Ferrari, Benedetto (c. 1597–1681)

Italian music theorist, playwright, and composer. The final duet of his opera Il pastor regio (Bologna, 1641) may have been used as the duet at the end of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea.

He lived in Venice, where he began to produce music dramas with words and music of his own in 1637. In 1645 he went to the court of Modena, where he remained until 1662, except for a visit to Vienna 1651–53. He was then dismissed, but re-appointed in 1674.

Works Opera Armida (1639), La ninfa avara (1641), Il pastor regio (1641), Proserpina rapita, and others; oratorio Sansone; three books of Musiche varie a voce sola.