Tugdual Menon (also in sources Tuttvalle, Tugdualo, Tudual, Tuttuale, Tuduuale, Jugdulus; before 1502 – 1566/1568), was a French composer. He was likely teacher of the organist

Claudio Merulo Claudio Merulo (; 8 April 1533 – 4 May 1604) was an Italian composer, publisher and organist of the late Renaissance period, most famous for his innovative keyboard music and his ensemble music composed in the Venetian polychoral style. He was ...

Life

Menon was born in

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

before 1502, and in the early 1520s he went to

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, residing in

Correggio Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – 5 March 1534), usually known as just Correggio (, also , , ), was an Italian Renaissance painter who was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Renaissance, who was responsible for som ...

, a small town near

Reggio Emilia Reggio nell'Emilia (; ), usually referred to as Reggio Emilia, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, and known until Unification of Italy, 1861 as Reggio di Lombardia, is a city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 172,51 ...

. He was married with a woman called Giulia, and in 1521 he had a daughter, Margherita, baptized with count Sigismondo II d'Este as Godfather. He had eleven children, the 4th one of them called Sigismondo Quirino. He was close to the

House of Este The House of Este ( , , ) is a European dynasty of North Italian origin whose members ruled parts of Italy and Germany for many centuries. The original House of Este's elder branch, which is known as the House of Welf, included dukes of Bavaria ...

, rulers of

Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...

and

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

, and to Count Boiardo of Scandiano, who gave him hospitality in 1543. He was also property owner in Correggio's land. In 1548 he was certainly in Ferrara, at the court of

Renate of France Renate is a feminine given name. It is derived from the Latin name Renatus. It is common in German, Dutch and Norwegian. Notable people with the given name include: *Renate Aschauer-Knaup (born 1948), German singer (Amon Düül II) *Renate Blauel ...

, and he lived there for a short time. In 1550 he was in

Cambrai Cambrai (, ; ; ), formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord department and in the Hauts-de-France region of France on the Scheldt river, which is known locally as the Escaut river. A sub-pref ...

, France, returning to Correggio two years later. One year later, he was in Ferrara again, where he died probably in 1567.

Music

He wrote a book of 44 four-voice Madrigals dedicated to Renate of France (1548), and a

madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th centuries) and early Baroque (1580–1650) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the ...

for an anthology dedicated to incoronation of Duke

Ercole II d'Este Ercole II d'Este (4 April 1508 – 3 October 1559) was Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio from 1534 to 1559. He was the eldest son of Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia. Biography Through his mother, Ercole was a grandson of Pope Alexand ...

(1534). He had many students; he may have been the teacher of the poet

Gaspara Stampa Gaspara Stampa (; 1523 – 23 April 1554) was an Italians, Italian poet. She is considered to have been the greatest woman poet of the Italian Renaissance, and she is regarded by many as the greatest Italian woman poet of any age. Biography ...

References and further reading

*Giuseppe Martini, ''Claudio Merulo'', Parma, Ordine Costantiniano di S. Giorgio, 2005 (pp. 36–37) *Cécile Vendramini: ''Les offrandes musicales à Renée de France, fille de Louis XII'', Paris, 1997 (pp. 199–205) *

Laurie Stras Laurie Stras is a musicologist and musician, whose research interests range from the 16th century to modern popular music. She is professor emerita of the University of Southampton and has been a research professor at the University of Huddersfi ...

, ''Women and Music in Sixteenth-Century Ferrara'', Cambridge Univ Press, 2018 (online), ISBN 9781316650455, online access at https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316650455 1560s deaths French Renaissance composers Breton musicians Year of birth uncertain French male classical composers {{France-composer-stub