Nothing is known of Antonio Maria Montanari's childhood or his musical education but he was already in Rome as a young man, and between 1692 and 1737 documentation exists (albeit with interruptions) indicating his involvement as a violinist, often in important positions, in the orchestra of Cardinal Ottoboni.
From 1712 onwards he appears to have held a permanent post in the Ottoboni household but he also served other families of the Roman nobility, and he is thus found among the musicians who performed in George Frederic Handel's La Resurrezione in 1708 in the Palazzo Ruspoli.
The most important single source of biographical information on Antonio Maria Montanari is a commemorative seven-line paragraph squeezed in at the foot of a lightly caricatural pen sketch of the composer by the famous artist Pier Leone Ghezzi: "S.r Antonio Montanari virtuossisimo sonator di violino, e poi era accompagniata la virtù con un costume da angelo il quale morì alli due di aprile 1737. alle ore 23. e la sua morte è stata compianta da tutta Roma, et io cav.
His high standing as a violinist suggests that he would have had a teacher-pupil relationship with many talented players in Rome, especially after the death of Arcangelo Corelli, including, perhaps, Pietro Antonio Locatelli.
His Concerti op.1 are exceptionally well crafted, the alliance of virtuosity with solid contrapuntal writing suggesting the possibility of a lineage of post-Corellian solo concerto such as no other composer attempted.