It may surprise to find the name of Guillaume Dufay, who was a graduate in canon law, connected with the world of the bees. Yet, as will be argued below, already early in his life bees may have awakened the composer’s interest. When the composer died on 27 November 1474, the report of the executor of his will consisted of no less than sixty-five pages, containing among other things a list of books which reflects that he was “a man learned in classical literature, theology, canon law, hagiography, and contemporary vernacular verse.”
Among his books is listed the Legenda aurea, a famous collection of legends as, for example, the story of St. Ambrose and the bees. It is this legend that has helped me to discover the origin of ‘fauxbourdon’, a much debated compositional technique used in the fifteenth century. In the 1420’s, like so many of his compatriots, Dufay moved to Italy, where he for some time was in the service of the Malatesta in Pesaro and Rimini. In the same period, he may have studied at the University of Bologna.