Antonino Barges

Who was Antonino Barges?

Antonino Barges was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Venice and Treviso. While known as a composer of light popular secular forms such as the villotta, he also wrote motets and a Requiem. He was a friend and probably a student of Adrian Willaert, the founder of the Venetian School, and was listed as a witness to Willaert's last will and testament.

Little is known about his early life. He was born in Barges. Like many of his countrymen, he received a good musical education in the Low Countries, and either in youth or early adulthood came to Italy, where employment prospects for singers and composers were better than at home. By 1550 he had become maestro di cappella at the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice, a prestigious post. He left Venice in 1555, going to Treviso, where he became a Franciscan and joined the convent of San Francesco. Further records show that he was employed at Treviso Cathedral between 1562 and 1565 as maestro di cappella. No further records of his life have yet been found, and he has not yet been the subject of a dedicated scholarly biography.

Barges venerated his teacher and friend Willaert, and mentioned him glowingly in the dedication to his first book of villotte: "l'unico inventore della vera e buona musica" Indeed, friendship is a theme of the dedication: in addition to the reference to Willaert, Barges characterizes his relationship with Girolamo Fenaruolo, the dedicatee, as a friendship, and mentions their mutual friends Stefano Taberio and Marco Silvio. If Barges's dedication is to be believed, these men were among the first to hear and sing his songs, but the songs might also have found a home in Domenico Venier's salon.