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Name: Ruggiero Giovannelli

Birth: c.1560 in Velletri, near Rome.
Death: 1625-01-07 in Rome.

Giovannelli was an important composer of the Roman school in the late cinquecento and early seicento. During the 1580s he worked as the maestro di cappella of San Luigi dei Francesi, followed by a three year stint at the Collegio Germanico before succeeding Palestrina as maestro di cappella of the Cappella Giulia at S Pietro.

Most of his religious works survive in manuscript. He also published three books of five voice madrigals (1586, 1593, and 1599) and two books of four voice (1585 and 1589) which are notable for consisting mostly of sduccioli poems from Sannazaro's Arcadia. Sdruccioli have the rhymed word stress on the terzultima syllable. Marenzio's sole 4 voice publication (in 1585) also contained a number of these. The revival of the poetry of Sannazaro and especially his Arcadia is mainly due to Marenzio and Giovannelli.

Apart from a few pieces contributed to anthologies, Giovannelli published little in the last 25 years of his life. Some surviving religious works in manuscript contain pieces influenced by the stile moderno of the early Baroque.