(b 's-Hertogenbosch; fl Rome, 1575–1608). Dutch calligrapher, editor and engraver of music. He moved to Rome not later than 1575 and in 1586 he began to publish music books, among the first to be printed entirely from engraved plates. (The Intabolatura da leuto del divino Francesco da Milano, imperfectly engraved in about 1535, inspired no immediate imitations of the technique.) Two of these were entitled Diletto spirituale, one with keyboard score and lute tablature (see illustration), and one with only the vocal parts; the third was Peetrino's Primo libro delle melodie spirituali. In two of the books Verovio called himself ‘scrittore’, but in all three books the phrase ‘Martinus van Buijten incidit’ appears on the title-page. Van Buyten may have engraved all of the plates for the Peetrino book and the purely vocal version of Diletto spirituale as well as other Verovio books. However, the version of Diletto spirituale with instrumental music was ‘collected by Simon Verovio, engraved and printed by the same’. In some later editions Verovio clearly stated that he was the engraver, others he signed ‘appresso Simone Verovio’ or ‘stampate da S.V.’, and some he did not sign at all.
Verovio's 18 signed music books show his cursive hand; the music hand is neat, with shaded and rounded note-heads. The books are largely devoted to three-voiced canzonette spirituali, often with optional instrumental parts, by composers then active in Rome. Musically his most impressive books are Luzzaschi's Madrigali (1601) and Merulo's two books of Toccate d'intavolatura (1598, 1604). He also probably printed Anerio's Gagliarde of 1607. Verovio also wrote or contributed to at least five writing books between 1587 and 1598, two of them broadsides.
Verovio's Gesu sommo conforto appears in the Diletto spirituale, but his musical activities cannot be further traced. Several Roman musicians of the early part of the 17th century were named Verovio and were probably his children. They include Giacomo (fl 1607), singer in the Oratorio dei Filippini; Giovanni (fl 1614), also a singer; Michelangelo del Violino, whose mordents and vibrato on the violin were mentioned by Arteaga; and La Verovia, a nun in the convent of the Holy Spirit, famed for her singing. Della Valle cited the ‘tenore famoso’ who sang in his carro simply as ‘Verovio’.
BrownI
MGG1 (C. Sartori)
SartoriB
SartoriD
VogelB
P. della Valle: ‘Della musica dell'età nostra … Discorso’ (1640), in G.B. Doni: De' trattati di musica, ii (Florence, 1763), 249
S. Arteaga: Le rivoluzioni del teatro musicale italiano, i (Bologna, 1783/R, 2/1785), 345
R. Casimiri: ‘Simone Verovio da Hertogenbosch’, NA, x (1933), 189–99
R. Casimiri: ‘Simone Verovio: Aggiunte’, NA, xi (1934), 66–7
B. Becherini: ‘Giovanni Francesco Anerio ed alcune sue gagliarde per cembalo’, La bibliofilia, xlii (1940–41), 159–64
A.F. Johnson: ‘A Catalogue of Italian Writing-Books of the Sixteenth Century’, Signature, new ser., no.10 (1950), 22–48
C. Bonacini: Bibliografia delle arti scrittorie e della calligrafia (Florence, 1953)
A.H. King: Four Hundred Years of Music Printing (London, 1964, 2/1968), 15ff, pl.XIV
A.J. Ness, ed.: The Lute Music of Francesco Canova da Milano (1497–1543), HPM, iii–iv (1970), 12
G.L. Anderson: The Canzonetta Publications of Simone Verovio, 1586–1595 (diss., U. of Illinois, 1976)
A. Morelli: ‘Nuovi documenti frescobaldiani: i contratti per l'edizione del primo libro di Toccate’, Studi Musicali, xvii (1988), 255–65, esp. 263–4
R.A. Edwards: Claudio Merulo: Servant of the State and Musical Enterpreneur in Later Sixteenth-Century Venice (diss., Princeton U., 1990), 196, 281–2
S. Morison: Early Italian Writing-Books: Renaissance to Baroque (Verona, 1990), 119, 128–9, 138–40
P.A.L. Boncella: The Classical Venetian Organ Toccata (1591–1604): an Ecclesiastical Genre Shaped by Printing Technologies and Editorial Policies (diss., Rutgers U.,1991), esp. 219–39
T. Carter: Music in Late Renaissance and Early Baroque Italy (London, 1992)
THOMAS W. BRIDGES