Giuliano Paratico (1550–1616) was a musician living in

Brescia Brescia (, ; ; or ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the region of Lombardy, in Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Lake Garda, Garda and Lake Iseo, Iseo. With a population of 199,949, it is the se ...

Northern Italy Northern Italy (, , ) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four Northwest Italy, northwestern Regions of Italy, regions of Piedmo ...

. He was a notary by profession but also an accomplished musician. His instrument of choice was the

chitarrone The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck that houses the second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box with a flat top, typically with one or three sound holes decorated with ro ...

, and according to contemporaries had a sweet voice. He published two books about his compositions, with the printer Marchetti of Brescia. Delle canzonette a tre voci of Giuliano Paratico only the second book is available, while for the first, only the Bass part is present.Canzonette a tre voci di Giuliano Paratico. Libro secondo, Pietro Maria Marchetti, Brescia 1588 He was a close friend of Angelo Grillo Spinola, prelate, poet, friend and confessor of

Torquato Tasso Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between ...

. The letters of Grillo make still an interesting reading today. Grillo was instrumental in organizing the arrival of the first group of Japanese Jesuit students in the West, perhaps through his cousin Carlo Spinola s.j. who designed the church of San Paolo in Macao, only the stone facade remains today but it is the symbol of the former Portuguese colony. He later died as a martyr at Nagasaki. Don Angelo Grillo O.S.B. (1557–1629) was an Italian early baroque poet belonging to the noble Genoese family of the Spinola, who published under the pen name Livio Celiano. Friend and confessor of Torquato Tasso. His madrigal texts were set by Monteverdi, Filippo Bonaffino, Orazio Vecchi, Luca Marenzio, Salamone Rossi, Pomponio Nenna and others. The close relationship between Grillo and Monteverdi appears in their correspondence, which began about 1610 and continued until the poet's death in 1629. The Paratico family appears in the Golden Book of Nobility of Brescia at the beginning of the 16th century, but it seems that they were expelled later on, perhaps because, following the Spanish fashion, being a Noble means that they could not have a real profession. Even the profession of magistrate was not accepted. According to the book by Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni "Memorie per servire alla Vita di Dante Alighieri" 1823, the author of the Comedy was a guest in the house of the Paratico family in Brescia. The Paratico family took the name from the village of Paratico, near Sarnico. It was a common practice for successful captains during the 12th–13th century to move to Brescia retaining their village of origin as a family name (da) Paratico.

References

Italian musicians Musicians from the Republic of Venice 1550 births 1616 deaths {{Italy-musician-stub