Guillaume Dufay, from the evidence of his…
1428 CE
Guillaume Dufay, from the evidence of his will, was probably born in Beersel, in the vicinity of Brussels, the illegitimate child of an unknown priest and a woman named Marie Du Fayt.
She moved with her son to Cambrai early in his life, staying with a relative who was a canon of the cathedral there.
His musical gifts were noticed by the cathedral authorities, who evidently gave him a thorough training in music; he studied with Rogier de Hesdin during the summer of 1409, and he was listed as a choirboy in the cathedral from 1409-12.
During those years he studied with Nicolas Malin, and the authorities must have been impressed with the boy's gifts because they gave him his own copy of Villedieu’s Doctrinale in 1411, a highly unusual event for one so young.
In June 1414, aged around sixteen, he had already been given a benefice as chaplain at St. Géry, immediately adjacent to Cambrai.
Later that year, on the evidence of music composed, and a later relationship with the Malatesta court, members of which he met on the trip, he probably went to the Council of Konstanz.
He likely stayed there until 1418, at which time he returned to Cambrai.
From November 1418 to 1420 he was a subdeacon at Cambrai Cathedral.
In 1420 he left Cambrai again, this time going to Italy—first to Rimini and then possibly Pesaro, where he worked for the Malatesta family.
Although no records survive of his employment there, several compositions of his can be dated to this period; they contain references that make a residence in Italy reasonably certain.
There he met the composers Hugo and Arnold de Lantins, who were among the musicians of the Malatesta household.
In 1424 Dufay again returned to Cambrai, this time because of the illness and subsequent death of the relative with whom his mother was staying.
By 1426, however, he had gone back to Italy, this time to Bologna, where he entered the service of Cardinal Louis Aleman, the papal legate.
While in Bologna he has become a deacon, and by 1428 he is a priest.
Cardinal Aleman is driven from Bologna by the rival Canedoli family in 1428, and Dufay also leaves at this time, going to Rome.