Lodovico Agostini

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Lodovico Agostini (1534 – September 20, 1590) was an Italian composer, singer, priest, and scholar of the late Renaissance. He was a close associate of the Ferrara Estense court, and one of the most skilled representatives of the progressive secular style which developed there at the end of the 16th century. He was born in Ferrara, and spent most of his life there. He was the illegitimate son of Agostino Agostini, a singer and priest of Ferrara mostly active in the 1540s. Lodovico may have studied for a time in Rome, based on the evidence of a madrigal published there, and he became a priest. By 1572 he was singing in the chapel of Ferrara Cathedral, and by 1578 he was on the payroll of Duke Alfonso II d'Este, one of the most famous patrons of music of the late 16th century. Clearly Lodovico was a favorite of the Duke, and he remained in his service for the rest of his life. In the 1580s he was a composition teacher to the Duke of Mantua, Guglielmo Gonzaga; Agostini dedicated a book of madrigals to him. Gonzaga went on to become a composer of madrigals himself, and in addition was a close associate of Palestrina. Agostini was on good terms with many members of the aristocracy, as well as the famous poets Tasso and Guarini, and other musicians at the court, including Luzzasco Luzzaschi, the most famous of the Ferrarese madrigalists. While retaining his association with the intensely secular Estense court, he also had a distinguished ecclesiastical career, eventually becomi

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