GALILEI, VINCENZO. - Musician and theorist, father of Galileo, born in Firenze about 1533, died there at the end of June 1591. A skilled player of the viola and lute, he upheld the monodic style and was one of the earliest and most important members of the Camerata de' Bardi.
He set to music the Dantean episode of Count Ugolino and the Lamentazioni of Jeremiah, composed 2 books of Madrigali for 4 and 5 voices (Venezia 1574 and 1587) and Intavolature del liuto (Roma 1563), studied the music of the Greeks and, having discovered the Inni of Mesomede, published the Dialogo della musica antica e della moderna (Firenze 1581). He engaged in a bitter controversy against his teacher of theory, Giuffrè Zorlino, with a Discorso di V. G. intorno all'opera di messer G. Zorlino ecc. (ibid. 1589) and with a 2nd ed. of the Dialogo (1602). Also of notable importance for the history of music is his Fronisio, dialogo nel quale si contengono le vere e necessarie regole dell'intavolare la musica del liuto (Venezia 1568, enlarged in 1584), containing transcriptions of celebrated sixteenth-century compositions; 3 of his Ricercari (1584) are in Orgel und Klavier by O. Kinkalley (Lipsia 1910, p. 283); 9 pieces for lute are in Lautenspieler des 16. Jahrhunderts by O. Chilesotti (ibid. 1891).
Anna Maria Gentili