Vincenzo Comnen

Vincenzo Comneno (Vicencius Comnenus or Vićenc Komnen) (1590–1667) was a musician and madrigal composer of the Renaissance and early Baroque from the Republic of Ragusa.

There is no relevant data on the life of Vincenzo Komnen. In his romanticised (auto)biography one can find three madrigals on the same text Vaghe Nimfe which represent the only preserved pieces of music of the nobility in Ragusa (Dubrovnik).

He falsely claimed to be a descendant of the Byzantine Komnenos dynasty, when he in fact came from the lowest class. His real name is unknown.

He was born in the small village of Slani in Istria under the family name Piranese. According to the abbot of Naples, Lorenzo Miniatti (Venice 1663), Comnen was born in Naples in 1590.

He was educated at the Roman Jesuit College as a magister of philosophy and theology, but then joined the Dominicans. He became a Dominican priest.

He was a personal friend of Ragusan Franciscan bishop Dominik Andrijašević.

After completing his studies in the Spanish city of Salamanca he went to Rome and later to Naples where he became a professor of philosophy. Also, there he changed his last name from Piranese to Comnen; this way announcing himself an ancestor to the royal family from Constantinople. An assignment of his order sent him to Spain, where he became the padre of the invincible Spanish Armada during the reign of Philip IV of Spain. As a missionary, he also visited Japan. He returned to Dubrovnik briefly in 1660, where he accused his fellow Dominicans of an attempt to poison him; he even had an argument in front of Council of Republic of Ragusa regarding these accusations. A year later, he went on to Naples, where he died in 1667.

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