This second volume, an anthology of Mantuan music from the periods of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga, and Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga, is intended to illustrate some aspects of the systems of patronage which are described in the first. Liturgical settings have been deliberately excluded since it is hoped that a selection of pieces composed for the ducal basilica will be included in a future study of the Santa Barbara rite. The present selection is of ceremonial and domestic works whose composition and survival are connected, if only partially (for example through sponsorship of publication), with Gonzaga patronage, and they reflect, as do other artistic consequences of Gonzaga interests and wealth, the temperaments and preoccupations of successive rulers as well as changing musical fashions at the Mantuan court during the second half of the sixteenth century.

During the period of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga's considerable influence on Mantua's religious and political life, sustained through his overlapping roles as reforming churchman and as a member of the regency that controlled the duchy in the period of Duke Guglielmo's minority, musical life in the city was dominated by Jacquet of Mantua (1483–1559). Jacquet, a northerner from Vitrè, settled in the city about 1526 and from 1534 until his death was titular maestro di cappella of Mantua Cathedral. Although Hoste da Reggio (fl. 1545-60) does not seem to have held an appointment at the court or in any of the city churches in Mantua, his Primo libro de madrigali a quatro voci (Venice, 1547) is dedicated to Ercole Gonzaga; ‘O beata colei’ (2) is, in its command of mid-century elements and its elegiac tone, typical of the Primo libro as a whole.