Pitoni, Giuseppe Ottavio (1657–1743)

Italian composer. He wrote large quantities of church music, including a 16-part Dixit Dominus that is still sung at St Peter's, Rome, in Holy Week. He also wrote on the history and theory of music.

He studied with Pompeo Natale from an early age, and became a chorister at the churches of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini and Santi Apostoli in Rome, where he was a pupil of Foggia. After church posts in Monterotondo and Assisi he became maestro di cappella at Rieti (in western Italy) in 1676, and from the next year to his death at the Collegio San Marco in Rome, later also at the Lateran and St Peter's.

Works Church music over 250 Masses, 780 psalm settings, Magnificats, motets, Litanies, and two Passions.