Adriano Banchieri was an influential Italian composer, music theorist, organist, and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. Born Tommaso Banchieri on September 3, 1568, in Bologna, Italy, he became a Benedictine monk in 1587, taking the name Adriano upon his vows in 1590. He spent much of his life at the monastery of San Michele in Bosco, near Bologna, where he eventually became abbot in 1620.

Banchieri was a pioneer in the development of the madrigal comedy, a genre that consisted of a series of madrigals performed in sequence to tell a story, distinct from opera but part of the broader Italian interest in musico-dramatic forms. He was second only to Orazio Vecchi in this field and composed several madrigal comedies between 1598 and 1628, starting with "La pazzia senile" and concluding with "La saviezza giovenile."

In addition to his work with madrigal comedies, Banchieri was a significant composer of canzonettas, a lighter alternative to the madrigal, and he published a series of organ works titled "l'Organo suonarino" from 1605 to 1638. He was critical of the monodists and their harmonic innovations, which he addressed in his "Moderna Practica Musicale" (1613), while also contributing to the systematization of figured bass.

Banchieri founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna in 1615, which was later restored as the Accademia dei Filomusi. He passed away in Bologna in 1634, leaving behind a legacy as one of the era's most influential music teachers and composers.