(Città di Castello, January 26, 1595 - 1679)
At first, he was perhaps a pupil of his uncle Lorenzo and then of Giovanni Maria and Giovanni Bernardino Nanino. He was a chapel master of the Piararanse Musical Chapel of the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome from 1626 to 1628, passing in 1629 in the cathedral of the hometown, where he married on October 30, 1631, Dorotea Giustini. In 1633, he moved to Orvieto, enrolling in the Academy of Assorted and directing the musical chapel of the Duomo. He was still in Rome the following year and again in Città di Castello, resuming service at the Cathedral on January 3, 1639.
The following year, he was again in Rome, where he would stop for a long time: master of the chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore, with some interruption, until June 13, 1677, and had the title of "Guardian of the Masters" in 1663, 1666 and 1669 in the Academy of Santa Cecilia. By now old, he preferred to return to Città di Castello, superintendent of the cathedral, to die at the end of 1679.
Composer of works, choral and sacred music is considered one of the main precursors of the high-baroque monumental style. While cultivating the sacred polyphony, he devoted himself to the highly rigid and severe style that dominated at that time and was redone to Giovanni da Palestrina's compositions. Abbatini was instead very attracted by the new characters of the musical work, which provided for an expressive contribution to music more focused on drama, to most involve those who approached them. Abbatini was therefore influenced by the second practice theorized by Claudio Monteverdi and was therefore also an operaist, composing various works including The Comedian of the Sky, ion and above all, the first opera of a comic topic: from Evil the Good, on the booklet of the future Pope Clement IX and characterized by the use of dry recitative.
