Bartolomeo degli Organi

Bartolomeo degli Organi, also known as Baccio Fiorentino, was an Italian composer, organist and singer born in Florence in December 1474 and who died in the same city in December 1539. His nickname derived from his profession, and his sons later adopted it too. He belongs to the Florentine Renaissance, where his standing carried considerable weight in the musical circles of the day.

His career began shortly after he turned thirteen, when he was appointed singer at the Ss Annunziata. Over the years he also sang in the chapel of the baptistery, a post he obtained on the recommendation of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, in whose personal service he remained for several years. He worked as organist in various churches in Florence, among them the Annunziata and Santa Maria Novella, until 21 December 1509, when he was appointed principal organist of the cathedral, a post he held until his death.

His contemporaries acknowledged his authority: one of them called him the "prince of the musicians of our city". Among his pupils were Guido Machiavelli, son of the famous statesman, and the composer Francesco de Layolle. He maintained friendships with the poets Lorenzo Strozzi, whose poems he set to music, and Benedetto Varchi, who wrote a sonnet in his memory.

Ten secular works in Italian, four instrumental pieces and one lauda survive. The Italian songs, mostly ballatas, follow traditional strophic forms, with clear phrases, logical harmonic progressions and simple rhythms that accompany the accents of the text. In several ballatas he composed new music for the entire ripresa and reduced repetition in the stanza; in two of them he also renewed the music of the whole stanza, a novel feature that the early madrigalists would adopt. The lauda, published in Razzi's collection of 1563, is undoubtedly an adaptation of a secular work. The instrumental pieces share motifs with works by Isaac and Agricola, with whom he may have trained in Florence, although this is not confirmed.

Three of his sons were musicians. Antonio and Lorenzo were organists at several leading churches in Florence. The youngest, Piero, known as Pierino Fiorentino (Florence, 1523 - Rome, 1552), achieved fame in the mid-sixteenth century as an outstanding pupil of Francesco da Milano and as a composer. A musician named Baccio degli Organi, documented as music master at the Medici court in 1574, is probably his grandson.

His legacy rests above all on the clarity of his secular writing and on his role as a bridge between the Italian strophic tradition and the emerging madrigal, as well as on the formation of a dynasty of Florentine musicians.