First great madrigalist

The first great madrigalist is Philippe Verdelot, a French composer. A look at his production shows a wide spectrum of literary interests and a remarkable ability to give musical form to the structure as well as the content of a great variety of poems. Verdelot's style balances homophonic with imitative textures, rarely using word-painting.
The first book of madrigals labeled as such was the Madrigali de diversi musici: libro primo de la Serena of Philippe Verdelot, published in 1530 in Rome. Verdelot, had written the pieces in the late 1520s, while he lived in Florence. He included music by both Sebastiano and Costanzo Festa, as well as Maistre Jhan of Ferrara, in addition to his own music. In 1533 and 1534 he published two books of four voice madrigals in Venice; these were to become extremely popular, and indeed they were, in their 1540 reprint, one of the most widely printed and distributed music books of the first half of the 16th century. They sold so well that Adrian Willaert made arrangements of some of these works for single voice and lute in 1536. Verdelot published madrigals for five and six voices as well, with the collection for six voices appearing in 1541. Philippe Verdelot was associated at the Medici Court.