Gardano arrived in the city as a "musico francese" whose musical compositions had been published in
Lyons by
Jacques Moderne from 1532. Gardano set up a publishing house and between 1538 and 1569 published 450 editions of prominent composers, half of them Italian
madrigals. The composers best-represented in Gardano's output included
Jacques Arcadelt,
Cipriano de Rore,
Orlande de Lassus, and
Adrian Willaert, accounting for about 25 percent of his total publications. Gardano and
Girolamo Scotto, owner of the other large Venetian publishing house in the middle of the 16th century, held an effective monopoly on publishing in Italy for several decades. While the house of Scotto published volumes on law, medicine, philosophy, and theology in addition to music, Gardano published only music. After his death, his sons
Alessandro and
Angelo carried on with the activity of the Gardano publishing house, producing more than 1000 more editions of music. ==Works==