Benedetto Giacomo Marcello (Venice, 24 July 1686 - Brescia, 24 July 1739) was a composer, poet, writer, lawyer, magistrate and Italian teacher. The Venice Conservatory is dedicated to him. He also composed more than three hundred cantatas, for one or more voices; four speakers (including Joaz on a libretto by Apostolo Zeno for the imperial court in Vienna) and several serenades. The library of the Brussels Conservatory has some interesting volumes of chamber chants composed for his beloved woman. Although Marcello himself wrote the libretto of a work in 1708, La Fede recognized, in Vicenza, he had little sympathy for this form of composition, and gave vent to his opinions on the state of musical drama at that time in the pamphlet Teatro a moda, published anonymously in Venice in 1720; this little work, which was reprinted several times, is not only very funny, but is also a valuable contribution to the history of the work.