Alfonso dalla Viola

Alfonso dalla Viola was an Italian composer and instrumentalist of the Renaissance. He was the principal composer at the Este court in Ferrara for about four decades in the middle sixteenth century, and was renowned as a player of several instruments, including the viola d'arco. While much of his incidental music, composed for court entertainments, is lost, several books of his madrigals have survived. His position as court composer in Ferrara paralleled that of Francesco Corteccia in the competing city of Florence.