Agostino Agazzari

After working in Rome, as a teacher at the Roman College, he returned to Siena in 1607, becoming first organist and later choirmaster of the cathedral there.

He was a close friend of Lodovico Grossi da Viadana, the early innovator of the basso continuo.

This treatise was immensely important in the diffusion of the technique throughout Europe: for example, Michael Praetorius used large portions of it in his Syntagma musicum in Germany in 1618-1619.

In large part it was based on a study of his friend Viadana's Cento concerti ecclesiastici (published in Venice in 1602), the first collection of sacred music to use the basso continuo.

Most of his compositions are sacred music, of which motets of the early Baroque variety (for two or three voices with instruments) predominate.