Francesco Portinaro

He was closely associated with the Ferrarese Este family, worked for several humanistic Renaissance academies, and was well known as a composer of madrigals and dialogues.

[1] Such academies were becoming common in the late 16th century, as a part of the Renaissance rebirth of humanistic thought; in music they were the location of the first experiments with monody and multi-voice dramatic vocal forms, the strands of which would eventually coalesce into opera.

Upon the dissolution of this fraternity he moved to Vicenza, where he joined the Accademia dei Costanti in that city, a society of humanists to which he dedicated his 1557 book of madrigals.

Their sessions, which involved lectures, speeches, and discussions about secular and Latin poetry and other humanistic topics, frequently began and ended with musical performances by Portinaro and his group.

In addition, Portinaro and his assistants, of which there were three listed in the records, were required by the terms of his employment to teach singing, instrumental performance, and other aspects of music to any of the members who wished it.

Musicologist Alfred Einstein believed that Portinaro was in Venice sometime around 1567 as a printer and publisher, not of music but poetry, including verse by Pietro Bembo and others.

[5] Whether he went to Venice or not, in 1568 Portinaro moved back to Padua, and then later that same year went to Vienna, most likely to apply for the vacant post of choirmaster at the court of Maximilian II.

A few madrigals and motets were published separately, and an unpublished setting of the mass, Missa Surge Petre for 6 voices, survives in the Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek BSB-Hss Mus.ms.

He periodically gathered the pieces, madrigals and dramatic dialogues, into sets to publish and to dedicate to the academies and his aristocratic patrons.

[12] Portinaro likely wrote most of his motets both while in Rome in the service of Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, and some date from his earliest, undocumented years.