Michelagnolo Galilei

Michelagnolo Galilei (sometimes spelled Michelangelo; 18 December 1575 – 3 January 1631) was an Italian composer and lutenist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, active mainly in Bavaria and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was the son of music theorist and lutenist Vincenzo Galilei, and the younger brother of the renowned astronomer Galileo Galilei.

Galilei was born in Florence. He learned to play the lute at an early age, like his father. Most likely he was destined for a career in Florence, but when his father died in 1591, the sixteen-year-old lutenist was put in the charge of his older brother Galileo Galilei, who was in Padua.

Some other employment had to be found for Michelagnolo, so in 1593 he went to Poland, where foreign musicians were much in demand. Most likely he went there with the powerful Lithuanian Radziwiłł family. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had several sophisticated musical establishments at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, especially at Kraków: Luca Marenzio, one of Italy's most famous madrigal composers, went there for a time, as did lutenists Diomedes Cato and Valentin Bakfark. Lutenists were particularly in demand, and a considerable quantity of lute music was printed in Poland and Lithuania, in cities such as Kraków, Gdańsk, Toruń and Vilnius.

Michelagnolo came back from Poland in 1599, in a second failed attempt to gain employment in Florence in the court of Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici, but returned in 1600 to his previous employer in Poland-Lithuania. He stayed there until 1607, at which time he was hired by the Munich Hofkapelle of Duke Maximilian I.

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