Antonio Cifra

– 2 October 1629 in Loreto) was an Italian composer of the Roman School of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras.

[1] He studied with Giovanni Bernardino Nanino from 27 June 1594 at San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome and then, from 18 January 1597, he was boy soprano of the Cappella Giulia at St Peter.

In 1609 he was hired as maestro di cappella at Santa Casa in Loreto, where he remained the rest of his life.

Cifra was a prolific composer, with 45 separate publications to his credit: they included psalms, motets, litanies, Scherzi sacri, masses, polychoral motets, and sacred songs, as well as secular music including madrigals in both the Renaissance a cappella and Baroque concertato forms.

While Cifra did not adopt the technique for many works, or for long, he did publish one book of madrigals which appear to be deliberate copies of Gesualdo's style (the Madrigali concertati libro quinto, 1621).