ABSTRACT
As with other musicians of this period, we have no record of the date of Luca Marenzio’s birth, since it was only after the Council of Trent that Italian parishes began to keep regular baptismal records. By contrast, we know the precise moment when he consigned to print his first collection of compositions. A native of Coccaglio, a small town located in the countryside west of Brescia (see Pl. 1), Marenzio had recently completed his twenty-sixth year when his first book a 5, a work destined to enjoy an extraordinary success (with at least eight reprints), appeared with a dedication to Cardinal Luigi d’Este. 1 The dedication was signed in Rome on 8 August 1580; 2 for all practical purposes, this is the real ‘birth date’ of the prince of madrigalists.
