By 1494 he was already employed by the Gonzaga court at Mantua, and he evidently stayed there, without interruption except for travel to sing in nearby cities, until his death.
Among his duties were directing the singers both in the Cathedral of San Pietro (Mantua)[1] and in the private estate of the Gonzaga family.
When he died he was a wealthy man, owning two houses in the city and two large country estates: evidently the Gonzaga family paid him well.
Baldassare Castiglione heard him sing, and wrote of him in his famous Book of the Courtier (Venice, 1528), in the same paragraph in which he praises Leonardo da Vinci: Though predominantly a composer of frottolas, a light secular form and ancestor of the madrigal, he also wrote a few sacred pieces, including a three-voice Salve Regina (one of the Marian Antiphons) as well as seven laude spirituali.
His frottolas are for the most part homophonic, with short passages of imitation only at the beginnings of phrases; they are catchy, singable, and often use dance-like rhythms.