Guillaume Du Fay

Probably the illegitimate son of a priest, Du Fay was educated at Cambrai Cathedral under Nicolas Grenon and Richard Loqueville, then worked his way across Europe as subdeacon, priest, and musician - Rimini, Pesaro, Bologna. By 1428 his reputation landed him in the papal choir in Rome under Martin V and Eugene IV, where he wrote motets including Ecclesie militantis and Supremum est mortalibus. He took leave in the 1430s to serve Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy, then returned to Italy in 1436 to compose Nuper Rosarum Flores for the consecration of Brunelleschi's Florence Cathedral dome - his most admired work. After years shuttling between Bologna, Ferrara, and Cambrai in service to Philip the Good, Du Fay settled permanently in Cambrai in 1458 and turned his attention to English-inspired cyclic masses built on cantus firmus: the Missa Ave regina celorum, Missa L'Homme armé, Missa Se la face ay pale. He spent his final years writing a now-lost requiem and shaping the next generation - Busnois, Compère, Tinctoris, Ockeghem - synthesizing the contenance angloise of John Dunstaple with every polyphonic genre his erratic, cosmopolitan career had touched.