Francesco Canona or Canova was born near Milan in 1497 and died in 1543. It was his place of birth rather than his family name which was almost exclusively used when referring to him during his professional life. He was the personal lutenist in Rome to Cardinal Ippolito de Medici and to Popes Leo X (1513-1521), Clement VII (1523-34), and Paul III (1534-1549). Francesco’s first printed works date from 1536. In that year, three publications appeared, two of which were devoted only to works by Francesco. The third was an anthology in which his music can be found alongside anonymous dances and pieces by his contemporaries.
Giovanni Maria da Crema remains to this day a mysterious figure in the history of the lute, with very little information known about his life. However his oeuvre is crucial to understanding the lute’s place in 16th-century Italy. His Libro primo, published in Venice by Antonio Gardane in 1546, is presented as an edition “newly reprinted and corrected by the author himself”, indicating the existence of a rival prior edition, namely that published by Girolamo Scotto, with the same contents and minimal differences. Two years later, also in Venice, Scotto would publish Francesco da Milano’s Libro settimo which also includes keyboard pieces by Giulio Segni da Modena intabulated for the lute by Giovanni Maria da Crema. Some of these intabulations had already appeared in Giovanni Maria da Crema’s Libro primo without mention of Giulio Segni’s authorship of the keyboard original.