Pisano (real name, Pagoli), Bernardo
Pisano (real name, Pagoli), Bernardo
Pisano (real name, Pagoli), Bernardo, significant Italian composer; b. Florence, Oct. 12, 1490; d. Rome, Jan. 23, 1548. He studied at the Florence Cathedral school, during which time he sang in the chapel of the church of Ss. Annunziata. He was ordained a priest and made master of the choristers at the cathedral school (1511), and also sang in the chapels of the cathedral and baptistry and became master of the cathedral chapel (1512). He was a singer in the papal chapel in Rome (1514–48), and active at the Medici Chapel in Florence (1515–19). During a visit to Florence in 1529, he became embroiled in a revolt against the Medici Pope Clement VII; accused of being a papal spy, he was arrested, tortured, and expelled from the city by the republican authorities. Pisano was a master of the madrigal, honored as such in his time. He composed both sacred and secular vocal works, the latter represented by his Musica...sopra le canzone del Petrarcha (Venice, 1520). Most of his works have been ed. by F. D’Accone in Music of the Florentine Renaissance, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, XXXII/I (1966).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire