[3][4] According to a manuscript by the 17th-century Portuguese critic Joao Franco Barreto, Lusitano came from Olivença, became a Catholic priest, and was employed as a teacher at Padua, Viterbo and Rome.
[7] From the dedication of one of his first works, it has been suggested that Lusitano was a tutor to the Portuguese Lencastre family, who also arrived in Rome in 1551 as ambassador to the Papal court.
In a 1551 debate in Rome, he espoused traditional views on the role of the three genera in music (diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic) over more radical ones put forward by Nicola Vicentino.
[2] Lusitano's Introduttione facilissima, et novissima, di canto fermo, figurato, contraponto semplice, et inconcerto (Rome, 1553, plus reprints),[13] contains an introduction to music, his views on the three genera, and uniquely,[1] a systematic section on creating improvised counterpoint by setting new parts above or below a cantus firmus).
Musicologist Philippe Canguilhem stated that "the significance of Lusitano’s writings is that they show how central improvised counterpoint was to everyday musical life during the Renaissance".
[18][19][20] Since the summer of 2020, when the Black Lives Matter movement re-ignited discussions about race in the United States, there has been a flurry of interest in Lusitano and his work.
[1] Previous recordings includes the anthology Cançoes, Vilancicos, e Motettes Portugueses Séculos XVI-XVII, by Huelgas Ensemble, Sony Classics, 1994.