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Gioseffo Guami was an organist and composer belonging to a famous Italian family of musicians. Between 1561 and 1568, he was at St. Mark’s in Venice, where he was a pupil of Willaert and Padrovano, and a singer in the capella grande. He then served as organist in the court of Duke Albert V of Bavaria in Munich and at St. Mark’s in Venice before returning to his native Lucca as organist at San Michele. The predominant influence in his music is that of Willaert and Rore. The instrumental canzonas, several of them antiphonal works in eight parts, are for the most part contained in his collection of Canzonette francese of 1601. Extended ornamental passagi, sequential patterns and motivic development are characteristic of these canzonas, which also appeared in numerous transcriptions for lute and organ. Vincenzo Galilei, the mus ician father of the famous astronomer, in his Dialogo della musica antica e moderna listed Guami with Padovano, Merulo and Luzzaschi as the only four in the whole of Italy "who could both play and write well."