firenze

Paolo da Firenze (Paolo Tenorista, “Magister Dominus Paulas Abbas de Florentia”) (c. 1355 – after September 20, 1436) was an Italian composer and music theorist of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, the transition from the musical Medieval era to the Renaissance. More surviving music of the Trecento is attributable to Paolo than to any other composer except for Francesco Landini. Life Paolo was born in Florence; his father’s name was Marco. He was most likely from a humble family. He had three brothers. When he resigned as abbot on June 16, 1433 he was seventy-eight years old, giving his approximate birth year as 1355. He became a Benedictine around 1380, and the portrait of him in the Squarcialupi Codex shows him in a Benedictine black cassock. On March 8, 1401 he took the post of abbot at S. Martin al Pino. Before 1417 he became the rector at Orbetello, a post he probably retained until around 1427. In the first decade of the 15th century, probably close to 1410, while in Florence, he supervised the compilation of Squarcialupi Codex, the single most important source of music in Italy in the 14th century. Paolo died in Florence. Since his will was dated September 21, 1436, he