Conradus de Pistoria

Who is Conradus de Pistoria?

Conradus de Pistoria was an Italian composer of the late medieval era and early Renaissance, active in Florence and elsewhere in northern Italy. He is listed in the standard histories of music for the period, including the New Oxford History of Music: Ars Nova and the Renaissance, 1300-1540, and the New Grove. Conradus was an Italian representative of the manneristic school of composers known as the ars subtilior, closely associated with the courts of the schismatic popes during the period of the Avignon Papacy.

Next to nothing is known about his life, but for a few inferences, and one archival reference. Probably he was associated with Antipope Alexander V and Antipope John XXIII. Conradus's two known works appear in a manuscript assembled in Bologna, where Alexander V died in May 1410. Prior to coming to Bologna but after his election to the schismatic papacy in 1409 Alexander had been in Pistoia, Conradus's likely birthplace. Conradus was probably a singer at San Reparata in Florence, where employment records show he joined the choir in December 1410.