author
Giuseppe Bertini
1759–1852
An Italian priest, composer, and music scholar from Palermo, he spent a long life helping document the world of music as well as contributing to it. He is especially remembered for an early large-scale dictionary of musicians and musical writers.
4 Audiobooks
Dizionario storico-critico degli scrittori di musica e de' più celebri artisti, vol. 2 Di tutte le nazioni sì antiche che moderne
by Giuseppe Bertini
Dizionario storico-critico degli scrittori di musica e de' più celebri artisti, vol. 1 Di tutte le nazioni sì antiche che moderne
by Giuseppe Bertini
About the author
Born in Palermo on January 20, 1759, Giuseppe Bertini was the son of composer Salvatore Bertini and likely received his first musical training at home. He studied at the Scuole Pie degli Scolopi, was ordained as a Catholic priest, and went on to build a life that joined music, scholarship, and literary interests.
Bertini worked not only as a composer and choral conductor, but also as a scholar of Sicilian archaeology, literature, and cultural history. Sources describe him as a learned and wide-ranging figure, and he is often noted for serving at Palermo's Cappella Palatina, where his father had also worked.
For readers today, his most lasting claim to fame is probably the Dizionario storico-critico degli scrittori di musica e de' più celebri artisti di tutte le nazioni sì antiche che moderne, published in Palermo in 1814–1815. That ambitious reference work made him an important early music lexicographer. He died in Palermo on March 15, 1852.