Bernardino Cirillo Franco (May 20, 1500 – June 19, 1575), also called Bernardino Cirillo and Cyrilo Franco, was a Roman Catholic bishop of Loreto, Italy.[1]
He was born in the city of L'Aquila, Italy on May 20, 1500. His father was Pietro Sante de' Cirilli and his mother was Gemma Bucci.[2]
He participated in the Council of Trent and was interested in improving Church music. He published litanies to the Virgin Mary.[1][3] Cirillo advocated a return to the simplicity and harmony of the earlier forms of Church music rather than elaborate forms of organ music.[4]
Cirillo attacked "modern" church music in a 1549 letter to Ugolino Gualteruzzi.[1][5] In 1649, King John IV of Portugal wrote a treatise entitled Defense of modern music against the mistaken opinion of Bishop Cyrilo Franco [i.e., Bernardino Cirillo],[6] presenting a point-by-point rebuttal of Cirillo's letter.[7]
^d'Alvarenga, João Pedro. "The Debate on Musical Aesthetics around 1600 and the Defensa de la mvsica moderna by King João IV (1649)". Academia.edu. p. 237. Defensa de la musica moderna, a short treatise written in 1649 by the Portuguese King João IV as a point by point response to Bishop Bernardo Cirillo's famous mid-sixteenth-century letter ... In 'New Music' 1400-1600: Papers from an International Colloquium on the Theory, Authorship and Transmission of Music in the Age of the Renaissance (Lisbon-Évora, 27-29 May 2003), ed. João Pedro d'Alvarenga e Manuel Pedro Ferreira, Lisboa, Évora: CESEM, Centro de História da Arte e Investigação Artística, Casa do Sul.