ANTONIO, one of the great founders of the Venetian school of musical composition, was born at Venice about 1665; and died there in 1740. He studied music under Giovanni Legrenzi, and in 1693 became first organist of St Mark's, a position which he held till he was appointed chapel-master of that cathedral in 1736. In 1718 he was called to Dresden, in order to compose an opera for the Elector of Saxony. He returned to Venice the same year, and then devoted himself to the study of music for the church. According to his continental critics, the style of his music is clear and expressive, and he possessed peculiar skill in writing parts for voices smoothly and melodiously—a rare and difficult branch of musical composition. In his madrigals and church music, he was considered superior to all other composers of his time. Most of his church music was deposited in the library of St Mark, and little of it published. He composed nineteen operas for the theatre. In 1705 he published at Venice a collection of his vocal duets and trios, and madrigals for four and five voices. One of these madrigals—*In una siepe ombrosa*—Bononcini (Handel's opponent in London) had the folly and impudence to publish as his own. This imposture was detected and exposed in 1782 and Bononcini having thus lost all credit, besides having become intolerably insolent and overbearing, quitted England for the continent in the following year. Latrobe, in the second volume of his *Selections*, gives a "Qui Tollis," and, in the third volume, a "Gloria in excelsis," by Lotti.