Giovanni Animuccia

Composer, born in Florence, NC Italy. In 1555 he became choirmaster at St Peter's in the Vatican. He was influenced by St Philip Neri, for whose oratory he composed the Laudi - semi-dramatic religious pieces in popular style from which oratorio developed.

At the request of St. Filippo Neri he composed a number of Laudi, or hymns of praise, to be sung after sermon time, which have given him an accidental prominence in musical history, since their performance in St. Filippo's Oratory eventually gave rise (on the disruption of 16th century schools of composition) to those early forms of "oratorio" that are not traceable to the Gregorian-polyphonic "Passions." St. Filippo admired Animuccia so warmly that he declared he had seen the soul of his friend fly upwards towards heaven.

In 1555 Animuccia was appointed maestro di capella at St. Peter's, an office which he held until his death in 1571. His chief published works were Madrigali e Motetti a quattro e cinque voci (Venice, 1548) and Il primo Libra di Messe (Rom. A mass from the Primo Libra di Messe on the canto fermo of the hymn Conditor alme siderum is published in modern notation in the Anthologie des maîtres religieux primitifs of the Chanteurs de Saint Gervais.

Paolo Animuccia, a brother of Giovanni, was also celebrated as a composer; he is said by Fetis to have been maestro di capella at the Basilica of St. John Lateran from the middle of January 1550 until 1552, and to have died in 1563.