Melli was a composer, singer, and lawyer who, in 1600, was singing at Reggio Emilia Cathedral. In the same year he was probably in Padua as well having dedicated his second book with an inscription giving this indication. All of the extant works composed by Melli were monodies which were quite popular during his life time; accordingly, he thought himself an amateur composer as the works he composed were not arranged in any strict form. His music qualitatively was diatonic and torpid in harmony. Two interesting aspects of his composiitons were his use of polarity between the melodic and bass lines, and, chromatic progressions that accentuatd particular words. Madrigals were Melli's predominant genre and his productions included approximately fifty nine songs comprised of solos, duets and dialogues. ~ Keith Johnson, Rovi