Vicente Lusitano

Vicente Lusitano (c. 1520) was a Portuguese composer and music theorist of the late Renaissance. Some of his works on musical theory and a small number of compositions survive. Lusitano was for a time a Catholic priest and taught in several Italian cities, but later converted to Protestantism. He is believed to have been of mixed race. Since the 1980s, he has been described as the first published black composer. Life and career Lusitano, a Portuguese-language term for “Portuguese”, appears to be a descriptive nickname rather than a family name. Little is known of his life. He was born in Olivença, likely around 1520. Lusitano is described as pardo, a Portuguese term indicating he was of mixed European and non-European heritage. By 1561 he had married, converted to Calvinist Protestantism, and traveled to Germany. There is no record of him after 1561. and published as Un tratado de canto de órgano (siglo XVI) in 1913. * Introdvttione facilissima, et novissima, di Canto Fermo, Figvrato, Contrapon to semplice, et in concerto. Con Regole Generali per far fvghe differenti sopra il Canto Fermo, a ii, iii & iiii. voci, & compositioni, proportioni, generi. S. Diatonico, Cromotico, Enarmoni