Fernando Germani was an organist of the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome during the reign of Pope Pius XII. Germani, born in 1906, played the piano and violin in public at four years of age. At age eight he started taking lessons in composition from Resphigi who headed Germani toward the organ. Then at age fifteen, Germani was the organist of the Augusteo Symphony Orchestra in Rome. His career spanned almost seventy-five years. He died in 1998. One of his notable pupils was organist Gérard Caron.