The Italian composer Luca Marenzio (ca. 1553-1599) was the greatest master of the Italian madrigal. His works spread throughout the Low Countries and Germany, and he was the main foreign influence in the development of the English madrigal school.

Luca Marenzio was born in Coccaglio and may have been a chorister in the nearby Cathedral of Brescia under G. Contini. In 1577 Marenzio contributed some madrigals to a minor Venetian anthology. Two years later he entered the employ of Cardinal Luigi d'Este in Rome. The cardinal spent a good deal of time at Ferrara, the home of the Este family, and it is likely that Marenzio accompanied him on most of these visits and met the court poets Torquato Tasso and G. B. Guarini, much of whose verse he set to music. During his 7 years with the cardinal, Marenzio published his first four books of madrigals for five voices...