Clemens non papa biography of christopher columbus

While we don't know quite how Jacob Clemens got his nickname of "non Papa" – some see it as a sign of his reformist sympathies, others as an indication of his rather dissolute life, while the majority of commentators are still scratching their heads – we know enough about his life to confirm that it was indeed quite dissolute. One of his employers wrote that he was a "great drunkard and an ill-liver"; a contract stipulated that he had to live "per modum probae", that is, decently. But the fact is that over the course of his too-short career – he died at the age of 40, around 1555 – he had to his name 15 masses, as many magnificats, 233 motets (almost all religious) a good hundred songs, be they in French or Dutch, 160 psalms in Dutch, the "Souterliedekens", generally using popular songs as their "cantus firmus". In short, it's a magnificent body of work, in which the equally magnificent Huelgas Ensemble (a Belgian formation, despite the Hispanic-sounding name) was spoiled for choice: so much so that they have plumped for several works from each of these categories: songs in French, Souterliedekens, motets, and extracts from masses, all offering the listener a large