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He was born in Bologna on 21 ag. 1662, by Francesco and Anna Maria Sermani, in the parish of S. John the Baptist of Celestines. For chronological reasons, less likely is his recognition in the son of Rinaldo and Antonia Fratta, born in Bologna on 23 ag. 1664 in the parish of S. Cecilia (Phirasmal Recorders of the Cathedral).

Contrary to what has been assumed, he was not the brother of the violist and composer Clemente Monari, as he has been supported by the independence of the two careers. The nickname of “Monarino” was not intended to distinguish it from an older relative, but it was part of the use of the diminutive form with a vain value, frequent at that time in Bologna, a city to which M. linked his entire activity.

According to the memoirs handed down by the champion Olivo Penna, the M. “under the direztion of Agostino Filippucci priest, and famous composer, [...] learned the first precepts of music” and “became primitor so rare, that few were counted in its time: it was then in the composing with a naturalness, and a bizarria so rare, which deserved the universal applause. 179). The 20 Apr. 1679 was aggregated to the local Philharmonic Academy in the class of the players, in addition to that of the composers, after having presented as an examination work a four-voice Missa brevis still preserved in the Archive of that institution (capsa I, n. 10). In the same period, the records of extraordinary expenses incurred for the feast of s. Petronio, patron saint of the city, counted him among the supernumerary musicians, with probable role as a singer in the register of tenor or low and with an occasional pay – equal to that assigned to his colleagues – of 3 lire Bolognese (Vanscheeuwijck, pp. 259, 263).

The performance of the first speakers for music of M. took place, shortly thereafter, in the church of the Bolognese archconfraternity of the Ss. Sebastiano and Rocco, Dec. 10. 1681, with La Giuditte and, a year later – on the same votive day dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary – with Constance triumphant in the martyrdom of himself. Sebastiano (libretti by G.V. Snodelli). The printed booklet of the second work already indicates the M. as a choirmaster of the monumental church of S. Giovanni in Monte, although this role was at that time still regularly exercised by Filippucci. According to Penna, M. assumed the role of organist in that church only in 1685, and then succeeded in the same year to the deceased choirmaster. However, “I am a year agreed to alienate from such use for various of him ends” (Penna, p. 179), or rather because this office was to be understood as an interim one (Vanscheeuwijck, p. 36). Once Giuseppe Felice Tosi, Giovanni Bononcini and Giovanni Paolo Colonna had succeeded, M. again assumed the management role from 1 July 1691 until his death.

At the same time, he was relevant in the nearby Philharmonic Academy, where on 31 March 1689 he received the academic principality by draw. In the year of office he favored the reform of the statutes in devotional, archival, philanthropic, economic and behavioral aspects (Memories for the lords composers / singers and sounders of the Accademia de' signori Filarmonici, Bologna 1689: 500 copies printed and distributed on April 21; Penna, p. 189); he also exercised by appointment of the office of councillor in the years 1683, 1693 and 1694 (or 1695), that of collector of composers in 1689 and that of censorship in 1690 and 1695.
Since 1680 he was invited to compose music for the annual academic festival in the church of S. John in Monte: on 9 July 1680 presented a motet for elevation and a Salve Regina; on June 15, 1681, a second motet for the elevation and a second Salve Regina; on July 13, 1682, a third motet for elevation and a Magnificat; in June or July 1683, a Credo and a Dixit Dominus; on 23 June 1684, aIntroitus Laudate pueriCredo itebor; on July 26, 1687, a Beatus vir and a second Laudate pueri; on 7 July 1688, a third Creed; on 7 July 1689, a couple of Kyrie and Gloria and a third Laudate pueri; on 4 July 1690, a symphony after the epistle; July 6, 1691, a Domine ad adiuvandum; on 10 July 1692, a secondIntroitus ConfiteborCredo1694, a second Beatus vir; 15 July 1695, a second Magnificat; 25 June 1696, a second Dixit Dominus; on June 28, 1697, a second Domine ad adiuvandum. According to the chronology of the Academy, the feast of June 26, 1703, also included the posthumous execution of a Beatus vir. The scores of these works are all lost; unrelature is probably the origin of a Laudate pueri with three voices handed down to apograph with the date of July 14, 1707 (Bologna, International Museum and Music Library, AA.366). With the sung for high only and low continuous La Popea (“Correa with a superb piè”), the M. finally contributed to Melpomene crowned by Felsina (Bologna 1685), an anthology conceived by the flower of Bolognese musicians aggregated or close to the Philharmonic Academy.

As for his extraccademic activity, M. persevered in the composition of oratories with Agare, performed in the Filipino church of S. Maria of Galliera on 1st Nov. 1685 (booklet of S. Gualchieri), and with L’enigma di Sansone, executed in the palace of the Marquis Filippo Amatore Spada during the 1690 (libretto of A.A. Sacco). On the other hand, he barely lapped the theatrical production with the drama for music Cato the Younger, represented in the Foragliari theater during 1688 (libretto by G.B. Neri; the warning to the reader reads: “in the elocution of the verse he admires only the harmony of Mr. Bartolomeo Monari now experienced in the finesse of these subjects, well that these are the theatrical first fruits of his pen).

August 1687 dates a violent clash between the faction of Count Filippo Bentivogli and that of Count Pietro Malvezzi, protectors respectively of M. and Giacomo Antonio Perti, due to a request for music that the nuns of S. Lorenzo, for the feast of their patron, had addressed the first of the two composers dissatisfying the supporters of the second (Ricci, p. 362).

The 6th of September. 1693 M. was elected organist of the Confraternity of the Poveri Queen of Heaven, with preference to Giuseppe Antonio Vincenzo Aldrovandini, Pietro degli Antoni and Giuseppe Antonio Silvani; he maintained employment until his death (Fanti). Of some importance was also his activity as a teacher for the instrument, having perfected, among other students, Giuseppe Monteventi (Penna, p. 324). To be set aside is instead the hypothesis that he was a singing teacher of virtuous celebrities, including Francesco Antonio Mamiliano Pistocchi.

The M., after having presented supplication to the Fabbriceria of the Basilica of S. Petronio, on June 30, 1692, with the recommendation of the cardinal legate Benedetto Pamphili, this institution took on him on the 14th Dec. 1693 from the next day, with first payment on December 19, and assigned him as requested the role of second organist in his musical chapel, making him take over from Tosi, deceased, and flanking it to Julius Caesar Arresti (Vanscheeuwijck, pp. 160, 265). This prestigious assumption determined the final set-up of M.’s career: under the direction of Colonna and until the whole of 1695, M. perceived a monthly salary of 20 Bolognese lire; a few weeks after the death of the chapel master, the 16 genn. 1696 in fact and on February 3 in a formal way, the Fabbriceria dissolved the musical institution pro tempore, except to keep the two organists in service and proceed on August 30 following the appointment of Perti as successor of Colonna; the last payment mandate in favor of the M. bears the date of 29 Dec. 1696.
M. died in Bologna on 7 January. 1697 and was buried in the church of S. Martin of the Sardinian Cross (Martini, 1971, p. 57). After his death, the Fabbriceria of S. Petronius extincts the stable role of second organist, an exact century after its establishment.

The compositional production of M. It is partly handed down small. The press collection Sonata from organ of various authors (Bologna 1697 circa), edited by Arresti, includes three of his works; another 17 of the same genre – but not all of them of sure attribution – are found in the manuscript collection Intavolatura di sonatas and pieces for organ (Bologna, International Museum and Music Library, CC.232) and a further one, perhaps coinciding with one of the aforementioned, in a miscellaneous of the masters of the master’s. Vessella, 207). Beyond the Missa brevis and the Laudate pueri mentioned, belong to the sacred genre a four-part Benedictus with a bass continuo (Turin, Chapter Archive of the cathedral) and a four-voice Miserere concerted with violins and «"fighting" (Vienna, ?sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Mus.Hs., 19056). A sung for soprano and basso continuo (Amor, tu che’ hai per uso) is welcomed in a luxurious manuscript offered as a gift by Colonna to Duke Francesco II d’Este in 1689 (Modena, Biblioteca Estensea, Mus., C.312); eight more sung with the same organic (If in amor I look for the escape; Oh as strange, or Cinzia; Partho, of myFortuna, e dormi?; Many rays the sun does not spread; All the beautiful that the eyes aim; When I think of that labro of yours; I Solve worship you) are in a second anthology also of Emilian origin (Naples, Library of the Conservatory of Music of S. Peter in Majella, Cantate, 33). A portrait of the M. with coat of arms and in a cassock – a privilege linked in this case to the role in the musical chapels and not to the ecclesiastical state – belonged to Giambattista Martini and is currently kept in the International Museum and Music Library of Bologna.

Sources and Bibl.: Bologna, Archive of the Philharmonic Academy, O. Pen, Chronology, or be the General Histority of this Academy... MDCCXXXVI, I, pp. 29, 43, 53, 55, 65, 68, 73, 96-98, 106, 110, 165, 174, 179-193, 196, 198, 200, 235, 324; Bologna, Archivio generale arcivescovile, Orchestras of the cathedral, 115, c. 168v; 117, c. 204r; G.B. Martini, chronological series of the Filarmonici Academy of Bologna, Bologna 1776, pp. 15 s.; Id., Catalogue of the aggregates of the Accademia filarmonica di Bologna, edited by A. Schnoebelen, Bologna 1971, pp. 56 s.; C. Ricci, The theatres of Bologna in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: anecdotal history, Bologna 1888, pp. 358, 362 s., 367; O. Mixed - L.F. Tagliavini, The organic art in Italy, in Chigiana: Musicians in Lombardy and Emilia, XV (1958), pp. 111 s.; M. Fanti, The Church and the Compagnia dei poveri in Bologna. An institution of mutual aid in the Bolognese society between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Bologna 1977, p. 109; O. Gambassi, The Musical Chapel of S. Petronius. Masters, organists, singers and instrumentalists from 1436 to 1920, Florence 1987, pp. 154-156, 486 s.; L. Callegari Hill, L’Accademia filarmonica di Bologna, 1666-1800: statutes, aggregate indices and catalog of examination experiments in the archive, with a historical introduction, Bologna 1991, pp. 95, 248, 264, 321, 328, 333; O. Gambassi, the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna. Foundation, statutes and aggregations, Florence 1992, pp. 284-286, 301; J. Riepe, Die Arciconfraternita of S. Maria della Morte in Bologna: Beitr?ge zur Geschichte des italienischen Oratoriums im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Paderborn 1998, pp. 61, 85, 105, 201; V. Crowther, The oratorio in Bologna 1650-1730, Oxford 1999, pp. 31, 33, 72, 140, 149, 151; M. Vanscheeuwijck, The Musical Chapel of S. Petronio in Bologna under Giovanni Paolo Colonna (1674-95), Brussels-Rome 2003, pp. 36, 38, 87, 91, 93, 114, 155, 159 s., 199, 213, 259, 263, 265; D. Masarati, Da Banchieri to Father Martini: on the Bolognese organ tradition, in Magnificat Dominum our music. Proceedings of the Day of Study on Sacred Music in the Bologna of the past dedicated to the memory of Oscar Mischiati (1936-2004) ... 2006, edited by Fr. Mioli, Bologna 2007, pp. 34 s.; C. Vitali, The oratory to Our Lady of Galliera: historical-institutional aspects, ibid., pp. 44 s.; Diz. encicl. universal of music and musicians, The biographies, V, p. 142; The New Grove Dict. of music and musicians, 16th, p. 915.