echo effects characteristic of the music of the Venetians. More famous than his sacred music, however, is his output of madrigals in the virtuoso Ferrarese style of his teacher, Luzzaschi. He published five books of madrigals for five and six voices which have survived, as well as a book of canzonette for four voices; however at least seven books of madrigals or similar compositions have been lost. These compositions span the time from the early 1580s (his first publication was in Ferrara in 1583) to late in his life: his last publication was the ninth book of madrigals, for five voices (or instruments), in 1617, in Venice. In this last book his debt to Luzzaschi is most apparent, as four of the compositions contain extensive, and acknowledged, borrowings from his teacher. Several madrigals from the lost books of Belli were copied by Francis Tregian the Younger, the supposed copyist of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, while in prison in England; they survive in a manuscript kept in the British Library (GB-Lbl) References and further reading Iain Fenlon: "Girolamo Belli", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed April 16, 2006), (subscription access) Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. 1552 births 1620s deaths Italian classical composers Italian male classical composers Renaissance composers