AGRICOLA, ALESSANDRO. – Musician, born around 1446 in Flanders. From a young age he was a singer in the Sforza chapel in Milan, where he remained until 1474; he then served the duke of Mantua and, from 1491, as chaplain and singer in Brussels, at the court of Philip the Fair of Burgundy, with whom he subsequently went to Spain, where he remained until his death, probably occurring at Valladolid in 1506. In his time he enjoyed great fame as a polyphonic composer, as is also demonstrated by the fact that Ottaviano Petrucci included 31 chansons and motets in his three earliest collections (1501–1503) and published a book of masses in 1504.
BIBL.: A. Bertolotti, Musici alla corte dei Gonzaga in Mantova, Milan 1890.