Music that aims showing the refinement of two Italian courts that attracted composers from various parts of Europe: four pieces by Heinrich Isaac connected to the Medici family and one by Josquin composed on a tenor taken from the words “Hercules dux Ferrariae”, highlighting the vowels (re- ut-re-ut-re-fa-mi-re); a sound sequence that might appear problematic due to the limited range and repetitiveness of some sounds, but which for Josquin, nicknamed "the master of the notes" by Luther, became the cornerstone of an articulated musical construction to celebrate the magnificence of the client Ercole I d'Este († 1505). By Isaac, the motet Rogamus te, two laments for the death of his lord, Lorenzo the Magnificent (1492), on texts elaborated by Poliziano, and the solemn motet Prophetarum maxime, probably composed for the return of the Medici to Florence in 1512, dedicated to the patron Saint John and to Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, future Pope Leo X.

Heinrich Isaac
Rogamus te

Josquin Després
Missa “Hercules Dux Ferrariae”: Kyrie, Gloria

Heinrich Isaac
Quis dabit pacem populo timenti?

Josquin Després
Missa “Hercules Dux Ferrariae”: Credo

Heinrich Isaac
Quis dabit capiti meo aquam?

Josquin Després
Missa “Hercules Dux Ferrariae”: Agnus Dei

Heinrich Isaac
Prophetarum maxime