Desprez, Josquin 01/01/1440 - 03/27/1521

Josquin Desprez is born circa 1440 and died Condé-sur-l'Escaut, 27 August 1521.
Perhaps a native of the Vermandois region of Picardy, he was a singer at Milan Cathedral in 1459, remaining there until December 1472.



By July 1474 he was one of the "cantori di capella" in the chapel of Galeazzo Maria Sforza.

Between 1476 and 1504 he passed into the service of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, whom he probably accompanied in Rome in 1484.

His name first appears among the papal chapel choir in 1486 and recurs sporadically; he had left the choir by 1501.



In this Italian period Josquin reached artistic maturity.

He then went to France (he may also have done so while at the papal chapel) and probably served Louis XII's court.



Although he may have had connections with the Ferrara court (through the Sforzas) in the 1480s and 1490s, no formal relationship with the court is known before 1503 when, for a year, he was maestro di cappella there and the highest-paid singer in the chapel's history.

There he probably wrote primarily masses and motets.

An outbreak of plague in 1503 forced the court to leave Ferrara (Josquin's place was taken by Obrecht, who fell victim in 1505).

He was in the north again, at Notre Dame at Condé, in 1504; he may have been connected with Margaret of Austria's court, 1508-11.



He died in 1521.

Several portraits survive, one attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.