Pierre Alamire

Pierre Alamire (also Petrus Alamire; probable birth name Peter van den Hove; c. 1470 – 26 June 1536) was a German-Dutch music copyist, composer, instrumentalist, mining engineer, merchant, diplomat and spy of the Renaissance. He was one of the most skilled music scribes of his time, and many now-famous works of Franco-Flemish composers owe their survival to his renowned illuminated manuscript copies; in addition he was a spy for the court of Henry VIII of England. Life He was born to a family of merchants in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire but came to the Seventeen Provinces at an early age. Alamire was not his real name; the name was a musical reference, “A” (the musical pitch) plus the solmization syllables “la”, “mi” and “re” (scale steps six, three and two respectively). Most likely his actual name was van den Hove (or Imhoff, Imhove), although details on his family background are slim. In the late 1490s he began to receive commissions for work in the Low Countries, for example at ’s-Hertogenbosch and Antwerp, where his impressive skill at musical copying and illuminating were immediately valued. This was the period when the explosion of musical creativity in the Low Coun