Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1644), Italy’s greatest master of the organ and the most distinguished organist of the seventeenth century, was the first to infuse expressive power into organ music. He was complete master of the contrapuntal and harmonic art of his period and his work bears the stamp of genius that would tolerate no rule, whether old or new. ‘Understand me who can; I understand myself,’ he wrote as a motto over one of his works. So great was his fame, as Baini relates, that at his first appearance at St. Peter’s in Rome in 1614 he had an audience of 30,000 listeners. The organ on which he played was an instrument of fourteen stops with one manual and a short-compass pedal-board. He was organist of St. Peter’s from 1614 until his death, except from 1628 to 1633 when he was court-organist at Florence. Instrumental music was still in a crude, formative period, yet his harmonies are frequently startling in their boldness and romantic suggestion; his music shows almost complete emancipation from the sway of ecclesiastical modes; and in the vigor and force of his subjects as well as in the freedom with which he treated them and the expressive qualities he employed, he was far in advance of his age. His contributions to organ literature were numerous and important. They consisted of _ricercari_, _canzoni_, _toccatas_, and _capriccios_, many of which have been reprinted in modern notation in various collections of old masters.[100] He was careful to give very specific directions, many of which are exceedingly interesting, as to just how he wished his compositions performed. The culmination of Italian organ music was reached in Frescobaldi and the supremacy in this field was soon transferred to Germany, whither zealous and gifted German students had carried the fruits of their Italian study. Very little progress was made in Italy, in either organ-playing or organ-building, from the time of Frescobaldi until near the close of the nineteenth century, so completely was Italy under the domination of the particular kind of opera so dearly prized by that melody-loving country. A few important Italian names, however, remain to be mentioned. Giovanni Battista Fasolo, a Franciscan born at Asti, lived at Venice and was known mainly by a work (published in 1645) which supplied the organist with suitable material for the different services throughout the whole church-year. Giovanni Battista Bassini (1657-1716), a famous violinist and organist, was chapel-master of the Cathedral of Bologna from 1680 to 1685, when he went to Ferrara. Of interest is his _Sonata da Organo_ in F, in which he makes use of the ‘circle of keys’ in modulating away from and back to the principal key.