ALLEGRI FAMILY. - Name of various musicians of the 16th century, of whom the greatest was GREGORIO, born in Rome in 1582, died there on 17–18 February 1652. As a boy, like his brothers Domenico and Bartolomeo, he was a choirboy at the church of S. Luigi dei Francesi, under the direction of Giovanni Bernardino Nanino. After his voice changed, he ceased to belong to the chapel but continued to take part in services, especially festive ones, as a tenor from 1601 to 1604, under the direction of the other Nanino, Giovanni Maria. After this period, information about him is fragmentary, such as the fact that he held a benefice in the cathedral of Fermo in 1619. On 6 December 1629 he is found as a pontifical singer in the Sistine Chapel, where, as a contralto, he remained for 22 years, until his death. We know that he also held other benefices at Tivoli, though without residence obligations.
In 1650 he was appointed “pro tempore” director of the Sistine Chapel and, as such, composed psalms, Magnificats, impropers, Te Deums, motets (1621) and many masses (among which stands out the one in five voices: *Christus resurgens ex mortuis*), which pleased Urban VIII. Notable among his works are two Lamentations (the first of the third Matins, written in 1640, was sung, as Baini attests, with unchanged success for almost 200 years) and, more famous than any other, the celebrated *Miserere* for two choirs of four and five voices, which was performed on Holy Wednesday and Good Friday in the papal chapel. The well-known episode of the young Mozart, who in 1770 transcribed it from memory after a single hearing—since the chapel regulations did not permit transcription from the original—is associated with this work.
Other works, besides the *Concertini* for two to four voices with organ, are published in various collections. After the Symphony or Sonata for four strings (1650), in the Wasiliewski collection, we may mention some motets in the *Scelta di mottetti di diversi eccellentissimi Autori*, for two, three, four and five voices, published in Rome in 1618 under the care of Fabio Costantini; in *Sacri affetti* by Fr. Sommaruco (A. Soldi, Rome 1625), the four-voice motet *Quasi Libanus dedi odorem*; in the collection of Giovanni Robletti (Robletti, Rome 1621), the other motet *Carum suum Beatus N.*; and in the collection of Zaccaria Zanetti (A. Vincenti, Venice 1619), three other compositions: *Surge amica mea*, *Tota pulchra es* for two voices, and *O suavissime Iesu Christe* for three voices. The *Miserere* also appears in modern collections by Choron and Proske. Many of his compositions remain in manuscript in musical archives and libraries in Rome, Bologna, etc. Allegri had various pupils, among whom we may recall Antimo Liberati and Matteo Simonelli, who earned a diploma in composition, together with A. Corelli, around 1670.
DOMENICO, born in Rome in 1585, died there on 5 September 1629, brother of Gregorio. He too was a choirboy at S. Luigi dei Francesi from 1595 to 1601. In 1616 he was appointed maestro di cappella at the basilica of S. Maria Maggiore.