Abstract
Giovanni Rovetta’s Salmi Concertati (1626) is a collection of twenty compositions: four instrumental canzoni, four motets and twelve psalms with independent and accompanying violin parts. This set and other sacred works by Rovetta seem to have been neglected in favour of the brilliant ‘stile concerto’ settings of Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). Rovetta, a figure neither as forceful nor as celebrated as Monteverdi, has been overlooked or airily dismissed by musicologists. Yet during the period in which he lived Rovetta’s church music would have been well-known by the public because of its extraordinarily wide distribution. [Extract from Introduction]