Salamone Rossi was born in 1570 and died in Mantua in 1630, having spent his entire working life in that city. His failure to play the field, as it were, and work at several different Italian centres in the manner of most of his contemporaries, may have had something to with the fact that he was Jewish, and was working at a time when there was discrimination verging on persecution.  (Rossi was sufficiently respected in Mantua that the requirements, that Jewish citizens should wear yellow armbands, would be waived in his case.)

Rossi published four books of instrumental pieces. The first two books, printed in 1607 and 1608, and now available in facsimile, consist mostly of short sinfonie and gagliarde of a relatively unadventurous nature; the second book also contains some four-part canzoni typical of turn-of-the-century music. Much of this material was edited by F. J. Giesbert many years ago, and is now part of the staple diet of recorder players.