Mauro Giuliani is considered today to have been the most important guitarist-composer of the early nineteenth century. Not only was Giuliani the foremost player of his day: his fame reached far beyond the realm of guitar enthusiasts, earning him aplace among the musical élite as a complete, versatile musician. Even so, by the end of the nineteenth century he was largely forgotten and his music managed to retain little more than a marginal presence in the repertory of the great guitarists ofthe e