Italian composer, organist, and writer on music. He studied organ and composition with Lucio Barbieri and Gioseffo Guami. In 1587 he joined the order of the Olivetans, and he subsequently lived and worked at its monasteries in Lucca, Siena, Bosco, Imola, Gubbo, Venice, and Verona. In 1609 he settled at S. Michele in Bosco, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was named professor in 1613; abbot in 1618. In 1615 in Bologna he founded the Accademia dei Floridi. He was an associate of Monteverdi, and his writings are important works in early Baroque music theory. L'organo suonarino (Venice, 1605) describes accompaniment employing figured bass; the multivolume Cartella series (Venice, 1601ff.; including Moderna pratica musicale,1613?; Cartella musicale, 1614) proposes the recognition of the "variable seventh" degree, outlines the concept of modem barlines, and gives tables of vocal ornaments. He composed vocal Concerti ecclesiastici, Masses, Psalm settings, motets, music for Offices, madrigals, and theater works. These last were actually books of madrigals on related texts, using stock comic characters. They were often performed together as madrigal comedies, written to his own texts for the entertainment of Bologna's brilliant social circles; his Festino (1608) burlesques several current musical idioms and presents an imitation of animals improvising 'bestial counterpoint' over a cantus firmus.. Others include La pazzia senile (1598); Il metamorfosi musicale (1601); and Virtuoso ridotto (1601; also known as Servizia giovenile).