family, having originated in Venice, were also probably familiar with the vocal style, advanced technique, and complex improvised ornamentation described in Ganassi's Fontegara, and they were probably among the recorder players whom Ganassi reports having worked and studied with: when they were brought to England, they were regarded as some of the best wind players in Venice. While most of the music attributed to the consort uses only a range of a thirteenth, it is possible that the Bassano's were familiar with Ganassi's extended range. Recorders were also played with other instruments, especially in England, where it was called a mixed consort or "broken consort". Other sixteenth-century composers whose instrumental music can be played well on recorder consorts include: Anthony Holborne (c. 15451602) Tielman Susato (c. 1510c. 1570) Other notable composers of the Renaissance whose music may be played on the recorder include: Guillaume Dufay (13971474) Johannes Ockeghem (1410/14251497) Josquin des Prez (1450/14551521) Heinrich Isaac (14501517) Ludwig Senfl (1486c. 1542) Orlando di Lasso (c. 15301594) William Byrd (c. 15391623) John Dowland (15631626) Cultural significance The recorder was widely used in the sixteenth century, and was one of the most common instruments of the Renaissance. From the fifteenth century onwards, paintings show upper-class men and women playing recorder, and Virdung's didactic treatise (1511), the first of its kind, was aimed at the amateur (see also Documentary evidence). Henry VIII was a recorder player; at his death in 1547 an inventory of his possessions included 76 recorders in consorts of various sizes and materials. Some Italian paintings from the sixteenth century show aristocracy of both sexes playing the recorder, however many gentlemen found it unbecoming to play because it uses the mouth, preferring the lute and later the viol. Shakespeare mentions the recorder in Hamlet, written at the turn of the seventeenth century, as does Milton in Paradise Lost published in 1667, in which fallen angels in Hell "move / in perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood / of flutes and soft recorders". Baroque recorders Structure Several changes in the construction of recorders took place in the seventeenth century, resulting in the type of instrument generally referred to as Baroque recorders, as opposed to the earlier Renaissance recorders. These innovations allowed baroque recorders to possess a tone regarded as "sweeter" than that of the earlier instruments, at the expense of a reduction in volume, particularly in the lowest notes. The evolution of