The earliest information available shows that he may have lived and worked on Chios, an island in the Aegean, in the service of the Genoese Giustiniani family; the connection can be made from the dedication to one of his 1560 books of madrigals.
[1] In 1566 at the latest he went to Florence, where he served Ferdinando I de' Medici as a composer, alongside Alessandro Striggio, and Francesco Corteccia, whose career by then had begun to wane.
One of the largest polychoral works ever composed, at least prior to modern times, was his huge 50-voice motet Consolamini popule meus.
The date of the composition is unknown, but the manuscript is at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, suggesting he wrote it while in the service of the Bavarian court.
In addition to his secular music, he published a book of motets in Nuremberg in 1573, Novae quaedam sacrae cantiones, quas vulgo motetas vocant, for five and six voices.