ABSTRACT
At the beginning of 1588 a Brescian soldier, Count Marc'Antonio Martinengo, conceived a remarkable idea. He sent the most celebrated composers of Italy a poem he had written, with the request that they should set it to music 'with the same words and in the same mode'. Seventeen composers took part in this competition, each of them bringing to bear his portfolio of professional experiences gained at the various courts and musical establishments of Italy. Adriano Banchieri, a knowledgeable musician and a shrewd observer of the society of his time, indicated Luca Marenzi as the most representative composer of the contemporary madrigal. The case of L'amorosa Ero bears obvious witness to the colourful individualists who crowded the madrigalian arena in the period when Marenzio was most active as a composer, in other words in the two decades between the late 1570s and the late 1590s.
