There were, of course, many organists before Landino, but none of them seem to have gained any special excellence in the practice of their art. Until about the time of Landino the professions of organ-playing and organ-building, certainly as far as church-music was concerned, seem to have been more commonly than otherwise combined in the same person. But after Landino organ-playing became more of a specialized department of musical art. Early in the next century Antonio Sguarcialupo achieved much fame for his performances and in 1435 was appointed organist at the newly-dedicated Cathedral of Santa Maria at Florence. He was of noble birth and was a man of refined and scholarly attainments. He evidently held the double position of church organist and court organist to Lorenzo the Magnificent, and his playing was so exceptional that it attracted people to Florence from far and near to listen to it. Lorenzo treated him as a friend, and so highly did he esteem him that at his death he wrote a sonnet eulogizing the musician, in which Death is made to say, ‘I have taken him in order that Heaven may be made more joyful with his music.’ No compositions of his for either organ or voices have come down to us, but he left a valuable collection of older Italian compositions, thirteen in number, the only existing examples of Italian musical art of that far-off time. This collection is now in the Library of St. Lorenzo in Florence. The Netherlanders, who were the musical masters of Europe during this period, were the founders of the first real school of organ-playing in Italy. The two men who gave this movement its first impetus and direction were Adrian Willaert (about 1480-1562), who was _maestro di cappella_ of St. Mark’s at Venice from 1527 till his death, and Jacques Buus (born in Flanders about 1510), who was second organist at St. Mark’s from 1541 to 1551. They cultivated with special zeal and preference the so-called _ricercare_, one of the most important of the early instrumental forms. Willaert’s creative interest naturally lay more in the direction of composing for the fine choral establishment which St. Mark’s maintained, but Buus seems to have made at least the beginning of a type of instrumental music that was conceived for the organ and not merely transcribed from vocal music, thus paving the way for real organ music.