Jacquet de Berchem

As evidence of his widespread fame, he is listed by Rabelais in Gargantua and Pantagruel as one of the most famous musicians of the time, and the printed music for one of his madrigals appears in a painting by Caravaggio (The Lute Player).

[1] No archival records have yet been found covering his early life; the first mention of him dates from 1539, by which time he had come to Venice, as did so many of his musical compatriots from the Low Countries.

He most likely was a student of fellow Netherlander Adrian Willaert, the founder of the Venetian School and one of the most famous musicians of the time, and through Willaert met other musicians and nobility; to some of these aristocrats, including a future Doge of Venice (Marcantonio Trevisan, Doge in 1553–54, and also a patron of the arts), he dedicated some of his music.

The sacred works are relatively conservative in style, using cantus firmus techniques, canon, and other devices common a generation earlier.

In the preface to his 1546 publication of madrigals for five voices he specifically mentions "crows who dress up in swan's feathers" and implies that plagiarists and those who misattribute his compositions will be corrected.

These distinguished musicians sing, in the story, and in the context of a long tale by Priapus in which he boasts of his extraordinary male endowment, a ribald song involving the use of a mallet to deflower a new bride.