Although not much is known about his birth, Josquin Desprez is considered one of the most important composers of the Renaissance. He was born sometime around 1440, probably in France, where he was a choirboy at the collegiate church of St Quentin. The latter part of his life was spent in Italy, where he was a singer at Milan Cathedral from 1459 to 1472 in the service of the Duke Galeazzo Maria. After the assassination of the Duke, Desprez went to work for a brief period in the private chapel of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, after which he returned to France. There, he served as a non-resident composer in the court of Louis XII.
Desprez, after that, went into the service of Ercole dEste, the Duke of Ferrara, for whom he composed mainly masses and motets, including Misere mei, Deus. Throughout his career, he wrote eighteen masses, including Ave Maris Stella and L'homme arme. At the time of and long after his death in August 1521, Josquin was praised by literary and religious figures alike for being as much of a God-send to music as Michelangelo was to the visual arts, not only because he was master of the notes (Luther) but because of his ability to rediscover music (Bartoli).
