Italian composer. The only details we have about Bernardo Storace are those contained in the 1664 edition of his works, the Selva di varie compositioni d'intavolatura per cimbalo et organo,in which the composer is described as being 'vice maestro di cappella del Senato della città di Messina'. This collection, which was described by Willy Apel as a 'monument of the south Italian school', consists of a series of variations on famous dances of the time, amongst which there are the Passagagli (a Spanish form of dance which probably came into being at the end of the sixteenth century); these constitute one of the first appearances in the purely instrumental field of the term 'pastorale'.