Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa (ca. 1560-1613), was an Italian composer famed for his chromatic madrigals and motets. Few matched him in writing music so removed from traditional modal theory and practice.

Carlo Gesualdo was born in Naples. He studied music at the academy founded by his father, Don Fabrizio of Gesualdo, where he heard the works of Giovanni Macque, Bartolomeo Roy, and Pomponio Nenna. Nenna's madrigals, in particular, influenced Gesualdo's style.

After the death of his older brother in 1585, the composer became heir to the Gesualdo title. With the title came an arranged marriage to his cousin, a marriage that was a catastrophe for both parties. Donna Maria d'Avalos, twice married before she became Gesualdo's wife, openly preferred the love of another. In 1590, to avenge his honor, Gesualdo ordered the guilty pair murdered, together with his second child, whose legitimacy was suspect.

In 1594 Gesualdo married Eleonora...