Valente Antonio
Intavolatura di cimbalo, Napoli, 1576
In the last quarter of the 16th century, when the great organists of the Venetian school (Andrea Gabrieli, Claudio Merulo, etc. ) were at their prime; the first important figures (amongst others, Giovanni Maria Trabaci and Ascanio Maione) in a new era of keyboard music, which lasted until the middle of the 17th, century were emerging in Naples. Not long after the Ricercate e Fantasie by Rocco Rodio was published in 1575, the Intavolatura de Cimbalo by Antonio Valente appeared in Naples in 1576. The frontispiece tells us that the author was blind and was organist at the church of Sant’Angelo a Nilo
