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Francesco da Milano
Life Francesco da Milano was an Italian lutenist and composer born on 18 August 1497 near Milan, in Monza, and died on 2 January 1543. He trained in Milan before joining the papal household in Rome by 1514, becoming a private musician to Pope Leo X in 1516 and remaining closely tied to the papal…
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Luis de Milán
Life Luis de Milán was a Spanish composer, vihuelist, and writer on music who spent most of his life in Valencia, where he was associated with the ducal court of Germaine de Foix until around 1538. In 1536 he published El Maestro, the first printed collection of music for the vihuela de mano, arranging its…
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Alonso Mudarra
Life Alonso Mudarra was a Spanish composer and vihuelist of the Renaissance, born around 1510 and raised in Guadalajara. He likely travelled to Italy in 1529 in the retinue of the Duke of the Infantado before returning to Spain, where he became a priest and, from 1546, canon of Seville Cathedral, directing its musical life…
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Luys de Narváez
Life Luis de Narváez was a Spanish composer and vihuelist born in Granada around 1500, whose exact birth and death dates remain unknown. By 1526 he served in the household of Francisco de los Cobos y Molina, secretary of state to Emperor Charles V, and lived with him in Valladolid until the patron’s death in…
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Diego Pisador
Life Diego Pisador was a Spanish vihuelist and composer born around 1509 or 1510 in Salamanca, where he spent most of his life. The son of a notary connected to the Archbishop of Santiago’s household, he took minor religious orders in 1526 but pursued a secular career, eventually managing his family’s estate in Salamanca. In…
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Anthony Holborne
Life Anthony Holborne was an English composer of music for lute, cittern, and instrumental consort active during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Little is documented of his early life, though he may be the Anthony Holburne who entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1562. He married Elisabeth Marten in 1584, served the Countess of Pembroke,…
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Robert Johnson
Life Robert Johnson was an English composer and lutenist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean eras, son of the court lutenist John Johnson. After his father’s death in 1594, he apprenticed from 1596 in the household of George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, patron of the acting company that became the King’s Men. Robert Johnson…
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John Johnson
Life John Johnson was an English lutenist and composer of songs and lute music attached to the court of Queen Elizabeth I, serving as one of her three court lutenists from 1579 until his death in 1594. He was the father of the lutenist and composer Robert Johnson, who followed him into royal service. Nearly…
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Francis Cutting
Life Francis Cutting was an English lutenist and composer of the Renaissance period and among the earliest English lute composers whose names are known to history. He was employed as a musician for the Howard family, including Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, and lived near their London residence, Arundel House, where eight of his ten…
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Daniel Bacheler
Life Daniel Bacheler was an English lutenist and composer baptized on 16 March 1572 in the Buckinghamshire village of Aston Clinton and buried on 29 January 1619. He trained under his uncle, the court lutenist and dancing master Thomas Cardell, and went on to serve Sir Francis Walsingham and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex,…