Giovanni Animuccia (c. 1520 – c. 20 March 1571) was an Italian composer of the Renaissance and was involved in the heart of Rome’s liturgical musical life, and one of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's most important contemporaries. As the first maestro di capella of St Philip Neri's Oratory and magister cantorum of the Capella Giulia, he was composing music at the very centre of the Roman Catholic Church, during the turbulent reforms of the Counter-Reformation and as part of the new movements that began to flourish around the middle of the century. His music reflects these changes.
