CROCE, GIOVANNI. - Also called Ioannes a Cruce or "il Chiozzotto," from Chioggia, where he was born in 1557 and died on May 15, 1609. He was a distinguished composer, trained in the school of Zarlino, who called him to be part of the cappella of St. Mark's in Venice as a contralto. He became a titular priest of the church of S. Maria Formosa in Venice; in 1593 he was appointed maestro at the seminary; in 1595 vice-maestro di cappella, and finally, on July 13, 1603, maestro di cappella at St. Mark's, successor to Donati and a worthy continuer of that luminous artistic tradition which had raised to the same glorious post A. Willaert, C. de Rore and G. Zarlino.
Of his works, admired for the genius of their inspiration and for their contrapuntal skill, several prints and reprints of the period survive, as well as new recent editions published by F. X. Haberl (Jahrbuch Peters, Regensburg 1888), by Commer in the Musica sacra, by Proske in the Musica divina, etc. The sacred music of C. comprises a great number of masses for 5-6-8 voices, psalms for 6-8 voices, vesper psalmodies and a compline for 8 voices, lamentations and motets for 4 and for 8 voices, sacred cantilenas and cantiones which are found in the libraries of Italy and Europe together with numerous manuscripts of masses, up to 16 voices, motets for 4 voices and other spiritual songs. Equally numerous is his secular music.
Luisa Cervelli