Diomedes Cato

Diomedes Cato ( * after 1560 in Treviso; † after 1618) was an Italian composer and lutenist of the Renaissance and early Baroque, who worked in Poland.

Life

In various contemporary reports and sources, it is often mentioned only as Diomedes. 1565 his family was Protestant, fled from the Inquisition to Poland and settled there. Cato came as a lutenist in the service of King Sigismund III. Wasa.

Work

Cato's compositions include polyphonic instrumental as vocal music, including preludes, fantasias, fugues, dances, such Gaillarden and Passamezzos, and madrigals. He mixed the style of the late Renaissance to the early Baroque as well as Italian idioms with Polish folk themes.