Francesco Foggia

Biography

Foggia was a boy soprano at the Collegium Germanicum of the Jesuits in Rome, and was a student of Antonio Cifra, and Paolo Agostini. Perhaps his family was in contact with Giovanni Bernardino Nanino, maestro di capella at San Luigi dei Francesi. Later, he was probably employed at the court of the Bavarian Elector Maximilian I in Munich and then again in Vienna.

He served in various churches in Rome as maestro di capella and infrequently as an organist. From October 1634 he served for two years at the chapel of St. Mary in Trastevere; from December 1646 to 1661 he was Kapellmeister of the Patriarchal Basilica of St. John Lateran. In 1667, while music director of the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso, he published a collection, Psalmodia Vespertina, containing psalms, Magnificats, and Marian antiphons. From 1677 until his death, he was chapel master at the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, and while there published his valedictory Offertoria (1681). That publication has been linked to Palestrina's of about a century before. His son Antonio succeeded him in the same position at Santa Maria Maggiore. His wife Eugenia died on 12 March 1683; Foggia died on 8 January 1688 and was buried in the church of Santa Prassede in Rome.

Works (selection)

Foggia's works were known outside the areas he worked - Italy, Munich and Vienna. For example, while he never worked in France, 7 of Foggia's motets survive in a collection by Danican Philidor, along with motets by Carissimi, Daniel Danielis, Pierre Robert and Lully.