CAFFI, Francesco. — Composer and music historian, born in Venice in 1778, died in Padua in 1874. After serving until 1827 as a counsellor at the Court of Appeal in Milan, he studied in Venice, conducting archival research and producing a work of capital importance for the musical history of Venice: *Storia della musica sacra nella già cappella ducale di S. Marco in Venezia dal 1318 al 1797* (2 vols., Venice 1854–55), as well as various monographs on B. Furmanetto (ibid. 1820), A. Lotti (ibid. 1835), B. Marcello (ibid. 1830 and 1841), Zarlino (ibid. 1836), Dragonetti (ibid. 1846), and Asola (ibid. 1862). Though his fame as a composer was minor, he left only one cantata titled *L’armonia richiamata* (1811).
Bibl.: T. A. Salvagnini, *F. C., musicologo veneziano (1778–1874)*, in *Atti del Congresso internazionale di scienze storiche*, VIII, Rome 1905, p. 55.