Diomedes Cato (1560 to 1565 – d.1627 in Gdansk) was an Italian-born composer and lute player, who lived and worked entirely in Poland and Lithuania.
The first record of his employment dates from 1588, when he was hired as a lutenist by the court of King Sigismund III Vasa, a position he kept until 1593.
Cato wrote both vocal and instrumental music, and both sacred and secular: however he was most famous for his works for lute.
The preludes are chordal for the most part; the fantasias are imitative ricercars; and there is a set of eight Polish dances, probably derived from actual folk music.
Some aspects of early Baroque style are clear in Cato's music, including the use of short motifs which recur to unify longer sections, and the use of linking episodic sections between thematic statements; on the other hand, some of his lute music includes lines of vocal character in strict imitation, more in the style of the mid-to-late 16th century polyphonists.