Francesco Rovigo

Francesco Rovigo (1540/1541 – 7 October 1597) was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance, active in Mantua and Graz.

Life Nothing is known of his life prior to 1570, when he went to Venice, already 29 or 30 years old, to receive a musical education with the renowned organist and composer Claudio Merulo of the Venetian School. By 1573 he was in Mantua, where he composed hymns which were used in the church of Santa Barbara, which was the ducal chapel of the Gonzaga family. He served that aristocratic family until 1582, when he went to Graz to work for Archduke Charles II of Austria both as court organist and music tutor to the Archduke's children. When the Archduke died in 1590 he returned to Mantua and resumed his former service of the Gonzaga family, specifically as organist at the chapel. While in Mantua, and under the patronage of the artistically inclined Gonzaga family, he was part of an illustrious group of composers that included some of the most famous in Italy, such as Alessandro Striggio, Giaches de Wert, Benedetto Pallavicino, Francesco Soriano, Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, and of course Claudio Monteverdi.

Monteverdi mentioned Rovigo him favorably in his letters, with none of the animosity reserved for Benedetto Pallavicino, another composer at the Mantuan court. Rovigo died at Mantua at the age of 56; he is buried in the crypt of the cathedral of Santa Barbara, near to the tomb of Giaches de Wert, who died the previous year.