Sammartini

Sammartini is an Italian surname associated with a family of musicians prominent in Lombardy, especially Milan, during the 17th and 18th centuries. Members of the Sammartini lineage contributed to Baroque and early Classical music, helping to shape instrumental forms and performance traditions that circulated across Italy and northern Europe.

The best-known figures bearing the name are Giuseppe Sammartini (circa 1690–1749) and Giovanni Battista Sammartini (circa 1701–1775). Giuseppe Sammartini was a celebrated violinist and composer who worked in Milan and later in London, where his instrumental sonatas and concertos helped disseminate Italian stylistic tendencies abroad. Giovanni Battista Sammartini was a prolific composer whose substantial output of symphonies, overtures, and other instrumental works is linked to the Milanese school and the early Classical period. His music is frequently cited as influential in the emergence of the modern symphony and the galant spirit that shaped European instrumental music in the mid-18th century.

The surname itself likely derives from the place name San Martino, indicating origin from a locality named for Saint Martin. Today, Sammartini is of historical interest primarily to musicology, reflecting the role of Lombard musicians in developing European musical forms during the shift from Baroque to Classical aesthetics.