oa Finding Fame: Fashioning Adrian Willaert c. 1518

Information on Willaert’s early career is sparse, but what survives is especially rich. Anecdotes from Zarlino’s treatises and Spataro’s correspondence paint a picture of a young man on the make, but fall somewhere between interesting fact and convenient fiction. The source situation is also intriguing: Willaert’s music enjoyed only very limited circulation before the mid-1520s, with the exception of the important motet manuscript of 1518 known as the Medici Codex in which his profile is extremely high. The contextual circumstances of Willaert’s early career are no less interesting: a decade of almost incessant war and upheaval on the Italian peninsula, impacting heavily upon his employers, the Este. This article reviews the available information on the first few years of Willaert’s career in Italy, seeking to understand how he went about building his reputation, working within the systems and preoccupations peculiar to Italian courtly culture.