Jacquet of Mantua (Jacques Colebault, dit Jachet de Mantoue) (1483 – October 2, 1559) was a French[1] composer of the Renaissance, who spent almost his entire life in Italy.
He was in Modena in 1519, working for the Rangoni family, and in 1525 was in Ferrara at the Este court, where he formed a close friendship with Adrian Willaert, the founder of the Venetian School.
He was attentive to the trends of the time, and his music shows a clear stylistic progression from an early reliance on late 15th century practices to a later grasp of the pervasive imitation used by the generation of composers after Josquin.
His craftsmanship is careful, and his counterpoint is fluid and graceful; parts are well-balanced, and occasional homophonic sections break the prevailing polyphonic texture.
The tendency of the Council of Trent at this time was to encourage relatively simple music in which the words could be clearly understood; Jacquet was both following this trend, and showing the natural development of a style which had embraced complex polyphony early, and which later sought simplicity and clarity.