Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger

A prolific and highly original composer, Kapsberger is chiefly remembered today for his lute and theorbo (chitarrone) music, which was seminal in the development of these as solo instruments.

His father Colonel Wilhelm (Guglielmo) von Kapsperger was a military official of the Imperial House of Austria, and may have settled in Venice, the city which may have been Kapsberger's birthplace.

[1] In 1624 Kapsberger entered the service of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, where he worked with numerous important composers, such as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Stefano Landi, and poets which included Giulio Rospigliosi, the future Pope Clement IX.

"[2] One notable exception was the critic Giovanni Battista Doni, who was initially supportive of the composer, but then turned against him for unclear reasons and criticised his music in print.

"[4] Regardless of how one regards his compositional prowess, Kapsberger was one of the principal composers of lute and theorbo music during the early Baroque era (together with Alessandro Piccinini) and greatly contributed towards advancing European plucked string instruments of the time.

Also, a compositional treatise by Kapsberger, Il Kapsperger della musica, was announced in 1640 in the preface to Libro quarto d'intavolatura di chitarrone, but is now lost.

First measures of the tablature of the first tocatta of the libro primo d'intavolatura di chitarone (first book of chitarone tablature) by Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger published in Venice in 1604. The monograph HK stands for Hieronymus Kapsberger.
Title page of Kapsberger's Libro primo d'intavolatura di lauto , the only surviving collection of his works for lute, depicting the von Kapsberger coat of arms