Giovanni Paolo Foscarini was an Italian guitarist, lutenist, theorist and composer. A 1629 note names him a musician and player of lute and theorbo of the Venerable Company of the Blessed Sacrament in Ancona. He was active in Rome, Venice, Brussels, and Paris, and wrote letters to the Dutch scholar Constantijn Huygens from Paris. He was planning to travel to Italy but was ill in bed and without funds; he may have died soon after.

Foscarini’s Il primo, secondo e terzo libro della chitarra spagnola, printed about 1630, is the earliest known engraved Italian guitar tablature. A later fifth-book edition, Li cinque libri della chitarra alla spagnola, was signed by Foscarini and dated Rome, 15 September 1640. His music “encompasses the entire Italian guitar repertory of the period” and was highly regarded during his lifetime. He is described as an influence on Angelo Michele Bartolotti and Francesco Corbetta.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Paolo_Foscarini
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3107299