Angelico Patto

Angelico Patto is a figure about whom very little information survives, and his name is remembered almost exclusively for an anthology published in Venice in 1613. He is documented as active around that date, which is why dictionaries list him with the abbreviation fl., that is, by the period in which he can be placed.

His principal work is Canoro pianto di Maria vergine sopra la faccia di Christo estinto, a collection for solo voice and basso continuo that gathers poems by the abbé Grillo set to music by various composers. The title page calls him «Academico Giustiniano», and the dedication, signed from San Giorgio Maggiore, suggests that he may have been a priest at that Venetian church, although this is not known with certainty, as it is only put forward as a possibility.

The anthology brings together 24 madrigals and a dialogue. Among the best-known contributors are Barbarino, Stefano Bernardi, Dognazzi, Franzoni, Amedeo Freddi and Girolamo Marinoni. Patto contributed three compositions of his own, though they are of little significance. Moreover, at least two pieces by Barbarino, among them the dialogue Ferma, ferma, Signore, are religious versions of secular madrigals published earlier, such as Ferma, ferma, Caronte (1607).

Patto's value lies above all in his role as anthologist: his collection illustrates the practice of adapting secular texts and music to a devotional context in early seventeenth-century Venice.