Luigi Dentice (1510 in Naples – 1566 in Naples) was an Italian composer, musical theorist, singer and lutenist who served the powerful Sanseverino family,T. Crawford, "Lute counterpoint from Naples" in Early Music, Oxford Journals 2006 and was father of Fabrizio Dentice (1539 – 1581), also a composer and lutenist.Dinko Fabris, 'Vita e opere di Fabrizio Dentice, nobile napoletano, compositore del secondo Cinquecento', Studi musicali, He was grandfather of Scipione Dentice (1560–1633).
Biography Dentice came from the noble Dentice family. When his father died in 1561 he inherited the title of Baron of Viggiano. He married Vincenza Caracciolo, who in 1566 was left a widow with two young children. In the 1550s the Dentices travelled extensively in Spain.Jeanice Brooks, Courtly song in late sixteenth-century France p. 53 As a singer, Luigi Dentice appears to have sung as a male soprano falsettist.Richard Wistreich, Warrior, courtier, singer: Giulio Cesare Brancaccio and the Performance of Identity in the Late Renaissance, p. 138-139
His main work of music theory Duo dialoghi della musica, Rome 1553, was a collection of classical Greek and Latin writings on music, translated into Italian, with Dentice's own commentary.Duo dialoghi della musica Edition 1988 81 pages The title promises one dialogue on theory, another on practice.Ann Elizabeth Moyer Musica scientia: musical scholarship in the Italian Renaissance 1992, p. 147 The text is interspersed with a few comments on contemporary music and musicians.James Haar in Iain Fenlon, Early Music History: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Music 2009 p. 50 It also includes Dentice's opinions on inflection in musica ficta,,Karol Berger, Musica Ficta: Theories of Accidental Inflections in Vocal Polyphony and the practice of monody later developed by Giulio Caccini and others.Wistreich op.cit. p. 139
Works Songs in posthumous collection Arie Raccolti, printed Rocco Rodio, Naples 1577.
Selected discography Two songs: Come t'haggio lassata, o via mia? Chi me l'havesse dett', o via mia? on Napolitane - villanelle, arie & moresche (1530-70). Ensemble Micrologus, Cappella della Pietà de' Turchini dir. Florio, Opus111 1999
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