Diruta, Girolamo

 Author of a remarkable treatise on organ-playing, far in advance of any publication of that time, who was born between 1554 and 1564 at Perugia, Italy. His family came originally from the village of Diruta, near Perugia, hence his name. He entered the Franciscan monastery at Correggio in 1574 and is said to have received his first instruction from Batista Capuani. He was later organist at Chioggia Cathedral and studied under Merulo. His work was the first treatise on the organ and clavier ever published and was issued about 1600. In the year 1622 he published another work in which he gave the rules of counterpoint and the method of composing fantasias, with several examples. The third part treated of the ecclesiastical tones and the method of transposing them.