[1] Carissimi established the characteristic features of the Latin oratorio and was a prolific composer of masses, motets, and cantatas.
In 1628 Carissimi moved north to Assisi, as maestro di cappella (chapel master) at the Cathedral of San Rufino.
[1] Carissimi's successor as maestro di cappella at the Collegium Germanicum in 1686 described him as tall, thin, very frugal in his domestic affairs, with very noble manners towards his friends and acquaintances, and prone to melancholy.
While Luigi Rossi was his predecessor in developing the chamber cantata, Carissimi was the composer who first made this form the vehicle for the most intellectual style of chamber music, a function which it continued to perform until the death of Alessandro Scarlatti, Emanuele d'Astorga and Benedetto Marcello.
These works and others are important for establishing the form of oratorio unaccompanied by dramatic action, which maintained its hold for 200 years.
Much of the musical style of Johann Caspar Kerll and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, for instance, was influenced by Carissimi.
His Diary records that he met "Mr. Hill, and Andrews, and one slovenly and ugly fellow, Seignor Pedro, who sings Italian songs to the theorbo most neatly, and they spent the whole evening in singing the best piece of musique counted of all hands in the world, made by Seignor Charissimi, the famous master in Rome.