This article is about the Italian Trecento composer sometimes known as Magister Franciscus. For for the French ars nova composer, see Magister Franciscus. 　　Detail of Landini wearing a corona laurea while playing an organetto in an illustration from the 15th-century Squarcialupi Codex I-Fl 87, f. 121v 　　Francesco Landini (c. 1325 – 2 September 1397; also known by many names) was an Italian composer, organist, singer, poet and instrument maker who was a central figure of the Trecento style in late Medieval music. One of the most revered composers of the second half of the 14th-century, he was by far the most famous composer in Italy. Landini was most likely born in Florence, though Cristoforo Landino gave his birthplace as Fiesole. Blind from childhood (an effect of contracting smallpox), Landini became devoted to music early in life, and mastered many instruments, including the lute, as well as the art of singing, writing poetry, and composition. Villani, in his chronicle, also stated that Landini was an inventor of instruments, including a stringed instrument called the 'syrena syrenarum', that combined features of the lute and psaltery, and it is believed to be the ancestor of the bandura. 　　Despite his young age, Landini was already active in the early 1350s and it is likely that he was very close to Petrarch.[3] According to Villani, Landini was given a crown of laurel by the King of Cyprus, who was in Venice for several periods during the 1360s. Landini probably spent some time in northern Italy prior to 1370. Evidence in some of his music also points to this: a motet by a certain "Franciscus" is dedicated to Andrea Contarini, who was Doge of Venice from 1368 to 1382; and in addition, his works are well represented in northern Italian sources. 　　He was employed as organist at the Florentine monastery of Santa Trinità in 1361, and at the church of San Lorenzo from 1365 onward. He was heavily involved in the political and religious controversies of his day, according to Villani, but he seems to have remained in the good graces of the Florentine authorities. Landini knew many of the other Italian composers of the Trecento, including Lorenzo da Firenze, with whom he was associated at Santa Trinità, as well as Andreas da Florentia, whom he knew in the 1370s. Around or shortly after 1375, Andreas hired him as a consultant to help build the organ at the Servite house in Florence. Among the surviving records are the receipts for the wine that the two consumed during the three days it had taken to tune the instrument. Landini also helped build the new organ at SS Annunziata in 1379, and in 1387 he was involved in yet another organ-building project, this time at Florence Cathedral. 　　He is buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. His tombstone, lost until the 19th century and now again displayed in the church, contains a depiction of him with a portative organ.