Julius da Modena

(b Modena, 1498; d Rome, 23 July 1561). Italian keyboard player and composer. A singer at Modena Cathedral (1513) he sang in Rome and by 1530 was in Venice as first organist at St Mark's. He left Venice, probably for Rome, in 1533. He was the best organist of his day. Of his surviving ricercares, only one is for keyboard; it is unique for its thick, free-voiced writing.