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The Renaissance : The Contribution And Legacy Of The Renaissance

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The Black Death swept through Europe and killed 1/3 of the population. Life seemed bleak for millions of survivors. Music and art took a back seat, but that all changed with the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 16th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It was a time period of rebirth that offered people a chance to live again. Music and art once more became center stage. Artist became architects. Musicians became composers. Some of the best composers of this time period include Guillaume Dufay, Heinrich Isaac, and Jacob Obrecht. However, the composer that often defines the Renaissance is Josquin des Prez. Josquin de Prez, sometimes …show more content…

1450 is acknowledged by most historians as Josquin's birth year, because the first definite record of his employment is dated April 19, 1477, and it shows that he was a singer at the chapel of René, Duke of Anjou, in Aix-en-Provence (Kuerti, 2001). 1450 makes the most sense because it follows chronologically the rest of his career.
His birth place is also an area with no consensus. Scholars first claimed Josquin’s birthplace to be Conde, because of the documented inheritance he received by his uncle and aunt in Conde, which are his only named and known relatives (Sadie, Stanley, and John Tyrrell, 2001). Josquin considered himself a foreigner and proclaimed it right before his death, which makes it improbable that he was born in Conde (Sadie, Stanley, and John Tyrrell, 2001). Other scholars argue that he was born somewhere in Hainaut, a province of present day Belgium in the Walloon region (Hughes and Abraham, 1960). In his motet, Illibata Dei Virgo Nutrix, Josquin hints that he was born near a river by the village of Beaurevoir near Northern France, close to the Belgium border (Sadie, Stanley, and John Tyrrell, 2001). Although there are different opinions about the exact place and time of his birth, it is clear that Josquin was born during the period of the Duchy of Burgundy or the reign of Philip the Good near a border (Reese, 1954). While historians are torn on this issue,

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