Aurelio Bonelli

Aurelio Bonelli
(b Bologna, ?1569; d after 1620). Italian composer, organist and painter. According to Eitner and Gerber he was active at Milan about 1600.

In 1602 he was organist of the monastery of S Michele in Bosco, Bologna, where between 1605 and 1616 he collaborated with his master Annibale Carracci on a series of frescoes and other paintings. He was still at Bologna in 1620, as organist of S Giovanni in Monte. Only his Primo libro de ricercari et canzoni (Venice, 1602) survives complete. Its contents, mostly in four parts, belong to the ‘classical’ Venetian tradition of instrumental music; they are also found, transcribed into German organ tablature and decked out with organ-style embellishments and diminutions, in a source in the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, Turin (VIII, Giordano, 8), which dates from 1639–40. The two volumes by him that survive incomplete are Primo libro delle villanelle a tre voci (Venice, 1596) and Messe e motetti a quattro voci (Venice, 1620).