Bianco da Siena

b ?Anciolina, Val d’Arno, Tuscany, C Italy, ?, d ?Venice, ?1434. In 1367 he entered the Jesuate order (not the Jesuits, but lay followers of the Augustinian Rule), lived for some time in Venice and probably died there. He may have represented a dissenting or ‘alternative’ group within the RC church of his day; 4 centuries later, in 1851, his Italian hymns were published by Telesforo Bini in a new edition. The popularity of the English version of one of them since the 1906 EH owes much to the Vaughan Williams tune, but Richard F Littledale deserves some credit for his translations published in 1867. No.518.